AER and Educational Reform: Makin' It Work

From Free Info Society

Whenever people start talking about A.E.R., I hear the letters being "sung" by Johnny Rotten.  Somehow it seems to help.

So we're getting to a point that it might all be feasible.  Change is always hard, but I feel like I'm over the hump.  There are still thing I disagree with, but I'm finding ways to work within the new system.

Do I feel like a sell-out?  Strangely, yes I do.  There's a stubborn part of me that says that what I was doing for the past 22 years was gold, dammit, so how dare people ask me to change it all because of questionable theories with limited evidence of success.  And there are a few things that I'm still trying to repackage with the new jargon and within the new boundaries rather than relinquish them entirely  That feeling was addressed a bit in this 15-minute video which was played for us during our last staff meeting.  I'd like to complain further about the repackaging process that happens repeatedly over the years - and how sometimes it just seems like the ministry is looking for something to validate its existence - but that's fruitless at this point.  I'll grade how things are going right now as far as I've been implementing the changes (and as far as I understand them).  This will be long, so I'll use headings (and letter grades because I'm really old school):


Plagiarism Policy - A+

It's not an option anymore.  I'm left baffled by the implication that it was acceptable at some point.  In my philosophy class last year, I had a whole group who actually had no idea how to cite sources.  This was brand new.  It's something I learned in grade four, and I still have the Cats of Ancient Egypt project to prove it, but somehow it's gotten overlooked over the years.  I've encouraged my grade 10 civics and history teaching colleagues to make it a bigger part of the course so it's not such an issue in grade 12.  This year in my civics class, of course, I went through how to cite sources at the end and throughout the text with our first project, and they learned it well.  But for the second project, despite reminders that sourcing is worth 15%, not a single student used in-text citations.  "We don't have to do that all the time, do we?"  Yes, and forever.  It should always have been a strongly-worded policy - and I think it always was - but at least we're being reminded of that now.


Explicit Learning Goals - C- 

Photo cred: IMDB

We were told to make our learning goals and success criteria explicit to the students - on the board or screen - at the start of every class.  That jogged a long-forgotten memory of an episode of the 80s sitcom, Head of the Class.  The teacher of a gifted class had issues with the principal insisting that his daily aims must be on the board.  That was aired 27 years ago, and it's still an issue.  The problem?  My first concern is that it seems contrived or just too obvious to clarify that by the end of the class you'll have a working understanding of this ethical theory and be able to prove it by applying the theories to current issues.  They'll get what we're doing when we do it.  And I've found most students don't really care about the curriculum expectations - that's my job.  But Howard Hesseman's response (couldn't find it as much as I searched) was to the effect that clarifying aims or goals at the beginning of a class limits the scope of our exploration.  If we start with the intention to get our heads around Kant's categorical imperative, we might get sidetracked into a discussion of current governmental actions, which will satisfy a political philosophy expectation, but not necessarily the ethics one that we're supposed to be doing today.  I like to let the class go in different directions and much more loosely guide them through the curriculum ensuring - at the end - that everything was covered.  It means that a class fascinated with politics will be spending more time on that than a class more interested in ethics.  I think that's a sound practice.


Mastery Learning - B-

We have a conundrum.  We have two roles as teachers, and they don't always work well together:  we are to teach students the material, and we have to prepare them for the future.  In order to satisfy the first role recent practices in my school include allowing students extra time to write tests and do projects, and allowing them to completely re-write tests and re-do assignments until the results are excellent.  I took many art classes in university, and re-submitting forever was a standard practice.  We can improve our technique and solidify our understanding by redoing an assignment repeatedly.  Absolutely.

BUT, there's a nasty side-effect creeping up on us that affects our second role.  Students are getting complacent about that first try.  I recently gave a test that was 2/3rds as long as the one for the same unit last year.  A few students said they couldn't finish, but insisted they would do the rest later today, or maybe after the weekend.  Offer denied!  I said the mark stands because (a) the test was shorter than tests from the previous year, (b) the course shifted from an M to a U, so it should actually be more difficult now, and (c) now that you've seen the test, what's stopping you from going over your notes, and how could that possibly be fair to everyone else who wrote the test without their notes?

