Category Archives: schooling

The Teacher Curse No One Wants to Talk About

a teacher's journey, classroom teachers, education, higher education, motivation, schooling, teachers, teaching, , , , ,

I (Clare) read this really interesting article on Edutopia

I believe it has relevance for both teachers and teacher educators. Having to unpack and remember how we learned a topic/skill is hard. How do you break down the steps to learning so that our students can acquire the knowledge and skills.  This article has some highly useful examples and suggestions.  As a teacher educator I often make assumptions about my student teachers. They all have university degrees so they should be able to master the content easily. Wrong assumption! It takes time and good teaching. Here is the link to the full article. The Teacher Curse No One Wants to Talk About 

 

Knowledge is a curse.
 Knowing things isn’t bad itself, but it causes unhealthy assumptions — such as forgetting how hard it was to learn those things in the first place. It’s called the Curse of Knowledge.

In this post, we’ll identify how the Curse of Knowledge affects educators. Then we’ll outline seven ways to alleviate the curse. The ultimate goal is to improve instruction.

The Curse of Knowledge

The Curse of Knowledge has been variously described in articles by Chip and Dan Heath, Carmen Nobel, and Steven Pinker, and also in books such as The Sense of Style and Made to Stick. It has been applied to a variety of domains: child development, economics, and technology are just a few.

All of the resources describe the same phenomena — that a strong base of content knowledge makes us blind to the lengthy process of acquiring it. This curse has implications for all teachers:

  • We do not remember what it is like to not know what we are trying to teach.
  • We cannot relive the difficult and lengthy process that learning our content originally took.

As a result, we end up assuming that our lesson’s content is easy, clear, and straightforward. We assume that connections are apparent and will be made effortlessly. Assumptions are the root cause of poor instruction. And acknowledgment is the first step to recovery.

Lifting the Curse

Here are seven ways to make learning easier for your students.

1. Emotion

Barbara Fredrickson, a champion in the field of positive psychology, has studied the effects of mild positive emotions on desired cognitive traits like attentiveness and ability to creatively solve problems. In what she coined the broaden-and-build theory, Fredrickson found that pleasant and mild emotional arousal before experiencing content leads to greater retention. A quick joke or humorous movie can serve as the positive emotional stimulant. So learning is easier and the Curse of Knowledge is potentially circumnavigated when injecting a bit of emotion into your lesson.

2. Multi-Sensory Lessons

Though Howard Gardner’s influential work states that we each have a preferred learning modality, new research highlights the fact that effective lessons need not be unisensory (only kinesthetic, only auditory, etc.) but multi-sensory. Multi-sensory experiences activate and ignite more of the brain, leading to greater retention. So use a multisensory approach in your lessons to make learning easier.

3. Spacing

Blocked practice is ancient and is no longer considered best practice. An example of blocked practice is cramming. Though it feels like learning, blocked practice results in learning that is shallow, and the connections quickly fade. The preferred alternative is the opposite of blocked practice: spaced practice.

Exposing yourself to content and requiring your brain to recall previously learned concepts at spaced intervals (hours, days, weeks, or months) makes the content sticky and results in deeper retention with solid neural connections. As spaced practice is the way that you learned the content you teach, it makes sense to employ the same technique with your students. So thinking of your content as a cycle that is frequently revisited makes learning easier for your students while helping alleviate the curse.

For more information on spacing content, check out Make It Stick or 3 Things Experts Say Make A Perfect Study Session.

4. Narratives

Everyone loves a great story because our ancestral past was full of them. Stories were the dominant medium to transmit information. They rely on our innate narcissistic self to be effective learning tools — we enjoy stories because we immediately inject ourselves into the story, considering our own actions and behavior when placed in the situations being described. This is how we mentally make connections, and if students are listening to a story interlaced with content, they’re more likely to connect with the ideas. So connecting with content through a story is at the heart of learning and can help alleviate the stress associated with the Curse of Knowledge.

5. Analogies and Examples

An analogy is a comparison of different things that are governed by the same underlying principles. If understanding a process is what we’re after, looking at the result of the process proves informative. An analogy compares two unlike things by investigating a similar process that produces both. Said differently, an analogy highlights a connection, and forming connections is at the core of learning.

Whereas an analogy compares similar processes that result in different products, an example highlights different processes that result in similar products. Copious use of examples forces the brain to scan its knowledge inventory, making desirable connections as it scans. So learning is easier when analogies and examples are used to facilitate mental connections.

6. Novelty

New challenges ignite the risk-reward dopamine system in our brains. Novel activities are interesting because dopamine makes us feel accomplished after succeeding. Something that is novel is interesting, and something interesting is learned more easily because it is attended to. So emphasis on the new and exciting aspects of your content could trip the risk-reward system and facilitate learning.

