Training vs. Educating

In his new book, Creative Schools, Ken Robinson makes a distinction between training and educating students.  The essence of the difference is that educating a student is more holistic, whereas training refers to learning a specific skill or piece of information.

This distinction got me thinking.  When, for example, we teach a student how to factor by showing them several examples of each "type" of quadratic that we want them to factor, and then having them practice each type tens or hundreds of times, are we actually educating them, or are we just training them for a specific skill?  I would contend that this is training, and not educating.  And if we're honest about it, it's training them for a skill that is very limited in terms of its usefulness.  I'm willing to bet that even those who are currently working in a STEM-related field have not needed to factor, foil, integrate - the list goes on - at any time in the recent past.

However, if we help the students learn to factor by leading them to discover the process and allowing them to work through the different "types" (especially in the context of applications), and in the long run become just as proficient at the skill of factoring, we have, by the way the material was covered, educated them instead of trained them.  In addition to the specific skill, we have also improved their problem-solving skills, allowed them to make sense of the material themselves thereby making it more meaningful and more permanent...you get the idea.

I think this gets to the heart of one of the main issues in education.  If we look at a curriculum - any curriculum - and see a list of skills, and understand our job as getting the students to be able to do those skills, then our focus will change from educating the students to simply training them.  The assessments we give will focus on whether or not they have learned the skills, and so long as the students can accomplish this - regardless of whether or not they actually understand what they're doing, why they're doing it, or how it can be useful - then we will have done our job.

Of course, the current standardized testing - PARCC, AIR, etc. - isn't about just the skills (though they are still important), but rather is about the using the skills, especially in ways that are not seen in the textbooks, and therefore are not normally seen in classrooms.  These tests are not about second-guessing the kinds of questions that are going to be on them so we can be sure to cover those "types" of questions in class, but rather are about checking the kids' problem-solving skills.  So even if a teacher thinks that teaching is all about training the kids in specific skills, the standardized tests should get them to rethink their position at least a little.

Needless to say, since I'm solidly behind educating the students rather than training them, I'm not worried about any changes that may come to state testing. If you educate the kids instead of training them, then they will be ready for both a skills test and a problem-solving test...and will not recoil from whatever may be thrown at them, since they will be accustomed to working on exercises the likes of which they have not seen before.  Sounds good to me.

An 85

So, if a student "has an 85" in your class, what does that mean?  Well, it depends on how you view grading.  Among the things I have seen in practice from colleagues and friends:

1. Grades are payment for what the student has done in class.  In this scenario, the teachers sees the grade as what the student has earned by being in the class.  Normally, everything from homework to tests to bringing in paper towels to extra credit figure into the grade, so that "an 85" is meaningless.  It almost certainly doesn't mean that the student has learned 85% of the material.  With enough extra credit, homework (done with "help" from others) and paper towels, a student who barely knows any of the material could have an 85.
2. Grades are the average of the test scores, and nothing else.  In this scenario, a series of "snapshots" from the grading period are the only means the teacher deems as valid to  determine whether or not a student has mastered the material.  The student gets test anxiety? Not important.  The student has a learning disability that makes taking a paper-and-pencil or an online test difficult if not impossible?  Irrelevant.  The student has stayed after for extra help, and during those sessions has demonstrated a deep understanding of the material through the explanations they give? Nope. Only the grades on the tests matter.  Does an 85 here mean that the student understands 85% of the material?  Probably not.  In fact, the percentage is probably higher than that, but the grade won't show it.
3. Grades are a means of ranking the students from best to worst. The best kids in the class, whether they have demonstrated it or not, get the A.  The worst kids in the class, whether they deserve it or not, get the F.  The difference between the two? It can be anything from their reputation (other teachers said this is a good/bad student) to their personality to their effort to their ability to "brown-nose" the teacher.  What's missing from this is anything related to the material.  The "85" says nothing about the student's understanding.

There are other scenarios, of course, but you get the point.  For the most part, the perception by someone reading a transcript is that "85" means the student understands (or at least understood) 85% of the material.  Anyone who has ever put a grade on a transcript knows that this isn't the case.  So if "the student has an 85" is meaningless, why do we continue to label kids in this way?

Because there's not an alternative.

