Archive for the ‘
student achievement ’ Category
Sarah Pope is the publications editor for the Arbor Center for Teaching. The ACT is a non-profit organization created to train teachers in the educational philosophy of the Arbor School of Arts & Sciences, an independent elementary school in Tualatin serving grades K-8 in mixed-age classes. ACT apprentices teach alongside master teachers for two years while they earn MAT’s and licenses. The ACT’s mission also includes offering guidance to school leaders and publishing material underpinning the Arbor School curriculum, which is designed to foster active engagement in learning, concrete experiences, and interdisciplinary work. For more information on the Arbor Center for Teaching, please visit arborcenterforteaching.org. We are currently accepting applications for the 2012-14 cohort of apprentices.
Play at school conjures images of raucous playgrounds, of children freed from the constraints of the classroom for twenty minutes of exuberant, noisy fun to burn off steam so they can return to the important work of learning with fewer fidgets and greater focus. Recess is a necessary period of release during the school day, of course. But the faculty at Arbor School in Tualatin recently devoted some energy to considering the ways in which play is embedded in all that we teach in grades K-8. We find that when we bring play into the classroom it provides a means to push for greater depth in students’ development of intellect, character, and creativity. Play in the service of rigorous thinking, of developing the mastery and imagination necessary to improvise and innovate, and of making us better humans permeates our teaching from mathematics to music.
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Category:
student achievement |
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Tags: ACT, Arbor Center for Teaching, Arbor School of Arts & Sciences, Cara VanGorder-Lasof, Daniel Shaw, Laura Frizzell, Leigh Wood, Lori Pressman, MAT, play, play at school, recess, Sarah Pope, Tualatin
I suspect I’m like many parents nowadays, who wonder how to be helpful to high school-aged children when advising them what fields of study and career paths to consider pursuing. As opposed to when I was getting an education, there is a much higher level of anxiety about employability for young people. It used to be, you went to college, got a degree and assumed a job would be available. Given the current realities of the American economy, that is no longer the case.
For better or worse, this means there is a higher premium on educational programs that result in marketable skills. Sisters School District is hoping to beef up such programs with a two-pronged effort that would 1) get high-achieving kids aware of and well positioned for STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) and other academically-intensive fields of study, and 2) get kids who are vocationally-oriented informed about what it takes to be qualified for work in those sectors.
Dependent on the results of private grant requests, the District intends to “strengthen the jobs pipeline” by providing an integrated program of career-related learning, work-based experience and college admissions preparation to complement grade 5 through 12 instruction.
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Category:
student achievement |
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Tags: ASPIRE, Bend, college readiness, high school counseling, Merry Ann Moore, Oregon, Sisters School District, Sisters Science Club, VentureBox
Carol S. Witherell began her career in education teaching primary grades in the Fountain Valley Public Schools in California in the 1970s. She earned her M.A. degree in social ecology and human development from the University of California-Irvine and her Ph.D. degree in educational psychology from the University of Minnesota. She retired from the Graduate School Education Faculty of Lewis & Clark College in 2005, where she chaired the teacher education program for 8 years. Today she is an avid supporter of the arts and a volunteer with the City Club of Portland.
A Series of Four Film-Dialogue Evenings sponsored by City Club of Portland’s Agora Programs Education Committee
This series aims to activate a deeper, sustained educator-student-citizen dialogue about what a good education for the 21st century looks like. The series includes portraits of highly successful schools and classrooms, both in our region and around the world, followed by presentations by a panel of educators, students, and community leaders and dialogue between audience participants and our panelists. Portraits like these can inspire ongoing civic dialogues on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as educators and citizens alike rethink and transform our educational system so that all students can enjoy excellence, engagement, and equity in our schools.
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Category:
professional development for educators, research, student achievement, Student Success |
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Tags: 2 million minutes, Carol Withrell, Chalkboard Project, City Club of Portland, Communities and Parents for Public Schools, COSA, Ethos Music, Film Series, Friends of the Children, I have a dream foundation, IDEA, PPS, Project-based learning, PSU, stand for children, The Finland Phenomenon, Volunteers of America
Dr. Mike Schmoker’s most recent book, Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning has some key messages worth serious consideration. He argues persuasively for attending first and foremost to the improvement of curriculum and instruction – at the exclusion of everything else. And, he asserts, if we focus on what matters most, we can rapidly improve student achievement across the board.
Here are his key messages:
- The curriculum that is actually taught is the one that matters. The scope of the written, adopted curriculum (often expressed as standards) is far too broad and often littered with low value targets. Grade level teams of teachers should work to reach professional agreements on a limited set of “power” learning outcomes – and then all teach to them with no exception.
- We know how to teach the curriculum. We don’t have to wait for the discovery of effective techniques. Effective instruction is not mysterious or even especially difficult to implement. Every teacher in every classroom in every school needs to focus on the basics of instruction until they become routine and automatic.