7. Teach Facts

Conceptual knowledge in the form of facts is the scaffolding for the synthesis of new ideas. In other words, you cannot make new ideas with out having old ideas. Disseminating facts as the only means to educate your students is wrong and not encouraged. However, awareness that background knowledge is important to the creation of new ideas is vital for improving instruction. Prior knowledge acts as anchors for new incoming stimuli. When reflecting on the ability of analogies and examples to facilitate connections, it is important to remember that the connections need to be made to already existing knowledge. So providing your students with background knowledge is a prerequisite in forming connections and can make their learning easier.

Making It Easier

The Curse of Knowledge places all of our students at a disadvantage. As educators, it’s not enough to simply recognize that we are unable to remember the struggle of learning. We need to act. By incorporating facts, highlighting novelty, liberally utilizing examples and analogies, cycling our content, telling content-related stories, making our lesson multi-sensory, and harnessing the power of emotion, we can make learning easier for our students.

 

By incorporating facts, novelty, examples, analogies, and emotion; and cycling content, telling content-related stories, and making lessons multisensory, we can make learning easier for our students.

Source: The Teacher Curse No One Wants to Talk About

Is School Making Our Children Ill?

classroom teachers, education, learning from children, scaffolding students, schooling, , , , , , ,

In the New York Times on January 3, I (Clive) came across a fascinating column by Vicki Abeles (Sunday Review section) about the negative impact current school “reforms” are having on children. According to her, they are undermining the health of students, both rich and poor and from kindergarten to high school.

Abeles has written a book (which I plan to get asap) aptly titled “Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation,” and has produced documentaries “Race to Nowhere” (as distinct from Race to the Top) and “Beyond Measure.” But in the column her focus is on research conducted by Stuart Slavin at Irvington High School in Fremont, California, “a once-working-class city that is increasingly in Silicon Valley’s orbit.” In cooperation with the school, he anonymously surveyed two-thirds of Irvington’s 2,100 students and found that “54 percent of students showed moderate to severe symptoms of depression [and] 80 percent suffered moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety.” The school is trying to address the problem, for example by re-examining homework demands and counseling students on achieving a manageable course load.

Based on her own inquiries and reflections, Abeles attributes much of this anxiety and depression to the enormous pressure young people are under today to climb the ladder of schooling, with a view to getting into a good college and/or job. “Even those not bound for college are ground down by the constant measurement in schools under pressure to push through mountains of rote, impersonal material as early as preschool.” Apart from opposing this general approach to schooling, Abeles sees practical lessons that can be learned from Irvington’s approach. Toward the end of the article she suggests:

“Working together, parents, educators and students can make small but important changes: instituting everyday homework limits and weekend and holiday homework bans, adding advisory periods for student support, and providing students opportunities to show their growth in creative ways beyond conventional tests.”

 

 

5 More Years for Our Longitudinal Study of Teachers

a teacher's journey, celebrating teachers, classroom teachers, education, literacy, schooling, teachers

In mid-December, I (Clive) received a nice holiday gift: word came that we had ethical approval from the University of Toronto to continue our longitudinal study of teachers for another 5 years (news of the extended funding by SSHRC came earlier). This is not a “high risk” study, but it is always a relief when the approval comes. We can now look forward to following the first cohort of 20 participants into their 16th year of teaching and the second cohort, also of 20, into their 13th year. This is a welcome development, as a longitudinal study obviously becomes more significant as the years pass.

Clive BeckThis study, co-directed by Clare Kosnik (who also directs her SSHRC study of 28 teacher educators) – and involving a wonderful team of researchers – began in 2004 with 22 new teachers; the second cohort of 23 was added in 2007. Over the years, 3 participants have left the study but are still teaching, while another 2 have left teaching and hence the study; so the total is now 40. This is an unusually high retention rate both for teaching and for a longitudinal study.

It is likely the high retention is due in part to the teachers’ participation in the study itself, which they often tell us is very beneficial to them; sometimes they say it is the most useful PD they experience all year! This is a limitation of the study, since it means they are a relatively motivated group (although it is not something we could have avoided). However, it is interesting that teachers would find it so helpful to have someone listen to their experiences and views about teaching for an hour of so once a year. Perhaps it is a form of “PD” that should be used more often, as an alternative to top-down lectures by “experts” on how to teach!

 

Supporting Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder

classroom teachers, education, scaffolding students, schooling, ,

In my (Clare) course on Current Issues in Teacher Education one of the Image_Karastudents, Kara Dymond, did her final project on autism. She is a member of the Autism Team Program to Assist Social Thinking in the Toronto Catholic District School Board. I learned so much about autism in particular how to help children that I asked Kara if I could post some of suggestions on our blog. I know that teachers would find them useful and teacher educators may want to share them with their student teachers. Thank you Kara for letting me share your work with the wider education community.

An Autism Spectrum Disorder (Autism/ASD) is a complex neurological condition which has implications for many aspects of functioning, including learning. The education system needs to be increasingly prepared to meet the diverse needs of these students, as Autism is the fastest-growing developmental disability in the United States (Safran & Safran, 2001; Sansosti, 2010). Last year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that, as of 2010, rates of ASD were 1 in 68 children. Only ten years before, the prevalence was reported as 1 in 150 children. In this paper, rates from the US are reported, as Canada does not have a comparable federal ASD surveillance system at this time, though one is in development (Health Canada, 2012).