Oh really?  Let's look at the report card I received when I was in kindergarten.  There was a column containing a list of skills (things like "knows numbers from 1 to 10" or "can buckle boots"...not kidding), and another column where the teacher would mark if I had the skill mastered, or if I was making progress, or if I hadn't demonstrated the skill at all yet.  On the other page of the report card were the "behavior" skills (takes turns, raises hand, etc.), along with a similar set of marks.  If anyone looked at that report card today, they would know exactly what the expectations of the class were, and what I was able to do (or not do) at the end of the first semester of kindergarten.

So why can't we give a similar report in a high school classroom?

No, seriously: why not?

We could if we actually worked with the kids as they were learning the material.  We could if we actually got in the arena with them and participated in their struggle and gave them every opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of the material.

Lecturing alone can't do this.  Testing alone won't be enough.  It takes real, meaningful discussion with each and every student to achieve this.  And don't tell me it can't be done, because this is what happens in my classroom pretty much every day.

Job Description

As we approach the end of the year, my email begins to fill with summer professional development opportunities that tend to come in a limited number of varieties.

The first type, and overwhelmingly the most common, is something along the lines of “this will help your students do better on tests.”  The PD is training in how to implement their program and use their materials.  Nothing in the advertisements for these opportunities mentions helping the students do anything other than pass tests, be they chapter or unit tests in the classroom or state or national standardized tests.  Testing is everything, and these programs are here to help your students succeed…at taking and passing tests, anyway.

The second type is something along the lines of, “this will help you keep your kids be quiet and well-behaved.”  This classroom-management type of PD focuses on keeping the kids quiet but engaged with the material.  The pictures from these advertisements show kids seated in rows or in front of their own computer, working quietly and independently, and the description of the PD emphasizes that your classroom can look like this…under the assumption that I want my classroom to look like that.

The third type is something along the lines of “this will help you present the material in your class in a better way.”  The emphasis of these is how to improve your method of delivery, how to be more clear in your lectures, how to produce better worksheets, and so on.

Notice that none of these opportunities mentions helping the kids actually learn the material.  Not one sentence in all of the advertisements mentions the kids comprehending anything.  It’s bad enough that people outside the profession think that the job description for a teacher should be dominated by keeping the kids quiet and giving them information.  But for the folks running these PD session - folks who are supposedly inside the profession - to be spewing this nonsense is irritating to say the least.  More disturbing is the idea that teachers are actually signing up for these sessions, which means, at least implicitly, that these teachers also see the job as primarily involving keeping kids quiet and giving them information.  Sorry, folks…that’s not what the job is about, and the job description I would give is essentially antithetical to everything being promoted by these opportunities. 

Teaching is about helping kids learn. Period.  The sooner we can bring everyone to the realization that testing, classroom management and giving information are not the focus of teaching, but instead are only useful if they help the kids learn, the better.

It should be clear by now that my idea of “classroom management” is very different than the one described in the PD advertisements.  It should also be clear that me giving the kids information is, in my opinion (and in the opinion of most current research), not the best way to help them learn.  But what about testing?

I still struggle with the idea that any test on any given day is the best way to measure how well a kid understands the material.  With that, I have really been struggling lately with the idea of putting a letter or number grade on every assignment, be it homework, quiz, test, or whatever, to the point that I’m questioning whether or not grades are good at all.  Let’s be honest: the kids and parents look at the grade first, and any comments or other feedback intended to help the kid do better next time are often, if not entirely, ignored.  Without a grade on which to focus, however, the feedback becomes more important.  And if the feedback is focused on improvement and resubmission of an assignment, then learning becomes the focus of the classroom.  We have implemented a strategy of this kind this semester with the review projects we assigned.  We gave the kids five broad topics from the first semester of the course, and the kids need to create an exercise that covers the topic, get the exercise approved by us, type up their solution, and submit it online for us to review.  The only grades possible are 0 or 15 (full credit).  If the solution as presented is not a “15”, the student receives specific feedback on what is missing, where improvements are needed, etc., and has the opportunity to turn in another draft of the project.  This process continues with each project until it is a “15”.

Admittedly, getting rid of grades entirely would require a massive shift the likes of which on teacher alone can't make.  But giving the kids more than one opportunity to "show what they know" and giving them a variety of ways to do so is making more and more sense the more I think about it.  For the time being, there has to be some sort of "happy medium", but I haven't found it yet.  Hopefully, between now and the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year, I'll find a way to make this happen.  Even better would be for the PD to help teachers find a way to shift the focus from the grades and the testing to the learning.  I guess we'll see...

At, To, and With

I’ve spent some time recently thinking about the real differences in the teaching styles of different teachers I know, to see if I can pare it down to the essentials.  While on the surface it would appear that there are many different teaching styles, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are basically three different ways that teachers run their class.

