Rants, Raves, Musings

The Perils and Perks of Progressive Education

JW, my sixth grade son, brought home his first interim report from his first six weeks of middle school. He attends a charter school that pledges to provide personalized learning experiences for students. We found the report equally perplexing and illuminating as we reviewed it and tried to understand what he had achieved and what he needs to do next.

The school uses a five level rubric for five learning habits. Each habit has several criteria. The habits are:

personal responsibility which has thee criteria

social responsibility which has four criteria

critical and creative thinking which has seven criteria

application of knowledge in subject area which has two criteria

communication which has five criteria

The five levels are:

exceeding standards

meeting standards

approaching standards

emerging competency

no evidence

This means that there are 84 different performance descriptions for the 21 different criteria. (There are no performance criteria for the "no evidence" level.)

Each student takes five different courses in which they are scored on all the habits. They are graded for two criteria in their advisory course.

When my son and I sat down to review his levels, reflect on his performance and set goals for the rest of the quarter we had to review 107 different performance descriptions which contributed to the 27 different levels he was assigned.

WHEW!!!!!! This makes thoughtful review and goal setting challenging and time consuming.

I am an experienced educator, well versed in best practices of assessment, cooperative learning, standards based curriculum and individualized learning plans. I wonder if parents who are not experienced with or informed about teaching and learning can effectively use this assessment tool to answer these two important questions:

What does my child know?
What does my child need to do next to achieve his/her personal best and meet standards?

I think it is also relevant to consider that many of his peers have one or more parent for whom English is, at best, a second language.

Every teacher has 84 different levels of performance criteria to consider when assigning the student a level each of the five habits. I wonder how their curriculum is aligned with the performance criteria? I wonder how they teach students to meet each of the criteria? My son was throughly confused how in math class he could " create new arguments, ideas and theories based on a through analysis of evidence", which was one of the criteria for the habit of critical and creative.

There were more than a few instances when he had no idea how he could demonstrate the performance criteria in a subject area. I had no evidence from graded homework, classwork or projects that I could use to help him understand what was expected of him. No definitions or examples of the criteria were provided.

The criteria seemed best suited to social studies, literature and writing. A reasonable number were clearly connected to science but tying a significant number of them to math and PE was difficult to impossible.

I know the rubrics are meant to be holistic, helpful in guiding authentic reflection and goal setting, but I suspect they are not "user friendly" to many of the stake-holders.

As problematic as the rubrics were they were the foundation of a rich discussion. JW and I enjoyed the time we spent reviewing the rubric and discussing possible answers to the "what next" question. At one point JW said, "I don't know why you are asking me how I think I did. The only important thing is what my teacher thinks."

WHOA!!!! I explained to JW that he is and always will be his own most important judge because he has the most control over his own learning. Although he spent six years in progressive elementary schools this statement stunned him. As we went through the rubrics he began to see it's truth.

I would love to hear how others use rubrics as effective assessment tools for guiding learners to see what they have accomplished and where they need to go.

Next I will post JW's reflections on the habits where he was rated AS, approaching standards. His goal is to reach MS, meeting standards, in all habits. His reflections include his plans for action which he hopes will lead him to his goal.

An Age Old Issue That Is Aging Me HOMEWORK

Both of my kids have had homework since first grade. Sometimes assignments seem pointless, sometimes they spark rich discussions and sometimes it seems like an assignment from another planet landed in my child's backpack.

Since JW started middle school the homework load has been moderate and the directions and objectives clear. So what's the problem?

He turns homework into the teachers but it is rarely returned to him. Yesterday he reported that his Humanities teacher returned a graded assignment but he was not allowed to bring it home. He filed it in a binder that must remain in the classroom.

Hoping to help him meet the expectations of his math teacher (see yesterday's post- The Math Test That Made Me Testy) we asked him to show us his graded math homework. We explained that studying her corrections and comments on his homework would help him understand what she expected on tests.

He said,"I turn it in and she grades it. She puts the grades in her notebook."

"Then what?" we asked.

Shrugging he replied, "I don't know. Maybe she keeps it or maybe she puts it in her shredder."

Ok, I know a lot of you experienced (dare I say "jaded") teachers are raising your eyebrows and muttering, "Right. He is probably throwing it away or loosing it."

What!!!!! My darling son!!!!!!!! OK, JW is not the most organized or careful kid but I doubt he is tossing his homework. He likes math and is proud of his work. More importantly he keeps everything, even the aluminum foil from his lunch tray which he rolls into huge balls. If we didn't go through his backpack as part of our nightly homework ritual it would be too full to zip closed. He doesn't have a locker or a home base at school so he is not stashing it there either.

It seems as though JW's inferences are correct. The teacher keeps or shredds his homework.

I have been a progressive educator for 24 years. I give seminars on formative assessment. I know this is not best practice. I know that JW would benefit from reflecting on his graded work. I know I am committed to supporting the teacher. I don't know what to do.

The Math Test that Made Me Testy

The ESSENTIAL QUESTION of this post is: What is the point of a math test? Should we grade understanding of the concept or how well the kid follows the teacher's proceudres?

JW had his first math test last week. He just entered Middle School where for the first time he is getting tests with grades but this event was not a reason for wailing or angst. He loves math and views himself as a math whiz. His standardized test scores in math are 90%tile or above

He brought the test home and he was devastated. He got a 60%, missed four items out of ten. We reviewed his answers so that we could help him make corrections and reflect on his work. We were shocked to discover that two of the answers marked wrong were indeed correct.

On one part of the test he had to read a table displaying data about a series of Rock/Paper/Scissors games played by two contestants, Mrs. Warr and Mrs. Downing. The first two questions required the learner to identify the score at the end of 5 rounds. The questions were laid out in the following way:

a. Mrs. Warr? ____ b. Mrs. Downing? _____
He correctly answered these questions and went on to the next which was:
c. Who had the highest score? _____

He correctly identified Mrs. Warr as the winner but instead of writing her name on the short line (4 space) he wrote the letter a which corresponded with her name in the question a which appeared just above question c.

The teacher counted it wrong. When he pointed out to her that a. correspnded with Mrs. Warr's name she simply circled the word Who in the question. Funny, but I thought a math teaccher would get using symbols to represent words!

There was another question which was answered with correct thinking but marked wrong for a similar reason.

This is an Aspire Charter School who proudly proclaims their use of innovative programs like CPM. I like CPM but I think this teacher has missed the big picture. CPM promises that their materials guide "teachers to provide direct instruction based on their observations of students' questions and difficulties" Based on her scoring of this test I have little faith that this teacher has an adequate grasp of my son's thinking .

He struggles in every class which requires processing or producing language. Math has always been the strength we build on. Now we may be loosing that as we cope with a narrow minded teacher who scored proceudre not conceptual thinking. Oh by the way--she also takes points off of his grade when he has to use the bathroom during class.