A Cloudy Vision

I have a not-yet-well-formulated vision that standardized testing could be transformed into an SBAR process. Specific skills would be tested, and reporting would consist of a list of specific skills for which a student has demonstrated mastery.

Instead of subject-based tests where the student is judged "not proficient," "proficient," or "advanced" in a subject, standardized tests would assess mastery of cross-curricular skills. The variety of subject-based tests we administer now would be collapsed into a single test of cross-curricular student skills.

As I stated, my vision of this is not well-formulated, but if it can be well-formulated and implemented it would change the focus of education from content delivery to student development. In the current system, students are receptacles for content. Standards of Learning are written as lists of content to be mastered, and end-of-course tests are written to sample the content.

In the reform I envision, student development becomes the focus. Content becomes a means of  achieving student development. Standards of Learning would be written as lists of student skills to be mastered, and standardized tests would be written to assess student skills.

Suddenly, it would become much less important to push a student through a lesson on Le Châtelier's Principle, for example, and much more important to develop the ability of a student to comprehend how manipulation of one variable in apparent isolation can result in complex system-wide changes. Le Châtelier's Principle provides content for developing this comprehension in the student of chemistry, but ecosystem ecology does also in biology, as well as parametric equations in mathematics, historical narratives in social studies, free-body diagrams in physics, and even poetry in English. In fact, the very act of specifying that students must learn Le Châtelier's Principle in chemistry isolates the concept as something peculiar to chemistry without parallel or application in other subjects, something to be remembered for a test and then forgotten.

On standardized tests, a student would be able to demonstrate cross-curricular skills in any of the specific content areas that include the skill, or in several content areas that include the skill. Each year, students would accumulate a longer list of mastered skills in their testing report. A simple pie-chart showing number of skills mastered by content area would indicate student strength by subject.

Diplomas could be individualized, as, for example, "John Doe, graduated 2012, having mastered 567 standards of learning, with a concentration in science and math."

Even test-based teacher evaluation might work under this system: "On average, Jane Doe's chemistry students add 15% more demonstrated science skills to their testing record after taking her course." Reporting new skills added as a percentage of previously acquired skills in a subject would normalize for incoming student ability. A teacher of low-performing students could still demonstrate solid teaching ability through the percentage gain. If her students were grossly behind in their skills and not ready for the rigors of her course, she could engage them to learn the skills they are ready for and still show good teaching performance. The system we have now forces her to do the opposite — to push students through content they are not ready for in hopes that they will retain enough to pass the test.

In our current system, where standardized tests are content-based, "teaching to the test" is a frustrating experience for teacher and students, when students come into a course ill prepared to comprehend the material at the pace required to cover standardized content, as is often the case. In our current system, "not teaching to the test" is also a frustrating experience for teacher and students, because the test does not illuminate the fact that her students have actually made good progress.

In a system of standardized tests based on student skills, "teaching to the test" is exactly what the teacher ought to do. She makes strategic selections from the wealth of content she has at her disposal to address the skills her students are ready to develop. She has the freedom to keep her students in Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, where learning is most efficient.

I invite everybody, everywhere, to help me develop these ideas. Please poke holes in it, and let's see if we can plug them.

The Write Idea

I have a son in Godwin High School taking a course with challenging writing assignments. Like most colleges nowadays, this high school has a writing center, a resource for students to use to improve their writing. In addition to a final draft, my son is also required to turn in a first draft that has been marked up by the writing center.

What a great idea! Everybody wins:

• My son gets the benefit of another set of eyes looking at his writing. When he writes, he knows he must write so that another real person — not just a teacher — can understand what he has written. The mark-ups give him authentic feedback for improvement.
• The student in the writing center who marks up my son's paper gets a much deeper understanding of the writing process. The best way to learn is to teach. The student likely also gets service hours.
• The teacher gets papers that have already been screened and corrected of the most egregious errors, so that she can focus on higher-level structure and effectiveness of the writing. The writing center also probably enables more cycles of learning, since the teacher can use her limited time for grading final drafts rather than first drafts.
• The school gets a better performance record because it feeds more sophisticated students into the standardized testing process.

