When taking the plunge it’s best to start them at a young age. Landon has been enjoying Sal Kahn’s work.

The chapter began with Sal spending every free minute he had working on Khan academy and struggling to decide if he could just run Khan academy or needed the salary from his hedge fund job. He had people trying to convince him to make it a for profit program. As he continued struggling with the decision two different things happened that helped in ultimately making the decision to take the plunge.

Kahn Academy was chosen to be a finalist for a major award.
Kahn received an email from a Kahn Academy user.

The user was a minority college student who was denied a full education based on race. He persevered through the struggles and was able to graduate and go to college. He still never had a full grasp on basic math concepts. He took the learning into his own hands through access to Kahn Academy.

On pg. 155 Sal shared parts of the letter he received.
“He wanted me to know that he’d “spent the entire summer on my YouTube page…and I just wanted to thank you for everything you are doing….Last week I tested for a math placement exam and I am now in Honors Math 200….I can say without any doubt that you have changed my life and the lives of everyone in my family.”

This quote captures why I wanted to be a teacher. I do not need the recognition, but like to know that I have made a difference in a person’s life and helped them achieve things they may never have thought possible.

When I started in District 109 I was fortunate to be given a student on my caseload who was on the autism spectrum. When the child and I first met he had difficulty trusting me. Over the next year and a half I was able to gain his trust and help him develop stronger academic and social skills. He went from not wanting to work with me to telling his mom that he wished I could continue to be his teacher through college. Just like Kahn chose to leave his hedge fund job upon receiving the email on how impacted one person life with Kahn academy. My experience with this child a few years into my career reaffirmed for me that I chose the correct path in becoming a special education teacher.

After taking the plunge Kahn spent the next few months trying to raise money for the academy. This was initially a bit of a struggle. People he spoke with liked the concept, but were hesitant to jump on board as others hadn’t yet. Sal began to experience some self doubt and remorse after a few months with no major financial support. He then received a larger check from someone named Ann Doerr, who became an advocate for him and helped him to see all the word of mouth publicity Kahn Academy was getting. It eventually began to snowball and take on a life of its own.

We have all had to face adversity in our lives in one way or another. For some it was dealing with a sick family member, an illness of our own, some kind of a disability, financial distress, etc. but through whatever life throws us we all find the strength to persevere. When I look at Landon it reminds me of the all the basic skills we need to master in order to thrive. Sal Kahn found that strength even when he felt as though the idea of Kahn Academy was going to fail.

“I have a conviction that a few weeks spent in a well organized summer camp may be of more value educationally than a whole year of formal school work.”

-Charles Eliot, the 21st president of Harvard University

 

Imagine my surprise when I found out that the first time I would be blogging would be about summer camps! Needless to say I was pretty excited. Summer camps have made me the person who I am today. I owe my family, my career and the majority of my friends to summer camp. Every value that you want a young child to develop I have gotten from camp. I know that you are probably thinking that the camps I have been a part of since I was two years old (never missing a summer in the past 33 years), and the camps that Mr. Khan has been a part of, are very different. And if you define camps by looking at the brochure, I will agree with you. However, camps are more than a brochure. What Charles Eliot is speaking about in the quote above is not the games you play or the robots that you build. What he is talking about is the lesson that you learn and what you take away from your summer experiences. I do not keep going back to camp summer after summer because I run a cool sports program. I keep going back to camp because of the impact that it has on the campers, something that I saw first hand with Joie this summer. The power of camp is real; she still talks about her counselors, group mates and other directors. However, I feel that Khan missed the real connection between his program and camp. The fact that students/campers are given more than what meets the eye. Banner Day Camp (where I work) meets the eye test. You walk around and see the beautiful grounds and you see the cool actives, and the campers and counselors engaged with each other having a fun time. However, just by walking around you do see the true impact camp has on everybody who is a part of it. I can tell you a million stories of camp success, as simple as a girl who when down the water slide from the first time, or as complex as the girl who’s Dad fought for custody over his ex-wife because he realized that his daughter was being mentally abused and neglected. She came to camp on day 1 very shy and timid, not wanting to make friends or trust the female staff. That same girl was in tears clinging to her counselor on the last day of camp not wanting to leave her or her new friends. She left camp that summer an outgoing, fun loving girl, who was able to enjoy life and trusted the people around her. That was 7 years ago, I still see her Dad and he still thanks me for “giving him his little girl back”. Camp makes an impact on people to try new things, leave their comfort zones. Speaking for myself, just writing this blog is facing a fear. Growing up with dyslexia and other learning disabilities I am not a confident writer. I have no problem lip singing, “Let it go” or rewriting the words to “Sorry” for an overnighter commercial to perform in front of 1,000 people. But writing an email to 40 adults scares me, but I am able to put my head down, write a post (proof read a little) because of the lessons I have learned at camp, that you won’t get better at something unless you try. And that is a lesson I try to teach our students every day. We might not be doing something in class that is your strong suit, but that is not a reason to give in, or not try something you might enjoy.

