Re: Things We Should Stop Doing to High-Ability Students

Original article by Tamar Wyschogrod
http://smokingtowardnewjersey.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/five-things-we-should-stop-doing-to.html?spref=tw 

I have a couple of minor complaints about this article and some major comments. 

First of all, a minor complaint:  in the second paragraph, I think high-ability is equated with high-achieving. They are IMNSHO different things.  I don't object to the use of high-ability to equate to "gifted", but high-ability does not necessarily translate to high-achieving.  And high-achieving does not necessarily translate to high-ability.  That last statement needs to be explained a bit more.  While it does take a certain amount of ability in order to achieve highly, in most of the things required for school, a modest amount of ability combined with hard work and support from parents, teachers, or peers is sufficient to result in high-achievement, or at least noticeably above average achievement.

Secondly, crappy differentiation is crappy, because it is difficult, takes time, and is politically a hard sell with kids.  I have written quite a few times about the problems with touting differentiation as the solution for high-ability students.  Check the tag if you are interested, but basically, it simply isn't enough for HG+ students, teachers can't do it (conceptually difficult), and teachers don't do it (not enough time).  

I haven't ever addressed specifically the last point of the above paragraph's opening statement:  differentiation is politically a hard sell with kids.  There are a few kids, for whom getting something different is such a relief that they don't care how their classmates view it.  There are also a few kids who take getting something different to mean that they are somehow better than their classmates.  But, IME, a lot of the students react to getting something different with either embarrassment or reluctance.  They might be embarrassed because they are afraid that their classmates will take the view that they are "stuck up" or they might be embarrassed that they are singled out - "out"ed, as a smart kid, when they were just trying to "pass".  And, there are a lot of high-ability kids who look at differentiation as just more work for them to do (as the author points out).  Given a list of options for projects, they choose the easy ones, even though they aren't very challenging, because they are less work.  Not all high-ability kids WANT higher challenge work.  

Now for the rest of the article.

Group Projects.  Yes, in general, these are the bane of the high-ability students.  This comes largely from the teacher-training recommendations for group constitutions - one high-ability student, two average students, one low ability student.  High-ability student can sometimes cajole one average student into helping, but oftentimes ends up doing most of the work.  What does the low ability student learn?  That s/he is too dumb to help and it is best to just clown around so that the others don't notice.  One teacher inservice that I attended said that group projects aren't themselves the problem.  It is the make-up of the groups.  She recommended never including high-ability students with low-ability students.  Her recommendation: groups of four should have similar abilities, e.g., one or two high ability students and 2 or 3 moderate ability students.  That way, the lower ability groups can't get away with doing little or nothing, and the teacher might be able to adjust the project so that they, too, learn something (differentiation).  

Crappy Differentiation.  Already discussed.

Contests instead of Curriculum.  I like contests.  They can be interesting and motivating for gifted kids.  But I agree that they are no substitute for curriculum.  But just regular classroom differentiated curriculum isn't good enough.  It isn't challenging enough, it isn't (usually) at the correct level, and it isn't consistent enough.  High-ability kids need real and regular work.  It isn't fair to make the average kids work hard at learning and let the high-ability kids coast.  They don't learn good work habits.  They don't learn how to react to difficulties.  They don't learn how to learn.  That is why I am actually opposed to gifted advocates insisting on touting differentiation.  It isn't working.  High-ability kids need classes designed for their abilities.  The easiest way to do this is by structural changes - subject acceleration, whole grade acceleration, grouping across multiple classes, and possibly cluster-grouping.  I am still uncertain about cluster-grouping, because, as a sub,  I have yet to see it in action.  

Ignoring Their Achievements

This isn't a biggie with me.  I think schools are doing better at touting achievements of high-ability kids.  Yes, in some cases, it still feels like tokenism, but this is one area where I think schools have been reasonably responsive.  

