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April 25, 2012

Response: Additional Ways We Can Teach Social Studies More Effectively -- Part Two

(This is the second post in a three part series. You can see Part One here)

I asked:

What's the best advice you can give to Social Studies teachers who want to be more effective?

On Tuesday, I shared guest responses from three talented and experienced educators: Stephen Lazar, Bill Bigelow, and Sarah Kirby-Gonzalez.

Today's column offers responses from three more Social Studies teachers whom I know and respect: Eric Langhorst, Beth Sanders and Russel Tarr.

"Part Three" will appear next Wednesday, and will share many suggestions shared from readers (there's still time if you would like to share yours!), along with my own advice.

The next "question of the week" will appear in a week.

Response From Eric Langhorst

Eric Langhorst is an 8th grade American history teacher at South Valley Jr. High School in Liberty, Missouri and is currently enjoying his 18th year in the classroom. He was the 2008 Missouri Teacher of the Year and is currently writing his doctoral dissertation on how social studies use Twitter to collaborate. Eric maintains a blog at Speaking Of History:

I think teachers can teach social studies effectively by creating personal connections between the content and their students. This advice not only applies to social studies, but any content area. I think social studies teachers have long been victims of the stereotypical history teacher who only gives multiple choice tests on the dates of battles and offers their students a steady diet of mind dumbing worksheets and lectures. This style of teaching is an injustice for any social studies teacher to deliver considering the intriguing and dynamic content in their curriculum.

Quality social studies teachers dig deeper than trivial facts, they encourage their students to learn by facilitating personal connections. Having a personal connection doesn't mean the student must have a great grandfather that fought in the Civil War. It means that the student can find an emotional connection or reason for becoming personally invested in learning about the content. Most students will not enter your classroom with a wealth of pre existing knowledge of your history content, but they do enter with an understanding of a wide range of emotions. The 14 year old sitting in the fourth row of your 8th grade American history class needs a reason to care about the Revolutionary War. That student understands doubt, fear and perseverance - all qualities that a teacher can use to teach the plight of a teenage soldier in Washington's army.

Social studies teachers need to capitalize on the richness of their content area. The best social studies teachers today are doing this using technology, incorporating higher order thinking skills in their lessons and assessing their students using standards based grading. Students need to get their hands dirty while learning social studies content in order to help them fulfill one of the most important reasons for this content area in public education: creating an informed citizenry capable of participating in a democracy.

Response From Beth Sanders

Beth Sanders teaches 9th and 11th grade social studies at inner-city Tarrant High School in Birmingham, Alabama, where her students recently participated in the iCitizenship project. She is also a technology consultant for the Alabama Best Practices Center and a Connected Coach for the Powerful Learning Practice Network.

Before we can become more effective social studies teachers, I think we need to redefine what we teach and then remodel how we teach. I'm often frustrated with being labeled narrowly as a "history" teacher. We need to learn from the past, but we also need to be able to apply that knowledge and understanding to our own present and future. In my classroom, I support my students in creating a basic knowledge of history, but that's just the beginning. I'm most interested in helping them learn to apply history to current contexts.

To be an effective social studies teacher we don't need to look much further than the definition of our content. Social: of or relating to society, companionable, public, shared, collective, common, community. Great social studies teachers do not drill and kill, great social studies teachers do not focus on dates and names and chapter reviews, great social studies teachers do not focus on the past but rather how to get students to connect the past to the present.

Great social studies teachers emphasize ideas, causes, effects, and actions across all of society, affecting all people, and not just the "facts" included in a textbook or the "winning" side of a story. Effective social studies teachers engage today's students when we make discussing, questioning, writing, problem solving and creating on a critical level the daily norm. When we understand that each of our classrooms is itself a unique society and a place where real life not only needs to be read about and discussed, but is also happening every day, then we will become more effective. Most importantly, we will be preparing our students to enter a rapidly changing, extremely diverse, intrinsically connected society that needs more people who are prepared to listen, empathize, write, discuss, and problem solve -- not obsess on the past.

Response From Russel Tarr

Russel Tarr is the creator of activehistory.co.uk and classtools.net, two websites popular around the world among teachers and students. He is Head of History at the International School of Toulouse, France.

Russel offers several specific suggestions, including:

1. Base all your classroom lessons around questions, debates and decision-making simulations.

Start each lesson with a central question that we will be investigated so that there is an immediate sense of purpose and engagement. Investigate historical issues in the forms of debates and courtroom trials to get students using evidence critically and appreciating the importance of interpretation. For example, I study the French Revolution primarily through an extended courtroom trial of Louis XVI (me) complete with prosecution and defence teams who cross-examine the King and judges who produce 'surprise witnesses' (sources) which each team has to interpret and then persuade the judges to trust or distrust their evidence as appropriate.

When I look at the abolition of the slave trade, we adopt the format of 'The Apprentice' TV show, with each team producing a marketing campaign complete with logo, brand name, fundraising ideas, merchandise and suggested target audience. Each of these is presented to 'Lord Sugartrader' (the teacher) who interviews the team members and declares an overall winner before we compare these ideas to what was used by the real abolitionists.

Last but not least, I use interactive decision-making simulations on the computers so that students can reflect on how they would have reacted to various historical situations: for example, in role as the Kaiser before World War One, they decide how they would have reacted to the international situation as it unfolds before 1914 and thereby determine how far Wilhelm II was responsible for World War Two.

2. Infographics

I avoid getting each student to produce and then deliver a PowerPoint presentation to the rest of the class as this is very time-consuming and not particularly engaging (after the first few!). Instead I get students to produce a one-sided 'infographic' (e.g. on 'a revolution in history') using a tool like Popplet,which forces them to be much more concise and focused. We then place them all on one large display wall and students spend time spotting comparisons and contrasts between the causes and results of different revolutions - a much more efficient and engaging method.