First, there are the teachers that talk at the students.  These are the teachers who have students falling asleep in class, texting in class, completely (or at least essentially) disengaged from the class, and the teacher doesn’t care or doesn’t notice. The teacher sees teaching as delivering the material, and as long as that happens, whether or not the students receive the information is irrelevant.  The teacher believes that in delivering the material, they have done their job, and the rest is up to the kids.  If the students aren’t learning, it’s their own fault, because the teacher has told them exactly what they need to know and what they need to do.  There is no real interaction between the teacher and the student in this scenario, and from what I can tell neither the teachers nor the students want any interaction.

Second, there are the teachers who talk to the students.  These teachers still see teaching as delivery of the material, but they also are concerned about whether or not the students are receiving the information.  These teachers notice when kids haven’t done their homework or aren’t taking notes in class, and will have a “conference” with the student to tell them what they need to change about their behavior to be more successful in the class.  Conference probably isn’t the right word here, because this is actually a monologue, with the teacher doing the same thing during the conference as they do in class: they tell the student what needs to happen, check whether or not the student has understood what was said, and it’s left at that.  While there is certainly more interest in whether or not the students are learning, the means by which the students are being given the opportunity to learn the material is one dimensional: the teacher is the fountain of all knowledge in the class, and the students must “give the teacher what they want” or they will not pass the tests.

Sadly, I believe that this form of teaching is the one that is valued by the teacher education programs.  At least from the perspective I have of having student teachers in the building and seeing the forms that the cooperating teacher is supposed to fill out, as well as seeing what it is the  professors are looking for when they visit, this second type of teaching dominates the paperwork.

The third way of teaching relies on the teacher talking with the students.  These teachers see interaction between the teacher and the students (and between the students) as vital to the learning process.  The emphasis in these classrooms is not on the teaching, but rather on the learning.  I have seen this style of teaching happen in classrooms dominated by discovery and those in which the teacher delivers lectures, though the lectures in these classrooms are much shorter than in the other styles described above, since there is time built in to every day for the students to work with one another to practice what they have learned, and for the teacher to discuss the material with the students after the lecture to check whether or not the students have understood the material.  

It is difficult for me to imagine a student teacher doing well on an evaluation being this type of teacher, when it is completely possible that the student teacher would be in front of the class for less than five minutes during an observation, which would make several sections of the form that needs to be filled out meaningless.  

Clearly, anyone who knows how I currently teach knows that I’m a “type 3” teacher, and that my opinion would be that the research supports the idea that a “type 3” classroom is the best for the students.  Go back four years, and I would say I was a “type 2” teacher.  And I would say that most of the teachers I know are “type 2”, though I also know a few “type 1” teachers.  The other thing that I have noticed is that the new teacher evaluation system being implemented in Ohio values “type 3”, seems like it will be ok with “type 2”, and will not be kind to “type 1”.  My opinion would be that, from the standpoint of educational and neuroscience research, this is absolutely the right thing to be doing.  However, it also seems like we are setting up the new teachers for difficulties since the way they should be teaching is not the one being emphasized in their training.

Hopefully, the education and neuroscience research will begin to have an impact so that teachers will move toward being a “type 3” teacher.  The move is possible. The only thing missing is the desire.

Panera

Have you ever spent two hours on a Wednesday evening at Panera reviewing with your students?  I have.

In the fall a couple of the kids planned a study group before one of the IESs (individual exercise sets...still not using the word tests in my class) and they asked if the other honors precalc teacher and I would show up.  We did, along with maybe 20 kids, and the session went well.  Last night, well over 60 kids showed up, to the point that Panera was overrun with people doing math.  We're not obnoxious, and we all get some food while we're there, so the employees are fine with us being there.  The other customers look astonished that a bunch of teenagers are doing math, pretty much on their own, though they have a little bit of support if necessary.  The atmosphere we create...actually, that they create...is amazing, and it's one I wish I could replicate in my classroom.  The kids are self-motivated, and once we hand out the practice problems they are pretty much self-directed, choosing which of the practice problems they need to do and checking in with us to see if their work is correct.  Granted, cinnamon crunch bagels make any task easier, but the energy and focus and camaraderie is such a great thing to watch, let alone to be a part of.

