Fixing Education: Google’s Educational Uses

Posted on March 12, 2012 by DrEMiller

Just the other day, I came across this web site that talks about school-related Google tools. With the popularity of iPads and iPhones, though, I don’t know how helpful this article is. However, if you’ve been looking for some easy tools to use in your class or at home to help students access good information, these are good. Of course, some of the returned sites may not contain the highest quality materials–but that’s true with Apple products, too…

http://www.corporatetrainingelearningblog.com/2011/11/3-google-tools-full-of-educational.html

Since I came across this site, I also tried to find out more about Google’s app creation software. It seems that Google released it for open access late in January. Now it’s difficult for me to figure Apps Inventor out–specifically, how to get it working on my computer– even with a mainframe computer programming background. But I figure kids are great at unraveling something creative…

 

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Fixing Education: The Finnish Model

Posted on March 12, 2012 by DrEMiller

While reading through a New York Times Review of Books article that was recommended by Teaching Tolerance, I came across a link to the archived article below. Most educators, I think, have recognized that the USA has been losing ground in the arena of education during the past decade or two. We’re not the only ones. Many countries are reassessing the school and education models they currently use. However, it looks like one country may have a model that needs closer consideration. Surprisingly, that country is Finland, a country that, in recent years, has had to cut back on several of its national programs (such as health benefits). However, education is an area of extreme importance in Finland. Read the article to learn the reviewer’s findings. Maybe even buy the book.

Finland’s School Model

If the link doesn’t work, copy paste the following URL into your browser:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/08/schools-we-can-envy/

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Classroom Management–Part 6

Posted on December 28, 2011 by DrEMiller

Can the Internet, blogging, IMs, Texting, Chats, etc., be used as classroom management techniques?

Yes. At least, that’s what I believe.

But link to the site below. This post links, in turn, to an item from the Huffington Post (which prompted the post below).

http://drelliesblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/silver-lining-of-education-crisis.html

Let us know what you think, or maybe share techniques you’ve used successfully.

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Fixing Education: Classroom Management 5

Posted on December 14, 2011 by DrEMiller

Student seating is not a new idea, but here’s an interesting take on extending student interaction beyond the classroom and into the lunch room. I meant to share some time ago.

http://drelliesblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/mixing-it-up-how-to-seat-students.html

How might you bring this back into the classroom to get those reluctant students to become active members of the classroom community?  How might it be used after the long winter holidays break?  What are ways to  get students to “mix it up” during other times in the school year–or maybe even during the school day?

What about in post-secondary classes, traditional or online?  Are there any social tools that could be used to get adult learners to mix it up?

Share your ideas here or there or everywhere!

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Fixing Education: Classroom Management 4

Posted on October 30, 2011 by DrEMiller

Teaching Kids to Prevent Conflict

How many of us, as youngsters, became angry with a friend or situation that got us into trouble only to hear from a parent, “What could you have done differently to keep this from becoming a problem?”  In other words, when you were embarrassed or put into a volatile situation, could you have stepped back and thought about how to defuse the potential problem instead of escalating it?

In some ways, this is the “theory” behind counting to ten when you are angry before responding.  It gives you think time–time to not only let the initial anger burst to lose steam, but also time to think about how to respond in a way that will not make the original problem worse.  The problem with the warning to count to 10 is that it does not explain that both the dispersal of anger and thinking about the situation are supposed to occur together.

As educators, many of us continue to have the mistaken notion that it is outside of our job description to teach social skills.  Technically, that is probably correct.  But take a look at the teachers the students qualify as their favorites.  These are not teachers who lack discipline in the classroom.  These are the teachers who, aside from having respect for the students in their classes, also model and–when necessary–teach appropriate social behaviors through “safe” means.  For example, Johnny might have torn up his test paper when the teacher asked to see it.  Rather than respond to the incident immediately, on another day far enough removed, the teacher may begin an activity based on dealing with how to respond to situations that anger us, including starting by counting to 10 before responding.  He/she could ask the students to act out scenarios based on, say, name-calling.  After each presentation, the whole class could comment on the way each group handled the problem and discuss what other actions or reactions might have worked.