3. Follow some Inspirational Blogs

I follow a number of history-related blogs in Google Reader (which I've organised into a bundle you can follow here and use Google Alerts to keep me posted aboutcurrent news items making mention (for example) of "Spanish Civil War" and any other topics I am currently studying with students. It all helps to keep lessons fresh.

Please feel free to leave a comment sharing your reactions to this question and the ideas shared here.

Thanks to Eric, Beth and Russel for sharing their responses!

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org.When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind. I'm way behind in acknowledging questions that have been sent in, but I promise to get caught up in the summer!

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a selection of twelve published by Eye On Education.

I'll be posting Part Three of this series next Tuesday and the next "question of the week" in a week.

Posted by Larry Ferlazzo at 8:57 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

April 24, 2012

Several Ways We Can Teach Social Studies More Effectively -- Part One

(This is the first post in a three part series. Part Two can be read here)

I asked:

What's the best advice you can give to Social Studies teachers who want to be more effective?

Today, I'll share guest responses from three talented and experienced educators: Stephen Lazar, Bill Bigelow, and Sarah Kirby-Gonzalez.

I'll publish "Part Two" on Thursday, which will include the comments from several other contributors.

"Part Three" will appear next Wednesday, and will share many suggestions shared from readers (there's still time if you would like to share yours!), along with my own advice.

The next "question of the week" will appear in ten days.

Response From Stephen Lazar

Stephen Lazar is currently a National-Board Certified social studies teacher in Brooklyn, N.Y., and is a co-founder of Harvest Collegiate High School, a new public school opening this September in Manhattan. He works with teachers throughout New York to support inquiry-based instruction. He is on the executive board of ATSS/UFT and is a member of the Teacher Leaders Network. His article, "Septima Clark: Organizing for Positive Freedom," appears in The New Black History, edited by the late Manning Marable and Elizabeth Hinton. He blogs about teaching and reflects on his practice at Outside the Cave:

Teaching Social Studies presents teachers with a unique set of challenges not always found in other disciplines. Students tend to see Social Studies in general, and History in particular, as the subject matter that has the least relevancy to their current lives and their future needs. And while a certain degree of cultural literacy and understanding of the past is a worthy goal, I have to concede that our students have a point. The best advice I can give Social Studies teachers who want to be more effective is to remember that we teach students, not content.

While standards may dictate that students be able to explain the Green Revolution, the human beings in our classes demand that the information we help them learn also help them develop as people. Students may enter our rooms asking, "when am I ever going to need use this information?" We need to help them leave wondering, "what lessons can I learn from the past to help myself and our society make better decisions in the future?" A study of the Green Revolution, then, becomes a lesson in how a seemingly wonderful solution to problem (hunger) can have unintended consequences that are potentially far more catastrophic (overpopulation, increased reliance on polluting fossil fuels). By focusing on transferable goals, students will not only be more engaged, but will better remember and understand the content.

It is far easier to focus on teaching students when there is less content to worry about; less becomes more. But for those like myself who face high stakes exams, as we have in New York, this is not always an option. Nonetheless, teachers can and should still focus on larger transfer goals.

To do so, it becomes imperative that teachers prioritize content. Even though I personally have a far greater interest in the ancient Greeks than the Romans, I spend far more time in my global classes on the Romans as their civilization yields far more transferable lessons to the decisions students will have to make as citizens. To be able to do this, I rush through the Greeks in a day. I sacrifice understanding of the different views of Plato and Aristotle, as much as it pains the former philosophy major inside me, so that my students can examine how a republic can turn into an empire, so that students may be on the watch for similar conditions in our American republic.

As you sit down to plan your next unit, start by asking two questions: "What do I want my students to remember about this unit in ten years?" and "How can my students use the information and skills outside of my class right now?" The answers to these two questions can then guide the assessments and lessons your students will experience.

Response From Bill Bigelow

Bill Bigelow is the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine, and co-director of the Zinn Education Project. He is the author or co-editor of many books on teaching, including Rethinking Columbus, A People's History for the Classroom, and Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World. He taught high school social studies in Portland, Ore. for almost 30 years.

Bill offers his advice specifically to new Social Studies teachers, but they are words worth hearing for all of us no matter how long we've been teaching:

Perhaps the most important piece of advice I can pass along to new social studies teachers is the reminder that the textbook is not the curriculum. Increasingly, fewer and fewer giant multinational corporations produce our social studies textbooks. And all these for-profit entities have a vested interest in students (and teachers) not developing a critical awareness of the patterns of power and wealth that benefit those corporations.

That means that social studies teachers need to rely on ourselves, on networks of critical teachers, on non-profit publishers, and on the communities we serve, as the sources of curriculum.

Teach about what matters. Our job is to excite students about the world, to help them see the role that they can play in making society more equal and more just, to express their ideas powerfully, to see that social studies is about real people's lives and about their relationship to each other and to nature. Enter the profession as a scholar, an historian, an activist, a curricular artist -- not as a subordinate to some "official" curriculum established far away from our classrooms by self-interested parties.

Creating a lively, playful, experiential curriculum about things that matter is more fun for students, and for us as teachers, too. The more that your students find meaning and joy in the social studies curriculum, the more vital your professional lives will be and the longer you will likely stay in teaching.

By "experiential," I mean that we need to show students the world, not just tell them about it. We need a curriculum of role plays, simulations, and demonstrations that can bring social dynamics alive in the classroom, which is another reason to see yourself as a curricular artist and not as a mere dispenser of information. (See the Zinn Education Project for numerous models of different kinds of role plays and participatory curricula.)

Don't forget that our students' lives are also part of social studies. Bring those lives into the curriculum. Issues of race, class, culture, gender, language, and nationality all play out in the broader society, but also in students' day-to-day experiences. Social studies is not just about famous people and Big Events, it's about our students and the choices they face everyday. Find ways to blend their stories into the curriculum. (For example, see Linda Christensen's books Reading, Writing, and Rising Up and Teaching for Joy and Justice.)

