I believe formative assessments are important to education. A formative assessment gives a teacher and students an outlook at how well they are performing. I find co-teaching to also be worth keeping. The co-teaching I have been observing helps serve special education students while at the same time being around other students without special needs. I feel that summative assessments are not enough to go off of for a child. I believe a child can do poorly on a summative test for many reasons such as having a bad day, or being nervous and those tests do not take that into consideration so the scores do not reflect the student’s knowledge. I also feel that getting funding through assessments is a bad idea. Most students do not care about summative assessments and don’t try many students I went to high school with said they just marked answers. They don’t care if their school has funding or not or at least that is the way it was when I was in high school. I also feel that having special education students taking the same tests as regular education and expecting them to score well is ridiculous.
Personally I lean more toward Developmentalism as something in education that we should keep. I like Developmentalism because I believe children learn best when they are given a chance to be a decision maker in their own education. I think children learn best when they are aloud freedom to learn in the way that they learn best. Students are no longer willing to sit and listen to a teacher lecture. They also do not care much about politics. I know politics has its place in the lives of everyone, but it is not at the top of the list for exciting things to make a child want to learn. We need to be willing to teach in the way that students learn best. What is right for our students one year may not be what is right for them the next year. Our students will continue to change as the years go by and so should the way we look at education. This is the most child centered ideology. This ideology gives students the freedom to be in control of their own learning. We need to get rid of our need to have complete control of the students. Students need boundaries and discipline. But they do not need to set in a seat and read from a book all day. This form of education does not work for our student anymore. Trying to control children too much can have devastating effects. Even the youngest children are being affected by too much control and too little freedom. We need to give them opportunities to fulfill their own goals in life while using education as a tool for instilling good values in our students.
There are many ideas within education that I believe need to be kept and there are also many, which I believe should be thrown out. One idea that I believe should be kept in education is curriculum-based measurements. This is the first year while I have been at SIU that I have used CBM. I think they are an asset to the teachers and administration. By performing these assessments the teachers can see where the students abeles lie and what needs to be focused on more. I also like RtI. I see this as a useful tool to help reach the students before the problems and other issues occur. Every student needs a specific amount of supports whereas other students need more intensive and individualized supports. I also agree with Anthony. I like the use of summative assessments within classrooms. Just like the use of CBM teachers can assess studetns throughout the lesson and chose the course of actions based on the students scores. One idea that I do not like the use of within education is that students do not need to be disciplines. There are many instances where teachers do not discipline studetns because they do not want to hurt the student’s feelings. Sometimes in order for studetns to be reached they need to have a strong discipline background. This idea needs to be taken lightly within the school settings because of the all the legal issues. I do think it is a good idea to use PBIS within school and try to have everyone think positively, but there are also situations where the school needs to buckle down on discipline and the follow through of the punishments.
What we should keep in education is putting children first, and what we should throw out is the idea that we have to protect teacher’s jobs at the expense of children. There are many dreadful teachers that have no business in the classroom that are protected by tenure. They know they can’t be fired and are only doing as little as possible in the classroom. The education of our children is too vital; we have to put their welfare first. We need teachers that strive for excellence in the classroom. We need teachers that have high expectations for their students and do everything they can to help those students succeed, not teachers that decide that some students will never do well and aren’t worth the trouble. Teachers need to be advocates for their students. We need to focus more on sharing good literature with students of all ages. Students need to spend more time actually reading and less time on worksheets about reading. Students need to have books read aloud to them.
More and more ideas are added to the field of education each year. Its hard to keep up with what’s current and what’s old news. I find that the ideas I really believe in are the things that I remember loving in my own education or the ideas that my professors in my Undergrad convinced me were of importance. First of all, I love recess. This is something that I have loved since childhood and that I can support, now that I know the importance of play in a child’s social, emotional, physical, and cognitive growth. I once read a study in the New York Times magazine about rats that had a chance to play versus those that only did drills to prepare them to run through a maze. When they released them into a maze, the rats that got to play outperformed the drilled rats nearly every time. I tend to agree that children who participate in good play will outperform those who are strictly drilled, especially in the younger grades. I think that Pre-K and Kindergarten should have more of a focus on play and social and emotional growth rather than the huge push for literacy skills that seems to have increased in the last decade. This would give them more of an opportunity to learn how to solve problems and work together. When students have this good foundation, they tend to have fewer behavior problems that distract from learning in the future. Other pieces of education that I think students should not be without are instruction in technology, music, art, and physical education. With decreased funding, many schools are having to get rid of these programs, but I think these classes are just as important as math or language arts to some kids, and I would hate to deny them the opportunity to experience that. I sometimes fear that we’re preparing too many kids to think alike, but our future is going to need some great problem solvers and creative thinkers. The use of technology and the arts can help break the conformity that often occurs the rest of the day. All and all, teaching is a field that should change with the times. We can’t teach exactly as we were taught, but I think we can continue with some of the timeless traditions like reading quality children’s literature, doing hands-on activities, and providing free-play in the younger grades. Old fashioned ideas like pushing conformity, silent classrooms, and a strictly drill-oriented curriculum will not work for the future.