HOW TEACHERS CAN SUPPORT LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOM (for high functioning autistic students)

Establish a Rapport

When a teacher has a positive relationship with a child with HFA, it decreases the child’s anxiety and rigidity. It also increases their receptivity to feedback and their willingness to try what is being asked. This is the most important strategy to employ when working with a student with HFA. Some methods to improve your relationship include:

  • Ask them questions about and listen to them talk about their interests
  • Include their interests in word problems, tasks, and books available in the room
  • Have them present as an expert to the class on their interests
  • Reinforce the positive behaviours you see with praise and rewards when possible
  • Use humour with them (but avoid or explain sarcasm, which may be confusing)

Understand Their Need for Safety

  • Make things predictable by having a posted schedule and routines that are consistent
  • When changes happen, explain why they are happening and what is expected, as early in advance as possible
  • Follow up challenging activities with something calming for that student
  • Make your expectations for work and behaviour clear
  • Speak in a calm tone of voice and be consistent with what you say
  • Use clear language or explain language that is complicated or idiomatic

Manage the Environment

  • Help the child to know what they can do if they need a break (e.g. a safe spot to go to for a certain length of time, break options such as getting a drink, pacing in the back of the class, etc.) and what your expectations are regarding when and for how long they can take a break
  • Offer them a quiet place to work, such as a desk carrel, if needed
  • Start the day with a task they like to decrease any anxiety upon arrival, if possible
  • Seat them in an area facing a section of the class with fewer visuals to decrease distraction
  • Seat them with supportive classmates
  • Pay attention to sensory stimuli that distract or agitate them and do what you can to minimize these. Create a plan with the student on what to do if there is a factor (e.g. heat) that you cannot control (e.g. they have permission to go to the bathroom and splash cool water on their face at any point, and they can sit near a window)

See from Their Perspective

  • Monitor their understanding of different situations and relationships
  • When you notice a behaviour or thinking pattern that is different from same-age peers, consider its long-term impact and what skills need to be taught instead
  • Have private check-ins with the child to discuss misunderstandings and help them to see the perspective of others and how their choices can affect how others feel
  • Explain things logically
  • Include them in problem-solving and making a plan for how to cope when they are stressed
  • Recognize that when they are stressed, you will have to reduce your expectations

Be Specific

  • Explain logically and clearly what is expected or not expected
  • Give genuine, specific praise that lets them know what you liked about what they did (they may not know what you are referring to if you simply tell them “good job”. Instead say, “I like how you raised your hand – good job!”)
  • Give specific constructive feedback (e.g. “Please stop tapping your pencil. It is distracting.”) so they know what to do and why
  • If you want to see a skill again, remind them to do it again, before the lesson or activity when they are expected to exhibit the skill

Explicitly Teach Their Areas of Need

  • Point out the hidden curriculum when you notice they do not know it.
  • Consider teaching them about the hidden curriculum of tests. This includes what concepts are most important; how to tell what questions require a more in-depth answer (e.g. how much space is there to write in and how many points is the answer worth); how to determine what a question is really asking (e.g. short-answer questions beginning with “What is …” often mean “Tell me everything you know about…”)
  • Draw their attention to intentions and feelings of others – both students and characters in books. (e.g. “How does that character feel when…” and “how do you know?”)

Structure Opportunities for Interaction

  • Help send them out to recess with a plan of what to do and who to play with
  • Engage peers to invite them to talk or play a game they like at certain recesses
  • Teach recess games at gym time so they know the rules and can practice
  • For longer recesses, consider having them be office monitors or library assistants with other peers
  • Highlight their strengths in front of peers and in group projects

Re-Conceptualize Challenging Behaviours

  • Try to understand why a child might be feeling overwhelmed
  • Remember that behaviours signal a lack of skills and can improve with teaching
  • Prevention is key. Recognize you may have to change your approach or things in the environment to set the child up for success next time
  • Anxiety is like a teeter-totter. Your reaction can either bring them gently down or send them flying into a meltdown or complete withdrawal
  • Know your student. Learn their body language so you know when they are in the early stages of frustration and you can prompt them to take a break or reduce task demands
  • Always de-brief after a challenging moment, once the child is calm (this may be the next day). Find out what was upsetting them – they may share important insights that can help you create a plan for next time
  • Stop talking. Children with HFA cannot process language when they are upset

Teach Them Organizational Skills

  • Provide time each day or week to clean their desk and describe your expectations
  • If packing up is problematic, have them pack up what is needed from the morning before lunch and what is needed from the afternoon at the end of the day
  • Instead of the agenda, create a daily homework checklist where subjects are prewritten and materials needed for home can be circled. The only writing needed will be page numbers and questions required
  • Instead of numerous duotangs and notebooks, provide students with a binder for all subjects, divided by subject, and with pockets for loose sheets to be filed later. This may improve students’ ability to locate what is needed and to be ready for each lesson
  • Take and print small photos of subject materials (e.g. textbooks, notebooks) and put them up on the board as a visual reference for what is needed for that subject

