Hectic Means

6/24/20

High School Does Not Prepare Students for College

15:37  

This is probably one of the biggest clichés that I hear from parents regarding how well their children are learning at the school I work at. There are so many factors at play here that blaming high school seems like just a cop out. Factors such as the following:

  1. Contact time (about 4.5 times the number of minutes in HS compared to college)

  2. Most courses involve students taking a course for an entire school year vs. the semesters/trimesters at a college

  3. Class sizes in colleges can involve packing students in lecture halls of hundreds of students with little room for collaboration with other students

  4. Teachers that know best practices better in HS compared to college (lecture and direct instruction vs. modern teaching methods).

  5. Vested interest in students at the HS level compared to many college professors that never really know their students

  6. Students all of a sudden living on their own for the first time upon entering college and the negative consequences for some students if they lack the habits or maturity needed to succeed on their own

  7. Students working to afford expensive college

  8. Support systems at the high school with lifelong friends, family, previous teachers that students have had, etc. not as accessible at a college

Colleges should step up to be more like high schools rather than blaming high schools for not preparing students for college. Being "thrown in the deep end" like some students are when they first go to college, seems more to blame than high school teachers not preparing their students.

Rather than blaming HS, we should be asking how college is prepared to help students succeed. Certainly, mimicking what college does at the high school level is not the answer. I do not know many high school students that would succeed if we taught them like college professors taught.

Am I missing any other factors of why a student might not do well in college despite their high school experience? I would love to hear the thoughts of others.

I say all of this as a high school teacher myself, but also an adjunct professor at a community college.

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1/12/20

Inquiry-Based Learning

18:02  
Inquiry-based teaching is not so much about seeking the right answer (although that is certainly part of it) but instead about developing inquiring mind.

Everyday, students come to classrooms with preconceptions about the world, how they think about it, and implications. This means teaching practices must draw out and work with students preexisting understandings and make student ‘thinking’ visible and central to the learning.

This does not happen if we teach students exactly how to think as what happens in traditional learning environments. This training of how to think would cause more students to think the same ways that were taught in the past. This can slow down the evolution of thought unless being able to think freely is focused on more in schools. Continue Reading

5/30/19

Continuously Evolving

13:44  

Intro
  • I get bored pretty quickly with things and always want to do the best possible job I can do. I am the type of person that if I hear about some new teaching theory, I immediately want to try it. There is a rigorous vetting process, of course, since I tend to be a skeptic of anything new I read or hear about, but if the idea is sound, I more than likely take the responsible risk. Each year, I try to add at least one new thing to my repertoire. These new things continue to accumulate where sometimes I find myself at a loss for trying something new.

What I Currently Am Up To
  • So far, these are the things that I have implemented and continue to implement in my courses as they relate to curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
    • Curriculum
      • Cutting the fat
        • Fewer topics with deeper focus
        • No standard = not covered
      • Balanced Aspects of Rigor
        • Procedural Skills/Fluency
        • Conceptual Understanding
      • Application/Modeling
    • Instruction
      • Relationship-Focused (most important)
        • Pressure is great, but only if there is care behind it (see Care vs. Press Graph below)
        • Students take more risks, embrace failure/growth, ask more questions when they respect and trust their teacher
Care vs. Press Graph
      • Balanced Rigor Aspects on Assessments
        • Procedural Skill/Fluency
          • Presenting fluency in new ways, but also ordinary ways
        • Conceptual Understanding
      • Application
        • To authentic non-routine problems and real-world situations
      • Evidence-Based Reporting (aka standards-based grading)
        • No points
        • No averaging
        • How a student finishes dictates their grade
        • Simple rubric that students can understand and apply
        • Self-assessment
          • All formative assessments are self-assessed
          • Students understand how EBR works by following the same rubric I would use on their work