Ideas concerning education are constantly changing. Teaching philosophies and pedagogies are frequently being modified and debated upon. This notion was discussed in a previous reading by Turbill were she examined the ever-changing opinions regarding literacy instruction. Turbill stated that the analyses of government and media reports demonstrate that there seems to have always been debate about the most appropriate literacy pedagogy for our schools (as cited in Turbill, p. 1, 2002). These debates can be seen in every area of education from assessments to standards or from language approaches to evolutionary theories. No matter the topic, each and every person seems to have an opinion on it regardless of their knowledge or understanding of the matter at hand. One idea that is currently of great debate within the field of education is assessment. Although I am a huge advocate of continually assessing students and modifying instruction accordingly, I do feel that some assessments are relied upon too heavily. This is an issue that I recently faced within the classroom. The school that I am currently teaching in relies heavily on the use of AIMS Web. According to the latest AIMS Web scores, each student’s score lied within Tier 1. As an onlooker, one would assume that all of the students within my class are “right were they should be” in terms of reading progress. However, this is not the case. Three of the students in the class receive special education instruction. Five additional students receive support from the Title teacher on a daily basis. Recently at parent-teacher conferences, the option of retention for two of the students was discussed. It is extremely difficult to show justification of these decisions according to the students’ AIMS Web scores. There is a plethora of information about these students which cannot be seen by this one single assessment tool. As I have seen throughout my education and experiences, this seems to be an increasing problem. Learning and progress is not something can simply be measured for every student by one assessment tool. On the other hand, the idea that learning can be fun is definitely an idea in education that is very important and one worth keeping. Instruction has become ever-increasingly tailored to fit the learning needs of each individual student. I have seen this bring forth a great deal of instruction that contains a number of fun activities and a learning environment that promotes individuality and creativity within the classroom. This is a very crucial component in the learning process and one that should be promoted and celebrated.
I agree with Amanda on seeing more hands on and real life activities happening within the classroom setting. I believe that it is important to keep students interested and research has proven that students are more interested in things that are somehow relevant to their lives. Another idea in education that I believe is worth keeping in allowing students time to have recess. This is something that is not seen in all schools and I am a victim of the “no recess” rule. I believe that this gives students the opportunity to give their minds a break after a long day of working and it gives them the time to relax and begin fresh. I can think of many things that I like that is worth keeping and they all surround what I believe would be in the best interest of the students. One thing that really cuts deep, and I would like to see go, is Accelerated Reading (AR). I have seen students us AR to their advantage and have totally learned how to manipulate the system. I believe that AR was created with great intentions, but it does not do a great job at analyzing the true reading ability of our students. AR should be replaced with a better system that is not easily manipulated by our students. I can live without Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) because it places extra stress on teachers to teach to the test rather than having the freedom to teach students in a way that is beneficial to their lives. I believe that AYP is a tool that is used, but will never reach 100% for all schools in the state of Illinois. The system for AYP should be revamped and made more reasonable.
In education, I think there are many great ideas worth keeping, while some can be restructured differently to help better meet needs of students. For instance, I think some ideas behind the RTI concept are great. However, for those you already know will not show progress through provided interventions because of need for more support, I do not feel waiting on data collection is beneficial for them. Ideas in education I do like and are worth keeping are PBIS, a variety of assessments, and special areas such as: recess, art, and music. I think PBIS is an idea worth keeping because it provides a behavior plan school-wide. Through my own personal observations, the biggest problem among schools and districts is lack of communication. Implementing a behavioral plan that is consistent in its expectations and consequences will result in a sense of unity within the school. Also, I think the idea of assessments is valuable in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of our students. Recognizing and addressing this information will only help provide students with the most beneficial education. However, I do agree with Anthony when he says, “I also feel that getting funding through assessments is a bad idea.” I think assessments should be used as a tool to help provide better teaching to our students, not jeopardize their learning by pressure and possible lack of funding for resources and other materials. Lastly, I agree with Brynn on the importance of keeping special areas of education available such as: art, music, physical education, and recess. These special subjects allow students to interact and expand social skills, develop creativity and imagination, and discover talents and interests. Development of these skills helps students grow and learn more about themselves as a person. Providing students’ education is not about loading their brain with reading material and math facts, but rather about helping students discover who they are and how to interact in the society in which we live. Due to constant changes being made in education, there are many strong opinions about what ideas are useful and what ideas needs to be reconsidered. However, it is your responsibility as an educator to implement law mandated ideas, and do your best to give each child the most beneficial learning experience in all areas of development.