 

Khan used his camps as an experiment for his ideas, I feel that he missed out on the real experiment of camp and the connections to academics. He tends to talk about the effect that it had on his academy. At the end of the chapter, he says “I was keenly aware that if Khan academy was to be seen as a legitimate option for classroom education, it would have to prove its value as part of a formal curriculum during the academic school year.” (p152) That is not a reason to have fun at camp. I think the true connections are what he says earlier in the chapter “learning by doing. Learning by having productive, mind-expanding fun.” (pg.149-150). That is a true camp experience. And that is what students are looking for and want from their education. They want to do and create. They want to guide their own learning. They want to find new and exciting ways to educate themselves. The world around them is moving at an alarmingly fast rate, information is literally in the palm of their hands. Students today are sounded by new and exciting. As educators we need to keep up. We need to set the bar, not struggle to live up to it. As educators we get stuck in our ways. At camp we are never satisfied about where we are. We are always trying to figure out what can we improve on, and not for next summer, for after lunch. If something isn’t right at camp, we fix it, right there on the spot. That is the camp mentality and it would work great on school setting. Which is to give our campers the best experience we can give them at that moment.

 

In conclusion, camp is a place where you learn about yourself. Leaving your comfort zone, exploring new ideas and realizing who you are. He was able to help create a special place where those campers got more than just what was written on the brochure. Khan said it earlier in the book, “Formal education must change. It needs to be brought into closer alignment with the world as it actually is; in closer harmony with the way human beings actually learn and thrive.” (p 11). Camps have been making a positive influence on children forever, teaching them lessons that they will be able to use for the rest of their lives. It doesn’t matter if that camper is three years old at camp for the first time or a 35 year old director finishing his 20 year as a staff member, camp is a full of positive life changing/ life challenges that will help define who you are.

 

 

 

If Sal Khan stopped after his website was shut down on the exact day he was marketing it to the Peninsula Bridge School,

there would be no 

 
Ok, maybe not quite that extreme.  But how many of us can relate to working so hard on something and not having it go as planned.  I know I most definitely can.  I remember pushing into a classroom on one of my first days at Kipling, so excited to teach Spanish, with a fancy flipchart that I spent hours on. In my humble opinion, it was perfectly put together- both interactive and engaging (ActiVotes and all!). It did not take long after entering the room to find out that the bulb had just burnt out on the Promethean Board prior to my arrival. Awkward! No matter how carefully we plan for a lesson there are still so many external variables that play a role in the success of our efforts. Things that can oftentimes go unforeseen, as Sal Khan faced when the Peninsula Bridge School asked if his software worked on a MAC computer- leading him to spend an all-nighter hacking his program to make it compatible. He did not see that coming, but the outcome ended up strengthening his program, as it strengthens us as educators.

 

Angela Lee Duckworth, Grit Ted Talk

As I was reading, Angela Lee Duckworth’s TED Talk on Grit was in the back of my mind.  I kept thinking of how Sal must have felt, nervous and excited to bring his concept of flipped lessons and digital learning to the classroom.  I also thought of how teachers might have felt, nervous and excited to take on another new program, especially since it is all digital.  For some, just the simple fact that something is done on a computer can be intimidating. Even those who consider themselves to be “good” with technology are always learning new things- oftentimes from students! The key to our own independent success is endurance.  If we begin to see things as a marathon, rather than a sprint, we can steadily introduce and master new concepts one item at a time.  

