Changing the Variables in Learning

We all remember walking into the class and being handed the syllabus. The preprogrammed guide for each course of this is what was being taught when. Often it was two or three pages, identifying the topic of the week or session, the reading, important points of what was being covered, and what assignments or projects being completed. Some were printed on freshly minted paper, some were not. I remember taking a quantitative statistics class during graduate school back in 1997. The syllabus was distributed and the ink was in this odd purple color. The paper was a blanched white held together by a rusted paper clip. In this class apparently once upon a year the professor had mimeographed his syllabus, put them together, and his course had quite frankly not changed since. His advocacy, introductory statistics hadn't changed, why waste the time and resources to change the syllabus.

The professor wasn't wrong, the course hadn't changed. The challenge was that the learners had changed and the expectations of the learners needed to change. For most of us growing up, the variables in learning where when did the teacher teach the concept, when was the test, and how much of the knowledge did I have at the end of the test. Close the book, pack it away, unseal it for the final, and call it a day. Think about it. How many of us can conjugate the verb "ser" in Spanish now? Most of us "learned it" but did we retain it. How about doing stoichiometric calculations? We spent a month in Chemistry working on it, but do you remember stoichiometry now. The list goes on and on of things that we were taught but never learned.

The paradigm and expectations in education are changing. While I may not agree with the methods for changing them from a National perspective, the values that they are going for make sense. The variable of what is taught no longer matters but rather what is learned. Curriculum is no longer about coverage and exposure but engagement and retention of concepts. The second variable in learning is growth. Simply put, you can't just move the low students up to grade level and warehouse the high students. Each student needs to progress and show gains. Each child needs to move forward. With these two simple changes, assessed by "multiple measures" reported on the school report cards, teacher evaluations, and administrator evaluations, the paradigm shifts dramatically.

See going into that statistics class, I knew my "Measures of Central Tendency," and you probably did too: "Mean, Median, and Mode." Quite frankly, we teach that to some students as early as third and fourth grade. I knew "Standard Deviation," I was a former chemistry major. I could do a "T-Test." In the new world of growth expectations, it wouldn't be ok for me simply to partner up with other kids to teach them what the professor was covering or to sit half-asleep in the back. We would have expected pre-assessment, grouping of students based on the data, and learning experiences to move on. For my group, we may have focused on "Chi squares and ANOVAs" while others were working on fundamentals of samples and populations.

The funny thing is, the students haven't changed, we have always come to school with different strengths and growth areas. We have different background knowledges and different capacities to move forward. What has changed are the variables. No longer is the constant when the teacher is teaching it and how long the teacher teaches it and the variable measured how much the student learned but rather in reverse with the variables being measured when is this student or students' ready for it, how much do they need and the constant being the student demonstrates consistent understanding of it.

Focusing on learning instead of teaching, growth instead of amount learned during a given time will truly make our system better. As I said I may not agree with the mechanisms of change: school report cards, teacher evaluations, and administrator evaluations. However the concepts of not warehousing our high students and ensuring learning matter. A simple example comes to mind. Adding and subtracting fractions, a "fourth grade skill." If a student can do this 70, 80, 90% of the time is that enough consistency. Well, not in my Chemistry class, as they are mixing acids and bases. Not in the art class as they are mixing paints. Not in the kitchen putting together dinner. Not in musical composition when they are making measures. Imagine 2 errors every 10 measures. No, the reality is we need the student to learn it, demonstrate it, and retain it. Otherwise the impact across other subjects and life experiences is dramatic. The variables are changing and we need to change with them. It no longer matters what I have taught and when did I teach it but rather how well our students have learned it.

Voo Doo Economics

Change is Hard

On Wednesday morning I talked to my dad, or more specifically I communicated with him over FaceTime audio as I drove to work. We caught up on the usual things, the Cubs (good), the Bears (bad), and what was going on with the kids. We also talked about my work and us moving from grades to standards in some subjects. As always, dad was enlightening. He reminded me of grading practices from "ancient" past, getting a "D" on a college Russian course test because he hadn't bothered to answer the extra credit question. His colleagues who had earned an "F" because they got it wrong. In this case, the "curve" had saved him. He also reminded me that once, before he was a physician, he was a teacher and his masters' thesis 47 years ago was on mastery learning. How interesting how life evolves, changes, and ideas take time to slowly drip into the system.