The ideas in education that I feel are worth keeping are Curriculum Based Measurement and Assessment. I feel that we must assess annually and periodically to help keep track of the student’s learning. Also I feel these are important because we need to be sure that out curriculum is effective. I also feel that they should keep as many ways as possible for students to make choices in their own learning. I feel when students are able to make some choices in their learning it makes their learning more authentic and valuable to them, because I feel if they have no say at all then why would they care because they have no say at all.
The ideas that I feel need to be thrown out as soon as possible is funding based on test scores. I feel that this is a very poor decision based on politics. I feel that if a school is struggling and is a low income school they should try and reach out and help improve the school district so that the education and learning can be more beneficial, but instead they punish these schools and cut funding that they barely get any of anyway. Another thing that I feel should be thrown out is the teachers being held responsible for the bad scores on state tests. I feel this is a really bad thing because if someone is teaching in a low income poverty stricken district and the students are significantly behind their peers in their learning the teacher is there to try and make a positive impact and help enhance the student’s learning, but they are being shut down because they are constantly being held responsible for every little thing that is a result of the class room. I feel that sometimes there are students that are going to do what they want to do no matter what the teacher says, which could be a rare situate, but the teacher shouldn’t be held responsible for all the students actions and abilities. The final major thing that I feel that should be taken out of schools is politics. I feel that politics and the government control decision that are made in the school and I also feel that sometimes the people who are making the decisions have no idea about what is actually going on in the school systems they are making decisions for.
There are many ideas that are essential in education. As many have said, continual and frequent assessment is a necessary way to monitor students' growth in learning and make individual changes according to the individual results. This type of tracking/monitoring prevents problems before they happen, or at least makes accomodations sooner than the old "wait to fail" method.
Something that is unfortunate in education is the amount of teachers that have tenure and in turn put forth no effort in their lesson planning and take no interest in their students. Tenure has its place but unfortunately has become a means for teachers to "slack off." We expect our students to give 100% and so should we! Students should be the primary focus of politicians, school boards, and teachers, but unfortunately often that is not the case. This is the biggest thing that must be changed! Another problem that should be addressed is the funding issues. A great way to alleviate some of the budget is to take from the top instead of the bottom. It all comes down again to the importance of what the children are losing. They are losing teachers/aides when the administration is still collecting their large salaries. Also, something that more states are going to start implementing and that will be changing is the idea of year round schooling. With this type of layout, the students retain information over their brakes much more than the current summer break that students have.
When asked what ideas in education are worth keeping and what need to be thrown out, I quickly turn my thoughts to whats worth keeping. When it comes to effective discipline in the schools, I agree with Whughey that PBIS is a great tool and motivation piece for children. We have to remember that children are in an ego centric state of mind and needs to have something in place as a recognition and guide to positive behavior. When it comes to grasping a hold to reading comprehension I feel its vital to include different ways to hear one story before a post assessment is made on comprehension. In the reading, Rubin and Optiz mentions that children prefer to hear a story rather than reading it independently because of the clues the speaker gives. Giving opportunities to hear it on tape, hear it aloud from the teacher, student lead reading in small and large groups and going over meaningful parts of the story is vital for comprehension and retention. This is why I am happy that I have an early childhood degree because I use these strategies with middle school students and they deem to be very effective. Child centered learning is very much so worth keeping. I still don't understand why teachers feel that every year around this time children want to learn about butterflies. Its always the same thing... eggs, caterpillar, chrysalis then Monarch butterfly. Let's at least change the type of butterfly, geez. Do they think that it is unfair to teach different things? I think it is important to take what's important to them currently and capitalize on that! Do you know how happy a group of 5th graders would be to break down a cell phone to explore it (science) compare cell phone rates (math) and read about the history of phones (social studies). I love to do this (side note: why don't I have a job yet?)! Things to throw out, well that list is long. I will just mention one big one. I think that we are robbing our students creativity. I will never forget during my undergraduate coursework field training a Kindergarten teacher had the audacity to snatch a child's paper from under his Crayola and say that, “fall leaves are not blue.” Why can't fly leaves be blue? That kid could have made the next Avatar movie but we will never experience that because she poked him in his innovative eye. I can not stand when you a teacher says give your opinion then controls it, or says read but limits them to AR books. Heck, whats wrong with magazines, newspaper articles, comics, etc. Break those chains before it is irreversible!
I think in education there are many things that need to be thrown out and many things that need to be kept. I think that these things are a matter of a person’s opinion. You can ask this same question to many different people and have a million different answers. This is just a matter of opinion and the experiences that they have been in. One thing that this semester I got a chance to explore curriculum based measurement. This is something that I think can be very useful in a classroom if used effectively. The CBM helps teachers see where their students are at at the beginning of the instruction and then see how they progress during the instruction you administer. This can be helpful. As a teacher you get to see if your instruction is doing any good for you or if you need to change some things. I think Whitney made a good point when she said that these are a big asset to teachers and students. Another idea that I think needs to be kept and shown to students is that learning can be fun. We need to show students that you can have a good time at school and that they do not have to dread coming. There are a few ideas that, in my opinion, need to be gotten rid of. I know that not everyone will agree with me on this one but I think that something that needs to be gotten rid of is standardized testing. I think this is something that causes children extreme stress and anxiety. There are so man students who have test anxiety and get sick over this. I also think it rarely shows anything accurate. You may have students who are extremely bright but have a hard time on tests like this. If you judge a school on standardized tests you are only hurting that school.