If we let them re-write forever, then why should they try on that first test or assignment?  This new practice of giving re-writes until they get it leads some to slack off for the first test assuming there will be more.  They work slowly, lackadaisically, during the test period.  A little anxiety can be a good thing!  And then mastering that first curriculum expectation takes far longer than it reasonably should.  Instead of a re-write or letting them finish, I told them that if their test isn't consistent with the other tests we have, I'll just ignore it IF they come to a lunchtime study session to go over the test with me.  

These types of practices also lead to students having very low expectations of their own abilities.  I had a guest speaker from Human Resources at a local business come to talk to a grade 10 careers class.  She said if someone's late once, they get a warning, but the second time, they're just fired on the spot.  Students rebelled at the idea:  it's outrageous to expect them to be on time every single day!  That's impossible!  They think that, because they haven't had to make it possible for themselves yet.  If they're late for class, they get a late pass, but nothing comes of it.  I fear we are setting them up for big, horrible surprise.  

We had a good discussion about why time matters for a test though, because, really, isn't it about showing we learned the content, not showing we learned the content quickly?  Here's my response:

1.  I had a former student with an IEP, so she was allowed extra time on tests.  But instead of giving her 1.5 times the test duration, teachers pretty much gave her unlimited time.  In university, they took the test away from her at exactly 1.5 times the test duration, and she failed three of four courses first term.  That a $3000 lesson.  She blamed it on a school system that set no boundaries for her so she never learned how to write quickly or budget her time on tests.  I have been totally guilty of that, but no more.  Students need to learn how to take a test efficiently within a specific time.  We're training them for the next hoop to jump through for sure, but even if we don't like that model, it's still necessary to do, or they could end up with costly failures post-secondary or in the workplace.  The final exam for a course shouldn't be the first time they have to work themselves up to write on the day for a limited time with no re-writes available.

2.  Answering within a time limit is a measure of content knowledge.  If I'm reviewing in class, and someone takes ten minutes to think of the answer to a factual questions, then I tell him/her that s/he needs to study more - to know this stuff cold.  Similarly on a test, if someone needs a lot of time to answer factual questions, then they're showing that they really don't know the material very well.  At my first logic midterm in university, a student left after 20 minutes of an hour-long exam.  After getting back the tests, many complained they didn't have enough time.  But, the prof countered that the person with the highest mark finished in a third of the time allotted.  If you don't know it well enough to get it on paper in three times the time necessary, then you don't really know it.  You shouldn't be figuring out how to do the problems during the test; you should come knowing how to do them because you've been practicing for weeks.

3.  It's not just about knowing the answers, but about being able to communicate effectively in a timely fashion.  We're not supposed to evaluate their ability to communicate, but it goes part and parcel with their ability to write an exam or essay.  It's unrealistic to suggest we avoid evaluating it.  How is that even possible?

And then I granted that some people do have an unfair disadvantage because they're better orally than in writing, and I suggested maybe they could take my tests orally.  BUT I later regretted that suggestion.  They don't have IEPs saying that they must be given oral exams, so next year they won't have learned how to cope with writing a test if they were never made to do it this year.  I might be accommodating them into future failure.  And that's not good.


No Late Mark Deductions and No Zeros - C-

This is another skill we're not supposed to evaluate, but the able to organize thoughts and create products in a timely fashion is pivotal to success in life.  No job allows all the time in the world.  I can't imagine telling my principal that I need a few more weeks to get my marks together for the report cards.  That just doesn't happen.  Some profs take away their assignment collection box at a specific time, and anything not in there is given a zero.  The practice we use in high schools needs to have some correlation to the universities, colleges, and workplace.  Because it's so markedly different, at the very least we have to come to a meeting point part way through the grade 12 courses - something between handing it in whenever and re-do it forever if it's not perfect, and getting a zero or getting fired if it's one minute late.

Again, we're stuck between our two roles.  As far as training kids for the future, this policy fails.  But when it comes to actually measuring ability, it's, well, okay.  People say it's not a true evaluation of an assignment if there are late marks deducted, but, for most kids, late marks are never deducted.  We just need some consequence in there to motivate them to get it in gear, and it worked!  They got things in on time!