Change is hard. There is no question about it. As society over the past 35 years we have begun to ask for more from our teachers and our students. What my dad learned in college physics at University of Chicago, I learned in high school physics at Downers Grove South High School, and now my students learn in middle school science at Herrick and O'Neill. What is being asked from students is different. I had to recite knowledge and skills back. What I could store in my head was what mattered. For our students, all of those skills that I learned can be accomplished by Google. Whether it is showing the math problem, with all of the work, or finding our what the state bird of Georgia is. Google is the entirety of my education and much much more. Students today need to develop skills to apply their ability to find knowledge to create and innovate new solutions to new problems. Teachers also have to change. The goal is no longer how we deliver knowledge, but rather what have children learned.

(de Nys, 2008)

Change is hard. Illinois State Superintendent Tony Smith has been on the job only a few months, but has repeatedly presented the need to move our system from the measurement of seat time as seen by the Carnegie Unit, to a competency-based system that measures what skills and knowledge students have developed. The reality is that the amount of seat time hasn't changed much in the 35 years from when I sat in the desks at Hillcrest School to now as I walk the halls as an educational leader. However, what is expected of the students, the teachers, and the principal has changed dramatically.

Moving away from silos of education, Math, Reading, Science, and Social Studies to an integrated model is hard. It takes time and energy. However connected and integrated learning experiences make a difference to the learner and are more applicable to real life. Moving away from the Bell Curve was hard to the 90, 80, 70 scale was hard, but created a criteria of reference where children were given a chance to succeed rather than simply be ranked. Providing students with different learning experiences because of what they are ready to learn rather than their chronographic age is hard, but something not only can we do but we need to do. 

Reporting out that children are having different learning experiences is hard. It admits that all children are different and that we need to push each of them individually to grow. The reality is we have the tools and obligation to do so. I have the challenge and honor to participate in the move to standards-based grades as both a parent and an educational leader this year. It's different. Our teachers, both those of my children's and those of my student's will try different things. Some will work. Some will not. But in the end, my children and my students will each have a chance to learn and grow more. This week I have the opportunity to read two blogs by my son's teachers: Mr. Humphrey's and Mrs. Spies, each talking about how they are pushing children to learn and discover more. Each trying to find ways to make learning meaningful. The loss of grades, like the loss of the curve, is a moment of evolution, a chance to gather more insight into what our children know and what they need to learn next. 

Change is hard. I am often known for citing Yoda for so many things. Yet the reality is I must accept change too. Yoda is wrong, we must keep trying until we do it and do it well.

Let Them See Clearly

Magic is just Science we don't understand yet. - Jane Foster in the movie Thor

My son is taking Algebra this school year. Algebra, a class we all remember. It had variables. We did equations. Each of us knows because we were there. We all took the class twenty or thirty years ago. We think we remember it but do we. To be honest, I don't. I remember FOIL. I remember variables. I truly don't remember the curriculum objectives or the activities. Mostly I remember where I sat in the class. So my son is taking Algebra and I really have no idea of what he is actually going to learn.

The Algebra story could be said for any course. Whether it's third grade (I think we were supposed to learn cursive and multiplication), Civics, Physics, or Global Studies, the story is the same, the name of the course obscures the meaning. So often as parents and students we see the big picture of the course name and the little picture of the individual assignments but don't see the middle steps - the curriculum objectives one is actually learning. It is here that meaning is established.

According to the "New Illinois Learning Standards", which can be found at http://isbe.net/common_core/default.htm  (New Illinois Learning Standards - feels local.... website link feels national, but hey, what's in a name) we learn to add and subtract fractions in fourth grade. I don't know that off the top of my head, when I think fourth grade math, I don't necessarily think fractions. Now that I know it's something I can wrap my head around, focus on, and support my child in learning. When I think adding and subtracting fractions, I don't necessarily think of each individual skill adding like fractions, subtracting like fractions, converting denominators, computing improper fractions, renaming whole numbers as fractions for computation, and converting mixed numbers into fraction for computation. When focusing on the concept, 4th grade math is too broad for me to understand what my child is learning. The daily lesson of computing improper fractions is a means both too numerous (170 individual lessons in the year) and too narrow (a 1-2 day skill) for me to generate meaning. However, the curriculum objective, my child can add and subtract fractions, is something meaningful that I can wrap my head around. If my child is successful in it, I know they can move on and have a tangible skill that will at least help them when they cook or bake. If they don't get it, then I can dive deeper and help them work on the 6-8 lessons underneath until they understand it. The curriculum objective is a meaningful chunk for me, my child, and the teacher. 