Especially these days, to teach social studies requires us to push at the boundaries that have traditionally confined our discipline. Arguably the most pressing issue facing humankind is climate change. Social studies teachers may not feel comfortable talking about atmospheric parts per million of carbon dioxide, but this is our issue as much as it "belongs" to science teachers. The causes of the climate crisis, its social impact, proposals for its mitigation, and ultimately how we can create a world of ecological sanity--these are all social issues, albeit ones marginalized in state standards and textbooks.

Remember, social studies is not only about chronicling events and memorizing dates. It's less about description, than about explanation. It's about questioning society, searching for patterns, and developing the tools to make the world a better place. Teaching social studies means showing how ordinary people have made a difference throughout history. In countless ways, we need to bring that activist sensibility to our students.

Response From Sarah Kirby-Gonzalez

Sarah Kirby-Gonzalez is a fifth-grade teacher in the Folsom Cordova Unified School District, and was named the district's 2010 Teacher of the Year. Sarah is a National Board Certified Teacher and a former Sacramento County History Day Teacher of the Year. She is a member of Accomplished California Teachers:

As elementary school teachers, we have an incredible responsibility. Though our students will no doubt specialize in their own favorite subjects later in their educational careers, it is our job as elementary teachers to lay a foundation upon which they can build. It's impossible to do this job well without, as the Beatles would say, a little help from our friends.

Surround yourself with the best (and use their ideas in your classroom!)

Find ways to connect with teachers throughout your district. In our district we have something called Vertical Team, where teachers who teach fifth-grade through twelfth come together. The meetings are teacher-run, and thus teacher-centered, providing us all with rich, meaningful professional development. There may be similar things in your district already established.

I was incredibly lucky to be part of a master's program comprised of teachers in my district. Together we supported one another through the National Board process. As a result of National Board, I find myself constantly asking how lessons will impact student learning. If an approach isn't going to have significant impact on student learning, I abandon it. While the National Board process in itself was extremely meaningful, the relationships I forged with my colleagues were equally, if not more, valuable. Consider joining a group of teachers pursuing National Board, or bringing the idea of doing Take One! to your school site.

If you can't find an already established group that meets your needs, create your own. A handful of my colleagues and I formed a writing group four years ago. We meet every month or so to share student work, stories about writing, and tips that work well in our rooms.

Groups like these provide opportunities to share knowledge, reflect on classroom practice, and push yourself and your colleagues to the next level. You will leave meetings re-energized and excited about trying new things in your room.

Step outside of your school, district, and even state

There are lots of incredible opportunities out there, just waiting for someone like you to apply. The summer programs I have attended have had long-lasting effects. The Writing Project, specifically the Area3 Writing Project's Summer Institute, transformed the way I teach writing and it's no wonder so many participants describe it as "life changing."

For fifth-grade teachers, the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute in Virginia is a must. This truly makes history come alive, and it offers scholarships!

Another great opportunity is the National Endowment for the Humanities Landmark Grants. The NEH offers workshops in a variety of states on an assortment of topics. The stipend will cover all of your costs, which is an extra bonus.

Bring in the reinforcements!

Guest speakers can make learning come alive for your students. Find areas where your expertise may be lacking, and invite an expert to come and talk with your students. Recently I had a cardiologist and a surgeon teach different aspects of the human body. Not only did they do a terrific job and provide my students with important content knowledge, but my students were also provided role models for a possible future career. Look for areas where you can bring in people from the outside -- by bringing in parents, and community members, your students benefit tremendously.

Get informed, and involved

This is a tough time in education, and our voices are often being ignored when it comes to policy decisions. Write letters to the editor to offer your insight after "educational" articles have been published, pick up the phone and ask your elected officials to fund education, and speak out to families. Together, we can be a powerful group!

Please feel free to leave a comment sharing your reactions to this question and the ideas shared here.

Thanks to Stephen, Bill and Sarah for sharing their responses!

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org.When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind. I'm way behind in acknowledging questions that have been sent in, but I promise to get caught up in the summer!

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a selection of twelve published by Eye On Education.

I'll be posting Part Two of this series on Thursday and the next "question of the week" in ten days.

Posted by Larry Ferlazzo at 9:25 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

April 19, 2012

How Can We Teach Social Studies More Effectively?

Though I'm receiving plenty of reader questions (but could always use more!), I periodically instead decide to respond to a "Question That's Been On My Mind."

This is another one of those times (I'll be returning to reader questions next week)....

What's the best advice you can give to Social Studies teachers who want to be more effective?

Please share your thoughts in the comments, or, if you prefer, feel free to email them to me.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a selection of twelve published by Eye On Education.

You can send questions to me at lferlazzo@epe.org.When you send in your question, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

And just a reminder -- you can subscribe to this blog for free via RSS Reader or email....

Posted by Larry Ferlazzo at 12:58 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

April 17, 2012

Response: Several Kinds Of Grading Systems

Charlie Herzog asked:

Should we continue to assign students grades in the traditional manner
(percentages & letters), or should we move towards a system based on levels of
mastery?

Grading is always a hot topic for teachers. I don't have much knowledge of the "mastery" grading concept, though, which is why I'm deferring to guests Thomas R. Guskey, Susan M. Brookhart, and my friend and Teacher Leaders Network colleague Bill Ivey.

I would, however, like to share how I handle grades. It may not be a particularly "methodical" system, but it works for my students and me.

