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Steve Ransom

for the love of learning: The ignorance of merit pay - 49 views

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    Great post by Joe Bower here.
Kate Pok

Intersections: History and New Media: Wiki in the History Classroom - 5 views

  • Students did not agree on the merits of the wiki. Some were deeply offended when other students eliminated or modified their contributions. Others found the chance to pick apart other’s words and conclusions exhilarating. Regardless, most students seemed to grasp the important lesson I hoped to share: that history is the conversation we have about the past. History is about the authorial choices scholars make. History is about the evidence included and the evidence excluded. By asking students to participate in a joint-writing exercise, they were compelled to pay attention to the language others used, the phrasings and structure employed, the anecdotes emphasized, the facts obscured. I told them the story of an undergraduate English professor I had who spent an entire class session discussing why Shakespeare began Macbeth with the word “when”. Words matter. Words shape arguments. They determine meaning, and they form our view of the world around us, including our view of the history of the world around us. Students also came to appreciate that history was not a bag of facts we historians force them to memorize. Instead, as Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob suggest, history is the product of that collective effort of truth seeking.
  • I still caution students about using Wikipedia. But I think the wiki can help our students see themselves as part of that democratic conversation so important to our profession. Throwing their ideas into the ring for others to challenge forces students to defend their ideas, modify their conclusions, and reconsider their assumptions. The wiki, while not perfect, may help us change the way our students think about history. It may help them be more attentive to language and argument. Importantly, it may help them value civil discourse as a civic virtue. These are good lessons for history students and for their professors. —Kevin B. Sheets is associate professor of history at the State University of New York, College at Cortland and project director of the “American Dream Project,” a Teaching American History grant-based project in upstate New York. He regularly teaches courses in historical methods and American intellectual and cultural history.
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    Great description of the merits of using a wiki in a classroom.
Steve Ransom

Education - Change.org: Video: Six Reasons Value-Added "Growth Model" Teacher Evaluatio... - 0 views

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    "Merit Pay, Teacher Pay, and Value Added Measures." Willingham gives "six reasons in three minutes" that the idea of evaluating teachers by the value-added "growth model,"
Roland Gesthuizen

The Power of Involved Parents « Diane Ravitch's blog - 41 views

  • This family showed what a difference it makes when families do their share–and more.
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    "In the Scholastic-Gates survey of teachers, teachers were asked what they wanted most. The greatest number said they wanted families to be more involved. (What mattered least: longer school days and hours, merit pay). "
Sandy Munnell

The British Psychological Society - 13 views

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    paper and connection to text messaging and literacy: the more textism a child uses, the higher their scores on vocabulary and reading - haven't read the whole paper - one has to pay for it - but if there is merit here this presents a new dynamic educators haven't thought of
Bill Genereux

Gates' latest mission: fixing America's schools - Business - Bloomberg Businessweek - m... - 65 views

  • small schools are overrepresented among the country's highest achievers
  • were not as prescriptive about how they wanted their money spent.
  • want public education run more like a business
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  • what we do know about is management and governance
  • We don't know anything about how to teach
  • Because the smaller a school, the more likely its overall performance can be skewed by a few good or bad students
  • Was Mozart a better musician than Babe Ruth was a hitter?
  • Giving several tests a year can sort out each teacher's contribution
  • if you do raise these issues, it's seen as making excuses or pulling back from commitments
  • The only way to tell a good teacher is to go into their classroom spontaneously
  • tying pay to performance is not at all important in retaining good teachers
  • significant portion of teachers do believe in merit pay
  • states' rights advocates have blocked federal efforts for a national curriculum
  • videotaping math, English, and biology lessons
  • Music instructors questioned the district's decision to evaluate them on their students' grasp of music theory instead of instrumental proficiency
  • Gates is paying $1,500 apiece to more than 600 Hillsborough teachers whose lessons are being videotaped.
Jimbo Lamb

Sen. Michael Bennet: Bring Teachers' Pay Into This Century - 37 views

  • To get enough of the teachers we need, teaching has to be a great job where talented people are supported and rewarded.
    • Jimbo Lamb
       
      What is meant by "rewarded?" If this is about merit pay, then it won't work. I already work my butt off. I would like to be able to not have to get part-time jobs (yes, plural) to pay my bills. If I had more time to focus on my classroom, that would be spectacular! As for support, we need a better professional development set up. I spend way too much time sitting in meetings when I could accomplish so much more.
Roland Gesthuizen

Alone in the Classroom: Why Teachers Are Too Isolated - Jeffrey Mirel & Simona Goldin -... - 6 views

