Many of you regular readers will know that I am constantly playing with my teaching practice--experimenting, exploring, trying to improve things. Maybe this says something about my inner state; maybe this means I'm never quite satisfied that it's "good enough." Honestly, that's probably true. I'm a work in progress, and I hope that I'm continuing to get better all the time.
I've taught Introduction to Education 15 times over the past 8 years, and it's one of my favorite courses to teach. It's also the course I teach that literally anyone in my department could teach...but I love it, and I like to think I'm a good fit for it. For the most part, I feel like I've got this course dialed in to where I want it to be: it's a pretty tightly aligned course, with clear learning targets, reasonable assessments, and instructional activities designed to ensure students will come away from the course with a strong foundation for the rest of their learning in our Teacher Preparation Program.
But...it's not perfect. (Obviously, since I am not perfect!) And so, I continue tinkering with the course, tweaking it, trying to find ways to make it a more engaging learning experience for students, one that will help them discern whether becoming a teacher is their calling, and helping them develop a beginning level of the knowledge and skills they will need as professional educators, should they decide to continue in the program.
As long as I've taught the course, I've had a research project as a key assignment. I assign students to research an education reform initiative, and share what they learn with their classmates. The goals for the project are threefold:
Friday, November 15, 2019
Sunday, November 3, 2019
Economics and Grading
So I saw a tweet yesterday that included the following graphic from my long-time Twitterfriend, Paul Munshower.
My first reaction was to laugh, and I did chuckle.
But, almost immediately, I stopped and checked that reaction. Oh, not because this is untrue...it probably is a really accurate way of framing that feeling. (And, yes...as a professional educator, I have had that feeling checking my balance with my bank...which is a comment on the state of compensation for teachers...but not the real point of this post.)
The main reason I checked myself is the idea that this comment conveys: that grades are like money in the bank, deposits from your earnings.
Now I know there are plenty of people who would equate grades as "earnings," as in, "Students earn their grades."
But I do wonder a bit about this metaphor. Are we really comfortable with thinking about grades as compensation? I'm not loving this idea, honestly. I know, I know...we use this language all the time. But what is a grade, really? Is it payment for the work students do? Or...is it meant to be communication about their learning?
I suppose if you're viewing grades as pay for the work students do, there isn't any problem here. Students put in their time, do what they are asked to do, and get their paycheck. Worked hard? You get an A! Not working quite as hard? B+ for you, kiddo. Just coasting and not really doing the work? D- for you. And I guess the idea here is that compensation matches the effort; kids who are really working hard are going to get better "pay," while the kids who are coasting are going to get worse "pay." That's how the "real world" works, after all, right? People who work hard get raises, and lazy people never get ahead...and might even lose their jobs, yeah? Grades viewed this way are really an economic proposition.
But here's what makes me uncomfortable with this: I don't think grades are actually pay. Grades should be communication about what kids have learned, ideally. I don't think they are actually all that great for this purpose, because you lose all the nuance by trying to collapse a whole term's learning into one letter or number. Regardless...if we start trying to turn this communication into payment...are we really communicating learning anymore?
And I don't think that kids who just "work hard" are going to get high marks while lazy students are going to get low scores. I'm not arguing against developing a work ethic; I think everyone agrees that we want kids to learn how to work. But I'm standing here in opposition to the idea that kids who work hard deserve good grades just because they have worked hard. I mean, you can "work really hard" at doing the wrong thing and not end up making any progress. If we're basing kids' grades on whether or not they worked hard, what are we actually assessing? Their work habits? Or their learning?
Grading is not--or at least should not--be an economic transaction. The teacher is not the boss on the jobsite doling out dollars for the day's work to the laborers. If we're serious about grades actually reporting learning, we have to work to purge our vocabulary of this language about "earning."
My first reaction was to laugh, and I did chuckle.
But, almost immediately, I stopped and checked that reaction. Oh, not because this is untrue...it probably is a really accurate way of framing that feeling. (And, yes...as a professional educator, I have had that feeling checking my balance with my bank...which is a comment on the state of compensation for teachers...but not the real point of this post.)