Grades and grading systems often serve more to obscure our understanding of a child's performance than to clarify it. What is an "A"? A child earned more than 90% on a test or in a class? Well, who was writing the test? What was the test on? What was learned in the class? Was the "A" on a curve? In one class I took, an a was 37% on a test because of the curve. Did anyone really learn anything in the class? Was what was assessed what was learned? The class was called "Physical Chemistry," what does that name mean to you? In reality, I as student don't need to be normatively ranked in the class. I can tell you who the faster and slower learners are without the grades. What my parents and I need to know is have I mastered adding and subtracting fractions. If so, great lets move on. If not, help me figure out how to understand it because I want to make homemade cookies later tonight.

My son is taking Algebra this school year. I love my child's math teacher. Each week he sends out a note to parents and students identifying the big idea the students will be learning this week. He flips his classroom with videos on how to do the concept so that the students can review and practice the concept until they feel comfortable with it. When a child doesn't master a concept, they can keep working on it until they get it. Last year, with this teacher, was the first year my child didn't know all the math instantaneously. Many times he had to go back to the drawing board to learn and relearn how to find surface areas or complete algebraic expressions (did you know we teach algebraic concepts well before kids take "Algebra). In the end, he had to issue a grade. Three months later, my son no longer remembers his grade. In his mind, it was an A or B, either way he passed. He does know he can calculate surface area and volume of unique objects. He is seeing learning clearly not because of the name of the class, not because of the grade, but because the teacher has turned Magic into Science. He has created meaningful chunks of learning for his students to master and let the students and parents see it.

I Can See Clearly Now

Its Not Over Until We Say Its Over - The End of Summative Assessment

I remember my last swim race. Senior year of college, a cold February Sunday in Holland, Michigan. I remember the brown bricks around the natatorium. Chatting with Brian Miller as we warmed up in the diving well adjacent to the pool. I remember the feel of the blocks beneath my feet. I remember the chill of the air as I stood ready to start, thinking this is my last race. I had been swimming since I was nine years old at Indian Boundary YMCA. I had stood upon the blocks of various pools countless times. I remember the rush of the water going past my ears as I entered the pool. The pull, the kick, and the pull again as I emerged swimming the 200 yard Breaststroke. I remember nailing the third turn. I don't remember the time. I don't remember the place. I remember Brian won the race. Mostly, I remember the feel, being proud of the time (maybe it was 2:21?), and knowing this was the end.

The funny thing is that for many of my friends college swimming wasn't the end. They swim masters races and triathlons. My Uncle Leo swam into his late seventies, competing in world level championship. Even though the constructs we had growing said this would be the end, it wasn't the end of the story but rather simply the end of this chapter.

In schools we teach this artificial idea that learning and experiencing are time bound. Now we are on the Kinetics chapter. Next month we are learning Thermodynamics. You need to complete and demonstrate that you have mastered Kinetics by the 28th as that's when we are having the summative assessment. We create artificial boundaries as to when children can learn a concept and when they have to master it by. We teach students that if they don't master it, the concept will go away and they just simply weren't very good at it. We construct the artificial notion that learning is time bound and all they need to do is have a "passable" result.

Children aren't naturally inclined to giving up. Only in school. Children aren't naturally inclined to produce mediocrity. Only in school. The time and number of attempts to learn something is only limited in school. Mostly because we say so. I watch my friend's daughter make pastries. She loves to be crafty. She is willing to make the tiniest of pastries with the most artistic of coverings. She will spend hours manipulating the frosting. Her sister will spend hours building her world in Minecraft. My son will spend hours recreating his construction in magnet blocks. Learning, recovering from repeated failures and making adjustments, is only limited by our industrial age vision of school. The course, the class, the grade, the summative assessment, and the ranking teach children to fail, be mediocre, and it will go away. In other aspects of their lives they learn resiliency and perfection.

It's time for us to say good bye to the summative assessment. The test at the end of learning. We need to think of the curriculum as skills students need to master and continue to work with them if they don't. It is not the Chemistry class that's important, but rather the concepts that make up Chemistry. Learning Thermodynamics but not Kinetics is a problem. Both are valuable, both are necessary, and both have equal merit. We may move on in the class from Kinetics to Thermodynamics, but it is my responsibility as teacher to help the children that have not mastered Kinetics to learn it regardless of the extra time and extra work. It is the student's responsibility to learn it regardless of the extra time and extra work. Just because the main learning has moved on doesn't exempt us from learning the concept.