The role-play actually helps students to visualize and practice socially acceptable means of problem prevention.  Practicing and observing appropriate scenarios stays with students to help them out in similar situations, or to help them generalize to more emotionally-packed interactions.

The teacher should always stress that problem prevention is not the time for the offended individual to retort with a snide remark or comment that will escalate the problem, no matter how cunning the “come-back” might be.  It seems that individuals are almost hard-wired to want to “save face” in social mis-interactions, but we do not always know when we would be better off simply saying nothing.  This is why it is a good idea to teach counting to ten while thinking about appropriate solutions, including not responding at all.

Interestingly, I just finished reading a science fiction/fantasy trilogy which I call the Stormlord Trilogy, by Glenda Larke.  What I find interesting is that Ms. Larke gives us the thinking process of several of the characters–processes that help keep the character out of trouble (or out of more trouble) in an immediate situation.  She writes things along the lines of, “And you’re an idiot, I could have said, but decided now was not the time to make him angrier.”  [Note that this is not a direct quote of anything in the book; just a generic type of example.]  Such commentary might be helpful to older teens.  Actually, such commentary would be helpful to any reader, but the book contains just enough sex and gore to keep it from being a book suitable for most pre-teens and younger teens.  The point is, individuals can learn social interaction skills from a number of good sources, not just teachers and parents.

So what makes this a classroom management technique?  Once students learn to react proactively in negative interactions, they continue to do so, especially in an environment where they want to practice what the teacher teaches.  The net result is that the teacher is involved in fewer incidents of confrontations between or among students because either the students are continuing to practice conflict avoidance, or classmates may be reminding their peers to count to ten.

This is a technique that works at all levels of education, from pre-K through college.  Setting up a short activity to work through problem escalation is reasonably easy, and could take as little as ten to fifteen minutes for engagement and subsequent discussion.  At the college level, students pick up very quickly that there is a reason for this activity, even if it appears to have nothing to do with the subject matter of the class.  Often, at the post-secondary level, all the instructor needs to do is say something along the lines of “What you have just practiced is a method I would like you to think about before a small disagreement, especially with a peer, becomes a major problem during our class sessions.”

All of my suggestions come from years of experience at various levels of education.  Most of the ideas are based on theory, speaking with and observing other teachers/instructors, and much reading of research and general teaching techniques.  At some point, the methods I discuss have become part of my teaching skills, and the actual sources of the methods have become lost.  Thus, at this point I may not always cite resources that support what I have written, although I know they are out there only waiting for me to find them again.

In the meanwhile, if you have used role-play for conflict avoidance, please share your experiences with a response to this post.  I would love to hear your stories.

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Fixing Education: Classroom Management–Part 3

Posted on October 21, 2011 by DrEMiller

Tiered Guided Practice

Many educators intuitively know that students, no matter at what level, need practice in a safe environment.  One old technique that aids in the management of classroom activity is Guided Practice–or, using my term, Tiered Guided Practice.

This is rather simple, actually, and can not only intensify the learning process, but relieve task anxiety for “shy” students.  The idea is that the instructor provides directions, the instructor models the task, the students are given a few minutes to try a version of the task on their own, the students work on the tasks in small groups, and finally–if applicable–the students work on the task independently.

Why is this a classroom management technique?  Because it keeps participants busy and learning, freeing up the instructor to circulate among individuals and groups, discussing and clearing up unique understandings or misunderstandings to fix the assignment explanation and directions for future activities, etc.  Thus, it is a means that provides immediate instructor feedback for activity/lesson evaluation.

Plus, the students are not involved in “busy work,” but are actively participating for independent work–not only for the assignment at hand, but for future assignments and beyond-school experiences–especially discussing solutions or approaches to solutions with social groups.

A similar but independent task can be assigned immediately following the class discussion of group activities, allowing the teacher to address the needs of students who still need some help with the task.  Finally, after the individual practice, students can be assigned another similar activity for homework, giving the student the opportunity to show what he/she can do without the benefit of immediate group or teacher intervention.

The beauty of this approach is that it allows several opportunities and levels at which the student can identify a problem area in learning the activity or task and ask for more guidance–from peers or from the teacher.  For those students who “get it” immediately, it offers an opportunity to reinforce the concept or activity by helping peers during group work.

