Dangerously Irrelevant

by Richard Kassissieh

A student gazes at a mystery solution. Its contents are unknown. The student reaches into her toolkit, a set of known solutions, and one by one, combines them with a small portion of the mystery solution. One test changes the color to bright yellow. Another produces a milky, solid substance. Gradually, the student pieces together the clues that allow her to identify the unknown solution.

This qualitative analysis laboratory required the student to recall properties of different solutions, understand reaction processes, and synthesize the results of different experimental tests while under pressure. To practice, the student had worked together with classmates to identify a series of mystery solutions and shared their findings with their classmates.

Did this performance assessment play out in the classroom of an innovative, 21st-century educator? No, the qualitative analysis laboratory has been part of British national chemistry examinations for decades.

It is tempting to rail against high-stakes state tests in the United States. They emphasize basic skills and fact recall, pressuring school districts to strip programs to the basics and eliminate or reduce "non-core" subjects such as art and history. For example, many school districts "double dose" language arts and mathematics classes in order to improve students' performances on state tests (see this EdWeek article).

Are large-scale, standardized assessments bound to forever measure a narrow range of skills and knowledge?

Summative work has to insist on standards of uniformity and reliability in collection and recording of data, which are not needed in formative work, and which inhibit the freedom and attention to individual needs that formative work requires.

External tests which are economical are bound to only take a short time. Therefore, their reliability and validity are bound to be severely constrained: they can only use a limited range of methods and must be limited in respect to their sampling of relevant domains.

Paul Black, Testing: Friend or Foe?

On a brighter note, some national assessments include hands-on performance assessments. Not only do we have the IGCSE national examination described above, but the U.S. Advanced Placement examinations test higher-order thinking skills through essays in many subjects and the submission of a portfolio of work in art.

The International Baccalaureate program, originally from Switzerland and growing in popularity in the U.S., includes summative assessments that measure creative problem solving, analysis and presentation of information, and argumentation (IB Diploma Programme Assessment Philosophy).

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills reports on work in progress in several states to develop "demonstrations of 21st century skills graded based on a common rubric" (p21.org).

The U.S. college admission process represents another effort to assess higher-order thinking skills fairly across a broad pool of candidates. Most selective colleges use multiple measures to evaluate students: essays, standardized test scores, lists of accomplishments, interviews, the reputation of one's high school, and letters of recommendation.

It may well be possible to develop standardized assessments that measure 21st century skills. Cost is the main obstacle. How much would it cost to systematically test problem-solving, collaboration, and presentation skills across all U.S. schools?

Though we may see inconsistencies between standardized assessments and 21st century skills, we can advocate for an increased role of performance assessment and the assessment of higher-order thinking skills in these high-stakes tests.

Richard Kassissieh is director of information technology at Catlin Gabel School (Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.) You may find him at http://kassblog.com and @kassissieh.

Photo credit: judybaxter on Flickr

As a founding member of the Teacher Leaders Network and a guy who is passionate about trying to stay in the classroom for my entire career, I’ll never forget the first time that I paged through IEL’s seminal report, Redefining the Teacher as Leader. 

Strange, huh?  People remember lots of “first times”—riding a bike, kissing a girl, driving a car, landing a job, getting a paycheck—but remembering your first time with a policy document churned out by an edu-think-tank?

Not so much. 

Maybe that’s why I feel like such an odd duck—a label that my TLN colleagues and I wear with pride. 

(Image Credit:  Orange Duck by Ansik, licensed Creative Commons Attribution)

Admittedly, there’s not a lot of teachers whose skirts get blown up by policy documents. 

But there are TONS of teachers who care deeply about serving as leaders in their schools and communities, creating what the IEL team writing Redefining the Teacher as Leader almost a decade ago described as:

“A potentially splendid resource for leadership and reform that is now being squandered: the experience, ideas, and capacity to lead of the nation’s schoolteachers” (p. 2).

