EdPsych 490TER: Dr. Sandy Levin
Marty Sierra-Perry
Week Two: School Structure Changes
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EdPsych 490TER: Dr. Sandy Levin Marty Sierra-Perry Week Two: School Structure Changes |
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"Men make history, and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better."
As this Truman quote points out "skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better." The leaders highlighted or profiled in this week's articles demonstrate that change starts with the individual.
In 1983 I participated in a training workshop on "Holistic Scoring" presented by the Illinois State Board of Education. The workshop was touted as "a way to look at student writing to provide feedback to improve student work." What an interesting concept. Rather than look at a student's writing to see what he/she could not do, we looked at a piece of writing as demonstrating what the student could do, and the question for the teacher became "How do I help this writer improve?" It would also help the English teacher deal with the paper load. This was followed up the following year when with three other Unit 4 high school English teachers and I participated in The Illinois Writing Project with Smokey Daniels and Steve Zemelman. The result of these experiences was a change from a heavy grammar curriculum to process writing and holistic scoring. Allen Glatthorn moved us toward rubrics through his work on developing writing assignments that were explicit, coherent, and contextualized.
I have since read and participated in alternative assessment workshops, and I have used project-based learning in my classroom. Many of the teachers in my building have successfully used alternative types of assessment. Physics students hold a regatta that races their team-designed boats in the swimming pool. American Studies students design amusement parks that are thematically tied to the literature they have studied during the semester. Business students participate in Stock Market simulations.
A concern that some parent's and other stakeholders have with these alternative forms is the technical quality of alternative assessments. Grant Wiggins points out in one of the articles that Advanced Placement courses use open-ended responses which have withstood the scrutiny of the testing community. The Advanced Placement program itself is being supported by legislators as a way to give students a challenging curriculum.
As state assessments have become more "high stakes," I worry that we will return to more norm-referenced tests that will have teachers become test prep instructors. These types of tests may encourage teachers to cover test items which may improve test scores, but cause a decline in student learning. This past school year, I tried to have assessments that required students to synthesize their learning through performance-based assessments. The following seniors have given me permission to share their reflections on some of their work this past semester. Brent, Drew, Joelle, Liz, Lindsay,and Sara were relatively new to technology, but they felt pleased with their first efforts in developing E-Ports. Their senior final was a literary dinner party that evaluated their writing, speaking/listening, and synthesis of learning. Tim offered to share his.
Some graduate students were in my classroom to tape a Visual Thinking Strategies(VTS)lesson. The student manning the camera asked me, "Where will you be standing?" One of my students responded, "She doesn't;she roams." "Teacher as researcher" is one way that my role as a teacher has changed. Looking at what is happening in my classroom, reflecting, changing, hypothesizing, and "Kid watching" are ways that teachers are coming to know more about their students and their learning. Watching students, noting their progress, developing lessons that move students to taking responsibility for their own learning describes what I am doing these days. In order to create learning environments, teachers are moving outside their classrooms to work with colleagues to shape their schools to meet the learning needs of their students.
Teachers are beginning to question the traditional ways of organizing schools. Elementary schools are trying multiage classrooms, looping, and teaming. While teaming is part of the middle school philosophy, the core team is beginning to include the "exploratory" teams as they develop interdisciplinary units. As far as the high school goes, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley suggests that "We need to put the spotlight[of school reform] on high school. We need to go in a new direction." (1999,1). He further contends that high schools must move beyond serving as "sorting machines and be centers of high expectations that prepare the nation's youth for a competitive world" (199,1). Technology is seen a catalyst for effecting real change, so teachers are expected to learn to use this new tool in the classroom. We have become instructional specialists. We design, review, and redesign the educational experiences for our students. We are expected to facilitate student learning and technology can help. One piece of software that I am exploring is the Rubricator, a software program that helps create rubrics to assess performance-based instruction. It complements the Syllabus Maker that contains a database of performance indicators that you can align with the standards for your state. These tools and others like them have the potential to support teachers' efforts to create standards-based classrooms and assessments.
Riley, R. 1999. Changing the American high schools to fit modern times. Community Update (Oct): 1-2.
Washington D.C: U.S.Department of Education.
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I have taught at an elementary school, a middle school, and am currently teaching at a local high school. When it comes to involving families in the educational process, elementary schools do it best. The PTAs and parent involvement on site-based management teams at the elementary and even middle school level are real partnerships. Each group seeks to support the students and teachers in making the school a place of learning. At the high school level, there is little communication--beyond student progress report conversations- that suggests that the school and parents are working for the mission of the school. Parents support the extracurricular programs that their students are involved in, but don't attend PTA meetings on a regular basis, or volunteer to serve on school committees. Many times the same families serve at all three levels, and when their students leave the schools,so do they. High schools have not found a way to sustain that early elementary commitment. The parents mentioned in the articles go beyond advocating for their own children, to all children. I fear that they are truly unique.
Our local newspaper recently reported on progress made on the Project 18 initiative. The initiative is a serious effort to connect the community resources of Champaign and Urbana to improve the quality of life for young people in the community.
An earlier initiative that I had the opportunity to be a part of that was a community effort between the police department and the schools was SHODI (Serious Habitual Offenders Drug Involved). The effort was a proactive effort to address the beginnings of gang-related activity in the area.
Another initiative was the development of inter agency agreements between Parkland and the twin city high schools. I think that our community is responsive to agencies that are working to improve the lives of children.
The high schools in Champaign have partnerships with local businesses. These partnerships include financial support, equipment, and a presence at student award assemblies. Our curriculum is moving towards a challenging curriculum for all students. Our Education for Careers and Professions is program that gives all students to participate in career exploration, mentoring, shadowing,and during the senior year internships.
These articles demonstrate that for school reform to happen all players need to demonstrate courage by providing the leadership to effect that reform.
Conversation with Becker, Means, and Riel
In light of the McGreal conversation from last week, I thought that this conversation more accurately reflected the situation in which many teachers find themselves in their professional lives. Having the district tell them what to do without building a need on the part of the teacher so that there is a buy-in at a personal level belies the constructivist environment that we argue is essential for students. ASCD used to organize "cadres" that provided teachers and others to share an interest in a reform issue and study it together and work toward a solution. Our school was involved in one on mentoring. That group developed a plan and the mentoring program at Centennial that grew out of that plan is still in existence. On the other hand, the portfolio cadre has faltered. Portfolios were developed primarily by English teachers, so it was perceived as an English department "thing." Two of the initiators have left the building and no one has picked up the torch. Still,the NCTE Reading Initiative that is made up members of the English department is expanding its program next year to include cross-curricular members. The level two group of the Reading Initiative has reading across content areas as a focus next school year. The framework includes classroom visitations and conversations between the Level II and Level I members. It will be interesting to see if the collegiality of the Level II participants spreads.
Of course a critical component is the support of administration. We (the district) have a 1.6 million deficit to make up this year and staff development is on the chopping block. So, it will be interesting to see what happens.
I agree that if you can't find others on your faculty who are interested in reforming , you need to move outside. That is where technology can help. Professional organizations have lists that teachers can join. When you hear other teachers talking seriously about similar concerns, one may be moved to take the leadership in his/her building to initiate reform.