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This blog was started several days ago, and I had been meaning to get back to it.  When I did, I started wondering if there is really more for me to say about it.

Have you used this or a similar technique?  Please share your experiences.

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Fixing Education: Classroom Management–Part 2

Posted on October 7, 2011 by DrEMiller

Today I stumbled across an education management technique from Teaching Tolerance.  I had a different topic for classroom management in mind, but I decided to run with this one instead.  I believe the technique was borrowed from classroom ice-breaker/management techniques that have appeared in textbooks for years, but it is a great way of getting students to know each other better, whether the method is used for school-wide functions or classroom discussion groups.  In this article, the purpose is to break individuals out of their usual group of friends and get them talking to and learning about other people.  But there are other learning benefits as well.

Here’s the link:  http://www.tolerance.org/blog/how-seat-students .

This technique has been successful in k-12 classes, with post-secondary students, in adults in continuing education or training sessions, and probably in lots of settings I can’t think of.  It “sorts” people into semi-random groups and often takes them out of the group they “hang” with.

The article above states the “how-to” better than any way I can write it.  But if you don’t want to jump over into the link before continuing, here’s a summary of the technique.  As students come in, hand them something–a colored paper strip, a card from a playing deck, and slip of paper with a number, or anything else than can be used as a token for later grouping.  Classrooms with tables work more easily for this activity, but desks and movable chairs work just as well (it’s harder to do in an area with auditorium-like seating that is bolted down, unless the groups are allowed to find their own discussion areas).   You may want to do a presentation on the topic to be discussed first, then ask students to break up into groups according to the token they received.  Or you may want to “sort” the students into their groups first and begin then present your material.  Either way works.  [I prefer the latter because it is easier to have the room set up before students come in, marked with the color or number or whatever.  There is always a little bit of chaos when students enter a class–regardless of age–so the additional minute or two it might take for students to match their token to their area is out of the way before my explanation of the activity begins.] Then let the discussion/activity begin.  As long as the students have an outcome to work toward–a group discussion report, a chart indicating hobbies or favorite out-of-school interests/activities, a list of main ideas from the previous night’s homework reading, a consensus of pros and cons on a particular issue or topic, what can be learned from watching a particular sit-com on TV, favorite comic characters (the list is endless depending on your purpose)–communication results, with an added bonus of students who normally would not “hang together” learning the other students are not so bad after all.

The teacher’s job in this type of activity is to circulate among the groups to answer questions, to be supportive, to make sure that students who are already friends are actively participating in the activity and not discussing something off-topic, to check on understanding, etc.  [This is also a great way to quickly discover how well the assignment has been explained, too!  It can also help one learn which students have difficulty working together, or which students need help with group participation skills.]   Make certain to tell the students how long the group activity is to last, and give them a warning when they are down to the final minutes to give them an opportunity to clean up their presentation or report and choose the person who will present the group’s work.

So what does this have to do with classroom management?  Think about it.  If the activity has been well planned, there should be several groups of students scattered around the classroom who are actively learning from each other and sharing ideas and view points.  When students are actively engaged in learning, they are less likely to display undesired behavior.  By circulating through the learning environment, the teacher can help ensure the engagement of even the most reluctant participant, perhaps by asking a reluctant participant how his/her viewpoint compares to that of the rest of the group.  The teacher can also ask that the views or ideas of opposing members be presented in the report or presentation, and what the merits of the opposing views are in relation to the majority views.  The idea is to get students to understand that dissenters have a place in society in general and in the current activity in particular, and that dissenting views cannot be automatically ignored or avoided.

From a learning perspective, this method allows groups of students who may not know each other well to communicate and exchange ideas and perspectives, some of which may be new to some students.  It allows for more able students to become involved in a learning session with less able students.  Students who are afraid to participate in a whole-class discussion or activity may find they can share ideas more freely in a smaller group.

Most of all, the students begin to understand that everyone has something worth considering–academically and socially.  This one little bit of understanding can help students take ownership of the classroom in positive ways.  It is one of the best techniques I’ve seen and used to get students to accept responsibility and ownership over their learning.  And it is a great way to get students who don’t know each other well to establish rapport.