The main reason I checked myself is the idea that this comment conveys: that grades are like money in the bank, deposits from your earnings.
Now I know there are plenty of people who would equate grades as "earnings," as in, "Students earn their grades."
But I do wonder a bit about this metaphor. Are we really comfortable with thinking about grades as compensation? I'm not loving this idea, honestly. I know, I know...we use this language all the time. But what is a grade, really? Is it payment for the work students do? Or...is it meant to be communication about their learning?
I suppose if you're viewing grades as pay for the work students do, there isn't any problem here. Students put in their time, do what they are asked to do, and get their paycheck. Worked hard? You get an A! Not working quite as hard? B+ for you, kiddo. Just coasting and not really doing the work? D- for you. And I guess the idea here is that compensation matches the effort; kids who are really working hard are going to get better "pay," while the kids who are coasting are going to get worse "pay." That's how the "real world" works, after all, right? People who work hard get raises, and lazy people never get ahead...and might even lose their jobs, yeah? Grades viewed this way are really an economic proposition.
But here's what makes me uncomfortable with this: I don't think grades are actually pay. Grades should be communication about what kids have learned, ideally. I don't think they are actually all that great for this purpose, because you lose all the nuance by trying to collapse a whole term's learning into one letter or number. Regardless...if we start trying to turn this communication into payment...are we really communicating learning anymore?
And I don't think that kids who just "work hard" are going to get high marks while lazy students are going to get low scores. I'm not arguing against developing a work ethic; I think everyone agrees that we want kids to learn how to work. But I'm standing here in opposition to the idea that kids who work hard deserve good grades just because they have worked hard. I mean, you can "work really hard" at doing the wrong thing and not end up making any progress. If we're basing kids' grades on whether or not they worked hard, what are we actually assessing? Their work habits? Or their learning?
Grading is not--or at least should not--be an economic transaction. The teacher is not the boss on the jobsite doling out dollars for the day's work to the laborers. If we're serious about grades actually reporting learning, we have to work to purge our vocabulary of this language about "earning."
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Geographic Literacy
I don't usually post a lot of political stuff on the blog. But today I'm going to get a little political, in the interest of promoting geographic literacy.
Today our President tweeted the following map:
Boy oh boy, there is a lot of conversation on Twitter about this. And it's spilled over to other platforms as well--I saw at least two of my Facebook friends share a post that included an image of this tweet, and one of my favorite Instagram accounts, TerribleMaps shared it with a caption that I found pretty funny.
There has been a lot of commentary on Twitter about just what this map illustrates, both by supporters and detractors of the President. I find it interesting because this map is potentially misleading, particularly with the "Try to impeach this" text overlaid. This map is assumed to be an election results map from the 2016 Presidential election. (Though even that seems to be in dispute, if you do the slightest digging on Twitter.) The idea here being that the red on the map represents counties that voted for Trump, and the blue the counties that voted for Clinton.
The implication is that far more of the country voted for Trump than for Clinton. The further implication being that impeachment flies in the face of the voters' wishes. And, if one doesn't pause to think about what is actually being communicated in this map, that might be the quick take away. Cynically, I wonder if that is what Trump expects from his supporters: to not pause and think about what is actually being communicated in this map.
The problem with this map as a proxy for voters' wishes is, as someone said on Twitter (and I wish I could find the tweet now, but it's lost to me, unfortunately)...
The point being, in an election results map, the number of counties in a particular color does not matter...the population of those counties matters. An awful lot of those counties in red have relatively small populations. And an awful lot of those counties in blue have relatively humongous populations. (Seriously...basically every large city in the U.S. is in one of the blue areas on the map.) "Dirt can't vote" means just because there is a large geographic area that happens to be "for" a particular candidate doesn't mean that there is a larger number of people there (or even an equivalent number of people there) who would support a particular candidate.
So what I'm really thinking about is how people don't often slow down enough and think about maps. As a geography teacher, of course I'm concerned about this. I would love it if people were more geographically literate in general.