Time is an artificial construct. In the elementary school district I work in now, we have at least nine years to have each of our students learn as much as possible. Even longer for children who begin in preschool. Learning a concept isn't over until they cross that podium in eighth grade and even then we pass the baton to our high school. Summative assessments imply that learning is complete. We as a system have a choice. We can choose to use the data from that assessment to influence the next opportunity to learn regardless of content area or concept. It's not over, until we say its over whether we are a parent or a student.

I remember working with a young man as an assistant principal. He decided not to do anything in class beginning in late April. It frustrated the teacher, the parents, and us administrators. He was going to wait it out. He knew school was going to go away in June. What he didn't realize was both mom and I worked for the district and I was working summer school. The school year ended and mom kept bringing the young man to school. After the first two days of summer at school, the work began and learning recommenced. He completed school June 23rd that year. It's not over until we all say it's over.

May Rufus Be Your Guide

The Kids Can Play

In many professions the assumption is that one can't count on individuals fresh to the profession to make key contributions to the organizations success. The idea is those new to the business need to learn how the business works, how the cogs connect in the wheel in order to make things run. In baseball, the rule of thumb is that you can't count on young teams to build success. Eventually youth will be over run by the wear of the year and the grind of the day to day journey.

In 1997, the Chicago White Sox were 3 1/2 games out of first place. They devastated their fanbase, committing the "White Flag Trade," sending 2 starting pitchers and an all-star reliever to the San Francisco Giants for a bunch of people no one had ever heard of. While San Francisco ran to a division title and the playoffs, the White Sox fell out of contention, ending the year 80-81. They floundered and carried low expectations for a couple of years to the point in which entering the 2000 season, the marketing department recognized that no one had heard of most of the club. Expectations were low as the White Sox had been bad in recent memory. The public relations folks put out the slogan "The Kids Can Play," and what do you know, they could. The team went an American League best 95-67 before losing in the playoffs.

While many people have not seemed to understand the Chicago Cubs plan, the organization has been quite clear, it was time to do something different. After battling in and out of the playoffs with high-priced free agent talent in the 2000's, the Cubs chose to bottom out in 2010. For the past 5 seasons, the Chicago Cubs have been cellar dwellers, rebuilding their organization on both the business and talent side. Reconstructing their minor leagues, international presence, and scouting operations. Not much was expected from the 2015 season aside from the Back to the Future II prediction of a world championship.

As of August 15th, the Cubs have starters in 3 key positions that didn't begin the year with them. In total, they have 4 rookies and 5 key contributors under the age of 25. By definition, they are a group discovering what they can do as they win games. Currently they are 18 games above .500, with a 66-48 record and tracking towards the playoffs. If they believed that young veterans and rookies couldn't do it, they would be tracking for the next several years of mediocrity. 

The reality is in all professions, the "Kids Can Play." Those entering the profession have joined the profession because they believe they have the ideas, capacities, and fortitude to be successful. Veterans stay in the profession not because of habit but because they believe they have value to add. Together, these groups can make a difference. While each group will go up the mountains and down in the valleys of successes and failures, they both eventually find success together. 

Necessary Roughness

300 Batting Averages & the Quest for Meaningful Numbers

Growing up, baseball was a thing. We listened to the Cubs and White Sox in the car. We had bats, balls and mitts at home. Every couple of weeks during the summer we would have something going on in the neighborhood involving baseball. Whether it was running bases, a makeshift game, 500, or simply catch. Growing up, I believed good ball players had a 0.300 batting average, or hit the ball 3 out of every 10 at-bats. The best of the best, Ted Williams had hit 0.400 but good players hit 0.300.  So the other day, I looked up who was hitting 0.300 in Major League Baseball this year. Twenty position players were currently hitting 0.300 or above within a minimum 338 plate appearances. Figure each baseball team has 7 regular starters and 12 -13 total position players on the roster, 20 players out of a possible 210 regular starters and 375 rostered players were hitting 0.300 or less than 10% of regular starters were hitting my mental level of being "good."

Well, maybe it's just this season. So I took a trip down to Baseball-Reference.com and discovered that the average Hall of Fame player had a batting average of 0.303, the acknowledged best of the best only on average barely made it over my "good" standard. Ty Cobb was the career leader at 0.366, Mr. 400, Ted Williams hit 0.344 and ranked 6th, the best hitter I ever saw Tony Gwynn is 15th at 0.338. In fact only 79 hitters in the Hall of Fame have a career average above 0.300. It seems 300 is not something every hitter does, but only the best of the best do.

