More Pondering On Midterm and Final Exams…

On By Patrick LarkinIn Education, Exams, Midterm Exams, Standardized Testing, Testing effectLeave a comment

image via http://edsworld.files.wordpress.com/

Last week’s initial post on the value of traditional midterm and final exams drew quite a bit of interest. Due to the great discussions that I had with people in the comment section of the original post, on Twitter, and face-to-face, I was made aware of a few posts and articles that also touched upon this topic. You can check them out below:

Are Midterms Really Necessary In A Climate Of Assessment? – By Dawn Casey-Rowe on Teach Thought

In this post, Casey-Rowe describes is clear about her disdain for mid-term exams and also the fact that we have much better options to monitor the progress of our students in this day and age.

“It’s time for midterms. I hate midterms. They take up so much time–several days of review, a week of administering, and then all the correcting. To top it off, they place students in a high-anxiety environment. I feel like I’m hazing them rather than teaching…And all of this is unnecessary. I can tell if a student understands without a week of exams. We have the technology and the pedagogy to microassess students.”

‘The Procedure’ and how it is harming education – via Marion Brady in The Washington Post’s The Answer Sheet

In this article Brady discusses the “The Procedure” which has come to play such an integral role in our nation’s schools. 

“The Procedure: 1. Take notes during lectures, and hi-lite key sentences in the textbook. 2. Before a big test, load the notes and hi-lited passages into short-term memory. 3. Take the test. 4. Flush short-term memory and prepare for its re-use. 

It’s no exaggeration to say that just about everybody in the country thinks The Procedure isn’t just acceptable but essential. It’s so broadly used, so familiar, so taken-for-granted, that many schools and universities go to great pains to accommodate it. Some even have rituals to enhance it. 

 The Procedure, of course, is called “cramming.” Do it well and it leads steadily up the academic ladder.

But here’s a question: Does The Procedure have anything do with educating?”

Bye-bye, Blue Books? – Harvard Magazine

This article from Harvard Magazine actually ran back in the summer of 2010 regarding a change to the faculty members’ handbook which took away the mandate of a three-hour exam at the end of each course. 

“The administrative logic aside, reversing the default procedure for scheduling examinations reflects a pedagogical reality. It appears that finals are going the way of the dodo.”

American Schools Need More Testing Not Less – by Ezekiel J. Emanual in New Republic

My short summation of this article is that it is a call for more formative assessments in an era where high-stakes standardized testing is taking to much of our focus.

“In the modern era, when information can be more easily—and accurately—Googled than mentally recalled, old-fashioned testing strikes its critics as obsolete…
But it turns out that the right kinds of assessments—frequent, short tests—can actually yield big educational benefits. It’s called the “testing effect…”

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Now The Fun Starts!

On By Patrick LarkinIn Best Practices, Evidence Collection, teacher evaluationLeave a comment

This post originally appeared on the Burlington Public Schools Evaluation Blog

It only took half of the school year, but we are finally ready to start focusing our evaluation discussions on best practices! While I know that these conversations take place frequently among teachers daily, the most exciting part of implementing a new teacher evaluation process is the opportunity to put mechanisms in place to amplify and focus the conversations surrounding best practices.  While we have talked about our hopes for a widespread discussion among BPS educators focused on the Great Eight, the reality is that the first half of the school year has been focused on increasing awareness of the process and supporting staff in the development of goals and learning about the technology that will be utilized to archive and share evidence.

However, with deadlines approaching for some staff to share evidence of meeting goals and standards with their evaluators, I am excited that staff members will have the opportunity to share the variety of ways that they meet and exceed the standards that are in place. Our first focal point will be evidence regarding the Family and Community Engagement standard (Standard 3).  Teachers without professional teacher status (non-PTS) will need to share 2-3 artifacts with their evaluator showing evidence of meeting this standard. Of course, they may share other pieces of evidence related to meeting any of the Great Eight and/or their goals, but the immediate focus will be on Standard 3. We also encourage teachers with professional teacher status to start archiving evidence as well, but the deadline for this is a few months away.

In order to support all staff in this process and to facilitate a conversation to share the numerous ways that BPS educators meet all of the standards, we will be dedicating our February 12th Professional Development time at the elementary level to this work. We will also be utilizing faculty meeting time at the middle and high school level to do similar activities. 

In the meantime, please check out the suggestions in the document below for some concrete examples of how educators can show evidence of meeting the Family and Community Engagement Standard. 

//www.scribd.com/embeds/199938490/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-2k97749nokae8jhmu930&show_recommendations=true

Parenting In The Digital Age Presentation

On By Patrick LarkinIn Digital CitizenshipLeave a comment

BHS Instructional Technology Specialist Jennifer Scheffer co-presented with me this evening at our Parent Technology Night on the topic of Parenting in the Digital Age. We are sharing the presentation and links to resources that we discussed during the hour session below. We look forward to this ever-evolving conversation regarding the online lives of our students and how we can continue to support and educate parents in supporting their children.

The evening began with the great video below What Kids are (Really) Doing Online from Cyberwise.org.