I know there are teachers who initially may have felt overwhelmed by 1:1 and online educational resources.  On my first day of new teacher orientation I was asked to create a twitter account.  I had numerous questions about this: What is twitter? What is a hashtag? How will this relate to professional development? And most importantly, how can I ever get what I need to say out in 140 characters or less? Now, tweeting comes as second nature.  It’s suddenly so simple! And I know that there are teachers who have grown so much in regards to this.  It started with 1 post per week of something exciting in the classroom and now it has developed to the point where twitter is being used as a way to connect in real time with classrooms from all over the world.  If the expectation was to start off with advanced Twitter skills there may have been overwhelming feelings of confusion.  But instead we all started at square one together with a marathon mentality, mastering basic skills until we found that “Aha” moment. From there, we are able to take it to the next level.  

The same goes for the kids.  When Sal Khan launched Khan Academy at the Peninsula Bridge Program, he was unsure what to expect.  He was also unsure where to begin with the control group he had been given. He decided to split them into 2 groups; 1 group begins at Square 1 while the other begins at the 5th grade level.  Much like the students that Carol Dweck talks about, those that started at the beginning and filled in gaps as they grew eventually passed those that started on advanced concepts and hit a wall that they were unprepared to deal with.

I bring this up because I see this same scenario playing out in my classroom with a program called Duolingo.  On this program, students learn language at their own pace through online lessons. Many students enjoy using this program at home to build on what we learn at school.  When students sign up, they have the option to take a placement test, or start from Basics 1.  Students can choose which path they would like to follow.  Just like Sal mentions in the chapter, I receive a detailed summary of student learning in a spreadsheet and I can see students accuracy as well as how long students are spending on a concept (it’s a beautiful thing). This translates to finding who is stuck and where. I am noticing that students who took the placement test and started at higher levels of Spanish are hitting a wall now that we are a couple of months into the school year, and those who started at Basics 1 are still steadily progressing, and I do not doubt that they may soon surpass those who started at higher levels since they strengthened their foundation. Now it has me thinking, should all students begin at Square 1? Sal explains, “Nearly all the students needed some degree of remediation, and the time spent on finding and fixing the gaps turned out both to save time and deepen learning in the longer term” (Khan, 144).  

Relating back to Khan Academy, since I have the privilege of seeing every student in the school, I was able to hear a lot of input from students about Learn Storm.  I remember students beaming with pride, telling me that they finished their grade level and moved on to the next grade level.  Most feedback from the general population of students, reported that they were making significant progress at a rapid pace.  Sal was out to determine “if ‘slow’ students have the opportunity to work at their own pace and build a strong foundation, they could become ‘advanced’ or ‘fast’” (Khan, 146). He found that 10% of students in the program who started significantly below average, and would have tested into a low track, who then turned out to be among the top performers, significantly above average.  I am starting to see how this is playing out with language learning, but since I do not teach curriculum that applies to Khan Academy or Learn Storm in particular, I have some questions for those who do.

• In your experience with these programs, do you find your lower students making significant progress once they strengthen their foundational skills?
• Do you find your higher students making the same progress or do they eventually hit a wall?
• Do all students start at Square 1?
• How do you predict the progress will compare in year 2 vs. year 1?
• How do you feel Khan Academy/Learn Storm has either posed an advantage or disadvantage for your learning community?

 

 

 

“Theory versus Practice”, the title of the chapter that I chose to blog about.  Does that imply that one is better than the other?  Is there a “battle” in education between theory and practice?   Are we as educators, quick to jump on the latest bandwagon?

I certainly do not have the answers to those questions, but what I think is that in education, we tend to overgeneralize.  

 

Sal’s Thoughts on Theory

 

What Sal argues for are “a particular set of practices that are already showing results with many students and can be tested and refined with many others.”  He is indeed, not arguing for a generalized theory (his example being, self-paced videos and exercises) about the best way to educate children.  He goes on to admit that particular types of practices with videos and software seem to be resonating with particular students and teachers.  This is one way to meet the needs of our students.  The one that sounded best to Sal and makes sense in that particular moment.