I agree with those who believe keeping curriculum-based measurement and assessment in the educational system is important. This benefits both the teachers and students in countless ways, that if for some reason we were to do away with assessing students, than the students would be provided with less of an education. Teachers use these assessing periods not only to see where their students lie, but also to reevaluate their very own teaching strategies. If we are keeping the best interests of our students first in our minds then we would be willing to change anything necessary in our instruction to help our students. That is also something that we need to be keeping in education. It is like Terri, many teachers are being protected by tenure who do not belong in their classrooms because their lack of care and concern for the education of their students is clearly visible. As teachers we need to be keeping this in mind that we are their for our students, not to just get a pay check and have that be all. Something in education that I believe we need to do away with is funding based on assessments. If a school is in a low-income area, and are performing low on tests and then the state decides to cut their funding even more, how is that even close to looking out for the best interests of our students? In my mind it is all politics. What we should be doing is helping out those school districts, instead of giving them near impossible chances of having successful test scores. Some students cant take tests, thats a fact. Other students can, but they are not getting the proper teaching they need, that is another fact. Taking funding away from the schools is not going to help either of these situations improve by any means.
I agree with many of my classmates in saying that we need to keep curriculum based measurement in the classroom, this helps us as teachers monitor student’s progress and change curriculum when needed. I also agree with Kumberly in saying that we need to throw out the Accelerated Reading program. All of the schools I have observed in have felt the same way about AR and wish that the program was gone from their school system. On the issue of assessment I do feel that we need some type of assessment but I also think that No Child Left Behind has hindered the education process and it needs to be reworked. I was discussing standardized testing with a teacher recently and we began talking about the criteria we must meet as teachers even to get into the teaching program. First we must take an entrance exam, the Basic Skills Test. If you fail the basic skills test you are able to take it over and over again until you pass. So much pressure is put on this one test and if you do happen to fail or you aren’t a good test taker you are punished. If we feel that type of pressure as adults imagine what our students must be feeling, having to take such an important test as the “ISAT”. From the first day of 3rd grade the students are told of the “very important” test. For this reason I think we need to come up with a better type of assessment. Keep the assessments for monitoring and changing instruction. If the government needs proof that our students are meeting the standards have teachers submit the assessment scores.
First, there needs to be a distinction between ideas “in” education and ideas “about” education. The difference is the former can be defined simply as practices that have lead to better outcomes for all involved (teachers, students and parents); the latter, on the other hand, are simply someone’s notions, theories or “systems”. They are someone’s ideas about how to do something or how to do something better. When it comes to ideas about education, like the old saying goes, “Everybody’s got one.” One of my favorite authors, Dr. Roger Bass, once wrote a book on how there are really no new ideas about education, just re-packaged old ones. If there is one place where education needs to start cleaning house, it’s with the presumption that if one doesn’t like the current pedagogical or philosophical approach, just wait it out and sooner or later the pendulum will swing back the other way. What a waste of time and resources. It seems like every ten years band-wagoneers clamor to promote the next best thing in education. Research claiming to support one approach, while condemning another, floods the literature. Eventually this “new” method trickles its way down to local districts who spend exorbitant amounts of time and money training their staff to implement the method. Now, half-trained, half-confident teachers attempt to use the new approach to instruct wholly bewildered students who are even more at a lost than they were before the “fix” was implemented. I wonder if anyone has ever bothered to study how these abrupt about faces in pedagogy affect students’ academic performance? How about instead of arguing whose method is better we concentrate on using the best of both to educate our children? This is not to say that research, in and of itself is wholly without merit or use in education. Research has lead to many effective methods and practices. My chief complaint with research is how its “message”, for lack of a better word, gets misconstrued and misapplied when people get their hands on it. One of the more applicable research findings comes from the line of learner-efficacy. That is, shifting the ultimate goal of instruction away from verbally-mediated rule following to instruction shaped the learners’ own experiences with the content. In practice this simply means having students experience first-hand, problem solving strategies rather than blindly follow the teacher’s prescribed solutions. To make this more salient for students, one of the best strategies to promote self-efficacy is teaching students to monitor, graph and evaluate their performance. Direct, continuous monitoring of performance gives students real-time feed-back on what they need to work on and what the need to simply maintain. What a great tool for the teacher as well. Think of all the planning time that could be saved if one knows exactly where one needs to focus instruction rather than waste time fumbling from one intervention to another
I believe formative assessments are important to education. A formative assessment gives a teacher and students an outlook at how well they are performing. I find co-teaching to also be worth keeping. The co-teaching I have been observing helps serve special education students while at the same time being around other students without special needs. I feel that summative assessments are not enough to go off of for a child. I believe a child can do poorly on a summative test for many reasons such as having a bad day, or being nervous and those tests do not take that into consideration so the scores do not reflect the student’s knowledge. I also feel that getting funding through assessments is a bad idea. Most students do not care about summative assessments and don’t try many students I went to high school with said they just marked answers. They don’t care if their school has funding or not or at least that is the way it was when I was in high school. I also feel that having special education students taking the same tests as regular education and expecting them to score well is ridiculous.