And there are TONS of edu-experts that argue about the importance of teacher leadership all the time.  Need a sampling?  Take these two quotes for a ride:

• "A crying need exists for excellent, practicing teachers to advance---to lead---by taking a more formal and explicit role in the supervision and improvement of instruction."  Mike Schmoker

• "The leadership shortage may be dire, but the leadership development potential is great, if only schools and systems will tap into the potential of teacher leadership.  Even though 50,000 leaders will retire in the first few years that this book is in print, hundreds of thousands of teachers will be at the peak of their professional experience."  Douglas Reeves

Sadly, I’m here to tell you that the vast majority of our districts are still squandering the experience, ideas and capacity of our nation’s school teachers. 

In fact, little has changed in most districts—despite the never-ending rhetoric that surrounds conversations about teacher leadership.  Most of us teacher leader types are still stuck in a hapless search for organizational juice. 

Need proof? 

Then consider that over half (53) of the 140 teachers I recently surveyed are dissatisfied with the teacher leadership opportunities available to them and that just under half (49) don’t believe that teacher leadership is valued in their schools.

Pretty discouraging, huh?  Teacher leadership has been an uber-buzzword for so long that you’d think we’d see more promising trends in these kinds of numbers. 

Now, knowing full well that us odd ducks can be a bit hard to understand, I had some of my buddies share their thoughts on the kinds of things that teacher leaders need from administrators. 

Here’s a sampling of what they wrote:

“I need a principal to do more public acknowledgement of the work and effort we've put in.”  David Cohen

“What I wish every administrator knew about teacher leaders is that whether they're born or made, genuine teacher leaders are outstanding teachers first and foremost.”  Gail Ritchie

“I would like to be utilized…I would hope that I could bring a vital perspective to problem solving in the school and be asked to be involved at that level.”  Heather Wolpert-Gawron

“I need to know that my principal  is a true member of our school.  I need to see his/her face in the hallway, at PLC meetings, and at sporting events.”  Sarah Henchey

“As a teacher leader, I need an adminstrator who trusts me to think independently, make on-the-spot educated decisions, and have the ability to problem solve educational issues.”  Cossondra George

“Teacher leaders need the freedom to try new things in their classrooms. We are intelligent leaders who are learning and may hear about things before you do!”  Becky Goerend

“Teachers need…a safe place to wonder in and personalize their learning. We do not make it easy for students to learn by making it difficult for teachers to learn.”  Nancy Stuewe

“Teacher Leaders need trust, freedom, and instructional leadership from our administrators.”  Paul Cancellieri

“Teacher leaders need an administrator who allows others to have input into how to (i) set the direction of the school, (ii) redesign the organization; and (iii) manage the instructional program.”  Tania Sterling

“I would say I need to be listened to, and to receive honest and helpful feedback on my ideas.”  Bill Ivey

Interesting stuff, huh?  Basically, what we’re saying is that teacher leaders need nothing more than the confidence and trust of their administrators.

And the even better news is that, in my survey of my teacher leader friends,  "informal words of thanks and praise from principals" rates as the most important reward necessary for encouraging teacher leadership----placing higher than release time from classroom responsibilities AND additional compensation. 

To put it simply, we're competent and qualified—we're reading as much as you are, we're studying our craft in deep and meaningful ways, we understand the social dynamics of our buildings, we're perfecting our professional development skills---and putting our knowledge and skills to work ain’t going to cost you anything more than a willingness to let us lead!

That seems like a good deal to me.

(Can I get an Amen from the choir, please?)

______________________________________________________________________

About the Author:  Bill Ferriter---the mind behind The Tempered Radical---is a sixth grade teacher in Raleigh, North Carolina.   A contributing author to two assessment anthologies, The Teacher as Assessment Leader and The Principal as Assessment Leader, he is also coauthor of Building a Professional Learning Community at Work™. His second book—Teaching the iGeneration—was published by Solution Tree in June of 2010.

There are only so much bagels and coffee to go around. Most of the staff will have their pickings from the muffins (usually gone by the 50th staff member), and some will surely be on a diet or have eaten already, and they'll decide to skip over the principal's peace offering for the first staff-wide meeting of the school year. They salute people they either haven't seen in a couple of weeks or a couple of months, begrudging the first long speech of the year as well. They'll sit through the introductions, the mixed news, the goals, the one or two jokes, and the promise for a new and better year. But all the excess cream cheese dries up, the coffee gets cold, and the utensils run out. The world is starving while people dump the leftovers in a big garbage bag. If, as a principal, that's the only support you provide for your staff, then you'll wonder if that's the only part of your school that'll go stale.