As regular readers of this blog know, I put a great deal of energy into helping "students motivate themselves" through assisting them develop and strengthen their sense of intrinsic motivation. Through those activities, and through multiple discussions, I think that most of my students understand that my priorities for how I assess them, and how they should assess themselves, emphasizes learning qualities that countless studies have identified as the key elements for a successful language learner (most of my students are English Language Learners). Research has also identified most of them as critical qualities for any successful learner, as well. They include:

Appetite for learning

Perseverance

Self-initiative

Academic risk-taking

Ability to learn from mistakes

Willingness to teach others (for more on this particular quality, you might want to see "What I Cannot Create, I Do Not Understand")

At the beginning of the school year, I teach a lesson on the importance of these qualities (including several fun videos), and at the end of each semester I use a student self-assessment process in all my classes (ELL and non-ELL) to help determine grades. They complete a form that contains five questions and have to support their answer with specific examples:

Personal Grade Reflection -- Answer and Give supporting examples

1. Do you initiate working and learning most or all of the time in this class, or does Mr. Ferlazzo have to push you a lot?

2. Do you take risks and try challenging tasks in this class even if you make mistakes (and learn from them). Or do you "play it safe" most of the time?

3. Do you try to teach other students if you understand something more than they do? Do you just give them the answer, or do you help them learn? Or do you only focus on your own work and ignore students who need help?

4. When you don't feel like doing the assignment, most of the time do you do your best anyway, or do you try to put it off and/or not do your best?

5. Think about the answers you made to the last four questions, and think about the quality of your school work this quarter -- tests, classwork, computer assignments, etc. What grade do you think you deserve and why?

I usually agree with them ninety percent of the time, increase it five percent of the time, and reduce it five percent of the time (after a discussion).

Now, it's time to hear from today's guests:

Response From Thomas R. Guskey

Thomas R. Guskey is an education professor at the University of Kentucky, and author of Practical Solutions for Serious Problems in Standards-Based Grading (2009) and Developing Standards-Based Report Cards (2010):

If someone proposed combining measures of height, weight, diet, and exercise into a single number or mark to represent a person's physical condition, we would consider it laughable. How could the combination of such diverse measures yield anything meaningful? Yet every day, teachers combine aspects of students' achievement, attitude, responsibility, effort, and behavior into a single grade that's recorded on a report card - and no one questions it.

Recognizing that merging these diverse sources of evidence distorts the meaning of any grade, educators in many parts of the world today assign multiple grades. In particular, educators distinguish product, process, and progress learning criteria.

Product criteria are favored by educators who believe that the primary purpose of grading is to communicate what students know and are able to do at a particular point in time. Teachers who use product criteria typically base grades exclusively on final products (reports, projects, or exhibits), summative assessments, and other culminating demonstrations of learning.

Process criteria are emphasized by educators who believe that grades should reflect not only the final results, but also how students got there. Teachers who consider responsibility, effort, formative assessments, homework, punctuality of assignments, or class participation when assigning grades use process criteria.

Progress criteria are used by educators who believe the most important aspect of grading is how much students gain from their learning experiences. Teachers using progress criteria look at how much improvement students have made over a particular period of time, rather than just where they are at a given moment.

Reporting multiple grades causes no increase in teachers' grading workload. Teachers gather the same evidence on student learning that they did before, but no longer need worry about how to weigh or combine that evidence in calculating an overall grade.

More importantly, reporting separate grades for product, process, and progress criteria makes grading more meaningful. Grades for academic achievement reflect precisely that - academic achievement - and not some confusing amalgamation that's impossible to interpret and rarely presents a true picture of students' proficiency. Multiple grades provide for parents and others a more comprehensive profile of every student's performance in school.

Response From Susan M. Brookhart

Susan M. Brookhart is an independent education consultant and a senior research associate in the Center for Advancing the Study of Teaching and Learning at Duquesne University. Her books include How to Assess Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Your Classroom and Grading and Learning: Practices That Support Student Achievement:

Should we continue to assign students grades in the traditional manner (percentages & letters), or should we move towards a system based on levels of mastery?

I support a grading system based on levels of mastery. The problem isn't percentages or letters, really. Traditional grading practices, however, are so closely associated with the percentage and letter systems that it is great to be able to use the current interest in standards to start over with grading, as well. Grading reformers have been pressing for changes, with little result, for a century. Grades should be based on learning and achievement. Other recommended reforms--privileging recent evidence, using multiple measures, grading individuals and not groups--are ways of working out this primary purpose.

Grading students' compliance, which happens when teachers emphasize following directions more than substance in their grading criteria, must go. Grading effort (e.g., raising a grade for trying hard) and behavior (e.g., docking a grade for mouthing off) must go. In theory we could do that with letters, too.

Not everyone agrees with this position. There is a bill pending in the Georgia legislature that would prohibit the use of standards based grading in grades four through 12. The first two arguments in the bill claim that standards-based grading fails "to differentiate among students who excel academically and those who merely meet minimal standards" and that "the assessment focus is on equal outcomes for all students, referred to as mastery of minimal standards, in which students can take as long as they need through the school year to meet standards without incurring grading penalties."

Leaving aside a history lesson (the minimum competency movement was in the 1970s, and it's over--most current standards are rigorous), and the fact that most schools that seriously attempt standards-based grading find they need to challenge their students who excel more so that they have evidence for advanced performance...am I the only one who hears in these words arguments that seem to be about perpetuating a system where the children of people of influence 'win'? We have to move education away from being a zero-sum game. And we have to start turning out citizens who don't think that if I win, you have to lose.

Response From Bill Ivey

Bill Ivey is the Middle School Dean at Stoneleigh-Burnham School.. He blogs for his school at, and belongs to Teacher Leaders Network:

Some years ago, the middle school team in my school decided to study Rick Wormeli's Fair Is Not Always Equal to help focus our discussions on assessment. Believing that letter grades were not developmentally appropriate for our students, we decided to convert to a standards-based system. One of the benefits was the deep level of thinking that infused our conversations about what skills we were going to focus on and the role of global grades on a specific assignment.

