The Double-Edged Sword
of Success
By Jill Jenkins
When
assessment is used effectively, it can dramatically improve students’ learning;
however, when it is used incorrectly, it obstructs students’ learning. Backward design offers educators the best alternative
to improving student performance. First,
teachers should ask what learning goal is to be taught. Since the Common Core has 37 Learning goals
in Language Arts alone with additional subordinate learning goals under many of
them, a teacher has many to select from.
Second, determine how the student will demonstrate mastery of the goal.
That means design an assessment that will demonstrate that the child has
learned the goal. Third, design a
variety of methods to teach the goal. Keep in mind that students learn in
different ways, so each learning goal must be approached using multiple
learning styles. Finally, what will the
teacher do when for the students who do not demonstrate mastery of the learning
goal? Remember, summer school is not an option because school districts don’t
have the capital. Surprise we aren’t finished yet. After the students complete the assessment,
the data from the test needs to be evaluated.
All of the teachers in the school should have given the same assessment,
but they may not have taught the learning goal in the same way. To be effective, the scores of all of the
teachers should be compared. The
techniques of the teachers who were the most successful should be shared with
those who are less successful. If there
is a teacher who is continually less successful, the administrator needs to
evaluate the teacher’s effectiveness and offer either support or terminate the
teacher.
This
all sounds very logical and effective to math and science teachers; however, if
you teach English Language Arts, teaching one learning goal and never returning
to it, does not make sense. Writing and
reading skills need to be revisited again and again with more difficult reading
and writing assignments for the learner to master it. The learning pattern is more of a spiral than
a straight line. However, if teachers look
at the fundamental data on writing assignments and see trends where students
are weaker, it can be used to bolster weaker areas of instruction. For example, if teachers ask all of the
students to compose the same essay and after the writing samples are graded,
they should compare students’ use of the six traits: idea development,
organization, appropriate voice, word choice, sentence fluency and conventions. Perhaps students are not using appropriate
detail in their writing, so the teachers determine that will be their goal on
the next writing assignment and develop a variety of activities both reading
and writing to help students become more aware what good writing should look
like and how they can apply that to their writing. Perhaps students are not
using correct M.L.A. documentation, so that should be the focus of upcoming
assignments. Conventions, however, need
to be taught daily to ensure that students master them and apply them in their
writing. Often time, failure to
proof-read is the reason for deficiency in that area. Determining why students
are struggling will improve instruction. Teaching reading and writing needs to
be more product-oriented than many other subjects, especially because that is how
the Common Core will be evaluated them.
Many of
the less effective teachers take a different approach to planning learning
experiences for their students. Activities
that seem fun but are really not based on a particular learning objective seem
to be the major focus of their teaching.
Even school districts often take their focus off the objective and promote
this because they get more P.R. for the district. Public support is important for a district so
giving an award to the best six word poem, may seem productive, but is it
really? I am not saying that activities
that are entertaining to students are not productive. Many of them are highly effectively. I am saying that it is important to carefully
select the activities to will give students the biggest bang for the buck. What are they learning? What makes this activity effective? Teachers have to continually analyze and ask
questions. Districts should be doing the
same thing? Make sure the activities
that your class, your school and your school district will actually improve the
education of your students. If it is not
a productive activity, eliminate it.
Time is more important than money.
These students have a mammoth job to effectively master every learning
goal in The Common Core.
It is
difficult for teachers to clinically, and coldly analyze the results of their
teaching, but it is imperative if they are going to be highly effective in the
21st Century. Older teacher
with decades of experience and new teachers fresh out of college, all have to
sit down together and share teaching ideas and approaches based on student
performance on assessments. The problems
that are created by a strong willed teacher who refuses to be part of the group
can destroy any change of a successful team emerging. Administrators who insist that teacher
present material precisely the same like robots can also destroy a team’s
effectiveness. Teachers need to be able
to experiment with the presentation of material while being held accountable to
the assessment. Open discussions about
how to approach students who are struggling will be more effective in groups if
the team can brainstorm a variety of different methods. Furthermore, open
discussions bring insight into particular problems an individual student is
facing or his family is facing. Divorce,
financial difficulties, a death in the family and a myriad of other problems
can negatively impact a child’s ability to concentrate in school. If the teacher can learn from other educators
about the child’s situation, it can become a tool to help connect with the
child and improve that child’s ability to learn. Successful techniques used by
other teachers to connect with a particular student can become an invaluable
asset to another teacher. Sharing
information and teaching ideas can improve teaching and learning.
Most
teachers have limited time to find all of the resources available on the
internet or application. As a result, it would be extremely useful for
districts to provide workshops and specialists who can share with various
teaching teams this new technology.
Demonstrating to teachers how to implement these resources could greatly
enhance their presentation of materials.
Students retain more if the environment is rich with variety. Videos, projects, games, reading assignments
and writing assignments should all be used to improve their retention. This means that teachers must work together
to determine what learning goal they are teaching. Design an assessment that
all of the teachers in that group are using.
Identify a variety of instructional techniques. Evaluate the results of the assessment and
prepare a plan for improving instruction for the individual students who did
not pass and for the teachers who also seem to be struggling: the double edged
sword of success. If this method is used
well, students’ learning will increase and ineffective teachers will be more
easily identified and eliminated.