 What I Changed This Year
  • This year, my new change involved teacher-led in-class discussions in my Computer Science Principles class. The class is taught in a way that is self-paced, guided inquiry through the use of activities, ultimately leading to an open-inquiry project of their choice that is related to each section.
    • For example, the first unit involves creating algorithms (instructions that computers follow). The first section of the unit involves students creating a game using the programming language Scratch. First, the students learn how Scratch works through those guided inquiry activities (usually 4 or 5) before starting their open inquiry of making a video game however they want.
  • Because the class is so individualized and/or small group-focused, I wanted to add something to it that makes the class come together through some commonality. In this case, the class would be coming together around an interesting topic that I think at least a large portion of the class would enjoy. You cannot always win all of the students over obviously. This process led to me seeking the guidance of an instructional coach which I bounced ideas off of to refine the process. On different days, I presented on the following three topics:
  • Eventually, I got the idea that instead of me coming up with these interesting topics, why not have the groups of students co-lead a discussion with me? This eventually then led to me asking students if they even wanted me to co-lead with them or if they wanted to lead the discussion themselves. Only one group wanted me to co-lead with them. Some students suggested I “chime in” when applicable.
  • These discussion topics are completely chosen by the students and refined by themselves and their peers. The instructional coach I worked with introduced me to a protocol she read about in a book that we modified to fit our class.
  • So far, we have had groups discuss Chinese surveillance technologies, DeepFakes, digital sound, self-driving car, and cryptocurrency. While I chimed in from time to time during the discussions, the discussions are all on the students.
  • In order to promote a more discussion-based approach (rather than a presentation), students were required to make any visual aids include fonts that are at least 100. This forces students to focus on keywords rather than reading off of a slideshow. The slides are meant to be conversation starters than a script of what to read.
  • The focus of the discussions is on the AP Big Idea of Global Impact (see description from AP in the graphic below).
    • Global Impact is generally looked at as the "missing piece" of CS curriculum since there is not a focus on it. This project focuses on filling in this gap while also having students learn about something they find interesting.
    • Connecting computing with its social contexts and implications helps to motivate students to learn even more about computers.
From CollegeBoard
  • There was no “accountability factor” for the audience. There were no assessments on whether or not the audience was listening. This is something I struggled with. If a discussion interests a student in the audience, then they will generally listen more intently. If not, that’s okay too. Thus far, the topics have been interesting enough that it seems as though all the students are interested (although I am biased). Post-discussion reflections will determine whether or that is true for each group among other things. The focus is more on the learning rather than engaging in the content for the sake of a grade.
Next Year’s Possible Additions
  • Social Blocks
    • Inspired by how bosses take their employees out for happy hour (or have food catered for them)
    • Early ideas involve once a month social with food involved and a focus on me connecting with students and students connecting with each other
    • Purpose is to generate a positive environment
    • Many teachers think that socializing with students is nice, but not a critical part of our job. Some view it as a waste of the valuable (and not plentiful) time we already do have. I understand why people think this. However, teaching is also about inspiring students to do their best work. Students tend to want to do their best work for teachers they like and trust. One of the best ways to get students to like and trust you is to spend relaxed time with them rather than just giving orders.
    • Professional relationships matter and connecting with students might help them be more honest with teachers about how to help them learn better.

  • CSP Discovery Projects and Creation Projects (inspired by the CTE Showcase at our school this year)
    • The Discovery Project will be an extension of the discussion project that students did this year. Next year, the goal is to promote a stronger student focus on:
      • the media being used and the artifact produced
    • Ideally, I would want students creating videos or other multimedia for students to send to the class for them to watch and then later have a discussion about.
      • students connecting online with industry professionals via Twitter or other means
    • The Creation project is based on the open inquiry project students are already doing, but with a focus of spreading those concepts and learning from others. Next year, the goal is to promote a stronger student focus on
      • the media being used and the artifact produced
      • more interconnections with other students as part of the agile development process
Agile Development Process
Future Growth
  • I am always looking for new ideas so if you happen to have read this entire thing and want to give me some guidance on what I can add, please share your ideas with me. Our students will benefit greatly from it and it will continue to help me grow as a teacher.
  • Always learning, always growing...
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9/29/17

All My Assessments are Pointless (But Not Purposeless)

09:43  

I am not trying to say that my assessments are without purpose. They are quite purposeful, but my students are NOT assessed based on a collection of arbitrary points that have low reliability and often no validity. If you think about it...
  • What makes something a 10-point problem vs. a 2-point problem?
  • Does 1% of the total points = 1% of the total learning?
  • Do points somehow represent the unit of learning?
Instead of assigning pointless points, I use a rubric with clearly defined criteria for each problem. Each problem is graded based on this rubric as well as involves a different representation of a standard.

Going pointless makes grades more meaningful!

Here is the rubric I use for each problem on any assessment that I give in AP Calculus AB:
Problem Rubric for AP Calculus AB
Grade
Description
Criteria
A
Mastery Demonstration of Objective
  • All work and justification is clearly communicated.
  • Answers are correct.
B
Proficient Demonstration of Objective
  • All work and justification is clearly communicated.
  • Minor error in concepts from previous courses.
  • Calculus concept correctly shown.
C
Partial Demonstration of Objective
  • Major error in concepts from previous courses.
  • Multiple minor errors in concepts from previous courses.
  • Minor calculus concept error.
D
Minimal Demonstration of Objective
  • Multiple major errors in concepts from previous courses.
  • Major calculus concept error.