Our scale, developed with input from parents and students, is Mastered - Developing - Needs Attention - No Basis for Assessment. For individual assignments, we assess (and often ask students to self-assess) specific skills. For progress reports, we roll them together into areas such as Research Skills, Writing Skills, etc. We often take a mode rather than a mean, and we give extra weight to more recent assignments. We will probably replace "Mastered" next year with a broader term such as "Proficient" based on faculty and student input. The system helps students focus on specific progress but admittedly leaves them wanting a global judgment to know if they're doing well enough; we try and handle that through narrative comments.

Responses From Readers

www.honeyfern.org:

I believe we should cultivate a portfolio system that demonstrates mastery instead of simply assigning letter grades. At all turns, grades would include a student self-evaluation, peer comments and teacher evaluation as well.

Peter D. Ford, III:

I use mastery levels, but old habits from students AND PARENTS die hard. Inevitably I must translate a '3' (on a scale of 1 to 4) to some letter grade or percentage, even though I describe explicitly what a '3' represents: "accurate solution, work shown consistent with solution, sequenced and clear."

Teachers must be clear and explicit with their assessment approach, and a mastery assessment approach may be more subjective and tailored to each subject, and each teacher possibly.

Gail V. Ritchie:

I vote for no grades at all. Just narrative descriptions of what students know and can do...

Kelly Dillon:

Narrative feedback + self-assessment can help teacher + student assign a summative grade together. No points please!

Please feel free to leave a comment sharing your reactions to this question and the ideas shared here.

Thanks to Thomas, Susan, Bill and to many readers for sharing their responses!

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org.When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a selection of twelve published by Eye On Education.

I'll be posting the next "question of the week" on Thursday.

Posted by Larry Ferlazzo at 10:46 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

April 11, 2012

What Kind Of Grading System Should We Use?

Charlie Herzog asks:

Should we continue to assign students grades in the traditional manner
(percentages & letters), or should we move towards a system based on levels of
mastery?

I'm expecting a lot of reader comments on this one! Feel free to share any of your thoughts on grading, even if they do not directly answer Charlie's question.

Please share your ideas in the comments, or, if you prefer, feel free to email them to me.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a selection of twelve -- including my own -- published by Eye On Education.

You can send questions to me at lferlazzo@epe.org.When you send in your question, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

And just a reminder -- you can subscribe to this blog for free via RSS Reader or email....

Posted by Larry Ferlazzo at 11:45 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

April 10, 2012

Response: Several Ways To Engage Students Without Carrots & Sticks

Becky Searls asked:

Given that a vast body of research shows that extrinsic rewards can be damaging to students' intrinsic drive to learn for learning's sake, what are some practical strategies you use to replace the use of rewards, including praise, in your classroom? How do you keep students engaged without the carrots & sticks?

Becky asks a question that many of us wrestle with everyday in the classroom.

It's a question I've visited before here, but it's one that can never be discussed enough. I welcome every opportunity to further explore it.

Daniel Pink, Dan Ariely, and I discussed this topic in my first post here in Several Ways To 'Motivate' the Unmotivated To Learn.

Author and researcher Roy F. Baumeister reviewed this area as it relates to behavior in Several Ways To Help Students Develop Self-Control.

And I've written about this issue elsewhere in Education Week, as well as in other publications. You can see a complete list of these resources at The Best Posts & Articles On "Motivating" Students.

Becky's question gives me an excuse to invite two other highly-respected educators and writers, Chris Wejr and Jeff Wilhelm, to share their thoughts here. They both have also devoted a great deal of time to research and practice on this challenging question.

Readers have also contributed some exceptional comments.

Response From Chris Wejr

Chris Wejr is an elementary school principal in British Columbia, Canada. He has taught and coached at both the high school and elementary school levels and is passionate about human motivation, leadership, family engagement, and assessment. You can connect with him on Twitter at @MrWejr or at his blog:

Becoming a father and making the transition to teaching primary students has made it very clear to me that our kids begin their lives with an inquisitive mind and an enviable level of excitement for learning. Primary students seem to have an energetic curiosity and require very little motivation for engagement; however, as these students progress through our system and the focus moves from the child to the curriculum and learning to grades, they often seem to lose that drive.

We, as parents and educators, often influence a shift in this drive by focusing on results and external motivators. By dangling things such as grades, praise, prizes, awards, and threats of punishment, we unintentionally rob students of responsibility and their intrinsic drive for learning; we alter the focus to what they will get rather than what they are doing. By the time students reach high school, their inquisitive desire to learn is often shifted to a quest for grades. For those students who do not see relevance and purpose in this quest, they often disengage as learners and then we feel the need to resort to motivating by offering carrots and threatening sticks.

I strongly believe that (to adapt from Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, researchers of motivation at the University of Rochester (and written about by Daniel Pink in Drive), we cannot motivate students; we can only create the conditions in which students can motivate themselves. We cannot MAKE kids learn; we can make them behave a certain way, memorize and complete tasks in the short-term when we are supervising them but this does not mean they are gaining the skills and receiving the support needed to be learners.

Even in a system dominated by curricula, scores, and grades, we can still work to tap into that intrinsic drive by focusing on:

1. Relationships - a trusting, caring relationship helps students to understand the learning is about them rather than test scores and curricula. In order for us to make the curriculum relevant to their learning we must build relationships with our students.

2. Ownership - Work WITH students so they have a voice in their learning. Through a focus on Assessment For Learning, we include students in assessments and provide ongoing dialogue around descriptive feedback (rather than grades) based on agreed upon criteria and goals. Harvard professor and author Dr. Ross Greene states that "all students can do well if they can"; we need to provide the feedback on behaviour and learning skills so kids can do well. Too, we need to include students in this conversation.

3. Choice - Provide students with more autonomy of HOW they will learn and demonstrate their learning.

4. Relevancy - Relate the curriculum to the interests and passions of our students. They need to see meaningful connections and purpose for real learning to occur.