When students can feel that their “different” ideas have value, their class behaviors improve.  When students learn that even opposing views have merit, they learn tolerance of others.  This type of grouping for discussion and project production contributes more to individual academic self-esteem than most other methods.  It is also one of the best methods to teaching tolerance indirectly that I have come across.  Once self-esteem and tolerance are elevated, teaching and learning can progress much faster and with less disruptive behaviors or incidents in a given class or learning session.

If you have tried this technique, what were the observable results in your class?  If you haven’t used it, what do you believe might be the outcomes in your class, both good and bad?  If you are a pre-service teacher, how do you foresee the benefits (or drawbacks) of using this method?

Please post your comments!

More on classroom management tomorrow!

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How to sign up: PostADay / PostAWeek

Posted on October 6, 2011 by DrEMiller

https://dremiller.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/how-to-sign-up-postaday-postaweek/

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Fixing Education: Classroom Management–Part 1

Posted on October 6, 2011 by DrEMiller

One of the biggest deterrents to success in class is how the teacher manages his/her time as well as behavioral issues among the class members.  Although all teacher training programs now require that prospective teachers complete a class in classroom management techniques, such classes are often offered early in the program, or are not treated by students as being vital to their own success.  Many teachers who have been practicing for years may not have mastered effective management techniques, and their instincts may not be in tune with a particular class-full of students.  (One thing we all pick up on, whether self-contained teachers or subject specialists and sometimes later rather than sooner, is that a class can have a distinct personality as much as an individual student has.)  For some teachers, classroom management is not part of what teachers do, and their classes reflect that attitude.  Unfortunately, a poorly managed classroom is more detrimental to learning than a teacher with subject matter deficiencies.

Although classroom management is important, beginning teachers (years 1 to 3) spend more time learning the teaching materials for their class(es) than on how to keep students engaged and actively learning.  Certainly, being familiar with the curriculum is of paramount importance, but so are the interactions between teacher and class that help facilitate learning.  Students do not learn well in a dysfunctional environment, and newer teachers especially may need help in negotiating management techniques that work with certain individual and class personalities.

The school administrator can help all teachers–new or experienced–by providing general in-service workshops specifically geared toward classroom management techniques that work.  Among these techniques–the most obvious, yet the least used–is to give students ownership of the class.  That doesn’t mean the students run the class; rather, it means that they take much responsibility for their own behaviors and learning.  Once students feel they have a real voice in their learning, any lack of subject matter knowledge or technique weaknesses that a teacher may have become irrelevant, and students can learn subject matter and skills appropriate to their learning abilities and styles instead of only rote materials and skills for a state proficiency exam.  The net result is that teachers can stop teaching to the test (see earlier post), and start teaching for developmental learning.

Before I go on to how to give the students ownership in the class, I want to define developmental learning, as it means something very different in k-12 education than in post-secondary education.  In post-secondary education, “developmental” is synonymous with “remedial.”  At the k-12 level, it refers to the student’s level of learning readiness–more specifically, traditional “grade level” work.  Thus, if a beginning fifth grade student has a developmental reading level of 7.0, that student is reading two years above the average for his/her grade.  But there is another catch here: when we say that a student’s standardized reading test score is 7.0, that means this is the level that may actually be the first point at which the student can have major difficulty.  Thus, when looking at student test scores, it is important to know whether a grade-level score is developmental (the level at which the student is actually learning with relative ease) or what is called a frustration-level score (the level at which learning difficulty is just a smidge too high).  To clarify, a fifth-grader with a developmental reading score of 7.0 is capable of reading and understanding material in a typical 7th-grade text.  If a fifth-grader’s standardized test reading score is 7.0, that is the level at which the student can no longer learn except with great difficulty.  Do not give the latter a 7th-grade text, as the student will be unable to grasp the material even at the fringes of “comfort.”  (Isn’t educational jargon fun?)

How does a teacher “give” the class to the students?  Well, whether from Day 1 of the school term, or somewhere in the middle, allowing the students to create their own class rules is the beginning step.  The only rules are that the students can generate no more than 7-10 rules (initially determined by the teacher), that these rules must be stated in the simplest possible terms (and with as few words as possible), that the rules express the behaviors they want to display in positive wording whenever possible (“do” as opposed to “do not”–“Be respectful” as opposed to “Don’t disrespect anyone”), and that the full set of rules refer to all possible classroom conditions the students can think of.