As a teacher (and math coach), I'm looking for a few things from my leader. Food is supplemental in this equation, but not the true sustenance for the grueling 180-day season that is school. When a principal mentions things like autonomy, professionalism, and high expectations, this teacher's heart grows aflutter. It's as if the principal actually decided they'd actually fortified their spines with irons. Anytime a principal has confidence in their staff to do the job right, treats them like in-house specialists, it speaks volumes to the sorts of things he or she expects from the staff member.

It also means that a principal has to have those expectations met satisfactorily. Any staff member has incentive to work less hard if they know specific members of the staff get some undue privilege. Any teacher worth their weight in chalk won't fall for that, but the staff members who need the most help are the ones who've become disenchanted with the school system, the unwarranted changes in leadership, and the occasional letter in the file for not having dressed up a bulletin board. A principal here is expected to have reasonable and equitable judgment in these cases, help advance those teachers in their profession, and be the proverbial kick-in-the-pants when they're not meeting expectations.

We're professionals. We should be able to handle it.

That's not what's out there, though. As the distorted voiceboxes of the current educational system have it, teachers are nothing less than union-hugging, unpatriotic, apathetic curmudgeons, even when the regular American would disagree vehemently. At least with the apathetic part. (Ed: Jokes, folks.) Thus, because of this view, people expect principals to instantly fire "bad teachers" and turn test scores around by any means necessary, even to the detriment to the school culture. In the short term, a wack-a-teacher strategy may work, but in the long term, I can't imagine this schema to be equitable, sustainable, or vital to the school community.

I ask that principals have cojones to stand up and say "This is what's best for the students in this community, my students. This is what's best for my teachers." Not to simply go with the trend, but form their own opinion based on real research and experience. Not sway too much from the original vision, but have the clarity to include key voices from the community. Not to cowtow to the higher-ups when things look most dire, but to reflect and judge based on conscience and care. Not to let ego and derision run their living fluids dry, but lead by voice and example.

No teacher's asking for anything they can't demand of themselves for their students. Perfection isn't the goal. In extremes, the flaws become that much more obvious. Thus, those of us who take our jobs seriously in education ask for guidance, for clarity, for focus, all attainable and available.

More importantly, we ask for cojones. The courage to lead, even when there's no more cream cheese.

Guest post by Jose Vilson, who's a writer, teacher, and web designer at TheJoseVilson.com. He's currently part of a team of writers whose book, Teaching 2030: What We Must Do For Our Students and Our Public Schools - Now and in the Future, is slated for January 2011 release.

Image credit: Bullfight

[This is a guest post from Carl Anderson. If you’re interested in being a guest blogger, drop me a note. Happy reading!]

By now it is an old story but still a pressing contemporary issue. Industries that have traditionally relied on a top-down hierarchy of power distribution are folding. We see it today most readily in the newspaper industry but it is painfully obvious that other industries, especially those who deal in information currency, are under siege as well. It is clear that the schools are a part of this list.

Traditionally, or for as long as anyone alive today can remember, most school systems have operated under a very clear top-down hierarchy. The Department of Education passes down edicts to states. State Departments of Education (headed by a commissioner) then pass funding & accreditation requirements and curriculum standards down to school districts. School districts are headed by superintendents operating with an authority given to them by school boards delegating responsibilities to principals and other building administrators. These administrators then delegate responsibilities to teachers and other school employees who then deliver the state mandated standards-driven curriculum to students. I realize this is a very simplistic picture of our school systems and there are great differences in the nuances between schools but for the most part this is the type of system most of us operate under.

This system was very efficient for many years and was necessary for a long time. However, when we hear criticisms of schools operating under an industrial model of education looking more like factories it is not just what goes on in the classroom that causes this comparison but also how they are structured. This structure looks like almost any corporate business hierarchy with the CEO and shareholders at the top and the workers and consumers at the bottom. Just as the corporate structure is designed to make as much profit for those at the top this system best ensures that the needs of those near the top of the pyramid are met. Today, in education, this hierarchy is most concerned with administering RTTT and NCLB measures like curriculum standards. Hence, the overly high concern with high stakes testing and "teach to the test" messages many of our teachers end up hearing. Who does this system serve? With whom lies agency in learning?