Today our President tweeted the following map:
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| Screenshot from Twitter.com |
Boy oh boy, there is a lot of conversation on Twitter about this. And it's spilled over to other platforms as well--I saw at least two of my Facebook friends share a post that included an image of this tweet, and one of my favorite Instagram accounts, TerribleMaps shared it with a caption that I found pretty funny.
There has been a lot of commentary on Twitter about just what this map illustrates, both by supporters and detractors of the President. I find it interesting because this map is potentially misleading, particularly with the "Try to impeach this" text overlaid. This map is assumed to be an election results map from the 2016 Presidential election. (Though even that seems to be in dispute, if you do the slightest digging on Twitter.) The idea here being that the red on the map represents counties that voted for Trump, and the blue the counties that voted for Clinton.
The implication is that far more of the country voted for Trump than for Clinton. The further implication being that impeachment flies in the face of the voters' wishes. And, if one doesn't pause to think about what is actually being communicated in this map, that might be the quick take away. Cynically, I wonder if that is what Trump expects from his supporters: to not pause and think about what is actually being communicated in this map.
The problem with this map as a proxy for voters' wishes is, as someone said on Twitter (and I wish I could find the tweet now, but it's lost to me, unfortunately)...
dirt can't vote.
The point being, in an election results map, the number of counties in a particular color does not matter...the population of those counties matters. An awful lot of those counties in red have relatively small populations. And an awful lot of those counties in blue have relatively humongous populations. (Seriously...basically every large city in the U.S. is in one of the blue areas on the map.) "Dirt can't vote" means just because there is a large geographic area that happens to be "for" a particular candidate doesn't mean that there is a larger number of people there (or even an equivalent number of people there) who would support a particular candidate.
So what I'm really thinking about is how people don't often slow down enough and think about maps. As a geography teacher, of course I'm concerned about this. I would love it if people were more geographically literate in general.
Friday, September 27, 2019
How Are You Feeling?
I gave the first test of the semester in my World Regional Geography course this week. I've started marking them, but I'm not done yet. So far, so good, overall.
For many of the students taking the course, this is the first time they are taking a test with me. And there is a little bit of a learning curve there, I think. This is something we talk about quite a bit in the Education courses I teach: every teacher has his/her own preferences, quirks, and foibles that come out in a myriad of ways in our teaching practices. But one place this happens specifically is in the assessment vehicles we develop.
Students have agreed with me when I have asked them about this. Different instructors have different ways of putting tests together, for good or ill. And until you've taken a test with a particular instructor? You just can't be 100% of their assessment style.
I've said before that I take my work very seriously, though I try not to take myself too seriously as a teacher. Perhaps this is one way this shows up in my teaching practice in the assessments I write: I often ask my students how they are feeling at the beginning of a test. Here's what the top of the test paper looked like for this first exam of the semester in World Regional Geography:
For many of the students taking the course, this is the first time they are taking a test with me. And there is a little bit of a learning curve there, I think. This is something we talk about quite a bit in the Education courses I teach: every teacher has his/her own preferences, quirks, and foibles that come out in a myriad of ways in our teaching practices. But one place this happens specifically is in the assessment vehicles we develop.
Students have agreed with me when I have asked them about this. Different instructors have different ways of putting tests together, for good or ill. And until you've taken a test with a particular instructor? You just can't be 100% of their assessment style.
I've said before that I take my work very seriously, though I try not to take myself too seriously as a teacher. Perhaps this is one way this shows up in my teaching practice in the assessments I write: I often ask my students how they are feeling at the beginning of a test. Here's what the top of the test paper looked like for this first exam of the semester in World Regional Geography:
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Mythical Multiple Intelligences?
I've been wrestling with the idea of multiple intelligences for some time now.
In a nutshell, the idea behind multiple intelligence theory (first proposed by Howard Gardner in the early 1990s) is that intelligence is not a unitary trait that you either have or do not have. Rather, there are multiple ways of being "smart"--multiple intelligences. Gardner originally suggested seven types of intelligence, and later expanded the list by adding an eighth:
These descriptors above are my own, not Gardner's. This theory is appealing to me for several reasons. It does seem that there are different ways to make sense of the world, and people do seem to have various strengths and relative weaknesses in these different ways of being "smart." Used car salesman? Definitely "people smart." Nuclear physicist? Probably has "math smart" in spades. Concert violinist? I'm thinking "music smart" is an apt description. Add to this fact, my students have always had preferences for the kinds of assignments I asked them to do. And further, I like to think of myself as a unique individual with my own areas of strength to celebrate, so it's probably no wonder that parents see their kids that way, and teachers too, and likely even the kids themselves!