Increase Their Productivity & Output

  • Whenever possible, reduce the writing requirement as writing can be laborious for students with HFA. Use visual organizers, fill-in-the-blanks, true or false, or circle the correct answer
  • Task instructions should be given one by one, with exemplars if possible
  • For large tasks, give students with HFA broken-down components of a task to do one at a time. Sometimes too much work on one page can seem overwhelming
  • Change how work or tests look on the page by increasing the font, reducing the number of questions, and having more space on the page
  • Giving some options can help with open-ended tasks (but not too many options!)
  • Give time countdowns so students know when they are expected to transition to another task. This can be difficult for students with HFA
  • Give processing time. Ask a question once and wait. You may have to ask again in a different way. Too much talking might mean they have to re-start their thinking process all over again. (Too many prompts can also be frustrating for a child who is trying to process the first instruction you gave)
  • Consider alternative ways of expressing knowledge. Most students with HFA are visual thinkers, so can express their knowledge better in comic strips than orally or in writing
  • Consider allowing them to type
  • Consider a break schedule to increase motivation and productivity
  • Harness their interests, especially if they are going to elect to do them anyway. If it is a half-hour work period and you know they tend to only be productive for ten minutes and then get distracted by doodling or reading their favourite book, give them a special interest break when they are at their productivity limit. Pair it with praise and tell them they have earned five minutes of their interest for working so hard. Breaks help to free up working memory and re-focus the child, and giving them a special interest break (rather than taking it away) builds your relationship. After their time is up, ask them to get back to work
  • Consider providing breaks during tests. More time does not help without giving breaks to free up working memory
  • Implement a reward system if they are still struggling to meet your expectations. They may need motivation to attempt something that is very difficult for them (your school board’s Autism Support Team can help you to design a successful model)

Respect, Support, & Develop Their Independence

  • Give students help when they need it, but also give them time and space to try work on their own. Give an instruction and then circulate around the room, returning later to see what they can do independently
  • Gradually increase in your expectations for their independence
  • Reward trying to do something that is hard for them
  • Encourage them to take on positions of responsibility in the classroom and around the school (but do not surprise them with this – ask in advance what they would like to do from a list of options)

Golden Rules for Engaging Students in Learning Activities | Edutopia

classroom teachers, schooling, , ,

I (Clare) read this article and thought it had some really useful strategies.

Six key rules for student engagement include making it meaningful, fostering efficacy, autonomy support, collaborative learning, establishing positive teacher-student relationships, and mastery orientations.

Click on the link below for the entire article.

Source: Golden Rules for Engaging Students in Learning Activities | Edutopia

Reflection on My Teacher Education Program

assessment, classroom teachers, education, educational reform, schooling, Teacher education, , , ,

I (Clare) am currently teaching a graduate course Current Issues in Teacher Education. The first assignment asks students to:

Write a reflection paper on your experiences in a professional program (teacher education, Teaching English as a Second Language ….). Provide a very brief description of the program. Some questions to consider are: What were the strengths/weaknesses of the program? How well did the program prepare you to assume the duties of a teacher? What were the limitations of the program? Have your views of the program changed since graduation? How could the program have been improved? Did the program prepare you to assume the duties of a teacher (or other position)? Do NOT respond to all of these questions. Select one or two and respond to them. In the fourth class of the course, you will work in small groups and share your paper with your fellow students.

Since all of the students in the course are teachers they have a good perspective on their program. Their assignments were so stellar I felt these would be of great value to share with other teacher educators. Over the next few weeks I will be sharing these papers. I learned much and I suspect you will too. I have changed the name of the university so that no school of education is identified.

In June 2011, I graduated from a 2 year Teacher Education Program at the YYY University. Freshly hired by two boards, I felt both the nervous anticipation of one traversing into uncharted waters and the confidence of one for whom the world had suddenly opened. I believed I was entirely prepared. In many ways, I was as prepared as possible after two years of training; there will always be aspects of my chosen profession that can only be learned through experience (for who could ever predict all the potential dilemmas and baffling questions raised by students, colleagues, or parents over a lifetime of teaching?). As a future teacher-educator, I can reflect in retrospect on some programming changes that may have augmented the skills and knowledge I carried with me into my first year of teaching.

Designed to Meet Current Needs

I have many accolades for my two-year teacher education program. The XXX Program was well-designed, with a clear vision to produce teachers who were reflective practitioners. To accomplish this, it had a well-balanced, thoughtful curriculum which seemed to have an equal basis in academic readings, instruction in pedagogy and learning development, courses in Ontario Curriculum subject areas, and four practice teaching blocks. Professors treated student teachers with respect and showed genuine interest for our ideas and experiences. They also drew on their own examples from time in the classroom and did not seem removed from current issues in education.