ReplyDeletePersonally I lean more toward Developmentalism as something in education that we should keep. I like Developmentalism because I believe children learn best when they are given a chance to be a decision maker in their own education. I think children learn best when they are aloud freedom to learn in the way that they learn best. Students are no longer willing to sit and listen to a teacher lecture. They also do not care much about politics. I know politics has its place in the lives of everyone, but it is not at the top of the list for exciting things to make a child want to learn. We need to be willing to teach in the way that students learn best. What is right for our students one year may not be what is right for them the next year. Our students will continue to change as the years go by and so should the way we look at education. This is the most child centered ideology. This ideology gives students the freedom to be in control of their own learning.
ReplyDeleteWe need to get rid of our need to have complete control of the students. Students need boundaries and discipline. But they do not need to set in a seat and read from a book all day. This form of education does not work for our student anymore. Trying to control children too much can have devastating effects. Even the youngest children are being affected by too much control and too little freedom. We need to give them opportunities to fulfill their own goals in life while using education as a tool for instilling good values in our students.
There are many ideas within education that I believe need to be kept and there are also many, which I believe should be thrown out. One idea that I believe should be kept in education is curriculum-based measurements. This is the first year while I have been at SIU that I have used CBM. I think they are an asset to the teachers and administration. By performing these assessments the teachers can see where the students abeles lie and what needs to be focused on more. I also like RtI. I see this as a useful tool to help reach the students before the problems and other issues occur. Every student needs a specific amount of supports whereas other students need more intensive and individualized supports. I also agree with Anthony. I like the use of summative assessments within classrooms. Just like the use of CBM teachers can assess studetns throughout the lesson and chose the course of actions based on the students scores. One idea that I do not like the use of within education is that students do not need to be disciplines. There are many instances where teachers do not discipline studetns because they do not want to hurt the student’s feelings. Sometimes in order for studetns to be reached they need to have a strong discipline background. This idea needs to be taken lightly within the school settings because of the all the legal issues. I do think it is a good idea to use PBIS within school and try to have everyone think positively, but there are also situations where the school needs to buckle down on discipline and the follow through of the punishments.
ReplyDeleteWhat we should keep in education is putting children first, and what we should throw out is the idea that we have to protect teacher’s jobs at the expense of children. There are many dreadful teachers that have no business in the classroom that are protected by tenure. They know they can’t be fired and are only doing as little as possible in the classroom. The education of our children is too vital; we have to put their welfare first. We need teachers that strive for excellence in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteWe need teachers that have high expectations for their students and do everything they can to help those students succeed, not teachers that decide that some students will never do well and aren’t worth the trouble. Teachers need to be advocates for their students.
We need to focus more on sharing good literature with students of all ages. Students need to spend more time actually reading and less time on worksheets about reading. Students need to have books read aloud to them.
More and more ideas are added to the field of education each year. Its hard to keep up with what’s current and what’s old news. I find that the ideas I really believe in are the things that I remember loving in my own education or the ideas that my professors in my Undergrad convinced me were of importance. First of all, I love recess. This is something that I have loved since childhood and that I can support, now that I know the importance of play in a child’s social, emotional, physical, and cognitive growth. I once read a study in the New York Times magazine about rats that had a chance to play versus those that only did drills to prepare them to run through a maze. When they released them into a maze, the rats that got to play outperformed the drilled rats nearly every time. I tend to agree that children who participate in good play will outperform those who are strictly drilled, especially in the younger grades. I think that Pre-K and Kindergarten should have more of a focus on play and social and emotional growth rather than the huge push for literacy skills that seems to have increased in the last decade. This would give them more of an opportunity to learn how to solve problems and work together. When students have this good foundation, they tend to have fewer behavior problems that distract from learning in the future.
ReplyDeleteOther pieces of education that I think students should not be without are instruction in technology, music, art, and physical education. With decreased funding, many schools are having to get rid of these programs, but I think these classes are just as important as math or language arts to some kids, and I would hate to deny them the opportunity to experience that. I sometimes fear that we’re preparing too many kids to think alike, but our future is going to need some great problem solvers and creative thinkers. The use of technology and the arts can help break the conformity that often occurs the rest of the day.