Early in my teaching career, I put a lot of stock into giving my middle school students self-assessments related to these multiple intelligences, with the intent of helping them understand their own gifts and talents, and helping me as their teacher to understand more about how they see the world. But more recently, I've wondered about whether this was worthwhile. Did I really use enough different teaching methods to help my "body smart" students learn science? Was I tapping into the strengths of "self smart" students in the learning opportunities they had?
And now, thinking about those quick self-checking surveys I had my students complete...how well did they actually indicate students' actual intelligence? Were they "good enough?" Or did they misdiagnose students' intelligences? Or worse, does this just give one more label to use--or an opportunity for excuses, because "I'm just not that 'word smart,' but I am 'people smart,' so if you would just teach me that way..."???
And then, I come across things like this tweet from Dr. Daniel Willingham...
In a nutshell, the idea behind multiple intelligence theory (first proposed by Howard Gardner in the early 1990s) is that intelligence is not a unitary trait that you either have or do not have. Rather, there are multiple ways of being "smart"--multiple intelligences. Gardner originally suggested seven types of intelligence, and later expanded the list by adding an eighth:
- Linguistic intelligence - "word smart"
- Logical-mathematical intelligence - "math smart"
- Visual-spatial intelligence - "design smart"
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence - "body smart"
- Musical intelligence - "music smart"
- Interpersonal intelligence - "people smart"
- Intrapersonal intelligence - "self smart"
- Naturalist intelligence - "nature smart"
These descriptors above are my own, not Gardner's. This theory is appealing to me for several reasons. It does seem that there are different ways to make sense of the world, and people do seem to have various strengths and relative weaknesses in these different ways of being "smart." Used car salesman? Definitely "people smart." Nuclear physicist? Probably has "math smart" in spades. Concert violinist? I'm thinking "music smart" is an apt description. Add to this fact, my students have always had preferences for the kinds of assignments I asked them to do. And further, I like to think of myself as a unique individual with my own areas of strength to celebrate, so it's probably no wonder that parents see their kids that way, and teachers too, and likely even the kids themselves!
Early in my teaching career, I put a lot of stock into giving my middle school students self-assessments related to these multiple intelligences, with the intent of helping them understand their own gifts and talents, and helping me as their teacher to understand more about how they see the world. But more recently, I've wondered about whether this was worthwhile. Did I really use enough different teaching methods to help my "body smart" students learn science? Was I tapping into the strengths of "self smart" students in the learning opportunities they had?
And now, thinking about those quick self-checking surveys I had my students complete...how well did they actually indicate students' actual intelligence? Were they "good enough?" Or did they misdiagnose students' intelligences? Or worse, does this just give one more label to use--or an opportunity for excuses, because "I'm just not that 'word smart,' but I am 'people smart,' so if you would just teach me that way..."???
And then, I come across things like this tweet from Dr. Daniel Willingham...
Friday, September 20, 2019
Grading and Feedback
Yesterday, I received an email from one of my amazing and thoughtful students. She is currently in a field experience placement where she is practicing the "real work" of teaching, including providing feedback to her students. The subject of her email was "Grading and Feedback," and I'm sharing it here with her permission (edited slightly for confidentiality):
First off, how great is this? A pre-service teacher who is in transition to the work of a professional teacher, and she is beginning to realize the challenging nature of our work as educators. But rather than just foundering, she is soliciting input! I'm honored that she reached out to me--not that I have this all figured out, of course--but the key thing I'm thinking about here is the importance of mentorship and support for novice professional teachers.
Here is what I shared with her in response:
Hello Dr. Mulder,
I have been doing my field experience practicum in a sixth grade class and have been learning so much. One thing that I have been recently faced with is grading and giving feedback and you came to mind. I gave the students a summary exercise in which they had to write a summary paragraph. I am now reviewing these and am realizing my inexperience with grading REAL kids’ work!