 

Sal’s Thoughts on Practice

 

What resonated most with me was Sal’s belief in individualized learning and understanding each student as a unique learner and then creating learning and assessment opportunities that fit with that unique learner.  He says, “We can now craft more particular and individual solutions than ever before..”.  With the use of technology and the many resources that we have available to us here in District 109 we should be able to challenge and support each child at his or her own level.  It’s about how a teacher uses tools (videos, websites, books, etc.) to create personalized lessons and a productive environment where each child is engaged.

 

Lastly, a few tidbits/tips on personalized learning:

 

1. Deliver instruction through multiple forms of media (words and still pictures, instructional     

       videos, audio clips, interactive games, and hands- on activities)

 

2. Gather and use immediate feedback on student understanding.

 

3. Give students options to show their learning.

 

4. Be flexible when plans go awry.

 

5.  Let students drive.  

I open with a quote that really stood out to me when reading. It is nice and vague without context and is something that can be reflected on in many different situations. What does it mean to you?

“We obsess about more because we cannot envision or agree on better” – Sal Khan

When I first signed up to blog on this chapter I have to say I was excited about it. I know it seems weird, but School Finance was actually my favorite class during my graduate program in administration. I found it very interesting to learn and understand how school finance is done and what drives the decisions that as a teacher I, along with many, was guilty of complaining about. It goes without saying that this chapter did mention teacher salaries and I am happy to say the Khan falls on the side of teachers here. However, this is not what I believe the focus of this discussion is or should be about.

School finance goes way beyond just teacher salaries and in most cases a teacher’s salary makes up a small part of a classroom’s expenditure. Khan went as far as giving us the numbers on an average school district that spends around $10,000 per student or 250,000 for a class of 25. While reading this I immediately thought of our district and what our expense per student would be. With a little research on the district webpage I was able to find that District 109’s expense per student for the 2016-2017 school year is budgeted to be a bit over $15,000 per student or conservatively in a 20 student classroom $300,000. So, on Monday morning when you look at your group of students in class think about the fact that in your classroom alone our district will spend $300,000. Now think about an average teacher salary around $75,000 and I think it easily makes the case for why school finance goes way beyond just teacher salaries. Even if you look at a six figure salary for a teacher in the classroom you are looking at $200,000 dollars that go to maintenance, administrators, student programs, etc.

My questions then become:

1. What would you do with that $200,000 dollars in your classroom?
2. What would your priorities be for student learning spending? (Is it Technology?)

Khan believes that “money devoted to learning is money well spent” (Khan, 119), but what does that mean? We can all point to spending that was meant for student learning and did not work out. We have all lived through the changes in education and the money spent to implement them. So, the big question for us as educators is how do we know our money is being spent on actual learning as opposed to programs and technology that do not make a difference. There is a bold section in this chapter that discusses this theme, one that we have talked about often throughout technology discussions in Deerfield. Technology is becoming one of the largest expenditures for student learning as we move beyond boxed curriculum.  Do we truly know it is making a difference in learning? As a teacher, I want to say yes, but I cannot point to any data that truly proves it is the technology making that difference as we have gone through many changes recently in Deerfield with student programming.

George Couros talked about innovation and technology integration at our in-service and got a standing ovation. Obviously, technology is something that we as a district believe is making a difference and we see it as a positive impact on students, but how do we make sure it is not, as Khan says, “just one more very expensive gimmick” (Khan, 122)? It is this question that again can help make sure the investments we make in technology are well spent. We as educators have a responsibility to make sure that we use the technology so that it improves student learning and never becomes a gimmick.

One last point; one that I felt like is most important and doesn’t really have to do with school finance. I was drawn to Khan’s thoughts about improving schools and what he believes is important and that is, “Improving the student/teacher time ratio” (Khan, 121). Khan says that this process does not have anything to do with money and/or school budgets. Changing the amount of time students spend directly interacting with the teacher is more about changing our classroom process and structure. This is something that I believe validates what we are doing at Kipling with guided math groups and less lecture type instruction. This brings me back to my quote from the beginning of the blog, with one added word, “We obsess about more [money] because we cannot envision or agree on better” (Khan, 120). Instead of looking for more, I think we have to continually look at where we spend and how we can do that better.

• Better instruction
• Better use of technology
• Better use of data
• Better use of per student spending

How do you make student learning BETTER?