Over and above our regular courses, we could attend workshops which addressed other current educational needs, such as how to teach to English Language Learners; community-building through TRIBES; and technology in-services. The program also offered the opportunity of conducting our own Master’s Research Project, without which I would not have had the confidence to consider pursuing further graduate studies.

In addition to courses in the various subject areas of the Ontario Curriculum, the XXX Program also had a phenomenal Special Education and Adaptive Instruction course that taught me concepts and strategies I use on a daily basis in my own classroom. Having talked with many colleagues who did not have any special education training in their pre-service training, I feel this was a major boon to the XXX Program. Every teacher will encounter students who learn in different ways and will need to know how to accommodate or modify as needed.

While I have no criticisms of this course, it could easily be extended to two years, to incorporate a greater understanding of the multitude of needs teachers have to support in the classroom. A longer course may also have allowed for more detailed instruction in Individual Education Plans, which all teachers will need to write and should receive training to do so (though many of my classmates and I accomplished this by taking a Special Education Part 1 Additional Qualification offered to us at the end of the program). Then as now, I was proud to be a part of a program that saw special education as an integral part of a pre-service program design. As I return to University YYY in pursuit of my doctorate, I feel discouraged to see no courses available in this important field.

Multiple Placement Opportunities

The XXX Program offered four placements to teacher candidates, which allowed me to observe and practice my burgeoning teaching skills in different settings. Perhaps naively, I hoped I would see the innovative strategies, clear assessment criteria, and classroom community-building I was reading about play out in front of me, but that was not always the case. I was very fortunate that my first Associate Teacher (AT) was exemplary. Not only was she the only AT to teach me how to do assessments, I will never forget watching her teach a lesson that did not go as expected. She turned to me and said, “ZZZ, that’s what happens when a lesson fails. It happens to everyone and it will happen to you. Sometimes, a lesson just won’t work, no matter how much you’ve prepared. Don’t take it personally; just plan it a different way tomorrow.” Of all my practicum experiences, that day had the greatest impact on me. Had she not uttered those words, I might have been afraid to plan creative lessons and to try new approaches; and any failure may have felt like a reflection on my ability. My other practice teaching blocks did not leave the same impression on me; yet I made the most of each and asked to teach up to one-hundred percent of the time, so I could try, and fail, and reflect, and try again, open to as much or as little input as my ATs were willing to give me.

Solely by chance, I was matched with one particular teacher who instilled in me such a significant lesson. While I recognize the ethical murkiness of having a mechanism for screening possible ATs, it is critical that student teachers have the chance to observe and participate in classrooms where teachers are masters of their craft. Every teacher candidate should have the opportunity to learn from an exemplary mentor (and hopefully four). Potential ATs should be screened and offered professional development in being an effective mentor (for example, debriefing with the candidate about their lesson designs and the thought process behind each pedagogical choice, of which the student teacher may be unaware). These powerful examples should show teacher candidates not only best practices but help them to envision the potential of teaching, rather than a reiteration of the rote learning they may have experienced as students going through the system. How can any new teacher feel confident to incorporate more current pedagogical concepts into their classroom without the chance to observe in practice? I consider myself lucky that I had one such placement.

An Enhanced Education

Like most things in life, the XXX Program was what one made of it. For a tenacious person like me, it met my needs beautifully. When I encountered an assignment I felt would be too similar to another, I asked the instructor if I could do it a different way (I even wrote a play exploring educational issues for a course, rather than write another reflection). When I was determined to have a placement in a classroom for children with Autism, I found the classroom and set up the placement myself, politely self-advocating with the placement coordinator. Later, I requested and received an intermediate placement, even though I was primary-junior, because one future goal was to acquire an additional qualification in that level. Throughout my time in the program, I ensured I had opportunities that were in line with my professional goals. Many of my classmates did not know they could be proactive, and went with the flow instead. They often grumbled about assignments they did not like or placements that were not what they wanted.

I wonder whether their experience would have been improved if we had had a pro-seminar course, similar to the one in the PhD program. Such a course could walk student teachers through the program itself, but it could also help students to identify their educational goals and be assertive in taking ownership for their learning; and it could shed light on the behind-the-scenes of teaching that pre-service programs do not have time to teach, such as how to manage difficult conversations with parents, principals, and colleagues. The kids are easy; for me, dealing with the politics of other adults is definitely the hardest part of teaching.

An Emphasis on Personal & Teacher Identities

Unlike other programs, the XXX Program did not gloss over the many realities of being a teacher. My classmates and I had courses where we created our resumes and practiced interview skills; we learned about educational law and the higher standard to which teachers are held (causing us all, no doubt, to secure our Facebook settings). My instructors emphasized work-life balance, and at the time, I believed I could imagine the many long hours and the sheer emotional and physical exhaustion I would later experience. Little did I know then the extent of it; two years ago I decided to adopt my dear cat Gerrie, to help me have something besides my students’ troubles to focus on when I got home! Without those words of encouragement (and reality) from my XX teacher-educators, I may have felt I was not cut out to be a teacher, on one of those difficult days (and thank goodness for Gerrie!).