All and all, teaching is a field that should change with the times. We can’t teach exactly as we were taught, but I think we can continue with some of the timeless traditions like reading quality children’s literature, doing hands-on activities, and providing free-play in the younger grades. Old fashioned ideas like pushing conformity, silent classrooms, and a strictly drill-oriented curriculum will not work for the future.
Ideas concerning education are constantly changing. Teaching philosophies and pedagogies are frequently being modified and debated upon. This notion was discussed in a previous reading by Turbill were she examined the ever-changing opinions regarding literacy instruction. Turbill stated that the analyses of government and media reports demonstrate that there seems to have always been debate about the most appropriate literacy pedagogy for our schools (as cited in Turbill, p. 1, 2002). These debates can be seen in every area of education from assessments to standards or from language approaches to evolutionary theories. No matter the topic, each and every person seems to have an opinion on it regardless of their knowledge or understanding of the matter at hand.
ReplyDeleteOne idea that is currently of great debate within the field of education is assessment. Although I am a huge advocate of continually assessing students and modifying instruction accordingly, I do feel that some assessments are relied upon too heavily. This is an issue that I recently faced within the classroom. The school that I am currently teaching in relies heavily on the use of AIMS Web. According to the latest AIMS Web scores, each student’s score lied within Tier 1. As an onlooker, one would assume that all of the students within my class are “right were they should be” in terms of reading progress. However, this is not the case. Three of the students in the class receive special education instruction. Five additional students receive support from the Title teacher on a daily basis. Recently at parent-teacher conferences, the option of retention for two of the students was discussed. It is extremely difficult to show justification of these decisions according to the students’ AIMS Web scores. There is a plethora of information about these students which cannot be seen by this one single assessment tool. As I have seen throughout my education and experiences, this seems to be an increasing problem. Learning and progress is not something can simply be measured for every student by one assessment tool.
On the other hand, the idea that learning can be fun is definitely an idea in education that is very important and one worth keeping. Instruction has become ever-increasingly tailored to fit the learning needs of each individual student. I have seen this bring forth a great deal of instruction that contains a number of fun activities and a learning environment that promotes individuality and creativity within the classroom. This is a very crucial component in the learning process and one that should be promoted and celebrated.
I agree with Amanda on seeing more hands on and real life activities happening within the classroom setting. I believe that it is important to keep students interested and research has proven that students are more interested in things that are somehow relevant to their lives. Another idea in education that I believe is worth keeping in allowing students time to have recess. This is something that is not seen in all schools and I am a victim of the “no recess” rule. I believe that this gives students the opportunity to give their minds a break after a long day of working and it gives them the time to relax and begin fresh. I can think of many things that I like that is worth keeping and they all surround what I believe would be in the best interest of the students. One thing that really cuts deep, and I would like to see go, is Accelerated Reading (AR). I have seen students us AR to their advantage and have totally learned how to manipulate the system. I believe that AR was created with great intentions, but it does not do a great job at analyzing the true reading ability of our students. AR should be replaced with a better system that is not easily manipulated by our students. I can live without Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) because it places extra stress on teachers to teach to the test rather than having the freedom to teach students in a way that is beneficial to their lives. I believe that AYP is a tool that is used, but will never reach 100% for all schools in the state of Illinois. The system for AYP should be revamped and made more reasonable.
ReplyDeleteIn education, I think there are many great ideas worth keeping, while some can be restructured differently to help better meet needs of students. For instance, I think some ideas behind the RTI concept are great. However, for those you already know will not show progress through provided interventions because of need for more support, I do not feel waiting on data collection is beneficial for them. Ideas in education I do like and are worth keeping are PBIS, a variety of assessments, and special areas such as: recess, art, and music. I think PBIS is an idea worth keeping because it provides a behavior plan school-wide. Through my own personal observations, the biggest problem among schools and districts is lack of communication. Implementing a behavioral plan that is consistent in its expectations and consequences will result in a sense of unity within the school. Also, I think the idea of assessments is valuable in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of our students. Recognizing and addressing this information will only help provide students with the most beneficial education. However, I do agree with Anthony when he says, “I also feel that getting funding through assessments is a bad idea.” I think assessments should be used as a tool to help provide better teaching to our students, not jeopardize their learning by pressure and possible lack of funding for resources and other materials. Lastly, I agree with Brynn on the importance of keeping special areas of education available such as: art, music, physical education, and recess. These special subjects allow students to interact and expand social skills, develop creativity and imagination, and discover talents and interests. Development of these skills helps students grow and learn more about themselves as a person. Providing students’ education is not about loading their brain with reading material and math facts, but rather about helping students discover who they are and how to interact in the society in which we live. Due to constant changes being made in education, there are many strong opinions about what ideas are useful and what ideas needs to be reconsidered. However, it is your responsibility as an educator to implement law mandated ideas, and do your best to give each child the most beneficial learning experience in all areas of development.