Low Standards

It seems like, in many classrooms, there is a race to the bottom.  We don't want the low-ability kids to feel bad, so we teach lessons where all kids can achieve.  We don't require good spelling in science class, because there are kids who simply can't spell well (true, even for high-ability kids).  We don't check social studies tests for correct grammar, because it is a chore to even get them to write in complete sentences, let alone write a paragraph that is longer than two sentences.  We make tests so that everyone who learns the material can get an A.  (relevant discussion on LinkedIn Math Education).  And most importantly, we don't give teachers enough time to hold kids to higher standards.  You can't teach kids to write well, if, every time you ask them to write, you have to spend hours and hours of your own personal time - not planning time - grading those papers.  30 students X 3 minutes per paper ==> 1 1/2 hours of grading for one paper in one subject.  That is the ENTIRE planning time for 3 days.  

Thanks for some interesting food for thought to Tamar Wyschogrod.

Re: Before Reading or Watching Videos, Students Should Experiment First by David Plotnikoff

Thoughts about this article:

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/07/before-reading-or-watching-videos-students-should-first-experiment/ 

General conclusion:  it is more effective for students to experiment BEFORE learning about something through text or video than doing the same lessons in the opposite sequence (text or video first, then experimentation).

My thoughts:
I think this is true for a lot of science. When I was a kid (100+ years ago), kids had lots of active experience with science - collecting rocks, growing vegetables, building dams in the creek, using a teeter-totter. When they came to school, the science lesson used practical experience to build the theory on. Nowadays, kids have lots of virtual and digital experience, but much less hands-on experience - many have never hammered nails or fixed a bicycle or made cakes from scratch. So the theoretical lessons often aren't rooted in personal knowledge. 

In school, many teachers have found that manipulatives are difficult to manage with large classes, so those lessons have disappeared - at least it appears so to me. I am a sub and I often find unopened manipulatives and shrink-wrapped science kits in teachers' classrooms at the end of the school year. 

Many years ago, I was tasked to teach gifted classes, with no specific curriculum and few materials.  I did have a hot plate and some beakers, though, so I decided to teach a Kitchen Physics-like set of lessons - with sugar cubes, food dye, water, and the beakers and hot plate (and a thermometer).  The kids were skeptical at first.  They wanted me to tell them what to do.  So, I started with a simple experiment on how long it would take the sugar cube to dissolve in the water.  And I asked them what else they needed to know.  I helped them frame a group experiment in a scientific way.  Hypothesis, test, explain, discuss what is still unclear.  The first few times through the cycle, they didn't even know how to ask questions, but soon they caught on and were completely surprised at how interesting the simple system could be. 

Kids enjoy the hands-on lessons, but I fully agree with teachers that they are harder to manage with ever increasing class sizes and substantially less time that can be devoted to science. 

Temperature in Celsius

I have long thought that the United States should go metric, because it is a much more sensible system of measurement.  The metric system for lengths seems simple and easily understood.   A meter is quite tangible and centimeters also look familiar and comfortable.  I can even get used to grams and kilograms.  Grams are a bit too light to make complete sense, and the prefix kilo- makes it seem much heavier than it really is, but I can get used to that, too.  Liquid volumes have become more familiar, now that beverages often come in liter bottles.  I have had a harder time, though, with temperature.  So, I decided to make up a rhyme for myself to help me remember the approximate meanings of the different temperatures.  I wanted something relatively simple - possibly something I could use with kids.  Here is a poster with my first attempt.

The Importance of Grammar and Spelling

The subbing job I had today started with a daily language exercise, where the students were supposed to correct the spelling, grammar, and punctuation of passages with underlined mistakes.  This they did fairly accurately and well.  Then, later in the day, for social studies, they were presenting Prezi slide shows, with material taken directly from a textbook.  The spelling, punctuation, and grammar of the Prezi presentations was appalling.  Titles were randomly capitalized; "their" and "there" were incorrect; periods were absent from sentences; sentence and paragraph structure were incorrect, etc.  Now, I know this was a fourth grade and their skills are still developing, but it seems to me that, before they were allowed to present their Prezi to the whole class, they should have had the teacher go through the presentations with them to check for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.  This is WHY they study these topics:  so they will learn to USE them in their own writing.  Yes, I know there are exceptions and Prezi presentations can be very effective with no capital letters and purposely misspelled words.  But you need to know the correct way, in order for the incorrect way to be effective.  Otherwise, it just looks sloppy, unfinished, or unpolished.  And yes, I also know that, for some students, just doing the presentation represents massive effort.  But when the majority of the students aren't using proper writing conventions, it says to me that they aren't being told that they are important. 