Students can vote on each rule as it is finalized, or after a review of all the generated rules (or both) to see if any can be grouped into a single idea, and they should discuss why they object to a rule or support it.  The pros and cons of each rule should be discussed by students thoroughly before a vote.  This helps clarify the meaning of the rule.  Rules as they are generated and as they are finalized can be written out by the teacher or (better) a student volunteer.  It might take more than half a day in a self-contained classroom, or several periods in secondary level classes, to finalize the rules, but the result is that the students own the rules they come up with and help classmates stick to the rules.  The bonus is that they often come up with the same rules the teacher would have generated.

The hardest part of the rule generation and finalization processes for the teacher is staying out of the discussion except to facilitate, ask for explanation, or “wonder if…” .  We teachers want to take over, and it is difficult for many of us to merely facilitate.  Allowing oneself the right to comment and not the right to override is one of the most difficult tasks for many teachers, but the results are worth the teacher’s temperance.

Once the rules have been voted on and accepted, they should be transferred to posterboard or some other semi-permanent media, and immediately posted in a prominent location that will not interfere with normal classroom activity.  Students should be encouraged to help each other stick to their own rules by pointing to the rule that is being “broken” when another student is displaying behaviors/actions outside of the accepted rules, as long as this is done positively–using positive verbage and expressing in a supportive manner what the “offending” student needs to do, rather than what he/she needs to stop doing.  If feasible, students should role-play possible scenarios so that they get an idea of how positive support works.

Some readers will object to all of this as students self-policing.  What it really demonstrates is positive socialization practices that help students identify inappropriate behavior in themselves and their classmates, allow for positive feedback while providing positive replacement behaviors, and actually help promote positive self-esteem.  Students should be encouraged to compliment each other when positive behaviors replace offending ones.  Every now and then, the teacher should praise the class on generating such a wonderful set of rules and sticking to them, but only if the praise is genuine (students at all levels–k-12 as well as post-secondary–can spot phony praise a mile away, and will stop respecting the teacher’s words).  Within weeks, both students and teacher will hardly remember that they went through this process, but the behaviors of individual students will improve remarkably.  The classroom environment has become one that is conducive to true learning.

It would be naive to assume that all students will always remember the rules.  Anger over a remark or a perceived slight may create a situation in which the teacher must stop actively teaching and/or facilitating learning, and review the class-generated rules.  This should always be a general discussion of the rules that have been broken, not of the individual offender.  Further, it may be necessary (or at least helpful) to have the situation re-enacted.  Depending on the students involved, the teacher should decide whether to ask the students involved in breaking a rule or reacting negatively to an action by another student to re-enact the situation in light of the rules and discussion, or whether students not involved in a situation should be asked to re-enact it.  On occasion, it may even be necessary to revisit a rule and discuss how it can be strengthened or re-stated.  All this should be in the hands of the students, but facilitated by the teacher.  The teacher may start the process, but just as in the original rule-generation stage, the students should control the discussion with no more than facilitation by the teacher.

Why does this work?  It works because we seem to be programmed to try to succeed at those goals we set for ourselves.  We value what we ourselves generate.  That is why a democratic society succeeds when its citizens continue to have a say in their own governance.  When we are genuinely praised for success, we try harder to maintain the positive perceptions of those sharing the environment with us.  We also tend to function better in a society that allows us freedom of expression and movement, as long as everyone has a similar understanding of the “rules”/laws, and is striving to stay within them.

There will always be one or two individuals who want to be above the rules or simply think they are stupid.  This is true in society and the classroom.  At some later point, I will discuss ways to deal with the recalcitrant student.  Tomorrow’s post will move on to other classroom management techniques that work.

Please share your views about with me and other readers by commenting on this post.  I always learn from others’ experiences, and take constructive criticism seriously.

Thanks!