5. Success - Tom Schimmer, a BC author and leader in Assessment for Learning, says that we need to "over prepare 'em" for that first summative assessment. Push back those first few assessments and ensure students do well then build on this experienced success. We need to focus on strengths, support the challenges, and help students have a growth mindset so they can experience failure and success as feedback and develop the belief they can all be learners.

Our students arrive at school motivated to learn. Through accountability measures and other structures we are often forced to produce short-term results. Unfortunately, this can lead to the use of extrinsic motivators that place the focus away from the learning and on the immediate result rather than the skills and support needed for long-term engagement and success. As educators, we must continue to work to create the conditions to best support our students so that they can maintain that intrinsic drive for learning and not become someone who only reaches for that dangled carrot.


Response From Jeff Wilhelm

Jeffrey Wilhelm, Ph.D., is a Professor of English Education at Boise State University and an internationally-known teacher, author, and presenter. His interests include team teaching, co-constructing inquiry-driven curriculum with students, and pursuing teacher research. Dr. Wilhelm is the author or coauthor of numerous books on literacy and teaching and the Scholastic Series Editor of THE 10 -- books that develop critical thinking and reading comprehension skills in all students, including striving and reluctant readers:

Practical strategies for intrinsic motivation

When Michael Smith and I researched the literate lives of boys both inside and outside of school (2002; 2006) we found that the boys in our study were largely disengaged by school and impervious to extrinsic motivations and stimuli.
They were highly motivated by challenges that connected to their immediate lived experience. We found that Czikszentmihalyi's (1990) conditions of "flow" experience - or total immersion in the present moment -explained every instance of motivation we observed, both inside and outside of school.

The conditions for situated motivation and flow:
* Clear goals & continual feedback
* A sense of developing competence and control
* A challenge that requires an appropriate level of skill and assistance as needed
to be successful
* A focus on the immediate experience
* The importance of the social (we added this one)

In our follow up study (2006), we found that the conditions of flow were created in classrooms through inquiry environments that reframed what was being taught as a compelling problem to be solved. Essential questions that were edgy and debatable promoted engagement and invited students into disciplinary discussions and meaning making.

Another highly effective instructional and motivational technique is frontloading. Frontloading activates kids prior interests and knowledge and builds on these. Frontloading is pre-writing or pre-reading work that prepares students for success. George Hillocks has asserted that the only resource you have to teach kids something new is what they already know and care about.

Sequencing instruction so that expertise is developed step by step, just like moving through the levels of a video game, is engaging because it builds competence and moves kids progressively through their Zones of Proximal Development. Nothing is more motivating than getting visible signs of accomplishment, and increasing control and competence.

Group work and collaboration around significant projects obviously foregrounds the social. Significant culminating projects that address the essential question, and that allow students to stake their identity (versus playing "guess what the teacher already knows") are also highly motivating, particularly if the work is shared, made public, or archived (e.g. by posting it on the Internet).

Motivation doesn't exist internally to a person, but in a person's transaction with the conditions of a situation. It is under our control to make sure our classrooms are motivating environments.

Student motivation is the probably the primary and certainly the prerequisite challenge facing teachers. But providing for the conditions of motivation can help us to meet this challenge in ways that also deepen student understanding.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York:
Harper & Row.

Smith, M. W., & Wilhelm. J. (2002). "Reading don't fix no Chevys": Literacy in the lives of young men. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Smith, M. and Wilhelm, J. 2006 Going with the Flow. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann

Responses From Readers

As usual, readers left many thoughtful responses. I'm publishing excerpts here, along with links back to their original comment if you would like to read it in full:

plthomas (by the way, I'd also recommend his blog):

Extrinsic motivation, whether carrots or sticks, serves a similar function as rubrics. These actions are primarily things done TO students, not WITH students. And the outcomes are effective only if measured against how well these teacher-actions create compliance in the students....

Instead of carrots and sticks, I use and recommend transparency--negotiating and confronting WITH students as a continuous part of the teaching/learning dynamic.

bill:

I try to focus as much as I can on objective standards of what is done well and what can be improved. The underlying messages I am trying to send are that everyone does some things well, everyone has some things that show room for improvement, and hard work can bring about improvement for all. I try and do this in a visibly, audibly caring way, building and strengthening personal connections. When kids have genuine voice and feel genuinely respected, for many, this is enough.

seth springer:

I'm interested in exploring how to individualize by the students interests, i.e. if the kid is into race-cars, make the math worksheets with pictures of racecars, or use word problems that involve the sport. You can even ask the students to design the word problems to give to their classmates.

Mnewtown:

I do believe when emotional needs of students are met, they are more likely to be motivated. Letting them know "You Matter" and "I believe in you" is the foundation to motivation. Every student is different and requires a different approach. A quiet, "I believe in you", a quiet "You can do this", a quiet "How are you today?", a quiet "Thank you for your thoughts today" - anything to let them know you care and they matter to you is motivating.

Please feel free to leave a comment sharing your reactions to this question and the ideas shared here.

Thanks to Chris, Jeff and many readers for sharing their responses!

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org.When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a selection of twelve published by Eye On Education.

I'll be posting the next "question of the week" on Thursday.

Posted by Larry Ferlazzo at 10:34 AM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

April 04, 2012

How Can We Keep Students Engaged Without Carrots & Sticks?

Becky Searls asks:

Given that a vast body of research shows that extrinsic rewards can be damaging to students' intrinsic drive to learn for learning's sake, what are some practical strategies you use to replace the use of rewards, including praise, in your classroom? How do you keep students engaged without the carrots & sticks?

Becky asks a question that many of us wrestle with everyday in the classroom.

Please share your ideas in the comments, or, if you prefer, feel free to email them to me.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a selection of twelve -- including my own (coincidentally for this question titled "Helping Students Motivate Themselves") -- published by Eye On Education.

You can send questions to me at lferlazzo@epe.org.When you send in your question, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

And just a reminder -- you can subscribe to this blog for free via RSS Reader or email....