This is by far not the only time I have seen this phenomenon.  Far too often, students spend significant amounts of time in language arts classes, studying grammar, spelling, punctuation, and usage, only to have those skills be completely ignored or discounted in all of their other classes.  This makes correct spelling (and the others) seem important ONLY in spelling class.  Everywhere else it is ignored.  No wonder there is such a disconnect between the subject areas.  Yes, ideas are important; yes, technological skills are important; but grammar, spelling, punctuation, and usage are also important.  Or why else do we spend so much time teaching them?

Gerald Coles: Why Bother Educating the Poor? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Gerald Coles: Why Bother Educating the Poor? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Reforming education has been a national pastime since my mother first started teaching - and my mother is now 97 years old.  But the recent (past 15 years) of reforms have been the meanest spirited at all.  In the guise of improving education, they have made it virtually impossible for teachers to enjoy being in the classroom.  There are ever increasing demands to cover ever more "standards"; there are significantly larger classes and therefore a much increased work load; teachers are required to accommodate an ever increasing list of special education students and practices; there is less provision for kids who are at the extremes of "normal".  It would almost seem as though people are determined to eradicate creativity and caring from the classroom.  Creativity is a waste of time and caring is monumentally difficult,  with so many students to take care of.

People who would have made excellent teachers are driven away from teaching or don't even consider it as a profession, because of low pay, low prestige, uncertainty in working conditions, and heavy work loads.  People who enter the profession with hope soon encounter the reality of the job and drop out of teaching in droves.  I read recently that teaching loses half of the teachers that enter the profession in 5 years. 

The increased testing regime has been discussed extensively in many places, so I am not going to address that.  I am going to discuss what I consider the most insidious of the reforms: differentiation.  On paper and in theory, this looks great.  Teachers are taught simple techniques for making lesson plans adaptable to the various ability levels of all of the students in the classroom.  What proponents of differentiation often fail to consider is the amount of extra time required to plan for a differentiated classroom and the fact that this increases with the increase in ability levels in the classroom.  A simple 5th grade lesson on the rock cycle can be an example.  There is a standard textbook, which is probably written at a 5th grade reading level.  Most of the students will be able to read it, but there will be a few who cannot.  The teacher has to find other ways of teaching the rock cycle for the students who cannot read the text - maybe an audio recording, maybe partner reading, maybe a movie, maybe a simpler book.  Each of these have to be checked to make sure they cover the standards and objectives for the lesson.  Then, there are the kids in the classroom who have special needs.  Each of their needs must be accommodated in the lesson plan.  And finally, there are probably a few gifted kids in the class, maybe even a highly gifted kid, who has studied the rock cycle extensively on his own, has a large rock collection at home, and is interested in comparing the difference in microscopic structure of granite and marble.  The teacher knows nothing about high school or college level geology and would have to struggle to find appropriate materials for this child.

All this might be do-able, if the class size were under 20, or if the teacher could count on teaching the same thing several years in a row and could gradually amass materials to use with outlier kids, or if there were a curriculum specialist would could gather appropriate materials or find a mentor.  But the recent budget cuts have boosted class sizes into the mid 30s, teachers are often reassigned year after year, depending on class numbers, the curriculum itself is redesigned on a regular basis, and the curriculum specialists have been eliminated by budgeting problems.

And, the fact of the matter is, elementary teachers are almost universally responsible for multiple lessons in one day.  When I was teaching full time, I counted 34 different lessons that I was responsible for in one week (grades K through 8, for me).  Planning for these lessons, teaching them, and assessing student progress took much more than the 30 minutes planning time I was allotted each day.  

Simply put, the job of teaching has become too much.  Teachers pay lip service to differentiation, to standards, to new technologies, but in my experience, they can't do it all.  Perhaps I see a biased sample of what most teachers are doing.  I am a substitute teacher, so teachers might, in fact, simplify the lessons they leave for me, so that a sub can handle them.  But, I look carefully for signs of differentiation or individualization or indications that the students think that the lessons I am given to teach are somehow different from what they usually do, and I don't see very much evidence for those things.  It seems to me that most of the teachers end up following the textbooks and "covering" the content they are responsible for.  There simply isn't enough time to do anything else.  Parents then wonder why their students' needs aren't considered.  They decide that the teacher is lacking or doesn't care.  And the stress piles up on the teachers. 