For me, the XXX Program instilled in me a mindset. One of the most invaluable concepts taught was the importance of developing a teacher identity. By the end of the program, I came to envision myself as a compassionate and reflective practitioner, who believed that all students could succeed if given the chance and supports needed. As an educator today, this identity functions as my North Star, informing all my choices and interactions, to the best of my ability.

All of our courses taught the importance of community and challenged us to collaborate and share insights and strategies. My preference before the XXX Program was to work alone; today, collaboration is the key to my success with students, as I draw on the knowledge of other teachers, parents, and a multi-disciplinary team of psychologists, speech-language pathologists, and social workers, to name a few. I spend hours every week talking with my classroom partner, an incredible child and youth worker, about what worked, what failed to work, what we observed and learned about each student, and what steps to take next for each child going forward. I cannot imagine teaching any other way.

Some Concluding Thoughts

Teacher education programs provide the compass for beginning teachers. While I am satisfied with all that I learned in the XXX Program, I also recognize it is impossible to equip beginning teachers with every tool they will ever need for their journey. Teachers continually adapt to the ebb and flow as children come and go, new policies replace old, curriculum evolves, technology changes, and so on. So too, teacher education needs to reflect the current buzzwords and the shifting seas of the classroom. While teacher education programs are obliged to teach standard subjects, they also should to be flexible enough to address individual needs; teacher candidates may expect different levels of support to map out their professional goals. At present, more attention must be given to special education in teacher education, as general education teachers take on more responsibilities for exceptional students every day and often report feeling unprepared in my discussions with them. Practicum classrooms must be carefully selected to showcase best practices, in order to expose the teacher candidate to new horizons, leaving the bleak landscape of skill and drill classrooms behind them. Perhaps most importantly, teacher educators must allow students to explore and reconceptualise what it means to be a teacher and the qualities they wish to bring to this profession. Without these elements in the XXX Program, I would not have been ready to venture off into those uncharted waters in June 2011.

Finally — A Different Perspective on Underperforming Schools!

educational reform, funding for schools, government reforms, schooling, , , , ,

I (Clare) read this amazing article on Salon.com about school reform. I suspect many many of us in education will resonate with the findings. It is so refreshing/hopeful that teachers and teacher educators are not being blamed for the problems in schools. You will find some of the stats/findings truly unsettling. Thank you David Sirota for your fine piece of journalism. Here is the link to the article: http://media.salon.com/2011/03/paranoid_michelle_rhee_blames_her.jpg

Monday, Jun 3, 2013 12:30 PM EDT

New data shows school “reformers” are full of it

Poor schools underperform largely because of economic forces, not because teachers have it too easy

David Sirota

In the great American debate over education, the education and technology corporations, bankrolled politicians and activist-profiteers who collectively comprise the so-called “reform” movement base their arguments on one central premise: that America should expect public schools to produce world-class academic achievement regardless of the negative forces bearing down on a school’s particular students. In recent days, though, the faults in that premise are being exposed by unavoidable reality.

Before getting to the big news, let’s review the dominant fairy tale: As embodied by New York City’s major education announcement this weekend, the “reform” fantasy pretends that a lack of teacher “accountability” is the major education problem and somehow wholly writes family economics out of the story (amazingly, this fantasy persists even in a place like the Big Apple where economic inequality is particularly crushing). That key — and deliberate — omission serves myriad political interests.

For education, technology and charter school companies and the Wall Streeters who back them, it lets them cite troubled public schools to argue that the current public education system is flawed, and to then argue that education can be improved if taxpayer money is funneled away from the public school system’s priorities (hiring teachers, training teachers, reducing class size, etc.) and into the private sector (replacing teachers with computers, replacing public schools with privately run charter schools, etc.). Likewise, for conservative politicians and activist–profiteers disproportionately bankrolled by these and other monied interests, the “reform” argument gives them a way to both talk about fixing education and to bash organized labor, all without having to mention an economic status quo that monied interests benefit from and thus do not want changed.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that many “reformers’” policies have spectacularly failed, prompted massive scandals and/or offered no actual proof of success, an elite media that typically amplifies — rather than challenges — power and money loyally casts “reformers’” systematic pillaging of public education as laudable courage (the most recent example of this is Time magazine’s cover cheering on wildly unpopular Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel after he cited budget austerity to justify the largest mass school closing in American history — all while he is also proposing to spend $100 million of taxpayer dollars on a new private sports stadium).

In other words, elite media organizations (which, in many cases, have their own vested financial interest in education “reform”) go out of their way to portray the anti-public-education movement as heroic rather than what it really is: just another get-rich-quick scheme shrouded in the veneer of altruism.