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/YdLR4ANs2AI

Links and Resources shared tonight

Parent Resources from the Burlington High School Student Help Desk

How To Follow Your Child (or Anyone) On Twitter Without Joining Twitter

Resources from Google’s “Good To Know” Guide to Staying Safe & Secure Online
Resources from Common Sense Media
Parent guides provided by ConnectSafely.org
Resources from Facebook’s Family Safety Center
Resources from Joe Mazza- Lead Learner, Knapp Elementary School, Penn.
eFace Today-Joe’s parent centered blog
Resources from Edutopia
Transition Resources for Parents (elementary, middle, and high school transition advice)
The PBS Parents Page (Resources for Pre-K through high school)
Resources from parent, author, blogger, and speaker Will Richardson

The Best Of This Week’s Burlington Public Schools Weekly Twitter Paper – January 13

On By Patrick LarkinIn Twitter PaperLeave a comment
Below are three of the top stories from our #BPSCHAT Twitter Paper from the past week along with a brief quite from each. Be sure to peruse the paper and check out all the other great resources that were shared.
Five Demands Placed On Students in A 1:1 – By Shawn McCusker

“Listening is a bigger part of the 1:1 teachers day than it used to be. It can take a while before students see the value in these explanations.  Many students still see school simplistically: Get assignment, complete assignment, turn in assignment.  Eventually classes begin to enjoy hearing how people did their work.  this is especially true when we are sharing projects.  Selfishly this change makes class more exciting for me too.  I constantly learn new tricks and tips to share in the future.”

The Procedure and how it’s harming education  – By Marion Brady (on The Answer Sheet)

“Here’s a fact: Information overload is just one of about two-dozen serious problems directly or indirectly connected to our 19th Century core curriculum. Sadly, no, tragically, instead of rethinking that curriculum, starting with its fundamental premises and assumptions, reformers have considered it so nearly perfect they’re determined to force it on every kid in America.”

How To Lift Schools and Colleges Out of Academic Failure – By Larry Cuban 

“Over forty years ago, Seymour Sarason pointed out how creating something new was not as easy as it looked; it is incredibly complex, borrows extensively from the traditional, and often fails. Few reformers then and now heeded his insights into creating a new setting.”

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My Weekly Bookmarks – January 12, 2013

On By Patrick LarkinIn bookmarks, DiigoLeave a comment
In an attempt to reflect back upon the numerous blogs and articles that I peruse online each week, I have decided to autopost the items that I bookmark on Diigo each week. Thanks to Vicki Davis for her great tutorial on how to do this. Here are all of the links that I compiled last week in my Diigo account, with a few highlighted in more detail at the top.

 Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Pondering Mid-Term and Final Exams – What’s The Point?

On By Patrick LarkinIn Exams1 Comment

Image via http://rachellvillafranca.files.wordpress.com/

My son’s school will have mid-term exams next week and Burlington High will have them the following week. As I think about this annual event, I can’t help wondering why we even bother with these types of assessments. My understanding is that, in most cases, students will be preparing for tests that require a great deal of memorization and regurgitation of information and provide very little opportunity for students to demonstrate higher-level thinking skills.


While I am sure that a large part of the reason that we continue to administer these types of exams is to prepare students for what they will face in college, I think it’s well past the time where we do things just because they may happen at institutions of higher education.  The fact is that there is little value in students cramming large amounts of factual information into their heads for examinations in this day and age.  As Clive Thompson cites in his book Smarter Than You Think in regards to the Ebbinghaus Curve of Forgetting:

“More than half of our facts are gone in an hour, about two thirds are gone within a day, and within a month we’re down to about 20 percent.”

What are we really proving with these “Major Exams” that, in many cases, count for a huge portion of the term and/or semester grade? Couldn’t we alleviate a lot of stress by doing away with them an think of more creative ways to allow students to showcase their learning? 
  

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What Quality Learning Looks Like (For Educators and Students)

On By Patrick LarkinIn Learning, Professional DevelopmentLeave a comment

I read a great post by Shelley Blake-Plock today on edSurge titled How to Move PD Forward.  I think that the post was spot on in regards to what we need and what we don’t need in regards to Professional Development for educators. 

As I read through the post, the following two thoughts kept going through my head:

  1. I have come to dislike the words Professional Development. Why can’t we just call it learning? 
  2. I know this obvious, but the qualities that are prevalent in meaningful learning opportunities for adults are the same ones that are prevalent in meaningful learning opportunities for students. Why do we fail to see this so often?
Take the quote below from Shelley’s post and substitute the word learning in place of “professional development.”  

“The point of professional development should be in helping human beings–who in this case happen to be educators–become more fully engaged and connected with their peers…”

Of course the irony here is that if we do not create this type of learning for our educators, then we will not see the necessary shifts that also need to take place in student learning.