When I began looking through Salman Khan’s titles in The One World Schoolhouse, I was instantly hooked on “Flipping the Classroom.” As I read, I felt validated with how my teaching style has changed over the past year as I began incorporating more flipped lessons in the first grade classroom. I agree with Salman Khan that the students need to learn from my direct instruction during the school day, but they also need active opportunities to learn by synergizing with other learners who are at different ability levels and having a support system in place to help with challenges along the way. Working with other learners and having a support system is something that not all students will not have access to when they are tackling school work at home. Students and families are often left frustrated because they do not have a support system to help understand the problem. Although the homework in first grade is not like homework in the upper grades, flipped classrooms or flipped lessons create a “Win-Win” for everyone involved.

As I reflect on my high school experience, I feel like flipped lessons would have helped me tremendously as a learner. I was the student in math struggling to keep up. I was often stopping the teachers to ask questions along the way. When it came time to do the homework, I was still trying to process the lesson that was just presented to me. I would often go to the teacher for help before the start of the school day. I felt like I was doing whatever I could just to keep my head above water. By the time I understood the skill, we were on to the next topic. If I had the opportunities to practice with teacher and collaborative student support, I feel like I would have more success grasping the concepts.

Incorporating YouTube lessons or other videos is quite simple with the Seesaw app. All you need to do is create your video and upload the link. You can share your video by clicking on specific students or the entire class. The nice thing about Seesaw is that the students can click on the three dots on your post, click copy and edit, and respond to the video by recording their voice or typing in a response. What a great way to capture the learning! If you need help designing a flipped lesson for your students on Seesaw, let me know!

This fall a homework policy letter from a 2nd grade teacher in Texas went viral and it was brilliant in its simplicity:

Homework Policy 🙂

     I have to be honest  as to why I picked this chapter, the title. Homework is a popular debate issue right now in 109 and nationally. And surprisingly, I have an opinion on it. (I know, you are all shocked…)

     History lesson (since my life is encompassed by Hamilton at this point, awesome, wow!)…I began teaching at Kipling in 1990. We gave A LOT of homework in 4th grade then and for whatever reason, it was a badge of honor. If you could handle 4th grade at Kipling you were set for Shepard and then high school. I don’t know why we thought that, but it was how it was. I inherited that crown and wore it back then, before some of my current colleagues were born ;). Homework in those days included nightly math (problems copied out of the hard cover book onto lined paper, or a worksheet I wrote by hand), the weekly spelling book unit of 4 pages and studying the words for the Friday test, nightly reading, and Current Events which was due each Friday-find an article in the paper (no internet!), read it, summarize it and “react to it”. Current Events was worth 100 points and we had a checklist (apparently rubrics had not been invented yet) used to assess everyone’s paragraphs. As the years went by we got rid of the spelling workbook so we made packets instead for content words. Some parents complained and some parents thought it was all wonderful and it taught their children responsibility, organization and work ethic. More on this later…

     About 10 years ago weekly, rote spelling had been killed off thankfully, and we went to Current Events every other week, (or less in my classroom). I knew even then that it was an assignment that students and parents dreaded for its tedious routine and rigid expectations. Here is the thing–I toed the party line back in the day that homework helped kids become more responsible and it was a life skill or rite of passage. But after my first few years of teaching I did not believe it. I even lived proof it was untrue as time went on…one of my sons is organized and gets to things right away, homework was never an issue for him and he went through Kipling in the days of MEGA homework. It didn’t make him MORE responsible, it didn’t change him at all. It just gave him less time to be a kid. My other son is um, a bit more scattered and lacks a certain sense of urgency. He applied both of these character traits to elementary school homework and continues to excel at using them at high school (insert laughter). Homework did not change him, but it did/does lead to strife in our household. I have not seen homework change my students, or miraculously make them executive functioning superstars. However, I have seen homework lead to frustration, family time disruption and upset about school from kids of all abilities. These are not lessons that lead children down the path to success.

