Week 4 Reading Reflection

There Is No "I" In TEAM...

(but let me form a sub-committee just to make sure)

After finishing Chapter 6 of "How People Learn" I realized that in the discussion of the four perspectives on learning environments (learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment center, and community centered) that need to work together in order to promote student achievement  the amount of resources available to teacher and student was never addressed.  This made me wonder how the amount of available resources affects student learning.  We hear time and again that schools have limited budgets- with state funding cuts and higher staff expenditures, but can a high level of student achievement still be attained with limited funding?

Ludger Woessmann, a professor of economics at the University of Munich, conducted a study considering worldwide student achievement reports and asking  if school policy and institutional variation help to explain variation in student performance and if so, which school policies and institutions are most conducive to student performance?  Results of this study were publish in the article, "Why Students in Some Countries Do Better" on the Educationnext website.  (Check out Figure 1- the high achieving countries are not necessarily all rich.  Some are former Communist countries with more centralized governments).  Woessmann states that giving schools more resources is not the answer.  Spending more money on an institution that enacts ineffective policies will do nothing to improve student achievement.  Instead the focus should be for schools (at district, state, and national levels) to coordinate policies for student learning and assessment.  He concludes, "an institutional system in which all the people involved have an incentive to improve student performance is the only alternative that promises positive effects."

I'm not saying that funding for schools should be lowered and I'm not against giving schools more money.  I am sure that a tour of derelict buildings in a poor rural or inner-city school district would have me picketing the State Capitol for more school funding, but I wonder if (sometimes) districts use a lack of funding as an excuse for poor student achievement?   I am personally affected by limited budgets.  Many school media specialists have been laid off in many districts throughout the state as districts contend with ever decreasing budgets as they pare down resources to what is deemed the absolute minimum for learning.  Do I think that a school media specialist can help raise student achievement?  Sure I do... if they are an effective team member- collaborating with staff to integrate the four learning environments discussed in this chapter.  

As Woessmann states in his study, all people involved- teachers, students, administrators, and parents, need to have an incentive to work together to raise student achievement levels.  I think the four learning environments address this need.  If everyone works together encouraging students to contribute their "knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs" within a learning environment that provides the additional knowledge and skills to function in and connect to society with formative and summative assessments that align with individual learning goals then student achievement will improve.  It takes time, effort, and patience to work together to enact policies that improve student learning, but aligning the four perspectives on learning environments will help to achieve that goal. 

Now, on to assessment...

The Sadler reading on formative assessment immediately reminded me of the research class I am taking right now- SI 623.  Evaluating an assessment's reliability and validity as a tool to make qualitative or quantitative judgements about student work is just as tricky as evaluating student work itself.  Just like in developing the appropriate research method to find answers for the questions of a research study, a teacher must consider the many aspects of student learning in order to create the most effective assessment tool.  Despite this effort, it has been shown that student achievement does not necessarily improve "when teachers provide students with valid and reliable judgments about the quality of their work" (Sadler 119).  This is frustrating to me.  Again and again in graduate school the use of formative assessments has been stressed as critical to student learning and achievement, but "students often show little or no growth or development despite regular, accurate feedback" (Sadler 119).  So why isn't a teacher's use formative assessments effective?

I think it is because of the type of formative assessment that is being given and the manner in which it is being delivered.  I appreciated the discussion of the difference between classroom learning environments worldwide.  Going back to Woessmann's study of student achievement in regard to the broad implementation of institutional policies- I think that is the key, the broad implementation of formative assessments.  Across the curriculum students should expect be given formative assessments on a daily basis.  If students know that their daily learning environment will not be passive, they will pay more attention and be more interested in collaborative learning with the teacher and their fellow students.  Daily feedback by all teachers throughout the day is key.  The formative assessments should not be all the same, but the similarity from classroom to classroom is that the student can expect for them to happen.

To make this happen, school buildings need to set standards for learning, understand where each student falls within that standard, and be able to provide differentiated learning experiences to help each student reach the agreed upon standard. Again, this is not easy- but it is possible.  Though as the article states, the student must not be left out of the equation.  Each student needs to understand his own abilities and be able to make self-assessments throughout the learning process.  It may be as simple as a younger student asking himself, "Is this my best work?"  I have tried this in the classroom just last week after a discussion with my mentor teacher about how we can allow our students to become more independent during computer lessons.  Sometimes students need to be told step-by-step how to save or print a document again and again- never transferring knowledge from one lesson to the next.  This is not teaching students how to use a program- it is only teaching students how to follow step-by-step instructions.  Given the tools they need through instruction the goal I have for my students is for them to be able to assist themselves through different processes, gaining more confidence along the way.   When the time comes for self-assessment they can assure themselves that it is their best work, and if it's not... they can fix it and make it better.

Readings:

National Research Council. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition. National Academies Press, 2000. 131-154.

Sadler, D. Royce. "Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems." Instructional Science 18 (1989): 119-144.