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Fixing Education: Teaching to the Test

Posted on October 3, 2011 by DrEMiller

Teaching to the test.  We’ve all heard the term.  We get a pretty good idea just from that phrase that it involves teachers trying to make certain that their students will learn those skills that will be tested on some standardized or state-level test (which may not necessarily be “standardized”).  Since no test can measure everything, items on the test look only at those areas that the test designers believe are “must have” skills.  The results of such tests are sent to the scoring facility (which is often the same people who designed the test to begin with), results are compiled by class, teacher, grade level, school, school district, region (a lot of districts grouped together), and state.  Since the state education commissions are ultimately responsible for the education of its school-aged residents, it becomes the state’s responsibility to let each school district and region know how its students performed against other school districts and regions, as well as how each school in a district performed.  For the interested general public, a hundred different means of school level–and even teacher- and class-level–summary comparisons are easily available for instant viewing.   For academic researchers, “raw data” (individual student responses, in this case without information that would clearly identify one student) is generally available, although the actual completed tests themselves are usually the property of the test developer.

It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that the scores could be deceiving.  Districts–or schools within districts–do not have to be compared by community income and socioeconomic levels, or SES (Socio-Economic Status).  That means that a “rich” community’s scores can be compared to a “poor” community’s scores.  Being an educational researcher myself by training, I can assure you that public education is unfair, and that the wealthier communities will always outscore those communities with many families below the poverty level.  Districts seem to care a lot less about this than they do about the scores, however, and many school districts make a teacher’s continued employment–especially a newer teacher’s employment (because they are not yet tenured)–contingent on how his or her class scored across the board.

Now allow me to tell you a bit more about these tests.  I have already mentioned that the item/skill selection to be tested is limited to only a subset of everything students should know at a given grade level.  These skills are certainly necessary to test.  However, I should become a bit more specific and state that the skills are what the average student should know.  Thus, the tests do not necessarily take into account the known fact that individuals–often large proportions of communities of individuals–grow unevenly, so that a student who falls a level below expected grade level in arithmetic skills this time may score above grade level the next time he or she is tested–usually two years later.  Sociologists and well-educated educators are aware of the unevenness of growth, and many poorer scoring (or even higher scoring) district administrators can point to sociocultural influences for whatever scores were attained by students.  For example, we know that on average Mexican American Hispanic students tend to score lower than Cuban American Hispanic students, especially if the district serves a large population of one or the other.  Education researchers know that first-generation Asian American students typically outscore White students, but that subsequent generations of Asian American students score similarly to White students–by economic level; don’t forget about how economics affects student scores, regardless of cultural background.

But back to teaching to the test.  Mentioned above is the tendency of some (OK, many) school districts to make a teacher’s continued employment contingent on some level of average test scores on the part of the students.  Despite the fact that many of these teachers are protected under state directives and union negotiated rights, many teachers are also aware that an administrator can make their work lives miserable if their class does not attain average scores of whatever the state calls “average,” and that an administrator can use lower test scores as part of the process that could demonstrate teacher incompetence, regardless of fairness of the claim.  Once a teacher is fired for incompetence, he or she may never get a teaching job again.

Well, guess what: the new chief reason for administrator woes has become how well his/her students or schools do on mandated testing.  It doesn’t matter what has been said or not said about school level and school district administrators, these positions are not protected by state law or union negotiation, and are thus very political in nature–just like “office politics.”  The administrators’ jobs are not based on their party affiliation or whom they voted for in the last elections; but too often, the administrator’s job or advancement is dependent on how his or her accomplishments are perceived by superiors.  Politics can also limit an administrator’s potential for advancement or even a job with another school district, since the scores of his/her school(s) are public knowledge and would definitely be checked by a prospective employer.

Whose feet will an administrator hold to the fire?  Those of the lowly teacher.  Afraid that normal teaching will not result in adequate individual student scores and class averages, many teachers choose to concentrate on those skills that their students need for the test, which maximizes the students’ individual and class chance of scoring as high as possible.  Thus, the very political game of self-preservation continues, at the expense of our future democratic society.

Do the teachers realize they are selling out?  Of course they do.  Do they like it?  No.  Would they rather teach the tested skills as a part of a solid curriculum?  Absolutely.  But what would you do if your job was on the line and your only hope were the highest test scores possible?

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