ReplyDeleteThe ideas in education that I feel are worth keeping are Curriculum Based Measurement and Assessment. I feel that we must assess annually and periodically to help keep track of the student’s learning. Also I feel these are important because we need to be sure that out curriculum is effective. I also feel that they should keep as many ways as possible for students to make choices in their own learning. I feel when students are able to make some choices in their learning it makes their learning more authentic and valuable to them, because I feel if they have no say at all then why would they care because they have no say at all.
ReplyDeleteThe ideas that I feel need to be thrown out as soon as possible is funding based on test scores. I feel that this is a very poor decision based on politics. I feel that if a school is struggling and is a low income school they should try and reach out and help improve the school district so that the education and learning can be more beneficial, but instead they punish these schools and cut funding that they barely get any of anyway. Another thing that I feel should be thrown out is the teachers being held responsible for the bad scores on state tests. I feel this is a really bad thing because if someone is teaching in a low income poverty stricken district and the students are significantly behind their peers in their learning the teacher is there to try and make a positive impact and help enhance the student’s learning, but they are being shut down because they are constantly being held responsible for every little thing that is a result of the class room. I feel that sometimes there are students that are going to do what they want to do no matter what the teacher says, which could be a rare situate, but the teacher shouldn’t be held responsible for all the students actions and abilities. The final major thing that I feel that should be taken out of schools is politics. I feel that politics and the government control decision that are made in the school and I also feel that sometimes the people who are making the decisions have no idea about what is actually going on in the school systems they are making decisions for.
There are many ideas that are essential in education. As many have said, continual and frequent assessment is a necessary way to monitor students' growth in learning and make individual changes according to the individual results. This type of tracking/monitoring prevents problems before they happen, or at least makes accomodations sooner than the old "wait to fail" method.
ReplyDeleteSomething that is unfortunate in education is the amount of teachers that have tenure and in turn put forth no effort in their lesson planning and take no interest in their students. Tenure has its place but unfortunately has become a means for teachers to "slack off." We expect our students to give 100% and so should we! Students should be the primary focus of politicians, school boards, and teachers, but unfortunately often that is not the case. This is the biggest thing that must be changed! Another problem that should be addressed is the funding issues. A great way to alleviate some of the budget is to take from the top instead of the bottom. It all comes down again to the importance of what the children are losing. They are losing teachers/aides when the administration is still collecting their large salaries. Also, something that more states are going to start implementing and that will be changing is the idea of year round schooling. With this type of layout, the students retain information over their brakes much more than the current summer break that students have.
When asked what ideas in education are worth keeping and what need to be thrown out, I quickly turn my thoughts to whats worth keeping. When it comes to effective discipline in the schools, I agree with Whughey that PBIS is a great tool and motivation piece for children. We have to remember that children are in an ego centric state of mind and needs to have something in place as a recognition and guide to positive behavior.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to grasping a hold to reading comprehension I feel its vital to include different ways to hear one story before a post assessment is made on comprehension. In the reading, Rubin and Optiz mentions that children prefer to hear a story rather than reading it independently because of the clues the speaker gives. Giving opportunities to hear it on tape, hear it aloud from the teacher, student lead reading in small and large groups and going over meaningful parts of the story is vital for comprehension and retention. This is why I am happy that I have an early childhood degree because I use these strategies with middle school students and they deem to be very effective.
Child centered learning is very much so worth keeping. I still don't understand why teachers feel that every year around this time children want to learn about butterflies. Its always the same thing... eggs, caterpillar, chrysalis then Monarch butterfly. Let's at least change the type of butterfly, geez. Do they think that it is unfair to teach different things? I think it is important to take what's important to them currently and capitalize on that! Do you know how happy a group of 5th graders would be to break down a cell phone to explore it (science) compare cell phone rates (math) and read about the history of phones (social studies). I love to do this (side note: why don't I have a job yet?)!
Things to throw out, well that list is long. I will just mention one big one. I think that we are robbing our students creativity. I will never forget during my undergraduate coursework field training a Kindergarten teacher had the audacity to snatch a child's paper from under his Crayola and say that, “fall leaves are not blue.” Why can't fly leaves be blue? That kid could have made the next Avatar movie but we will never experience that because she poked him in his innovative eye. I can not stand when you a teacher says give your opinion then controls it, or says read but limits them to AR books. Heck, whats wrong with magazines, newspaper articles, comics, etc. Break those chains before it is irreversible!
I think in education there are many things that need to be thrown out and many things that need to be kept. I think that these things are a matter of a person’s opinion. You can ask this same question to many different people and have a million different answers. This is just a matter of opinion and the experiences that they have been in. One thing that this semester I got a chance to explore curriculum based measurement. This is something that I think can be very useful in a classroom if used effectively. The CBM helps teachers see where their students are at at the beginning of the instruction and then see how they progress during the instruction you administer. This can be helpful. As a teacher you get to see if your instruction is doing any good for you or if you need to change some things. I think Whitney made a good point when she said that these are a big asset to teachers and students. Another idea that I think needs to be kept and shown to students is that learning can be fun. We need to show students that you can have a good time at school and that they do not have to dread coming.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few ideas that, in my opinion, need to be gotten rid of. I know that not everyone will agree with me on this one but I think that something that needs to be gotten rid of is standardized testing. I think this is something that causes children extreme stress and anxiety. There are so man students who have test anxiety and get sick over this. I also think it rarely shows anything accurate. You may have students who are extremely bright but have a hard time on tests like this. If you judge a school on standardized tests you are only hurting that school.