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The Best Of This Week’s Burlington Public Schools Weekly Twitter Paper

On By Patrick LarkinIn #BPSChat, Chris Lehmann, Shelley Wright, Twitter, Twitter PaperLeave a comment

Did you know that Burlington Pubic Schools has a weekly Twitter Paper that is published each Monday highlighting the Tweets on our #bhschat hashtag from the previous week? So whether you use Twitter or not you can stay up to speed on the top tweets and blog posts that appear on our hashtag. Click on the tabs on the right hand side of the paper to check out the top posts in each category. I have also shared a few of my favorite excerpts from the blog posts highlighted in this week’s paper below.


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“The idea that we could cram all we hope our students could learn and know into a “common core” set of skills would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that we’re trying to do it. In the end, the problem with the Common Core isn’t that it is too broad, it is that it is too narrow. It makes no attempt to teach kids the most important thing there is to understand: “The idea that we could cram all we hope our students could learn and know into a “common core” set of skills would be laughable if it weren’t for the fact that we’re trying to do it. In the end, the problem with the Common Core isn’t that it is too broad, it is that it is too narrow. It makes no attempt to teach kids the most important thing there is to understand: There is always more we can learn.” (from Chris Lehmann’s post – We Really Don’t Know What To Teach)

“If we don’t help kids connect to the entire world, not just information, but to people, are we not limiting the opportunities for these dreams to become reality? There are more opportunities for our students, not just in their future, but right now, then we could have ever envisioned. When we don’t help our students connect to those opportunities for learning and the experiences that they can have, then we are doing them a disservice.” (From George Couros’ post – Our Thinking Has To Change)

“Our school system doesn’t need to create kids who are good at school. Instead, we need to create an environment that engages learners, fosters creativity, and puts responsibility for learning where it belongs – with our students.” (From Shelley Wright’s post – Academics: What Is It Good For?)

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Essential Learning Activities Should Be The Ultimate Goal

On By Patrick LarkinIn Alfie Kohn, Education, Essential Learning, Homework, Scott McLeodLeave a comment



I caught the statement below from Lyn Hilt in the comment section of Scott McLeod’s post on whether or not parents should be allowed to have their children opt out of the use of technology in 1:1 settings. 

“Here’s an idea, engage kids in essential learning activities at school, infuse the technology meaningfully, and let kids be kids and enjoy their lives outside of school by not assigning loads of homework. (And elementary kids? Zero homework.) If kids are so inclined, with their devices they can extend their thinking at home on their own time, but don’t make it mandatory… “

I’ve written several posts on homework in the past and I can’t help wondering what students would use their time for if they had the opportunity to “extend their thinking” on topics that they found most interesting.  How much longer will we continue to ignore the research of Alfie Kohn surrounding homework? It has been nearly a decade since Kohn came to the following conclusions:

“For younger students, in fact, there isn’t even a correlation between whether children do homework (or how much they do) and any meaningful measure of achievement.  At the high school level, the correlation is weak and tends to disappear when more sophisticated statistical measures are applied.  Meanwhile, no study has ever substantiated the belief that homework builds character or teaches good study habits.”

I grow continually frustrated as I see my own students spending their time on so many low-level, rote tasks that really serve no essential purpose in preparing them for what they will face when it is time to prove that they have marketable skills that would be an asset to some organization. When they do find time to spend on some of the things that they are most interested in, I am amazed at some of the self-directed learning that they do in spite of the very traditional education they have had.  I can only imagine what the possibilities would be if my kids spent six hours a day in learning environments that focused on the self-directed and collaborative skills that they need (and long for). 

We need to change this cycle…

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Digital Learning: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

On By Patrick LarkinIn Disruptive Innovation, E-learning, Learning, National Council of Teachers of English, predictionsLeave a comment

ipads with students

As we enter a new calendar year, it is interesting to reflect on the changes we are seeing in regards to the impact of digital resources on the way we learn.  One thing I feel strongly about is that as long as we look at digital learning as something extra or separate, we will not be where we need to be. The fact of the matter is that we need to put aside the debates about which technology is the right one for students to access (i.e. tablet vs. Chromebook) and embrace the idea that there is a rapidly expanding number of digital tools that can enhance learning when thoughtfully employed.  In fact, knowing which resource to choose and when to utilize it is imperative for those who wish to be considered literate in the years ahead.

The National Council of Teachers of English has a framework which emphasizes that students must “Develop proficiency and fluency with the tools of technology”

Students in the 21st century should have experience with and develop skills around technological tools used in the classroom and the world around them. Through this they will learn about technology and learn through technology. In addition, they must be able to select the most appropriate tools to address particular needs.

Unfortunately, the discussions on education in 2013 has been too focused on which technological devices schools are incorporating into their classrooms and less about how schools are rethinking education and creating more inquiry-based opportunities for students. Hopefully 2014 can focus less on the stuff and more on the substantive changes that are possible when we think about the opportunities that can be afforded all students if we begin to embrace the possibilities for differentiation  to meet the needs of all students.

The video short below from Michael Horn, co-founder and Executive Director of Education at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, makes some good points in regards to the past year and what we can expect in 2014.  I hope that Horn’s predictions that we will see some interesting flex models that push the thinking on how schools use time, as well as, a bigger focus on competency-based learning instead of seat time ring true.

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