Never Stop Learning

Last week I presented at and attended the Mathematics Educators Convergence, held at Columbus Academy.  In addition to meeting some great math teachers and hearing presentations from Fawn Nguyen and NCTM president Robert Q. Berry, I left with a lot of great ideas and activities, some of which will take some time and planning to incorporate into my classroom, and some that I will be able to use this year.  It's still fun (and a little annoying) to see an activity that sparks the question, "Where has this been hiding all this time?"

This will be my 30th year of teaching, and I can't imagine not spending at least part of my summer actively trying to get better.  Whether it's reading some research, doing some math, or attending a conference, getting better is part of the job, and I honestly don't understand teachers who have to be forced to do professional development of any kind.  PD that's imposed from the outside can be hit or miss; searching for and participating in relevant PD is on the teacher.  We want the kids to become life-long learners, to have an inner drive that makes them want to improve for the sake of improving.  They won't believe it's important if we just dust off old lesson plans we've used for years, lesson plans that require us to tell the kids to pretend Desmos and the internet don't exist, or lesson plans that include a daily worksheet with word problems that have gasoline selling for 89 cents per gallon.

If I ever honestly believe I have nothing else to learn about teaching, it will be time to retire.  The kids deserve better than that, and I intend to work hard to improve every year.  Even year 30.  God willing, even year 45.

The Point of Assessment

It is rare that I give an in-class quiz or test.  Most of the work I have the kids do is either online, or some sort of a project-like assessment that they can work on at home, and I often require that they have their work peer-edited.  If this sounds more like what students would do when writing as essay in their language arts class, you're right, since that's where I got the initial idea to run assessments this way.

The question that I asked myself that led me to this is: What is the point of assessment? 

Is the point of assessment to determine how well the students understand the material so we (the student and teacher) can make a plan going forward to help the student continue to grow where they're good and make better progress where they're falling short?  Or is it to make that determination under the pressure of demonstrating their abilities in a specified 45 minutes?

I answered in the former.  Even if there is some kind of end-of-course test (from the state department of education or from the College Board or wherever), practicing with the time constraint while alleviating the pressure in a low-stakes or no-stakes situation in the classroom will give you a better read on how the kids are doing. 

Yes, there are situations in life when the pressure of a time constraint is very real and very important.  Assessment in a classroom shouldn't be one of them.  Not if we really want to know how well they understand the material.