This week I had the chance to listen to a webinar from the Illinois State Board of Education. In the webinar, they use words like "New Illinois Learning Standards," "College and Career Readiness," and meaningful assessment. They shared about a group of teachers and State leaders going to Denver to set cut scores for the PARCC assessment and how this test and these scores are going to provide an indication to parents, educators, and government leaders on how "college and career ready" our students are. The reality is we don't know if this test or any of the new assessments have any correlation with college success and won't know that for over a decade until this 1st group of students who took the test actually graduates from college. We won't know if it indicates they were career ready until this 1st group of students who took the assessment actually has careers. We do know that two years ago when they re-normed the ISAT, that they set the line that approximately 60% of the students would meet or exceed standards and then when the students took the test, approximately 60% of the students met or exceeded standards.

In the webinar, the state explained it's new calculations for at-risk schools/districts and for improvement. Essentially, schools/districts will use a combination 2015 PARCC and other assessment factors as their baseline number for % meets and exceeds standards. Schools/districts will need to cut the distance between this number and 100% meeting and exceeding standards in half within 6 years. Here are some examples:
     School A:
                         75% of Students Meet and Exceed State Standards in 2015
                         25% more need to get 100%%
                         half of this is 12.5%
                         by the 2021 PARCC, 87.5% of students need to Meet or Exceed State Standards

    School B:
                         54% of Students Meet and Exceed State Standards in 2015
                         46% more need to get 100%%
                         half of this is 23%
                         by the 2021 PARCC, 77% of students need to Meet or Exceed State Standards

Now, lets remember that the State set the statistical bar for 60% of kids to meet the criterion line the last time around. This is like the 0.300 batting average. It seems mentally good, mentally reasonable, but in reality only 79 Hall of Famers have hit that for their career.

SMART goals talk about the idea of Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reasonable, and Time-bound goals. Yes, we should be working to improve. Yes, we should be giving parents, students, educators, and government officials quality accurate information. Yes, we should be preparing students for colleges and careers. However, none of these indicators provide this. In fact, they make the transmission of information more convoluted.

The National Football League has not changed the NFL combine assessment activities in nearly 20 years. Yes, each year, the average player is slightly bigger, stronger, and faster. By keeping the events the same, it allows for year to year comparisons of each athlete. Results are at least comparable. When we talk receivers, we think 4.4 speed is a solid result. Well, since electronic timing was instituted in 1999, only 17 players have ever run 4.3 or faster at the combine. Only 7 of those players were receivers.

As educators we want to improve, grow, and make a difference. Each day we have the opportunity to make a difference in a child's life and change the future. We seek to be measured and share our successes. Like all professions, we wish to be measured against an achievable bar and so do our students.

The Difference Between .250 and .300

What Does That Word Mean?

Lord of the Manor & the Constitutional Peasant

In most job interviews there is a question, "Why are you interested in this position?" I am sure personnel people around the world are used to hearing a wide range of eccentric answers. Its not the eccentric in education that worries me. Its the answer I hear approximately a third of the time. "I've always known I wanted to be a teacher. When I was a kid, I set up a little classroom in my basement and would have my siblings and their friends down their. We had a little chalkboard, I taught them things, and we did school." Individuals don't become accountants or pharmacists as primary school students. We don't hear I am going to be a wedding band singer or a plumber at that age. We hear individuals say I want to be teachers, police officers, and fireman from that age.

My worries are that 7-year olds don't see what any of these professions are. To a 7-year old, the police officer is someone in charge, telling others what to do and they do it. To a 7-year old, a firefighter is a hero who runs in to save lives. To a 7-year old, the teacher is queen of the castle, the lord of the manor, the one who runs the classroom, cares about others, and delivers information. Often this vision of teaching runs through the idea that I am going to say things and kids are going to do things.

We have known for a while that we often learn the most when the learner is doing the work. Whether it is researching the concept, seeking information, building a product, or cultivating a solution. When learners sit downstream of the information firehose, while they may take some of the information from the tap a large quantity streams right by.

When we start with new teachers this upcoming August, it will be a journey to help them realize the lord of the manor isn't one who dictates the tasks and responsibilities for learning, but rather one that gives others space to explore and make decisions. The classroom leaders that we need are ones that set up opportunities for students to investigate, explore, innovate, and develop solutions of their own. The classroom leaders that we desire have learning outcomes but allow for multiple paths and products for the learning to be accomplished. Growing up, we may have seen teachers as queens of the castle but in reality we need them to empower their peasants to decisions for themselves and the whole.

Constitutional Peasant