There is a new structure of learning emerging that is gaining momentum, one which appears to have no regard for edicts issued via a top-down hierarchy. Web 2.0 & social media technologies have given teachers and students agency in their own learning through the creation of what has been collectively referred to as "personal learning networks" (PLNs). Through PLNs learners choose their own learning agendas and self-select who they listen to and what curriculum (if any) they follow. Through the use of popular technologies like Twitter, YouTube, Blogs, and Facebook informal learning is quickly becoming a viable option. Teachers no longer have to look to their school system for support, they can find it through the networks they have created. This same kind of network structure and powerful informal learning is also what has made this latest phenomenon of unschooling actually seem like a viable option for some. The more our networks grow the more they challenge the authority of the traditional top-down hierarchy.

While unschooling is a little bit extreme and probably not right for most kids the fuel giving this movement momentum is something we need to address in education or our formal institutions of education will suffer the same fate as the newspaper industry. I am reminded of this slide from a TED Talk by Devdutt Pattanaik called, East vs west -- the myths that mystify..

In this talk Dr. Pattanaik discusses how the fundamental belief structures between east and west cultures clash. He illustrates this with a simple story about Alexander the Great meeting a gymnosophist, "When they met, the gymnosophist asked what Alexander the Great was doing. To which he replied, 'I am conquering the world. What are you doing?' 'I am experiencing nothingness,' replied the gymnosophist." Neither could see the point in the others endeavor because the denominator for Alexander's life was One and the denominator for the gymnosophist's life was Many. This fundamental element of belief informed everything about how both individuals interpreted these actions. The traditional hierarchy that has dominated our school systems has a denominator of one while PLNs, student-centered learning environments, and movements like unschooling operate with a denominator of many. If our industry is going to survive we need to find a way for both equations to find a common denominator. We have to look for ways to invert this hierarchy.

One potential method that our schools could use to help address this issue of one verses many is teacher professional partnerships (TPPs). TPPs are similar to law firms where the practitioners own their own practice. In TPP schools there is no administration but instead the teachers in the TPP work together to share the responsibilities normally delegated to building an district administrators.

This solves a few problems that teachers and schools face. First, it brings more decision making responsibility closer to those who are directly effected by those decisions. It places agency closer to those served by schooling and in so doing elevates the teaching profession. With agency comes responsibility and built-in accountability. If a teacher is held responsible for their own performance via a personal stake in ensuring that they offer a quality learning environment that students will want to participate in there will be no need for complex systems of teacher performance pay or other measures like those in RTTT. With a TPP a teacher's performance is shown in their enrollment and whether a school thrives or fails depends entirely on how well they manage their own practice. What's more, TPPs eliminate the need for teacher unions since the partnership is in itself a union of sorts.

Currently there are just ten TPP public schools in operation in the United States and so far they all appear to be doing well. This model of school organization holds a lot of potential addressing the problems and issues facing schools and education including the inevitable irrelevance of our traditional school hierarchy. Ted Kolderie from Education|Evolving will be Steve Hargadon's guest on his Future of Education series this Thursday, July 8, 2010 to discuss Teacher Professional Partnerships. For more information on TPPs I urge you to attend this free online discussion in Elluminate or at least listen to the recording afterwords.

Carl Anderson is an art and technology teacher, technology integration specialist, and adjunct instructor for Hamline University's School of Education. He writes the Techno Constructivist blog and is @anderscj on Twitter.

My teaching philosophy is pretty straightforward. I believe that

• the teaching-learning process is primarily for the benefit of the learner, not the teacher.

• all students can, will, and want to learn, given the proper learning environment.

• students actively and individually make sense of what they learn by integrating it into what they already understand. Because by definition teaching cannot occur without learning, I should always seek and value students' points of view in order to understand students' thought processes and knowledge acquisition.

• my ultimate responsibility as a teacher is to create a learning environment that facilitates learning for every student. My ultimate goal is to make each class the best learning experience students have ever had.