So what do the 1% do?  They send their kids to private schools.  I recently read the blog of a teacher who chose to teach in private schools.  She originally planned to teach in public schools, but couldn't find a job there, so took a job in a private school - and stayed in those schools.  She claimed in the blog that she was grateful for having stayed there, because they allowed her the creativity and autonomy to mold her work into an enjoyable career.

Monica Edinger's Blog

I am one of the co-founders of a private school and I helped establish that school because the public school wasn't serving the needs of my highly gifted child.  It isn't entirely in keeping with my support of public schooling, but, when it is your child, you do what you can to get them the best education you can afford.  And, people who can afford those schools often do - schools which often have smaller classes and more autonomy for the teachers. Meanwhile, the public schools are suffering.

Unclear on the Concept

I was subbing in a 6th grade recently and the warm-up question for the math lesson (directly from the teacher's manual) was something like this: A certain state has chosen to use the following format for their license plates: a single letter, followed by 5 digits. How many different license plates could they make that start with the letter A? The students were supposed to write their answers on their individual white boards and then show them to me to verify their answers.

The first answer I got was 28. I was completely baffled. Then came the other answers 15, 59, 25, etc., etc. NONE of the answers was even above 100, let alone near the correct answer. When I told the class (of 29 students) that their answers were all way too low, they started guessing above 100. But their guesses were completely (to me) random.

I decided to give them a hint: if they could use only 1 number after the A, you would have license plates A0, A1, A2, A3, ..., A9 - for 10 license plates. With two digits, you would have A00, A01, A02, ... A99 - giving you 100 license plates. They still didn't get it.

Pedagogically, I was so baffled by their lack of understanding, that I missed a golden opportunity to ask them what their reasoning was. I wish I had asked. "My bad", as they say. But now I am left wondering how they could possibly have thought that 28, 15, 59, or 25 could be anywhere near reasonable. This was a charter school, where the kids had to be delivered to the building in cars by their parents every day and picked up at the close of the day. How could they possibly think that 28 license plates starting with A, 28 starting with B, etc., would be enough? There are nearly that many cars at that one school in one day.

I was left thinking that the thinking habits of those kids were pretty bad.

Then came the lesson. It was on the number of degrees in specific turns. Though this wasn't in the teacher's manual, I had them stand up and demonstrate turning clockwise and counterclockwise. That isn't nearly as intuitive was it was in the days of all analog clocks. Our digital kids nowadays don't seem to have quite as much familiarity with the rotation of the hands on clocks. So I had them practice. First we established that a full turn, either CW or CCW was 360 degrees. Then that a quarter turn was 90 degrees and a half turn 180.

As I expected, a lot of the students mixed up CW and CCW, until we had practiced quite a bit. What surprised me a little was that several students refused to participate at all. This is a fairly strict and structured charter school and the non-compliance was unexpected. I didn't make a big deal of it, however, since it was an unplanned part of the lesson. I was more interested in the fact that this was actually a fairly difficult exercise for 6th graders.

That was just about the whole lesson - that and a few word problems. I was not terribly impressed with the curriculum, but this is a curriculum that I am not terribly fond of, anyway, so I am not going to name it. I was more interested in the seeming lack of comprehension of the students. They could do the rote problems, but the applications seemed to baffle them.

I would love to blame it on the curriculum, but I am not so sure that that is the problem. I have seen similar things with other curricula. What seems to me to be more evident is that kids are not particularly interested in making sense of things. They are willing to learn the arithmetic procedures - essentially just memorizing "how to do the problems", but they have very little (no?) interest in understanding why things work as they do. How have we gotten such disinterested kids? Was it always this way?

I remember hundreds of years ago, when I was a child, that I wasn't particularly interested in math. I could do the problems reasonably well, but the mathematics behind the arithmetic wasn't compelling to me. I don't remember if it was taught. I just remember that I was good at math, but, to me, that meant that I was good at arithmetic.