That gets to the news that exposes “reformers’” schemes — and all the illusions that surround them. According to a new U.S. Department of Education study, “about one in five public schools was considered high poverty in 2011 … up from about to one in eight in 2000.” This followed an earlier study from the department finding that “many high-poverty schools receive less than their fair share of state and local funding … leav(ing) students in high-poverty schools with fewer resources than schools attended by their wealthier peers.”

Those data sets powerfully raise the question that “reformers” are so desperate to avoid: Are we really expected to believe that it’s just a coincidence that the public education and poverty crises are happening at the same time? Put another way: Are we really expected to believe that everything other than poverty is what’s causing problems in failing public schools?

Because of who comprises it and how it is financed, the education “reform” movement has a clear self-interest in continuing to say yes, we should believe such fact-free pabulum. And you can bet that movement will keep saying “yes” — and that the corporate media will continue to cheer them as heroes for saying “yes” — as long as public education money keeps being diverted into corporate coffers.

But we’ve now reached the point where the economics-omitting “reform” propaganda has jumped the shark, going from deceptively alluring to embarrassingly transparent. That’s because the latest Department of Education study isn’t being released in a vacuum; it caps off an overwhelming wave of evidence showing that our education crisis has far less to do with public schools or bad teachers than it does with the taboo subject of crushing poverty.

In 2011, for instance, Stanford University’s Sean Reardon released a comprehensive study documenting the new “income achievement gap.” The report proved that family income is now, by far, the biggest determining and predictive factor in a student’s educational achievement.

A few months later, Joanne Barkan published a groundbreaking magazine report surveying decades worth of social science research. Her conclusions, again, came back to non-school factors like family economics and poverty:

Out-of-school factors—family characteristics such as income and parents’ education, neighborhood environment, health care, housing stability, and so on—count for twice as much as all in-school factors. In 1966, a groundbreaking government study—the “Coleman Report”—first identified a “one-third in-school factors, two-thirds family characteristics” ratio to explain variations in student achievement. Since then researchers have endlessly tried to refine or refute the findings. Education scholar Richard Rothstein described their results: “No analyst has been able to attribute less than two-thirds of the variation in achievement among schools to the family characteristics of their students.”

Then, just a few months ago, Reardon chimed in again to contextualize all of this. In a follow-up New York Times article, he noted that it is no coincidence that these out-of-school factors — and in particular economic conditions — have created the “income achievement gap” at the very moment economic inequality and poverty have exploded in America.

Taken together with the new Department of Education numbers, we see that for all the elite media’s slobbering profiles of public school bashers like Mayors Rahm Emanuel and Michael Bloomberg, for all of the media’s hagiographic worship of scandal-plagued activist-profiteers like Michelle Rhee, and for all the “reform” movement’s claims that the traditional public school system and teachers unions are to blame for America’s education problems, poverty and economic inequality are the root of the problem.

One way to appreciate this reality in stark relief is to just remember that, as Barkan shows, for all the claims that the traditional public school system is flawed, America’s wealthiest traditional public schools happen to be among the world’s highest-achieving schools. Most of those high-performing wealthy public schools also happen to be unionized. If, as “reformers” suggest, the public school system or the presence of organized labor was really the key factor in harming American education, then those wealthy schools would be in serious crisis — and wouldn’t be at the top of the international charts. Instead, the fact that they aren’t in crisis and are so high-achieving suggests neither the system itself nor unions are the big factor causing high-poverty schools to lag behind. It suggests that the “high poverty” part is the problem.

That, of course, shouldn’t be a controversial notion; it is so painfully obvious it’s amazing anyone would even try to deny it. But that gets back to motive: The “reform” movement (and its loyal media outlets) cast a discussion of poverty as taboo because poverty and inequality are byproducts of the same economic policies that serve that movement’s funders.

To understand this pernicious bait and switch that writes economics out of the education story, simply think through the motives.

Think first about how the dominant policy paradigms in America — tax cuts for the rich, deregulation and budget cuts to social services — exacerbate inequality and poverty, but also benefit the major corporations that fund the “reform” movement. Then think about how it isn’t a coincidence that the “reform” movement’s goal is to divert the education policy conversation away from anything having to do with poverty and economic inequality.

You can tell that’s not a coincidence because unlike other issues, the topics of poverty and economic inequality will inevitably prompt a conversation about changing the underlying economic policies (regressive taxes, deregulation, etc.) that create crushing poverty and inequality. For corporations served by the existing economic paradigm and for the politicians and activists those corporations underwrite, such a conversation is simply unacceptable because changing the policies that create poverty and inequality potentially threatens their existing financial power and privilege. Thus, those corporations, politicians and activists in the “reform” movement do whatever they can — bash teachers, scream strong-but-meaningless words like “accountability,” criticize public school structures, etc. — to shift the education conversation away from poverty and inequality.

Reality, though, is finally catching up with the “reform” movement’s propaganda. With poverty and inequality intensifying, a conversation about the real problem is finally starting to happen. And the more education “reformers” try to distract from it, the more they will expose the fact that they aren’t driven by concern for kids but by the ugliest kind of greed — the kind that feigns concerns for kids in order to pad the corporate bottom line.