Clearly this is a constructivist approach, one that I have found works extremely well with adult learners. Because I primarily teach prospective principals and superintendents, my students often are older and have more experience in schools than I do. To ignore their wealth of knowledge would be pedagogically unsound and philosophically ludicrous.

My approach to teaching has both benefits and burdens. On the positive side, I find that students respond well to my student-centered approach. They are quick to respond and participate in class, and I have little difficulty engaging them in course material that, for many, is quite difficult. Because my main teaching areas, law and technology, are extremely dynamic and unfamiliar territory for most of my students, it is important that I help them navigate their learning curves smoothly and painlessly (for example, my school law students love that I give them the ability to pass without penalty on Socratic-style questions from me, even though they rarely actually do so). On the flip side, such an approach establishes a very high bar for me to meet. Since I tell my students that I am working to make each class their “best course ever,” they have extremely high expectations about the quality of their learning experience. This puts some pressure on me to try and meet each of their individual learning needs.

I work extremely hard to provide a safe, high-quality learning environment for my students. One way I do this is to use formative assessments to guide my instructional practice. I tell students that an end-of-course summative course evaluation doesn’t help their own learning experience; we thus do “mini evaluations” one-third and two-thirds of the way through each course that I teach. I ask three primary questions:

• On a scale of 1 (terrible) to 10 (excellent), how would you rate your class experience to date?

• What are some things that you like about this class?

• What are some ways that we can improve your class experience in the time that we have left?

I then present the results to students at the beginning of our next class (with accompanying graphs), emphasizing that I am striving for improvement. I not only go over students’ ratings and comments, I explain my thinking behind some of our class procedures and practices and offer tangible ways that I can act upon their feedback over the rest of the semester. The mini evaluations are especially useful when I am teaching courses for the first time because I tend to get the most feedback and my lowest ratings (both formative and summative) for classes that are new for me.

I implement a number of other bidirectional feedback mechanisms in my classes too. For example, at the beginning of each course, students receive a list of former students’ responses to the question, “If you could tell the students who next take this class one thing, what would it be?” from the previous class’s customized summative evaluation forms (used in addition to the university’s standard course evaluation form). I also frequently do quick, anonymous checks for understanding at the end of class sessions or online activities, asking my students “What is the most significant thing you learned in this class (activity)?” and “What question is uppermost in your mind at the end of this class (activity)?” All of my students submit reflective self-evaluations of their learning at the end of each course.

I like to experiment with my teaching. I constantly search for new ways to present material and to have students exhibit their understanding of course concepts. Lately I’ve been exploring the intersections of visual thinking tools and technology (e.g., mind mapping or concept mapping software). Many of my teaching methods involve the use of innovative information and communication technologies, both to model effective uses of technology in instruction and to expose my students to technology solutions that they do not know even exist.

As much as I enjoy my other activities, teaching is still the most professionally gratifying thing that I do each week.

If you haven't visited this blog's actual web site lately, I've been tweaking a few navigational items. Probably the biggest change is that I added a horizontal navigation bar up top so that I could get some other content closer to the top of the home page. I'm also going to do my best to always display over on the right side of the blog whatever book I'm currently reading. I added a widget on the right to display my last five Twitter posts. I also updated the feed for the Others' Posts section on the right so that it contains every blog on CASTLE's Great Blogs for Busy Administrators list (which you also can see displayed as a public page).

Finally, a more subtle shift that I made a while ago was to put Recent Comments right below the search box at the top left. I had it below Recent Posts but thought that visitors would be more interested in what was generating conversation…

If you've got any other suggestions for me, let me know!

Today I had the odd experience of hearing United States Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), recipient of SETDA’s federal policymaker award for his co-sponsorship of the ATTAIN bill, say to the lunch crowd that he was going to tell us a few statistics that most of us didn’t know and then recite a few of the slides from the original Did You Know? presentation.

I think I’m proud? I know I’m glad he is behind ATTAIN. But I’m also going to send him the new version!

Here’s a paraphrase of a great quote from Frances Bradburn: “Yes, you absolutely need tools and training and all those other things. But the key is to begin.”