     Khan asks the correct question on page 111, “How much homework is the right amount?…We should be asking something far more basic. Not how much homework, but why homework in the first place?” If we are questioning how schools are set up and run then it makes perfect sense to question the amount and place of homework in this day and age. Today homework in my class is read your free reading book for 15-20 minutes and practice any of your individual math skills online (or use your flashcards!) for up to 15-20 minutes. Thirty to forty minutes and no consequences in room 42. Although to be transparent, last year I did check online time and impose consequences for kids who skipped more than a day a week. I am not doing that this year. If students need extra work in an area it needs to be addressed in school and communication with parents on this is part of my job. My parents know what the “homework” is. I will assume that if their child does not do the homework there is a family reason, and mine is not to question why.

     One of my students asked me recently when I was going to start giving more homework like they are “supposed to have in 4th grade”. I told them I was not going to do that and asked if they thought everyone getting the same “packet” or worksheet every night was a good idea. The answer was a resounding “no!”. When I questioned the kids one boy told me, (without benefit of a grant supported study or any control groups whatsoever), “That’s a bad idea because if we know how to do the worksheet we shouldn’t have to do it and if someone doesn’t understand it their mom is just going to do it for them.” Outta the mouths, huh? This is the same explanation I use with the few parents who question the “lack” of homework these days.

     Here is one more thing: I also have the luxury of age, or “wisdom”, in this case. I am older than the parents in my class. My own children went through 109 and the high school. I know what is coming academically for our kids and worksheets handed out each Monday are not going to help anyone. Assuring parents that weekly worksheets and packets aren’t the answer is something I can do with full confidence due to my life experience. If we are teaching to mastery and students have individual and independent goals and skills to pursue then one size fits all homework has no place in the classroom. Period. Read a book, work on a skill in math, or invent something! Oh, and be a child. These things will lead kids down the path to success, creativity…and happiness. But that’s just my opinion.

 

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When choosing a title in The One World Schoolhouse by Salman Khan I was drawn to the chapter Tracking Creativity. Creative people have always fascinated me and surrounded me in life. It was important to me to foster creativity in my own children at a young age. I read several books on the subject and their childhoods were filled with legos, art supplies, playhouses made of cardboard boxes, treehouses and painting with grandma. I’ve always enjoyed teaching creative writing, poetry, and creating picture books with my own children and students. When teaching gifted children in the classroom I’ve noticed over the years that those who were creative as well as intelligent met with the most success in their lives. They were able to be innovative and think outside the box in mathematics as well as in life.

 

Unfortunately I did not relate creativity to mathematics until becoming a teacher. I was a student who memorized what I had to and moved on without an in depth understanding. Math was never presented to me as a creative endeavor in school until I took math education courses in college. As a teacher I truly enjoyed teaching math, as I’d learned techniques for solving problems in multiple ways. I understood how my students felt when one method did not work for them and found a new method for them to try. My master’s research was on the benefits of integrating picture books into math and social studies curriculums when I taught second grade. It proved a wonderful way to add creativity to math instruction and afforded the visual input that might inspire a child similar to my young self.

 

In this chapter the term “mind workers” stuck with me as that is what I would like my students to become. The idea that in order to solve “our common problems regarding relations among peoples and the health of the planet, we need all the talent and imagination we can find” resonated with me as well. I also agree with Mr. Khan that the “best performing student” the one with the highest test scores will not necessarily end up the “most accomplished”. It does “depend on creativity, passion, and originality- things that begin where the testing leaves off.” Nadia might not have had her chance to succeed without an uncle to intercede on her behalf and identify the gap in her previous learning. Using technology we have more opportunities to identify gaps in learning. As educators we need to ensure that skills passed on various sites and assessments are truly understood and mastered by our students

 

In conclusion, when my father told me he wasn’t good at math in college and left business school to become a teacher I was surprised because I knew the story of our house. Dad took a class in designing houses and drew his vision for an architect. He worked for free building a friend’s house and read how-to books on building houses. He built his own house by himself, except for laying stone for the fireplace and putting in the electricity. He worked weekends and summer vacations for two years and taught full-time. That house he built 60 years ago still stands today and because of his passion he learned the math and carpentry skills to build his house plumb and true. If we tap into our students’ passions and relate them to math, science and engineering they might just make their own dreams a reality.

“Tests say little or nothing about a student’s potential to learn a subject.  At best, they offer a snapshot of where the student stands at a given moment in time” (Khan 92).  This statement hits home for me because as Director for Learning and Assessment Services I am passionate about making sure we DO NOT misinterpret what any given “test” says about a child and their ability to learn.  Tests are in many cases meaningless if we don’t understand their purpose.