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Category:
curriculum, student achievement, Student Success |
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Tags: curriculum, Curriculum scope, Dr. Schmoker, Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning, Mike Schmoker, student improvement, teacher instruction
T.J. Chandler is the founder of EdZapp, Oregon’s statewide online employment application, and is now the Regional Director of Operations for Netchemia, LLC working with K-12 teacher and administrator evaluations. T.J. was formerly the Director of Business Applications for the New York City Board of Education, and has worked with over one hundred school districts across the country on operational and human capital issues. T.J. holds degrees from Willamette University and Princeton University.
As some celebrate the 10th anniversary of NCLB and others curse it, I ask, “What have we learned from it?” In particular, I am intrigued by certain parallels between evaluating “student achievement” and “teacher performance.”
Some Parallels
Like the discussions 10-15 years ago about students “falling behind” and “dropping out,” policy-makers realize that there is a problem with teacher effectiveness and attrition. The tough part for both problems, of course, is specifying–in meaningful and legally-defensible terms–which individuals are having trouble, and even more importantly how to help them improve.
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Category:
curriculum, Early Learning, education achievement gap, education reform, student achievement, Student Success, Teacher Effectiveness, teacher performance evaluations, teaching strategies |
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Tags: Danielson Framework for Teaching, EdZapp, Head Start, INTASC, NCLB, New Teacher Project, T.J. Chandler, teacher evaluations, value-added model, VAM, Widget Effect
On Wednesday, January 11, Chalkboard Project successfully held its first virtual brown bag as a part of a series of webinars that will focus on relevant news about education issues in Oregon. It was titled, “Educator Evaluation: How it drives student achievement,” and it featured talks from local, state and national policy experts and educators.
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Category:
Chalkboard Project, CLASS Project, community involvement, student achievement, teacher performance evaluations |
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Tags: Chalkboard Project, educator evaluation, evaluation teaching, student achievement, webinar
When it first came out in 2001, I, like most teachers, saw NCLB as a direct threat to public education. The day after the Obama presidential election, there was a movement afoot among teachers in my building to print out ESEA/ NCLB and have a burying ceremony in the school garden. Our ceremony never came to fruition, and neither did the immediate revision of the act that has all but buried educators.
The Negatives
The problem with NCLB was its reliance on one test to judge the quality of schools. The judgments were harsh and extreme; they ranged from mandatory tutoring, to closing schools. There were no funds provided to mitigate poor programs. If politicians really had student success in mind, there would have been more money to help struggling performers, or, the measure would have targeted individual student progress over time. The punitive nature of NCLB focused on what we in teaching try to stay away from: motivation through threats.
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Category:
education reform, funding, student achievement, Teacher Effectiveness, teacher performance evaluations, teaching strategies |
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Tags: achievement gaps, Blueprint for Reform, ESEA, evaluation teaching, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, Quality of Schools, Ruth Wallin
A few years ago I was getting a haircut in the Hollywood District when my barber asked me what I did for a living. “I teach 12th graders,” I replied. He then said, “Whoa, do they give you combat pay for that?”
I chuckled at his comment, assuming he was joking. He wasn’t. He went on to talk about how it must be difficult to work with high school students, and how I probably was on the fast track to sainthood for spending my days with them. I didn’t dispute him because it was a sentiment that I had heard before. I could see it any time I sat on the MAX on my way home from Gresham, and watched adults wince whenever a gaggle of teens entered the car. This always struck me as strange, because I loved teaching high school students, and even on my worst day in the classroom, I felt I was doing critical work for our nation’s future (and having a lot of fun in the process).
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Category:
student achievement, Student Success |
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Tags: combat pay, high school education, secondary education
The goal of determining how much a teacher or school contributes to student academic achievement growth is a complicated and difficult aspiration. Under ideal conditions, reasonable estimates can be theoretically determined. But, the real world is far from ideal and the risk of classification errors is high.
A classification error occurs when a student, teacher or school is incorrectly assigned to a performance category. For instance, a school may be labeled as exceeding expectations for achievement growth, when, in reality, it only meets expectations – or vice versa.
Since many decisions ranging from public disclosures to employee compensation are at stake, we need to pursue the best VAM available and fully explain the level of uncertainty that goes with each rating. And if the uncertainty is too great, decisions should be deferred.
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Category:
student achievement, Student Success |
1 Comment »
Tags: cognitive ability, Ron Smith, value-added model, VAM
The recent release of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) provides results that should give all Oregonians cause for great concern. Most NAEP measures for Oregon students are disheartening. Oregon is now one of five states where the overall achievement gap widened between 2003 and 2011. Additionally, low-income students in Oregon rank among the lowest performing in the nation and have lost ground since 2003. This information invites questions that should be in the forefront of Oregon’s attempt to restructure educational delivery. What will it take to declare a statewide breakdown? What is Oregon’s commitment to close the achievement gap?
NAEP Report Overview
Also known as the Nation’s Report Card, NAEP is the only tool we have to assess which states appear to be making progress in academic achievement. While we recognize the limits of NAEP, simultaneously the results should not be ignored. One advantage of this national assessment is the opportunity to assess progress over time. Another dimension of interest is the opportunity to disaggregate results and examine how different student subgroups fare compared to others across the country.
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Category:
education achievement gap, minorities in education, student achievement |
3 Comments »
Tags: Abby Block, accountability, achievement gap, Dan Jamison, NAEP, Oregon achievement gap
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