Robertson Program for Inquiry-Based Teaching in Math and Science

academics, classroom teachers, scaffolding students, schooling, , , , ,

This past week I (Clare) met with the Robertson Foundation Program for Inquiry-Based Teaching in Math and Science. The program is housed at the Jackman Institute of Child Studies (JICS) and in short I was blown away with the work they are doing. The team includes: Bev Caswell, Jisoo Seo, Zach Pedersen,  Larissa Lam, Dr. Joan Moss, and Zack Hawes

Here is a short video of Dr. Bev Caswell talking about the program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=16&v=ROGrNfqI8_8

The purpose of the Robertson Program is to create, demonstrate, and disseminate ImageFamily-Math-Night-collageinquiry-based teaching models for mathematics and science by focusing on both teacher and student inquiry. The crux of inquiry-based learning is critical thinking- an essential skill for teachers, who strive to deepen students’ conceptual understanding of mathematics and science in authentic ways and for students, who choose to pursue academic and professional careers in the STEM professions (i.e., Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

One of their initiatives has been a collaboration with “Rainy River District School Board (RRDSB) schools and the First Nation communites they serve.  Family Math Nights were designed collaboratively with indigenous instructional leaders, First Nation educational counsellors, school board numeracy facilitators and the Robertson Program/Jackman ICS/OISE team. 

First Nation community members and RRDSB educators developed activities  – such as canoe symmetry, creating tangram clan animals, wigwam construction, exploring number patterns through Metis jigging – that raise awareness of concepts of geometry and measurement embedded in local cultural practices. As well, school board numeracy facitlitators and OISE team offered activities that reflect current research in spatial thinking – a strong predictor of overall math achievement.

This deeply collaborative and respectful approach to planning Family Math nights – designed under the leadership of First Nation communities in collaboration with the school board – highlights a model of success being used across the RRDSB.

Hosting a Family Math Night at your school is an opportunity to build and strengthen positive relationships among home, school and community. Not only that, children of all ages get a chance to see math as an inclusive, playful, engaging and accessible endeavour.”

For more info check out their website: http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/robertson/

A Memo To States: This Is How You Create A Teacher Shortage

academics, curriculum; teachers, schooling, , , , , , , , ,

Image Teacher Shortage

When I (Clare) was at AERA in the spring many of my American colleagues were despairing about the dramatic drop in applications to teacher education programs. The article below by Rebecca Klein helps demystify why teaching has becoming a less attractive career choice.

A handy recipe for a teacher shortage like the one in Kansas.

Rebecca KleinEducation Editor, The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kansas-teacher-shortage-recipe_55c28ce6e4b0f1cbf1e3a2d7?cps=gravity_5059_5212323749430778575&kvcommref=mostpopular

It’s back-to-school time in Kansas, and kids are starting to trickle back into school hallways. But when these students arrive at their classrooms, they may not find a teacher standing at the front.

Kansas is suffering from a well-documented teacher shortage. Last year, more than 2,320 educators in the state retired, compared to 1,260 in the 2011-2012 school year, according to data from the Kansas State Department of Educaton. At the same time, 654 teachers decided to leave the state last year, compared to just 399 in 2011-2012. Over 270 open teaching and non-teaching school staff positions were listed on the Kansas Education Employment Board’s website as of Thursday afternoon.

Kansas has previously seen teacher shortages in areas like special education, as well as math and science. But this year, even typically popular jobs, such as teaching social studies classes or elementary school students, are proving hard to fill, KEEB coordinator Julie Wilson told The Huffington Post.

Those familiar with the situation say it is not surprising. A number of factors have recently converged to create a teacher shortage in the Sunflower State. Some of these factors are the result of actions taken by the state government and legislature. Over the past few years, Kansas has cut back on the job protections that give teachers due process rights, created a new school funding system that a district court panel ruled unconstitutional and cut taxes so severely that some districts lacked the revenue to stay open last school year.

“I find it increasingly difficult to convince young people that education is a profession worth considering, and I have some veterans who think about leaving,” Tim Hallacy, superintendent of Silver Lake Schools, told HuffPost last month. “In the next three years I think we’ll have maybe the worst teacher shortage in the country — I think most of that is self-inflicted.”

For other states looking to wind up in the same situation, here’s a surefire recipe for a teacher shortage:

The How To Create A Teacher Shortage Recipe 

Ingredients:

1 cup of rhetoric against teachers

2 pounds of bills and programs that attempt to de-professionalize teaching (specifically, a proposed bill that would make it easier to jail teachers for teaching materials deemed offensive and a new program that lifts teacher licensure requirements in certain districts)

3 tablespoons of a lack of due process rights for teachers

½ cup of finely diced repeated budget cuts amid a state revenue crisis

1 stalk of a new school funding system that is currently being challenged in state court

2 grinds of growing child poverty throughout the state

3 tablespoons of low teacher pay

1/3 cup of large numbers of teacher retirements