We still need a motivating consequence, and we need a way to make it fair for students who get work in on time, and those that hand it all in at the end of the year.  We can't expect some students to write a 1,000 word essay in a week, when others have months.  In my classes I make the assignment expectations grow by every day it's past the due date.  A two-page assignment due in October might end up being 15 pages if it's not received until June.  I also tell my students that I'll be introducing the next big assignment the day after this one is due, so if they don't get it finished on time, it'll all start piling up.  That helps some improve their organizational skills.

If students don't hit the deadlines, they don't get the feedback they need to build on the development of these skills and knowledge within the rest of the course.  That won't be enough to get them to get it in on time, so extending the length of the assignment will have to do.


Gradual Release - A-

This is a good idea, but it's often poorly implemented.  We need to wean kids off all our help and scaffolding and formative feedback and process work.  Full release needs to be complete by midterm of grade 12 courses at the latest in order for students to be successful in post-seconary institutions where they're given an assignment and a due date without discussion or clarification much less scaffolding.  Kids need to learn how to scaffold for themselves.   My first essay has four mandatory process checks and doing them counts for 10% of the essay mark (although it's formative, and really shouldn't count at all, but then they actually DO it - shhh!).  Then for the second essay, I still have four process checks, but they're entirely voluntary and not worth any marks.  Students should know, after the first essay, how much guidance they might need from me for the second one and seek me out for help - just like they'll have to do next year.   We just have to remember to let go of their hands for this one!


Formative Work - A-

The dilemma with this one, is, if quizzes and process work and practice assignments are not evaluated on the report card, then students won't do them.   I like this even though I break the rule within my essays.  Maybe that's why I'm okay with it!   Instead of including a process mark, I could just refuse to mark the essay until I receive all the process work.  But my way is so much faster.  Hence the dilemma.  AND that first essay could easily be seen as a formative project working towards the second essay since they measure the same things.

It's really a bit of a game to figure out what's formative and what's not.  Quizzes leading up to a test are formative, but aren't tests really leading up to an exam, and therefore formative.  Maybe just the exam should count.  But then, isn't all of high-school really formative leading up to what-have-you?  What really is the final evaluation of understanding of a course?  I've had philosophy courses that I finally understood about a decade later.  This is a good reason for a pass/fail distinction instead of a number grade.  But within our scope, we have a final due date, and it's reasonable to have a few things that we can add to our evaluation of a student's ability and knowledge.

I don't mind that most formative work, quizzes and homework questions, don't count for anything.  Students soon figure out that they're failing because they're not doing any of the practice work.  And some students really don't need to do the practice anyway.  I'm fine with that too.  This is the section that ensure students figure out what they can and can't do and act on it to improve their chances of success.

A problem comes, however, that those little things can help some kids pass.  And without marks attached, the kids that would have done them, won't, and then won't make it.  But maybe that's a more honest appraisal of their ability in the course.

And a big barrier to success of this part of the program, from my vantage point as a teacher and a mom, is timely feedback of formative work.  If kids don't get their practice work marked and returned before the test or the big assignment, they have no idea if they're solid with the work.  I come from a business background where turnarounds times were met or else you're warned, then fired.  I think we need 24-hour turnaround for marking formative work - or another suitable number set by departments.  But we need something concrete that we're held to by students and parents.  A great way to teach good work skills is to model them, and many students see work piling up on desks rather than work pro-actively being diminished.

Essential Learnings - A+

I love that students have to pass all the assignments and tests for a course in order to get the credit.  

  

Triangulating marks - N/A 

I don't really get this one clearly enough to evaluate.  We have assignments we evaluate, but we're also to evaluate the student through observations and conversations.  This "triangulates" the mark to ensure an accurate reflection of the student's knowledge and ability.  

But what does this look like?  If a student fails a test, but was answering questions during the review, then I'll likely take a second look at their test.  Something might have interfered with their ability on that day.  But what if it works the other way?  What if they do well, but when asked questions they can't answer them?  Do we lower their test mark?  


Overall it works out to about a 78%.  I'm not impressed, but it'll do - until the government changes again, and it's all replaced by the next new and improved educational policy.  

ETA, Thanks, Anon, for the blast from the past: