Archive for the ‘
Student Success ’ Category
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
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 |
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Tags: cognitive ability, Ron Smith, value-added model, VAM
The following was emailed to Oregon’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Susan Castillo, on 11/07/2011:
Hi Susan – I know you’ve reviewed the most recent NAEP results as have I. The distribution of reading achievement scores for grades four and eight remained essentially unchanged as they have for roughly the last two decades. How can this be? For the last decade, in particular, on a nationwide basis we have spent billions of dollars trying to improve reading achievement. We have spent lavishly on special education, the latest curriculum programs, response to intervention strategies, early childhood literacy programs, staff development programs, technology-based remedial programs – and yet achievement has not improved. Again, how can this be?
The answer is surprisingly straightforward.
In the NEAP results we are seeing the intersection of two controlling variables, differences in cognitive ability among students and the standardization of access to learning.
If you administered a high quality cognitive ability assessment to the same students who took the NAEP reading exam, you would see that the results map to each other to a very high degree. Lower ability students present lower reading achievement and higher ability students present just the opposite.
But if you also overlaid the time provided for learning to these same students you would find it almost identical for all levels of ability – about 6 hours per day for about 180 days per year.
Ability varies (as it always has), yet instruction time is about the same (as it has been for decades). More than three quarters of the variance in test scores can be explained by these factors alone. (more…)
Category:
curriculum, student achievement, Student Success |
12 Comments »
Tags: education statistics, NAEP, student achievement
In my last blog, I explained why international comparisons of student achievement like the Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) provide an inadequate basis for justifying education reform. At the end of that blog, I suggested that there are other data sources that challenge us to think about a range of changes to public education. I now offer three data-driven rationales for reform.
The three data sets justifying serious consideration of education reform are these: (1) cohort dropout rates, (2) changes in workforce requirements, and (3) dramatic recent changes in the scope and content of the human knowledge base. Let’s consider each of these in order.
The cohort dropout rate describes the percent of students of each high school class who graduate on schedule at the end of the senior year, regardless of when a student leaves school. This statistic has drawn recent interest, as a result of the current ESEA regulations that require states to report cohort dropout rates at the state and school district levels.
The results are of concern, though they have been long recognized by educators. In Oregon, the state cohort dropout rate is about 34 percent, with a range of district rates from 14 percent to 66 percent (for districts with a least 100 students in the cohort). On a national level, the rate is estimated at around 30 percent, though we should be cautious in believing that this statistic is accurate. The national data set is compiled from state data and it is unlikely that reporting standards are identical in every state (though federal regulations should theoretically ensure consistency).
Considered independently, the cohort dropout rate is distressingly high. (more…)
Category:
curriculum, Student Success |
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Tags: high school graduation, student achievement
Last week, Dan Jamison and I were invited to help facilitate the Mid-Valley Boys and Girls Club staff retreat in Lincoln City. This Boys and Girls Club serves kids in the Mid-Willamette Valley area within the Albany, Sweet Home and Lebanon school districts and provides a fun, safe and supervised environment for recreational and educational activities. Dan and I were particularly excited about this retreat because Albany and Lebanon happen to be two of our 18 CLASS districts.
Chalkboard was invited to this retreat to provide the Boys and Girls Club with an introduction to the CLASS Project, share current state and federal education policy issues, and also provide a snapshot of some of Oregon’s student data. And we were happy to join, always wanting to build our outreach and share important education-related information with communities throughout the state. This was also a great opportunity for the Boys and Girls Club staff to gain a better understanding of what’s going on with the students and teachers within their school districts—particularly those involved in CLASS.
It also wasn’t hard to say yes to a day at the coast, in Lincoln City where the retreat was held. The day promised to be full of hard work, creative thinking, and a bit of an ocean breeze. And after teaching for 32 years in Albany and serving as a principal at all three levels in the Greater Albany School District, Dan was excited to engage with the club. He even ran into some of his former students!
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Category:
Chalkboard Project, community involvement, extended learning, Student Success |
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Tags: achievement gap, at risk students, Chalkboard Project, CLASS, education partnerships, education statistics, equity, Oregon schools, student achievement, student engagement
Here it comes…the first day of school! Walking through the doors, you can feel the exhilarating mixture of excitement and nervousness in the air. Kids will be meeting new teachers, seeing old friends, and showing off their stylin’ new clothes. It’s fantastic fun for some, but for students with high geographic mobility, the prospect of yet another new school, filled with unfamiliar faces isn’t exciting—it’s scary. How can teachers help these kids feel welcome, and make their transition into another new environment a little easier?
Students with high geographic mobility are those who have attended many schools during their K-12 years due to frequent moves. For some families, moving more than once in the course of a single school year is common. Usually these moves are associated with employment, housing, or relationship problems, and can be a contributing factor in low academic achievement (http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/student-mobility/).
Every child is different, and deals with change in his or her own way. I spoke with several friends who moved around a lot, attending as many as 11 schools during their K-12 years. They were all affected differently.
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Category:
Student Success, teaching strategies |
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Tags: classroom tactics, new students, student achievement, student engagement, student mobility, teaching strategies
I may be revealing how much television I watch, but those K12.com Oregon Virtual Academy commercials are everywhere these days. Issues of school choice aside, their refrain of praises for online learning has me thinking more and more lately about the role of technology in education. How will new technologies help students’ learning? How will digital tools change the classroom? Will all these developments help create critical thinkers and global entrepreneurs (with “21st century skills”), or will they disconnect people from each other and create a generation of frenzied consumers of the overwhelming digital stream of information?
In our current ChalkBloggers poll, not one person has selected “Utilizing new technologies” as the most important element of classroom instruction. That’s a relief to me. I would never want a teacher to sacrifice real interactions (like providing constructive feedback and creating a positive and open learning environment, the two top answers) to let a computer do it for them. No one wants robotic teaching.
But certainly, lessons can be enhanced with new digital resources—and more and more, this and future generations of technology-steeped children will need to be reached with constructive interactive tools in the classroom. No one can completely shut off to new technologies and risk being left behind. The trick is finding a balance and carefully choosing the most effective tools that will enrich, not distract from, student learning.
But how to sort through the myriad options that seem to be growing and changing even faster everyday? It seems like a full-time job just to keep up. But I’ve found a few new online resources (of course) that look to do the work for you.
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Category:
education technology, innovation, media, student achievement, Student Success, teaching strategies |
2 Comments »
Tags: classroom tactics, student achievement, student engagement, technology
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March 5th, 2012 | guest blogger