My own students could benefit from this approach. I need to give some thought as to how I can incorporate screening and rewrites into the writing they turn in to me.

First MOP Team Assessment

A couple weeks ago I started a program in my physics classes called MO Physics for students who want to move faster than the class pace. Today I assessed the first MOP team to move ahead of their class.

The MO B.A. Physics team pictured here did a marvelous job. They signed up on my online form to come in at lunchtime today to demonstrate mastery of the physics skill Acceleration.

When they came in, I told them with a genuine smile on my face, "My job is to make you nervous. You'd better be certain of what you say to me. You might be saying the most profound thing imaginable, but you won't see any sign of it on my poker face. And if you're uncertain of something, you won't find the answer in my face. In fact, I may give you a blank stare that makes you think you're saying something stupid. It won't be easy, but if you can get past me, you can do this for anybody." Since we have an excellent rapport, they know the friendly, supporting spirit in which these true-but-not-threatening remarks were given. I also told them the worst possible thing that could happen is that I would ask them to come in again to elaborate on something that was lacking the first time.

Part of the MO Physics program is for the team to determine how they will demonstrate mastery of a skill to their teacher in such a way that it would be apparent that each individual had mastered the material. I was curious to see how they would do it. The team of four had prepared four white boards demonstrating their mastery of each of the specific skills listed in my lesson plan, using drawn images, equations, and text. They presented individually and together, acted out a demonstration of deceleration together, and answered all of my impromptu questions to my complete satisfaction.

I have enjoyed watching the team work together in class. Rarely have I seen such diligence and focus. I was eager to see if they could pull off a good demonstration of mastery, and they did! In fact, I'm convinced they comprehend the material better than if they had studied to pass my test on it (which they are exempt from now).

I can say the performance of this team has been the highlight of my teaching career so far, and I am delighted with their success today. May they be the first of many yet to come.

"When will I ever use this?"

The question is a narrow one. It is a perfectly fitting question to ask of a vocational school preparing you to become a worker in a trade. But high school provides broad liberal education, not narrow vocational training. Liberal education, literally "the skills of freedom," empowers individuals with knowledge of the major endeavors of humanity, the disciplines of formal thinking, empirical investigation, informed judgment, practical decision-making, and appreciation of human ideals. Liberal education produces persons who are able to achieve in a vocation, to adapt as vocations change, and to develop new vocations as new needs arise. Liberal education produces free citizens who direct and reform the institutions of society to provide for the general good. It produces citizens who are capable a making democracy work.

A better question to ask is, "How will this make me a better human being?" The value of a worker in a trade is the product produced, and so the value of one worker is very much like the value of another. But the value of a human being is the breadth and depth of the individual in the whole of human affairs. Not every experience in high school can make you a better worker in a trade, but every experience in high school, no matter the subject, can make you a better human being — if you atune yourself to receive the improvement and to effect it within yourself.

A worker in a trade is dispensible when machines or cheaper labor come along to make the same product. But human beings with a liberal education, the "skills of freedom," will always be indispensible.  When the value of an endeavor has been exhausted, the workers are let go. But those individuals with the "skills of freedom" are retained and sought after, because they are the ones who are fundamentally innovative to find or create the next endeavor of value.

If you are able to leave high school with the abilities required to work at a trade, then you have received an adequate return on the time you invested. However, if that is all you leave high school with, you have left the far greater value behind. A liberal education, available to every young person at public expense in high school, is really an extraordinary opportunity, afforded only to the few wealthy in ages past. My advice is to shake yourself out of the notion that high school is something you have to endure in order to get a job. Instead of enduring it, take charge of your education and milk the high school experience for as much as you can, not just to become a worker at a trade, but to make yourself into a better human being. If you do, you will be valued far more than a worker in a trade throughout your life.

I Am an Introvert

I am an introvert.

When you are talking things through, I am busy with internal dialog and discussion, me vs me.

When you and I are discussing something, you are seeking your resolution through the conversation and you would like to talk until we are resolved. I am seeking information so that we can stop talking, because then I can begin my internal conversations and come to my resolution.

When you are talking through your thoughts with me, my internal conversations are disrupted. I will begin to see things clearly when my internal conversations get a chance to progress undisturbed to completion.

When you notice that I am passive, aloof, and unengaged, my mind is teeming with internal conversations about unresolved issues. My mind is so busy that sometimes I have to lie down in a quiet place to let the activity play out.

When you relax with other people and find refreshment in the stimulating talk and conversation, I relax in solitude and find refreshment as my swirling internal conversations settle and finally solidify through my keystrokes.

When we are together, you find your satisfaction in the moment-to-moment experience. I find my satisfaction in the quietness afterward, when I can rethink our interaction to fully process the pleasure I take in being with you.

You are a Type A extrovert. Something is always going on with you, and everyone can see it. I am a Type A introvert. Something is always going on with me, but no one can see it.

To Love

Love is not a mystery. It is the easiest thing in the world to know when you love somebody. It is when you stop thinking, "How can you please me," and start thinking, "How can I please you."

To Disagree

You people who disagree with me are valuable to me. You readily point out issues that escape my notice. The best solutions notice and address every issue. So...let's disagree together and find the best solutions.

Science Learning Ought to Enlighten and Liberate

Somehow we've made learning difficult for kids, when it ought to be the most natural, spontaneous, and enjoyable activity they engage in. Science, in particular, ought to enlighten and liberate, not obscure and burden. Students should leave school with a warm feeling about science because it has opened their eyes. Instead, many (most?) students leave school cool toward science because we teach it in a way that veils simple and beautiful truths behind opaque jargon. The refreshment students could be taking in a few key and abiding scientific truths enjoyed deeply is instead drowned in a shallow, overwhelming torrent of the entire body of scientific facts. We turn the excitement of personal discovery and connection into the drudgery of rote and disconnected "learning."

I believe that somehow we can have high student achievement with low stress and high enjoyment. And I believe a key component of this "somehow" is to select from our wealth of content, and use our selections to cultivate student breadth and depth.The focus needs to be on using content selectively to enlarge students rather than using students as receivers for massive content. We should teach the student, not the subject.

"I had fun in your class today."

"I had fun in your class today. I think MO Physics is a good idea," a student told me as I was leaving school today.

Students often tell me my class is fun, but I was surprised to hear it today. We didn't do a lab. We didn't play an educational game. We didn't watch a video. We didn't go outside. We did worksheets and bookwork! Since when did that become fun? Since she took charge of her own learning by doing MO Physics!

Following the lesson plan I publish online, she and her teammates assigned themselves bookwork to learn the next physics skill in the sequence and prepare themselves to demonstrate mastery of it to me. I watched them in class and I thought to myself that I'd never seen students dig in like this. They really were poring over the textbook, taking notes, discussing the concepts, calling me over occasionally to answer a question. Looking on, I would have characterized it as hard work, but not fun. I'm delighted that she had fun at such hard work as learning physics.

MO Physics is a program I introduced to my high school physics classes this week. I'm piloting it this year to work out the kinks and to determine whether I will continue with it next year or pull back from it. It is aimed at differentiating instruction toward the high-performing end of the class population, providing a way for them to move at a faster pace than the class, and freeing up my time to work more with the low-performing end. I've been surprised at the high level of enthusiasm it has elicited so far from the students.

Working with teens, I'm well aware that they will enthusiastically jump into something new and then let it quickly peter out. I'm eager to see how student engagement looks a few weeks from now, after the newness has worn off. The students are aware that this is a pilot program, and right now we are enjoying together the excitement of trying something unconventional.