As the semester comes to a close and my, what the students are calling ‘naughty list’ (my list of students with missing work) grows, I’ve been thinking a lot about the work being assigned to our students. For the most part I don’t chase kids for day-to-day homework assignments; in fact, almost all of what I am after is higher-stakes work such as projects, labs, or missing quizzes. However, as I scan through the Power School/Grade Book I have begun to notice an overwhelming amount of missing ‘homework’ assignments…which has made me wonder, “Why are kids not completing their homework?” I think the answer lies in two areas: First of all, it seems that kids don’t understand the intended function of homework as practice. Rick Wormeli, a name we’re familiar with at this point, goes so far in his classroom as to call homework “practice” and refers to it as such instead of using the word “homework.” However, this isn’t just about what you call it; rather it is also about how you use it, is it valuable or is it busy work? The second reason is, I believe, that our students begin to think that their teachers don’t value the work and therefore why should they?!?! Check out this blog post…it is from a charter school I used to work for and is written by a friend and former colleague of mine, I think it speaks to this second point very well. Finally, I’d like to hear your thoughts on these two ideas, especially as we start the second semester…I’m working to develop a plan for a number of our less organized students and your two cents will go a long way!
Learning Philosophy
How we Teach the “Unteachable” Things
I read an interesting article today and I think, as an educator, I was offended. The author talked about all of these “unteachable” lessons that we some how learn in life and implied that these were things he never learned in school but some how still learned. Well, maybe HE didn’t learn them in school but I would suggest that our kids ARE learning them…or at least learning the tools to develop the necessary skills. Okay, this seems out of context, have a look at the article for some reference. He sites six different examples and I would like to point out (for his benefit, of course you already see this!) how our students are learning, IN SCHOOL, the necessary skills to achieve these lessons. “Get involved”…it’s not clear what he exactly means; but our kids are involved in project-based learning, interactive projects, community service, house activities, etc. “Talk to people…” We teach our kids to work with their peers, people from different cultures, overcome language barriers, and we explicitly teach relationships and conversation skills in advisory. “Try new things and be bold” Ugh, I’m getting frustrated just thinking about it…our kids are asked to take risks daily, not to mention things like China Trips; plus they even have a risk taking goal that they are working toward! Okay, I’m going to leave it at that. Maybe I shouldn’t be frustrated by this guy’s view of it, perhaps I should feel sorry for him that he wasn’t fortunate enough to learn these things in school! Am I too proud of the work we’re doing, am I missing something? Of course there are things that we can’t ‘teach’ but his examples certainly didn’t convince me…Have a look at the article and let me know what you think; these are really just my two cents!!
Also published in SCIS MS Headlines on November 22, 2013.
Thoughts on “Mastery Learning”
As I was searching for an article to support my rant this week I came across something better 🙂 Thomas Guskey writes about the concept of mastery learning as one of the most powerful strategies in education. It struck me; during the 11 goals meetings I had this week we talked about the ongoing work we are doing within our departments to develop plans for improvement. Last week as we sat with the curriculum leaders to discuss the English department improvement plan someone asked a question about what learning strategies we intended to implement to reach the goals outlined. This question is imperative to these conversations and I would suggest that the answer is even more important. So what place does “mastery learning” have in that process? Is it a viable approach to use at SCIS? Or perhaps more poignantly, why wouldn’t we use “mastery learning” as a strategy in our classrooms? I agree with Bloom and his beliefs that all students can achieve success at high levels under the right circumstances…how close can we come to creating that environment in our classrooms? I think we can reach this level and we should strive to find a path to do so in our department improvement plans…why not include “mastery learning”?!?! Those are a few of my thoughts…I’d love to hear your two cents!!!
This article summary is from the Marshall Memo, an awesome professional resource!!
Originally published in SCIS MS Headlines on October 11, 2013.
Pushing Forward 