 After each problem is assessed and given a grade, the assessment grade is calculated using the following rubric. Notice that there is isn’t a point or percentage in sight.
Assessment Grade Rubric
Grade
Criteria (based on each problem grade)
A
  • More A’s than B’s (or equal number of A’s and B’s)
  • Nothing lower than a B
B
  • More B’s than C’s (or equal number of B’s and C’s)
  • Nothing lower than a C
C
  • More C’s than D’s (or equal number of C’s and D’s)
  • Nothing lower than a D
D
  • More D’s than F’s (or equal number of D’s and F’s)
F
  • No demonstration

A breakdown of why points can lead to problems with giving fair and accurate grades:
  1. Multiple choice problems are often graded by points as all or nothing with rarely any regard to how well the students demonstrated mastery of a standard. If a student partially or mostly understands a standard, getting it wrong on a multiple choice problem does not show that. An easy fix is to grade each multiple choice problem is for students to include justification for why they chose what they chose. The justification can then be assessed by a rubric.
  2. As stated before, grading with points has extremely low inter-rater reliability. The grade for each problem based on points is influenced by who the grader is much more compared to following the Problem Rubric.
  3. An accumulation of points shows little validity in terms of grades communicating student demonstration of mastery. If a student scores 89% of the points, were they really just 1% off of full mastery?
  4. The arbitrary selection of how many points each problem is worth can make or break a grade. What would even dictate one problem being worth twice or three times as much as a different problem?
  5. Students can hide behind the averaging of points by skipping certain problems. This would show lack of demonstration of a standard, but not influence the grade enough to matter. Shouldn't everything on an assessment matter?
  6. Sometimes teachers give problems that are much easier than the standard requires as a grade boost to “help students out”. If grades are to be an accurate communication of what students are demonstrating, there should not be filler points added. This simply muddies the grade’s meaning.
  7. If you give points based on how many things a student can get wrong on a problem, that gives away a lot of information to students about the problem. For example, if a problem is worth 10 points, there might be more steps to complete it compared to a 2-point problem.
  8. Some teachers give extra credit points. If grades are supposed to be about learning, extra points make no sense.
  9. Averaging makes no sense when it comes to giving grades. If there is a whole in understanding of a particular standard, mastery of other standards should not be used to mask that.

Example breakdown of student grades with averaging and with the rubric:

What are your thoughts? Did I leave something out? Are there any positive reasons to use points besides teacher ease?

Let me know! Continue Reading

9/22/17

Constructionist Assessments - The Snowball Effect

14:24  

Grades must be meaningful. The meaning that I put into grades is that they are the most recent representation of what students have demonstrated on a particular standard for that that grading period. The problem that I ran into with this meaning of grades occurred to me while assessing students on each unit with concepts that were essentially in a vacuum (meaning they were by themselves with little to no connection to other units). To circumvent this, I can came up with an assessment philosophy that assesses where students are continuously throughout the year.

How Students are Tested
Students take about 5 or 6 tests (depending on the class). Rather than the tests being unit tests, each test snowballs or accumulates off of the test before it. The tests are a continually growing assessment of present and previous concepts. The following table better explains what I mean.
Test
Units Covered
Notes
11
  • Formative assessments
  • Each new test replaces the overall grade
  • Ultimately do not account for the grade
21, 2
31, 2, 3
41, 2, 3, 4
5
1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  • Essentially the final exam
  • Students will be given multiple attempts (in case of a bad day)
  • Final grade is based on the grade on this exam

Every tests builds itself closer and closer to the final exam. This assessment structure follows along with the constructionist approach of learning in which students use previous understanding of concepts to understand novel concepts. Not only are problems from a collection of units, but some of the individual problems are a mix of concepts from previous units.

Main highlights of this testing philosophy:
  • No averaging - grades are based on the most recent test grade
  • Tests are cumulative - no cramming for the final exam is needed as students will be expected to understand each unit as the course progresses
  • Tests 1-4 are technically formative since they do not account for any part of the final grade
  • Test 5 is basically the final exam and represents the final grade
I am interested to hear your thoughts on this process. Is anyone else doing anything similar to this? Thanks for any feedback! Continue Reading
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