master learner

not just a trendy phrase

but an attitude
an accomplishment
and an aspiration

voice

» The Week in Tweets for 2010-04-19 Bud the Teacher

• @ddraper So long as teachers believe that someone needs to "give them a voice," they/we won't have much of one. @bcrosby in reply to ddraper # 

I have learned so much this week: diigo, more twitter, tweetdeck, slideshare, google docs, more. Will elaborate later.



wow.  love it.

Retention and tests

Say It With Me Now: Retention!

So, for me, the role of the summative assessment is actually to give me a larger picture of a standard I don’t explicitly grade: Retention.  I give a summative midterm and final in all of my classes, and it’s because I want the kids to know how well they do or don’t retain information. The larger SBG structure is designed to help them prepare, reassess, and otherwise learn to be actual people who think about what they don’t know. These pin-prick summatives are the bit of me that knows I have to get them ready for the testing aspect of college in a meanignful way.
My approach has always been to add the summative scores in as a separately weighted category ancillary to my behemoth category called “Standards.” Most often final grades are composed of 85% Standards, 7.5 % midterm, and 7.5% final.
Why the fractional precentages? I just don’t think it should be possible to get an A without being able to retain more than half of the material in some way. However, knowing the inherently flawed nature of a single-shot assessment, I have left the A- wide open for that kid that wants to work their butt off to get their standard’s scores through the roof.

Am I rewarding responsibility with a grade? Hell Yeah. Am I doing it by grading homework and “participation.” Hell No.

retention entry

thought for the day

...life is short. Cavort with people you admire.



sunni brown blog

the job of schools

from an old piece on Bill Ayers's blog

It’s worth asking ourselves what makes education in a democracy distinct.  Of course we want children to study hard, to be responsible, to stay away from drugs, and to be prepared for work.  But those are goals we share with totalitarian regimes, monarchies, dictators and kings.  So what is uniquely characteristic of democratic education?

The founders of American education spoke of forging a common culture and preparing youth for lives of citizenship.  The democratic aspiration was that young people would grow into reflective, critical citizens, capable of work and also self-governance, full participation and free thinking.  The aim of production in a democracy is not the production of things but the production of free human beings, the goal, in W.E.B. DuBois’ phrase, not so much to make carpenters of men, but to make full human beings of carpenters. 

A basic tenet of democracy is that the ultimate authority on any individual’s hurt or desire is that individual himself or herself.  Education in a democracy demands equity, access, and an acknowledgment of the humanity of each person.  The job of schools is to stimulate latent interests, desires, and dreams that cause people to question, to challenge, to criticize, and to act.  Obedience and conformity are the enemies of democracy; initiative and courage are its hallmarks

http://billayers.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/the-education-president/


Good thing the school year is almost over. The sentence in the larger print resonates with me.  I need a lot of serious time for thinking and reflection.

quote-- complexities of learning and teaching

from Making Connections, p. 11  Renatta Caine, Geoffrey Caine, 1991

"Unfortunately many teachers who are aware of the complexities of learning and teaching have been intimidated into ignoring what they know. They have had to fight both a factory model that places a premium on low-quality output and a research model that implies that their observations of what actually happens are invalid. It takes a strong personality and enormous conviction to ignore such pressures."

failure and JK Rowling

JK Rowling 's commencement speech at Harvard-- should be required listening.

http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

what about intelligence?

Alert: highly idiosyncratic stream of consciousness post


I webbed to a reference to

The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong by David Shenk

http://tinyurl.com/2bkytgy

I'm thinking about this quote from the author interview on Amazon:

"Find the thing you love to do, and work and work and work at it. Don't be discouraged by failure; realize that high achievers thrive on failure as a motivating mechanism and an instruction guide on how to get better."

.... the alleged interest in the County that we teachers engage our own passion.... how to incorporate students' passions in the curriculum


What if my intellectual passion (professionally speaking) does not align to the SSS or the GLE?


Where was this concept when I was trapped in the PCS system?  My perception: you don't get it the way we give it? You fail.     Next!






TBE

Dialog about grades

What does an A mean in your class?

It no longer means excellence. Several years ago, the county removed that designation from letter grades. I don't recall any announcement, much less discussion about that.

I think it is a significant act, and I think it signaled a change in administrative attitude about grades, but I don't think anyone told the teachers or parents or students or any "stakeholders." And more importantly, I don't think the meaning of grades, except as passing or failing, is clear or remotely consistent from teacher to teacher.

Your thoughts?