I don’t want to kill their joy for learning, but I also want to give the valuable feedback that will help them grow. How do you strike this balance (especially in middle school)?
Thank you for your time in considering this.
First off, how great is this? A pre-service teacher who is in transition to the work of a professional teacher, and she is beginning to realize the challenging nature of our work as educators. But rather than just foundering, she is soliciting input! I'm honored that she reached out to me--not that I have this all figured out, of course--but the key thing I'm thinking about here is the importance of mentorship and support for novice professional teachers.
Here is what I shared with her in response:
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Developing Your Teacher Voice
One of the things I love that I get to do in my role as a teacher educator is coaching student teachers. It's just such a pleasure to see students at the end of their studies in our program pulling together all of the things they have learned and putting into practice! That's not to say that they all have it all figured out. Most have growth areas--which is normal, when you are just starting out in a profession. Often I've given them specific coaching on particular aspects of their teaching: using their physical presence as part of their classroom management, strategies for making groups, tips for facilitating discussions, and the like.
Sometimes we have to work on their "teacher voice." My fellow educators probably know what I'm talking about here: there is a way of using your voice as a teacher that we don't use in many other settings. It's not just about being the loudest person in the room, it's more a quality of how we use our voice to command authority, to facilitate the discussion, to draw students in to the learning.
Some teachers seem to learn this very naturally, while others need to practice it, but most highly effective teachers have a very real sense of "voice" that they use as a key part of their teaching practice.
And today, I'm made acutely aware of this fact, because I've lost my voice. I have a cold, and with it, my larynx is failing me. I can whisper, but with some difficulty, and that only seems to make things worse, honestly. I'm struggling and straining, and it's making me realize just how much my voice is part of my teaching practice overall.
At the moment, I'm wondering how tomorrow's classes are going to go, and the meetings I have scheduled with students as well. It's difficult to communicate in the classroom when one of my most important tools is inaccessible! Can I plan other ways to communicate? Certainly. But will they be as effective? Well...maybe...but I feel like I'm going to be struggling to do my best teaching if I have to rely on body language, facial expression, writing on the board, and strained whispers to get the point across. Particularly because we're in the first days of the new school year, and I'm still doing so much relationship-building with students...and I am finding just how much I depend on my voice to do this work. This is requiring me to think creatively about what I can and should be doing to connect well with my students!
The real lesson for me is this: the teacher voice, once developed, is an effective means of keeping students "with you" in class. And now that I've come to rely on it so strongly, I'm really struggling without it!
Sometimes we have to work on their "teacher voice." My fellow educators probably know what I'm talking about here: there is a way of using your voice as a teacher that we don't use in many other settings. It's not just about being the loudest person in the room, it's more a quality of how we use our voice to command authority, to facilitate the discussion, to draw students in to the learning.
Some teachers seem to learn this very naturally, while others need to practice it, but most highly effective teachers have a very real sense of "voice" that they use as a key part of their teaching practice.
And today, I'm made acutely aware of this fact, because I've lost my voice. I have a cold, and with it, my larynx is failing me. I can whisper, but with some difficulty, and that only seems to make things worse, honestly. I'm struggling and straining, and it's making me realize just how much my voice is part of my teaching practice overall.
At the moment, I'm wondering how tomorrow's classes are going to go, and the meetings I have scheduled with students as well. It's difficult to communicate in the classroom when one of my most important tools is inaccessible! Can I plan other ways to communicate? Certainly. But will they be as effective? Well...maybe...but I feel like I'm going to be struggling to do my best teaching if I have to rely on body language, facial expression, writing on the board, and strained whispers to get the point across. Particularly because we're in the first days of the new school year, and I'm still doing so much relationship-building with students...and I am finding just how much I depend on my voice to do this work. This is requiring me to think creatively about what I can and should be doing to connect well with my students!
The real lesson for me is this: the teacher voice, once developed, is an effective means of keeping students "with you" in class. And now that I've come to rely on it so strongly, I'm really struggling without it!
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| Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash |
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