So what is it about the review sessions that makes it difficult to duplicate on a daily basis in the classroom?  I've been giving this a lot of thought lately and haven't come up with any solid answers.  Maybe it's the pressure of the impending IES, maybe it's the fact that their close friends are there along with their acquaintances from class, maybe it's the sheer number of students, or maybe it's something else...like the cinnamon crunch bagels.  What I do know is that if the goal is to have the kids working independently with support from me, then mission accomplished.  They're struggling but persisting, they're willingly putting in the necessary effort, and those who are taking seriously the charge to learn and understand the material are seeing their efforts pay off.  There are still a few who still confuse furiously scribbling down notes in an attempt to memorize everything with real learning, and things tend to not go so well for them.  My hope is that they will see the light sometime soon and patiently pace themselves through the upcoming material so that the next review session is, in fact, a review session and not a cram session.

I'm under no illusions about just how fortunate I am to have kids who are willing to come to Panera on a Wednesday night and who have the means to do so.  But I like to think that the structure of the class has at least a little to do with the way they now approach reviewing the material.  It's not just about the IES, though that's part of it.  It's not just about the grade, though that's also part of it.  Instead, the real emphasis is on the learning.  It's about everyone learning and it's about helping everyone else learn.

And it's about cinnamon crunch bagels.

Brussels Sprouts

I don’t like Brussels sprouts.  I never have.  As a child, my parents, who for some reason actually enjoy Brussels sprouts, served them with dinner a few times each month, which means I had to eat them.  The only way I found them even close to palatable was for them to be doing the backstroke in a sea of butter.  As an adult, I can appreciate that they are “good for me”, but that would require that I actually eat them, and since I now have a say in planning the menu, that won’t be happening, ever.

The reason I mention this is that I gave my honors pre-calculus kids a short survey last week with three questions:

1. Please describe the benefits you have found learning in a student-centered, discussion-based class.
2. Please describe the benefits you have found learning in a student-centered, discussion-based class.
3. Which of the following best describes you:
1. I prefer the student-centered, discussion-based classroom.
2. I prefer a teacher-centered, lecture-based classroom, but I see the benefits of being in a student-centered, discussion-based classroom.
3. I prefer a teacher-centered, lecture-based classroom, and I don’t see the benefits of being in a student-centered, discussion-based classroom.

Knowing from the research that even when students have done better in a student-centered classroom they still overwhelmingly prefer a teacher-centered classroom, I was expecting about a 20-80 split in favor of the more traditional classroom.  What I got was more than I could have ever imagined.

First, the kids clearly gave their responses a lot of thought.  The depth of their statements showed a good deal of meaningful reflection was given to the assignment, even though it wasn’t for a grade.  Among the responses were these:

• “There's an ability to learn things from the ground up, to build up understanding rather than just memorize rules or formulas. When you get a firm grasp on the concept from the beginning, you're able to learn it in a more natural way than the usual "memorize this" method. In groups where everyone is at an even level, there's a feeling of investigation when you try a problem and figure it out as a team. On a more personal level, you feel satisfaction when you figure something out the hard way.”
• “It took awhile for me to realize putting whatever thoughts I had about the problem onto paper was more beneficial than just leaving it blank. I would leave questions I didn't know blank in previous math courses and then the teacher would show me how to do them. But now putting whatever thoughts I had down it allowed my peers to help guide me through the problems with whatever work I did have.”
• “Originally (like many others), I disliked the setup of the class as well as the Harkness Discussions. However, I soon realized that there were an abundance of hidden benefits in participating in the said discussions, like: -More engaging class; having your classmates teach you feels more "personal" and "on your level". -Less intimidation; some students find teachers intimidating but this method takes that away--as students can ask each other now. -Better pacing; if you don't completely understand a question, your group can wait and explain it to you while if it were in a classroom-based setting, the teacher would probably have to go on with the schedule and you might have to seek out the teacher on your own time to understand that problem.”
• “Initially I had problems talking in the groups and realizing errors. I was stubborn and wanted to have something right instead of understanding it.”
• “I feel that having to explain my thought process and articulate what I do not understand helps me to better understand the skills that I am supposed to master. Also, when I have to work through problems before actually discussing them, I can best observe areas that require improvement, and then, the frustration of initial failure all the more clearly brings the means for success into my mind.”  
• “I at first was rather timid in asking questions of my peers, for fear of appearing inept due to my want of mathematical understanding. This, obviously, hindered my understanding, yet I was soon compelled to overcome this barrier. At times, I have also struggled to see the bigger skill set and focused too much on individual practice exercises, and not, necessarily, their broader scope. Now that my attention has been drawn to the main topic numbering system, this is much more clear.”
• “By learning in a student-centered class you are able to not only use your opinions and ideas over the question but also how other students approach the problem and are able to answer the question. This is very great to you as you aren't limited to the teacher's perspective and their teaching/solving method. Also being able to discuss with a deeper discussion and allows for a better understanding of the material as long as you are engaged and asking questions/answering the questions while the discussion is going on. Also having the students be the ones teaching, they understand you the best and are able to help you with maybe how you are making a mistake and get in your mindset to correct it and explain it to you in a manner which helps you learn the best.”
• “You are very in charge of your own learning. Independently you have to check yourself on a daily basis to make sure you are caught up and understand everything you're learning.”
• “Student centered classes make sure that the students are all contributing and helps promote leadership among the group because if an individual knows something about a problem that others don't they tend to take the lead and guide the other students so that everyone understands and are on the same page. Also, by explaining a certain question, it ensures that the student truly understands the problem. It helps boost communication skills.”
• “It is harder to learn the material yourself than to be given to you. It takes a lot more time to do the homework because you have to do more problem solving and look things up on the computer. You get frustrated with yourself at first if you can't figure something out, but you have to learn to just give it your best then collaborate with your classmates the next day to solve your issue.”
• “I feel like I'm actually able to discover new things and truly understand them when I figure it out either by myself or through group work rather than being told exactly how to do something. It's easy to remember that one "aha" moment than trying to recall something from your notes.”
• “In the beginning it felt strange to be in a classroom setting where the teacher wasn't in charge of everything. I felt frustrated at times when I couldn't figure problems out. Eventually, I learned to be more open with my classmates, because i realized that everyone is here to help everybody else.”