Then came my own 6th grade. The math teacher taught us about number bases - the reason behind carrying and borrowing when you get to the number of the base. It was, for me, a whole new ball game. Math became much more interesting. But that kind of enlightenment was sporadic. I remember asking several times in calculus classes how calculus was used, but I usually got either completely useless answers (It is used in everything!) or vague answers (In physics it is used to derive the laws of motion).

So now, I am wondering: it is counterproductive to try to explain mathematical reasoning to young children? Perhaps they just need to learn to do arithmetic very well. Then, in middle school or high school, with a bit more mature brains, they should take a class called number theory - and learn the reasoning behind the algorithms.

It is scary, though, to think that kids have so little practical understanding of math that they can't see the unreasonableness of the answer 28 for the number of license plates starting with A and having 5 numbers following the A.

Even I Get Tired of My Complaints

I was subbing the other day in a technology class and, since the regular teacher hadn't sent in lesson plans, his friend, the librarian, was explaining what the kids were supposed to do. That much is fine, but why did I detect a note of "this is probably too hard for you to understand or do much about" in his explanation? True, I am older and probably don't look all that technology literate, but why is that an assumption? I actually have a master's degree in computer science. True, it is a bit outdated, but I have learned things in the meantime. And the teachers who stopped by to pick up printouts also seemed to have that look on their faces, that "Gee, I am surprised YOU are in this job" look.

When I sub for teachers who are actually there and who explain the day to me, I also sometimes get that look. And, even sometimes from other teachers who stop by to help. Don't get me wrong, I am VERY HAPPY when the teachers nearby offer to help (or even just introduce themselves and make me feel welcome), but I am often surprised what they offer to help with. The things that I often need are class lists (why, oh why, do elementary teachers usually forget to leave a spare class list and, if they switch classes for a certain subject, a class list for the other class as well), schedules, a map of the school, directions on where to pick up the kids after they go to lunch and recess, where the copier is in case I have to make emergency copies. Instead, what I often get is questions about whether I can handle the curriculum for the day. That isn't, by the way, usually the hardest part of the day.

Which brings me to another question: why do teachers often give busywork (a puzzle worksheet, a movie with note-taking) to a sub? The students recognize that it isn't part of what they would normally be doing. It is actually harder to get them to do work that is "easier". They recognize that it isn't important and that the regular teacher will probably just throw out any papers they do while the sub is there. What regular teachers would consider an "easy day" has frequently actually been harder for me. The only conclusion I can come to is that the regular teachers don't have much confidence in the abilities of subs. Perhaps this is justified. But in many cases it is not. I have talked to a lot of subs over the course of my years subbing and many are retired teachers, others are people new to the area, trying to get a foothold in the school district. They usually take only jobs for which they are qualified.

Perhaps the reason the regular teachers are less confident in subs is that subs DO mess up at times. Part of the problem is dealing with normal classroom routines, which the teachers often don't explain - How are requests to go to the bathroom handled? Are kids allowed to go to the library during independent reading? What do you do when the kids don't have any pencils? How do you switch the overhead projector from the document camera to the laptop?

There are lots of things that the teachers assume the subs will know or that the kids will tell them. But often the kids will tell the subs the wrong things - yes, we are allowed to wear hats in class; yes, we can chew gum; the teacher always lets us do X... And, in a few classes, where bossy kids have been designated as "helpers", I have gotten so annoyed at the "help" that I had to ask the student to stop helping me - you have to push this button to get the overhead to work; no, it must be this button; well, maybe this has to be unplugged and plugged in over here; no, maybe that was OK, but this needs to be turned on (and by that time, the whole set up is hopelessly messed up). There are times when I just want to say, "I CAN read the teacher's directions by myself." But, of course, there are also times when the teacher assumes that all subs can work their particular kinds of equipment. Guess what, subs are never trained on using the equipment - and different kinds of equipment are set up differently, are activated differently, and fail differently.

Yes, the curriculum is usually the least of my worries. But I think that probably, for the regular teachers, it is the MOST of THEIR worries, so they assume that it will be the biggest worry for the sub as well. Regular teachers are used to their equipment, their routines, their school procedures, and they don't have to be aware of them - they just ARE. Delivering the curriculum is their focus.

That, and the behavior of the students. I usually DO get warnings about the problem students.