Posted by Larry Ferlazzo at 10:43 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

April 03, 2012

Response: Hopes For The NEA's "New Action Agenda"

Though I'm receiving plenty of reader questions (but could always use more!), I periodically instead decide to respond to a "Question That's Been On My Mind."

This is another one of those times (I'll be returning to reader questions on Friday).

My question related to the major report and "new action agenda" announced by the National Education Association in December. The report, developed by a NEA-initiated group of teachers called the Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching, made a number of recommendations.

My question was:

What were the most important aspects of the Commission report, and what might be its practical effects?

I'm particularly interested in two areas:

The professional development recommendations (developing new leadership roles for teachers) seem very similar to the "Teacherpreneur" concept being promoted by my colleagues at The Teacher Leaders Network and The Center For Teaching Quality.

I found the proposals around teacher evaluation particularly interesting. It emphasizes the idea of Peer Assistance and Review, known as PAR. I've been impressed by what I've read about how that works in different communities (and hope we will get it instituted at the District where I teach), and have included links to related resources at The Best Resources For Learning About Effective Student & Teacher Assessments.

In order to learn more about the NEA's plans, I invited three guests to share their responses today: Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association; my friend and colleague Renee Moore, who was a member of the Commission; and Steve Owens, an NEA leader from Vermont. I've also included a reader comment, and a reply to it.

Response from Dennis Van Roekel

Dennis Van Roekel, is president of the National Education Association. He is also a 23-year teaching veteran and longtime advocate for students and quality public education. A high school mathematics teacher from Phoenix, Ariz., he believes collaboration--among educators and with education stakeholders-- is key to boosting student achievement:

By this time everyone should realize that the current approach to teacher preparation isn't working for students.

Most teachers are well-prepared, but others are just thrown into classrooms without the training, knowledge or experience they need. Then, when they struggle, we act surprised and try to weed out those who are the most overwhelmed, while half of new teachers leave the profession within five years.

It's time to do something different. It's time to empower teachers to raise the bar and ensure excellence in our own profession, and to take a more active role in decisions that affect students.

In December the National Education Association unveiled a three-point plan for Leading the Profession. The three main components are:

• Raising the Bar for Entry
• Teachers Ensuring Teacher Quality
• Union Leadership to Transform the Profession

To raise the bar for entry, we believe that every teacher candidate needs one full year of residency under the supervision of a master teacher before earning a full license. We also believe that every teacher candidate should complete a quality preparation program and pass a rigorous classroom-based performance assessment before being fully licensed. NEA will begin to advance this agenda by urging broad expansion of the Teacher Performance Assessment now being piloted in states across the country.

To ensure quality in our profession, we will advocate for a new career path with different responsibilities for Novice, Professional, and Master Teachers, offering extra pay for additional work. In a hospital, a resident physician wouldn't be expected to perform the most complicated surgeries. A law firm wouldn't assign a junior attorney as the lead on its most important case. By the same token, it makes sense for the most experienced teachers to take on the challenges of the most difficult-to-serve students.

We will also advocate for more local affiliates to embrace evaluation systems based on Peer Assistance and Review. Data show that these systems can help teachers become more effective if they are negotiated and developed through consensus.

Finally, our union must play a larger role in preparing our members to be leaders on education issues. Accomplished teachers must have a voice when policies are debated and decisions are made.

This ambitious agenda won't be completed overnight, especially in the current environment where resources are scarce. But NEA is committed to empowering educators, and we'll constantly be looking for ways to help our members Lead the Profession.

Response From Renee Moore

Renee Moore, NBCT, 2001 Mississippi Teacher Of The Year, has taught English for 21 years. She is a member of: Mississippi's Teacher Licensure Commission; the Board of Directors of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; and the Teacher Leaders Network. Renee is also a published author and education blogger, You can follow here on Twitter at @TeachMoore. Renee was a member of the Commission that wrote the report for the NEA.

When I was asked to serve on a commission being pulled together by NEA about effective teaching, I initially said, "No, thanks!"

Part of my reluctance was the timing. Already involved with several large projects and looking at what I already knew was going to be an extremely full teaching year, I was not enthusiastic about spending precious time on yet another education commission.

There has been no shortage of committees, panels, commissions, reports, books, and mandates on what needs to be done to improve American public education, but precious few of them have been done by the people who are the true education experts: successful classroom teachers. However, I realized that this Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching would be a passionate, vocal, and highly knowledgeable group for whom education reform was not just some intellectual exercise, but rather something we and our students live out daily in our classrooms.

In our deliberations, we asked some very tough questions, examined troves of data, and made disturbing revelations. We sometimes found ourselves at odds with the NEA staff, and even disagreeing with the very distinguished advisory committee that we had invited to give us feedback on some aspects of our work. We conducted hearing-style interviews with a wide range of education experts, some of whom expressed ideas that were repugnant and hard to hear. Nevertheless, we listened, we questioned, we debated, we studied, and we examined the many ideas in relation to our own experiences with students and colleagues.

Ultimately, it was each member's commitment to our three guiding principles, our respect for each other, and our desire as teachers to refocus the national conversation around education reform back to what really matters, that kept us together and working on this project.

Here's a sampling of the CETT's recommendations:

• Creation of a National Council for the Teaching Profession, led by effective teachers, that will be responsible for defining and setting the standards for a national system of preparation, licensure, and certification of all teachers AND teacher educators.

• Develop a peer review preparation program that will select, train, and support peer reviewers with the goal of preparing at least one accomplished teacher as a qualified reviewer for every ten teachers in U.S. schools.

• Collaboration of the between the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and other education stakeholders in pursuing a shared vision of transformation for the teaching profession through the establishment of a National Council for the Teaching Profession.

• Called on U.S. Department of Education to engage Internet service providers in efforts to develop and implement state-level plans to ensure Internet access in all schools and to all students at home.