  • A recent study by Scholastic and the Gates Foundation found that teachers spend only about 3 percent of their teaching day collaborating with colleagues. The majority of American teachers plan, teach, and examine their practice alone
  • With a common curriculum there is agreement about what students are expected to learn, what teachers are to teach, what teacher educators are to instill in potential teachers, and what tests of student learning should measure.
  • Time and money need to be invested to support teachers' understanding of the curriculum and to develop an ethos of collaboration within schools. Also needed are ongoing professional development programs to support teachers' substantive work together.
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  • competitive teacher assessment schemes could reinforce teacher isolation. If teachers are competing with one another for merit pay, why should they collaborate with one another?
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    "Educators spend most of their time distanced from their colleagues. Instead of forcing them to compete with each other, we should help them find new ways to work together."
Sarah Schaller Welsh

Freakonomics » What Should Be Done About Standardized Tests? A Freakonomics Q... - 42 views

  • Gaston Caperton
  • Standardized tests have much in common with French fries. Both of them differ in composition as well as quality. French fries are available in numerous incarnations, including straight, curly, skins-on, skins-off, and, in recent years, with sweet potatoes. Regarding quality, of course, the taste of French fries can range substantially – from sublime to soggy. It’s really the same with standardized tests.
  • Take the No Child Left Behind Act, for instance, a federal accountability law requiring scads of standardized tests to be used in evaluating schools. Do you know that almost all of the standardized tests now being employed to judge school quality are unable to distinguish between well taught and badly taught students?
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  • all schools – kindergarten through college – should employ exit exams allowing us to determine what students have actually learned. We owe it to our students to make sure that they’ve been properly taught.
  • Then there are the questions of what to do with the results. I have actually sat through an extended discussion of how we could use regression analysis to parse out the contribution different teachers made to a group of students’ performance on a set of standardized tests. The answer was, yes it was possible, and could in fact be used to award merit pay increases. But nobody left the room feeling very comfortable that there would be any gain in what we knew made for good teaching.
  • Roughly half of the nation’s students are taking tests under NCLB that are completely free of open-ended questions.
  • educators have a strong incentive to “teach to the test.” In this case, that means teaching low level skills at the expense of the more demanding material that everyone says students need to master in today’s complicated world.
  • But is it fair to give students what amounts to a counterfeit passport to college or work? And do such tests spur high school teachers and principals to aim high with their students? To both questions, the answer is, “No.” In most states today, high school exit tests serve the same role as the standardized tests mandated by NCLB: they try to jack up the floor of student achievement in the nation’s schools. The best high school exit tests would be end-of-course exams akin to the “comprehensive” exams that many colleges and universities require students to pass in their majors before graduation – tests, that is, that would raise the ceiling of student achievement.
  • High-stakes testing has narrowed and dumbed down curricula; eliminated time spent on untested subjects like social studies, art, and even recess; turned classrooms into little more than test preparation centers; reduced high school graduation rates; and driven good teachers from the profession. Those are all reasons why FairTest and other experts advocate a sharp reduction in public school standardized testing and a halt to exit exams.
  • igh school grade
  • point average is a better predictor of college success than either the SAT or the ACT.
Roland Gesthuizen

AASA :: Feature: Quality and Equity in Finnish Schools (Sahlberg) - 1 views

  • teachers and administrators had designed a curriculum that suggests this school invests heavily in ensuring all students have access to effective instruction and individualized help
  • Finland invests 30 times more funds in the professional development of teachers and administrators than in evaluating the performance of students and schools, including testing. In testing-intensive education systems, this ratio is the opposite, with the majority of funding going to evaluation and standardized testing
  • Finnish schools use two strategies to enhance equity in schooling: (1) school-based curricula that give teachers and administrators the power to define values, purpose and overall educational goals for their school; and (2) emphasis on and access to professional development to help schools reach these goals.
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  • all children, regardless of family background or personal conditions, have a good school in their community. Because Finnish educators and policymakers believe schools can change the course of children’s lives, these schools must address the health, nutrition, well-being and happiness of all children in a systematic and equitable manner
  • research demonstrates that investing as early as possible in high-quality education for all students and directing additional resources toward the most disadvantaged students as early as possible produces the greatest positive effect on overall academic performance
  • Standardized testing that compares individuals to statistical averages, competition that leaves weaker students behind and merit-based pay for teachers jeopardize schools’ efforts to enhance equity. None of these factors exists in Finland
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    "A Finnish education ambassador shares how his country's school system ensures all students have access to quality instruction, sans constant testing"
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