We are also getting into very deep concepts in our readings. This week's chapters centered on supporting student creativity and problem solving. These two things are either at the forefront of an engaging science classroom or never mentioned in the typical stuffy science classroom. A very tough conversation needs to be had about wether we increase the amount of problem solving that happens in the classroom and decrease the overall amount of content, or if we go for breath rather than depth. As we go toward more and more accountability in our curriculum via standardized tests and other easily measurable objectives I fear that there will be less incentive for teachers to try truly innovative teaching methods involving Problem Based Learning. Eventually we will come to a compromise as to what needs to be taught if not how it should be taught.
The last thing that I'd like to write is about something cheerful. I really liked the Magic Square assignment that we had to complete this week. I think it could be implemented as a warmup for my students for those days when we have to work with data and see patterns. 
Here is a picture of the Magic Square. Try it out if you haven't already.
Hi John,
ReplyDeleteI really agree with your comment about balancing problem solving with content delivery. It does no good to have students memorize the periodic table if they can not think through the steps needed to separate a solid from a liquid.
One other feature of Google Docs that you might want to explore is the creation of forms. You could create a form for signing out the supplies in your science inventory, and have the entries automatically appear in your spreadsheet. Here is a link to a sample form that I created to compare Christmas gifts received and given:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/wolfmail.stritch.edu/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dEV0dGNPQVNiSHVuaExJdjRSanZrUWc6MQ#gid=0
And here is the spreadsheet:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/wolfmail.stritch.edu/ccc?key=0Auyl8fgWt9e5dEV0dGNPQVNiSHVuaExJdjRSanZrUWc&hl=en&authkey=CJjim4EL
I agree with John and John. If we are in agreement that today's students need to learn 21st Century Skills (which include creativity and problem solving), then we cannot continue to put such heavy emphasis on high stakes testing that requires teachers to spend an inordinate amount of time "teaching to the test." Mastering a huge amount of content knowledge is not going to prepare students for the jobs that will be available to them when they are ready to enter the workforce.
ReplyDeleteEveryone who has posted before me has made great points. I am just curious if we are taking a cookie-cutter approach (a pun regarding John's Wookie Cookies) to the education of our youth? If "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) is going to be true, don't we need to find a better way to measure educational gains than in a high-stakes, 1x per year state mandated test? This is especially relevant when you are measuring and comparing urban schools to sub-urban and rural schools. Each type of school has its own challenges, but in many cases, the sub-urban and rural schools are not being pointed out as "Failing Schools" in regards to NCLB. Is it fair to measure all students the same way when their experiences and challenges are totally different which leads to the prioritizing of things differently? If I was an urban kid wondering where I would be able to find food and shelter for the night, I do not think that I would not be stressing too much about a standardized test the next day. Many schools do their best to even the playing field for their students, but is it possible for this to be truly done? If our students are being told that they need to be able to interpret things a specific way in order to do well on "the test", won't they be less willing to take the chance and attempt a creative or unusual approach to finding a solution to a problem? I guess my frustrations are showing about the fact that all students are expected to be able to make the "standards" that are arbitrarily set by someone who has had the education and capital to be able to run for and win a political office. What do many of the people who make the rules, really know about the kids that we are trying to teach. There is a reason that the average stay in MPS as a teacher is only 3 years. People realize that either they can stay and get burned out or they need to leave to go where the challenges are not quite so insurmountable.
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