We also made some very thoughtful and bold recommendations to school districts, state education agencies, and our fellow teachers. Our ideas stunned some education reform leaders, including some who consider themselves advocates for the teaching profession.

Now, as I review our published report, Transforming Teaching, I am grateful to have been part of the Commission. Some of the ideas we put forward, as our chair, Maddie Fennel noted, are not entirely new, but they are radical because they come from teachers.

My main hope is that this report will not end up on a shelf like so many before it; or shoved aside in favor of ideas from those with more power and prestige, but rather that it will serve as a catalyst for much broader discussions among teachers ourselves and between us and policymakers over changing the direction of education reform.

Response From Steve Owens

Steve Owens is a National Board Certified Teacher from Vermont who teaches music in two rural elementary schools. A 2010 Teaching Ambassador Fellow for the US Dept. of Education, he is also an NEA activist, serving as a local president and member of the VT-NEA board of directors. He participates in the Teacher Union Reform Network, and is a member of the Teacher Leader Network Forum of the Center for Teaching Quality. His blog, Education Worker, features union reform ideas.

In "Transforming Teaching," the NEA recognized one incontrovertible fact: you cannot coerce reform. There is reform done to teachers (we've seen a lot of that lately), reform done by teachers (think NBPTS, CTQ or TURN), and reform done with teachers. "Transforming Teaching" calls for the latter: deep organic reform rising from within the profession with meaningful and realistic cooperation from other stakeholders.

Good reform is ultimately about changing teaching practice in order to achieve better student learning. Without the full force and participation of the teaching profession this simply cannot be done.

A couple of settlements ago, our school board demanded and got a 7.5 minimum hour day. Administration immediately designated that the time before and after school as "collaboration time" and created uniform start and end times at all schools. In my school there was widespread resentment over what one teacher called "forced collaboration." People watched the clock. The minimum became the maximum. The scheme backfired, producing far less collaboration than might have occurred by creating a great climate where people want to stay and collaborate because they love their jobs.

This story illustrates principles of human psychology and group dynamics. Multiply that by three million, the size of the teaching profession in the United States. You can't do it to us, as satisfying as that might seem at times; you have to do it with us.

The NEA recognized the psychology of the teaching profession by forming the Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching, a group of master teachers charged, among other things, to tell NEA a few things it did not want to hear. What emerged is a picture of systemic reform by and for teachers to elevate teaching into a true profession.

"Transforming Teaching" calls for real reform by demanding the conditions that create great teachers: professional responsibility and collaborative autonomy. Notice that I said responsibility. Much has been made lately of that fact that there is no word in the Finnish language for accountability in the sense that we use it in American education. If we aspire to the level of the best performing systems we need to embrace an essential principle that drives these systems: collective responsibility.

Yes, "Transforming Teaching" makes demands on other stakeholders: on the unions and their professional staffs, on the US Department of Education, on legislatures, and on school districts. But read the document closely - given professional responsibility, we teachers are far harder on ourselves than any outside entity. Why? Because we work for and with kids and our lives are better when their lives are better. Teachers live reform and are the ones who must ultimately create it.

Reader Response

Here is an excerpt from a comment by "Labor Lawyer" (you can see his full response here). A response from Renee Moore follows it.

Two points re the Commission report -- one positive, one negative.

1. Positive: The Commission's recommendation for peer-review-based teacher evaluation is the obvious answer to the problem of identifying/assisting/discharging poorly-performing teachers.

Montgomery County (MD) has used a peer-review system similar to that described in the report for 10 years with excellent results -- 200+ teachers discharged; 300+ teachers resigned in lieu of peer review; union supports program; few litigation challenges to the discharges; teachers generally view program as fair; no high-stakes-testing; minimizes opportunity for principal to harass/discharge a disfavored but excellent teacher....

2. Negative: The report completely ignores (at least I didn't see any references) the issue of improving low-income/inner-city schools...

Renee Moore's Response To Readers' Comment:

In response to the second part of the comment:

The Commission's charge was to address how to transform the teaching profession, so in our limited time we tried to remain true to that focus. The Commission did not ignore these serious problems facing inner-city schools; the needs of these students and their schools were very much in our thoughts and discussions, since the majority of the Commission members are teachers, many of us in high needs urban and rural schools. Nor have these schools and their particular problems been totally ignored by other education reformers; in fact, there have been many attempts to address them. In some places there has been limited success; others have seen little progress.

One well-documented feature of high needs urban and rural schools is they are more likely to be staffed with the least qualified, least prepared teachers and administrators (see data from EdTrust, USDOE, others). They also tend to have the highest turnover, which contributes to an already unstable learning environment. Our vision is to create a critical mass of highly qualified teachers across the board, serving in all our public schools, not just a select few. In those high-needs schools where the teaching quality has been significantly upgraded, student attendance and motivation also measurably improves. Furthermore, an important characteristic of highly accomplished teaching, is increased outreach and engagement with parents and community (this is one of the criteria for National Board certification, for example). Similarly, high-needs schools over the past decade have been more likely to institute one reading program after another, usually designed more as low-level test preparation, than stimulating higher level critical skills and a love for reading. These pre-fabricated programs were deemed necessary because so many of the people being placed in those classrooms were underprepared to teach the necessary subjects or skills. Having properly trained, supported, and evaluated teachers throughout their educational journey will help more of our students develop necessary foundational and advanced skills.

I am thankful for your thoughtful reading of our report, and hope you continue to participate in this important discussion both nationally and in your local school community.

Please feel free to leave a comment sharing your reactions to this question and the ideas shared here.

Thanks to Dennis, Renee, Steve and "Labor Lawyer" for sharing their responses!

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org.When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a selection of twelve published by Eye On Education.

I'll be posting the next "question of the week" on Friday.

Posted by Larry Ferlazzo at 10:04 PM | | Leave a comment | Recommend

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