I agree with those who believe keeping curriculum-based measurement and assessment in the educational system is important. This benefits both the teachers and students in countless ways, that if for some reason we were to do away with assessing students, than the students would be provided with less of an education. Teachers use these assessing periods not only to see where their students lie, but also to reevaluate their very own teaching strategies. If we are keeping the best interests of our students first in our minds then we would be willing to change anything necessary in our instruction to help our students. That is also something that we need to be keeping in education. It is like Terri, many teachers are being protected by tenure who do not belong in their classrooms because their lack of care and concern for the education of their students is clearly visible. As teachers we need to be keeping this in mind that we are their for our students, not to just get a pay check and have that be all. Something in education that I believe we need to do away with is funding based on assessments. If a school is in a low-income area, and are performing low on tests and then the state decides to cut their funding even more, how is that even close to looking out for the best interests of our students? In my mind it is all politics. What we should be doing is helping out those school districts, instead of giving them near impossible chances of having successful test scores. Some students cant take tests, thats a fact. Other students can, but they are not getting the proper teaching they need, that is another fact. Taking funding away from the schools is not going to help either of these situations improve by any means.
ReplyDeleteI agree with many of my classmates in saying that we need to keep curriculum based measurement in the classroom, this helps us as teachers monitor student’s progress and change curriculum when needed. I also agree with Kumberly in saying that we need to throw out the Accelerated Reading program. All of the schools I have observed in have felt the same way about AR and wish that the program was gone from their school system. On the issue of assessment I do feel that we need some type of assessment but I also think that No Child Left Behind has hindered the education process and it needs to be reworked. I was discussing standardized testing with a teacher recently and we began talking about the criteria we must meet as teachers even to get into the teaching program. First we must take an entrance exam, the Basic Skills Test. If you fail the basic skills test you are able to take it over and over again until you pass. So much pressure is put on this one test and if you do happen to fail or you aren’t a good test taker you are punished. If we feel that type of pressure as adults imagine what our students must be feeling, having to take such an important test as the “ISAT”. From the first day of 3rd grade the students are told of the “very important” test. For this reason I think we need to come up with a better type of assessment. Keep the assessments for monitoring and changing instruction. If the government needs proof that our students are meeting the standards have teachers submit the assessment scores.
ReplyDeleteFirst, there needs to be a distinction between ideas “in” education and ideas “about” education. The difference is the former can be defined simply as practices that have lead to better outcomes for all involved (teachers, students and parents); the latter, on the other hand, are simply someone’s notions, theories or “systems”. They are someone’s ideas about how to do something or how to do something better. When it comes to ideas about education, like the old saying goes, “Everybody’s got one.”
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite authors, Dr. Roger Bass, once wrote a book on how there are really no new ideas about education, just re-packaged old ones. If there is one place where education needs to start cleaning house, it’s with the presumption that if one doesn’t like the current pedagogical or philosophical approach, just wait it out and sooner or later the pendulum will swing back the other way. What a waste of time and resources. It seems like every ten years band-wagoneers clamor to promote the next best thing in education. Research claiming to support one approach, while condemning another, floods the literature. Eventually this “new” method trickles its way down to local districts who spend exorbitant amounts of time and money training their staff to implement the method. Now, half-trained, half-confident teachers attempt to use the new approach to instruct wholly bewildered students who are even more at a lost than they were before the “fix” was implemented. I wonder if anyone has ever bothered to study how these abrupt about faces in pedagogy affect students’ academic performance? How about instead of arguing whose method is better we concentrate on using the best of both to educate our children?
This is not to say that research, in and of itself is wholly without merit or use in education. Research has lead to many effective methods and practices. My chief complaint with research is how its “message”, for lack of a better word, gets misconstrued and misapplied when people get their hands on it. One of the more applicable research findings comes from the line of learner-efficacy. That is, shifting the ultimate goal of instruction away from verbally-mediated rule following to instruction shaped the learners’ own experiences with the content. In practice this simply means having students experience first-hand, problem solving strategies rather than blindly follow the teacher’s prescribed solutions. To make this more salient for students, one of the best strategies to promote self-efficacy is teaching students to monitor, graph and evaluate their performance. Direct, continuous monitoring of performance gives students real-time feed-back on what they need to work on and what the need to simply maintain. What a great tool for the teacher as well. Think of all the planning time that could be saved if one knows exactly where one needs to focus instruction rather than waste time fumbling from one intervention to another