Today we started off wit Liz City who advocated for us educators to use data in order to discern how to improve education in our schools. I spoke to another participant during this session about how her school used data to seek our specific students to be enrolled within a special program where the students who were previously unsuccessful, moved towards getting credit towards graduation. The model they set up was to have two teachers, where one was a content area teacher and the other was a special education teacher.
What the participant cited was that this model forced teachers to differentiate their instruction and meet these higher needs students at their level. She stated that the program was effective in their purpose and that they used the data they had within schools (i.e. attendance, test scores, etc.) to choose students who would benefit from this program.
Other outcomes were that teachers had to sit down with IEPs and really understand what each student's needs were. This got me thinking about how my school could try to create a program such as this in order to better serve our students with speical needs.
After having a conversation this particular participant, Liz City outlined some tips on how to use data to improve schools. The few things that struck me where that if educators have seen successes in the use of data, there shouldn't necessarily be a search for other methods to use data for the sake of using data. Also, she stated that it's important to use protocals when using data about specific teachers. This got me thinking about how my school along with the other Envision Schools use protocals in order to better instruction and it made me feel that my school and my organization were on the right track.
After this session, we had a very lengthy session with Richard Elmore, who I feel like I did not learn too much from. He cited excellent research, but throughout his session, we were never able to delve into discussion about any of the problems within schools cited by volunteering participants. When someone had a question or mentioned a problem, I feel that Richard just cited his own experience and prevented possible fruitful discussions about those specific school dilemmas mentioned (also, there were way too many anectdotes).
The final session by Jim Nehring was one where I learned a great deal. The "conspirators" he mentioned I felt were things that all people in education could relate to. The great thing that he did wasn't just creating this term, but he used historical evidence to back his claims in a very concrete and efficient manner. He spoke of six tendancies that education has held through the course of two centuries in America. The ones that really stood out for me were that within education existed a "fear factor" where people within education would implement or react based on fears. Also, he cited that education through the course of history favored groups to the detriment of other, non-favored groups. I really enjoyed how efficiently and effectively he cited these problems which at first glance, educators don't discuss at length, but once these issues are pointed out, are discussed at length about. These tendancies are important to recognize and deal with so that all of us educators could enact a systemic change within an extremely flawed system.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Thursday June 28, 2007
Today we started off with a question asking, "what is the role of high school?" in our society? The answers I came up with was that it needs to be a safe place, it needs to prepare students for their next step, be it college or another endeavor, and lastly, high school should be a stepping stone for kids into another part of their life where more responsibility will be harnessed by them.
From there, we were asked to think of teaching and the purpose of school in the way a person would think about the purpose of a business. So in that line of thinking, Kay, the director of Harvard's Graduate School of Education asked us to think about three questions:
-What is your business (as an educator)?
-Who is your customer?
-What does your customer value?
During the second part of today's session, Tom Payzant asked us to think about the question of, "what should a high school diploma certify?" His answer was that it should deem that a student is ready for "post-secondary education without remediation." In order to supplement his example, he added that in the 1940s, a person could have an 8th grade education and go work at the docks in Quincy and buy a home and provide enough for the family so that he could provide his children with a better life and opportunities. But nowadays, that wasn't the case. There is no job that doesn't require a high school diploma, in which someone would be able to buy a house and provide a better life for his familly.
All of these items got me thinking about what are we doing as educators to help students make a transition to work or higher education? What programs are we implementing for high-risk students?
From there, we were asked to think of teaching and the purpose of school in the way a person would think about the purpose of a business. So in that line of thinking, Kay, the director of Harvard's Graduate School of Education asked us to think about three questions:
-What is your business (as an educator)?
-Who is your customer?
-What does your customer value?
During the second part of today's session, Tom Payzant asked us to think about the question of, "what should a high school diploma certify?" His answer was that it should deem that a student is ready for "post-secondary education without remediation." In order to supplement his example, he added that in the 1940s, a person could have an 8th grade education and go work at the docks in Quincy and buy a home and provide enough for the family so that he could provide his children with a better life and opportunities. But nowadays, that wasn't the case. There is no job that doesn't require a high school diploma, in which someone would be able to buy a house and provide a better life for his familly.
All of these items got me thinking about what are we doing as educators to help students make a transition to work or higher education? What programs are we implementing for high-risk students?
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Problem Statement?
When I signed up for the "Redesigning America's Schools" at Harvard, through Fund for Teachers, I had no idea all of the reflective thinking that would go into preparing for it. When the seminar people asked me to send them my problem statement, I was perplexed at what my problem was at school. I first thought it would just be about me going to the seminar and passively learning about what other "experts" have to say. But coming up with the problem required some conversation with one of the directors at my school about what my challenges were at school.
This required some thought into what I needed as a teacher to sustain myself as a professional. This was a tough problem for me because I had to assess myself. I had a difficult time doing this because I feel like part of teaching a school year has so much to do with following through and just making it to the end. But as I discussed more with my director, I felt that the biggest thing to pop up for me was sustainability. How do I sustain myself as a teacher. I didn't feel that sustainability was an appropriate problem to pose at the seminar, but it kept popping up in my head. How do I sustain myself as a teacher? If we as a school want to maintain a specific standard in our school, how do we sustain a level of consistent assessment?
The "how do I sustain..." kept popping up in my head. Especially, because next year will be my official 5 year mark as a teacher and statistics show that half the teachers quit by the 5 year mark. This is something I hope to answer by the end of the seminar in order to find out how teachers who've taught longer than I have do it.
This required some thought into what I needed as a teacher to sustain myself as a professional. This was a tough problem for me because I had to assess myself. I had a difficult time doing this because I feel like part of teaching a school year has so much to do with following through and just making it to the end. But as I discussed more with my director, I felt that the biggest thing to pop up for me was sustainability. How do I sustain myself as a teacher. I didn't feel that sustainability was an appropriate problem to pose at the seminar, but it kept popping up in my head. How do I sustain myself as a teacher? If we as a school want to maintain a specific standard in our school, how do we sustain a level of consistent assessment?
The "how do I sustain..." kept popping up in my head. Especially, because next year will be my official 5 year mark as a teacher and statistics show that half the teachers quit by the 5 year mark. This is something I hope to answer by the end of the seminar in order to find out how teachers who've taught longer than I have do it.
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