I received page after page of feedback along these lines.  Beyond the benefit to the students to do this kind of reflection, it was incredibly helpful to me to hear how they are feeling now that have been at this for half a school year now.  And it was obvious to me that they get it.  They get the point and purpose of running the class through Harkness, including that it’s not just about the math.  More importantly to me was this: out of the 90 kids that responded (I have more students than this, but they didn’t all take the survey), 43% said that they prefer the student-centered classroom, and 54% said that even though they don’t prefer it, they see the benefits.  Only 2 kids said they don’t see the benefits, even though they listed out a few benefits in their response to the first question.  Regardless, this was way better than the 20-80 ratio I had anticipated.

So, the big picture: having tried Brussels sprouts, 43% of the kids actually like them, and 54%, despite not preferring them, admit that the sprouts are good for them.  

Current Results

We've reached the end of the first semester, and overall the results from both honors pre-calculus and algebra 1 are positive and promising.

With the honors pre-calculus kids, we found a way to "incentivize selflessness"(which still sounds like an oxymoron to me).  We made a deal with the students that if everyone in their particular section of the course earned at least a B, then everyone would get a grade bump of "one sign", meaning B becomes B+, B+ becomes A-, and so on.  And while the kids weren't able to cash in on the deal, the overwhelming majority of them saw their grades jump by over half a letter grade on both the final IES and on the semester exam.  My hope is that they have come to realize what I knew all along: the more they help one another and the more they look out for one another, the more they will learn themselves and the better they will be able to communicate their understanding both verbally and in writing.  Granted, I'm going to explicitly mention this when we return in January, but I'm confident that my words will simply be reinforcing what they already know.  And just in case, we plan to keep the incentive in place for the entirety of second semester.

With the algebra 1 kids, giving the kids feedback rather than numbers on their papers and allowing them to make corrections to their work went very well, as the kids did remarkably well on the semester exam.  At our school, we have common tests and exams for the required courses, and the norm on the semester exam is a C average, with a few Fs and a couple As.  My kids were able to achieve a B average with plenty of As (including a 100%) and no Fs.  For the most part they took my feedback to heart and  made to necessary corrections to their misconceptions. In addition to this, they worked well with and for one another during the last few weeks of the semester merely because they understood that doing so was helpful to everyone involved.  There was no incentive as there was in honors pre-calculus, and yet the selflessness was there all the same. Perhaps the replacement of numbers with feedback served as a model or perhaps it took a bit of the competitive edge off of things, but regardless I'm hoping to be able to incorporate some of this into the honors pre-calculus classes next semester.

So, a solid first semester for both classes, and a successful (albeit exhausting) infusion of discussion-based learning into algebra 1.  On we go...