When I was a young teacher administering annual standardized tests I dreaded the month of March because I knew the results of ONE test would somehow be directly connected to how well my students mastered what I taught; it would serve as a major reflection of my teaching. In my heart, I knew this was not the case! I knew my students were learning and growing in multiple ways- beyond this measure! Not only did I question the overall results for some students, I also questioned the quality of the test.  How could a 40 item multiple choice test determine whether or not my students learned the content I spent seven months teaching?

A few years into my teaching career I learned there were educational leaders such as Rick Stiggins, founder of the Assessment Training Institute, working hard to help teachers better understand the role of assessment in their classrooms. I attended a three-day workshop led by one of Rick’s teammates, Jan Chappuis titled Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning. At this workshop, my thinking changed completely! I learned a very important concept…there are different purposes for assessing.  As teachers, we can assess in a summative nature (after the learning) and we can assess formatively (daily). This means teachers are able to assess where students are at a particular point and time, provide them with feedback, and help scaffold instruction until they demonstrate they have learned. Once I had a better understanding of the purpose of the assessment I was better equipped to understand and explain to parents and students how standardized tests are simply a small snapshot of what they know at a particular point and time. As Khan points out, tests only provide us with snapshots of where the students are at that moment in time. Standardized tests tell nothing about how long the learning is retained and they certainly do not tell us anything about the why of right or wrong answers.  

Using formative assessment to provide feedback to my students on their learning gave me the confidence to set clear learning targets and create opportunities for students to take ownership of their learning.  I now had a process for collecting evidence of student learning beyond the standardized test for students to prove each student was learning. Most importantly, students played an active role in setting learning goals for themselves.

“To be clear, I am not anti-testing. Tests can be valuable diagnostic tools to identify gaps in learning that need to be fixed. Well-designed tests can also be used as evidence that someone actually knows a subject domain at a specific point in time ” (Khan 94). It is clear that one of the reasons Sal built Khan Academy was to create a tool to close the learning gap for students. The development of online teaching/testing tools including Khan Academy itself, allow for teachers and students to access both hints and videos from the computer if they come across a problem they don’t understand. When the assignment or assessment has been completed immediate feedback is provided to the student as to why they may have selected the wrong answer and they have the option to try again.

The ability of online testing to adapt to the level of a student gives us insight into the learner we never used to have.  This can be powerful when we know students are capable of learning beyond what we “cover” in our grade level standards.

“What I’m urging, though, is a measure of skepticism and caution in how much weight we give to test results alone” (Khan 95).  There are a few key points I truly believe we need to keep in mind when looking at standardized test results:

1. Test data does not give us answers, it simply helps us ask better questions and provides us with a chance to reflect. As professionals, we determine the actions.
2. Think broadly about why we assess and see the assessment process as a means through which students learn, not merely as a measure of the effect of teaching.
3. Come to understand that if the objective is to use assessment to enhance student learning, assessments work best when it provides continuous flow of useful feedback versus a once-a-year or infrequent judgments of achievement AND students are involved in assessment of their learning as they are growing

At the beginning of Tests and Testing Sal makes reference to the fact that testing is another unexamined habit of classroom practice. In Deerfield Schools, I believe we are working hard to find balance in our system.  We recognize what standardized tests are and we have transitioned to a system of standards-based learning and grading.  We believe in a growth mindset and we share with our students daily that we believe in them. We are transforming our learning spaces to be better suited for creating and designing.  As leaders, we are having conversations about the dangers associated with tracking students and the message that sends is one of a fixed mindset.

We are committed to doing whatever it takes to maximize student engagement and give students confidence as they learn. When I walk through our schools I see administrators and teachers including students in the process of making decisions related to their learning.  We are a system of continuous improvement and that means we are constantly asking ourselves why we do what we do and is it in the best interest of kids. While standardized tests may continue to be part of our “old habits”, we continue to look for new ways to measure the success of the whole child.

If you are a teacher, school leader or parent how can you engage in conversations to better understand assessment?

Resource: Revolutionize Assessment by Rick Stiggins