I think I’m a pretty good teacher. Most of my students like my class. Most of the ones who don’t, don’t for all the right reasons. “He speaks Spanish too much,” “he does something EVERY DAY,” that kind of thing. Barring extenuating circumstances, all of my students leave my class a little better at Spanish than they came into it, and on my best days, they leave a little better at life, too. So when students come back to me after a long break, or even a long weekend, and say, “I don’t remember anything,” I just sigh. For a while, part of my solution to that was more homework. Now, of course, what I hear is, “I don’t remember anything. And I didn’t do my homework.” So I’m always looking for better ways to make thinkgs stick.
To that end, I went to a training on Friday for a world-language teaching methodology called Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS). It blew my mind. For non-language teachers reading this, hold on for a little while--there’s a little bit of education theory at the beginning, but this isn’t really an article about pedagogy. It is about change and professionalism and being scared. It’s also a little bit about faith and whatever the opposite of faith is--doing the impossible because you’ve been shown how and why it works.
I have a pretty straight-up communicative language acquisition methodology. That means that I think the underpinning of good language instruction is comprehensible input: you have to give learners examples of the new language that they can understand. You then repeat this process ad infinitum. Whatever level your students have, you speak to them just a little bit beyond that level. My rules for providing comprehensible input are these:
1.) Give students examples of key vocabulary in lots of different contexts: visual, audio, read, written, spoken, heard. That will give them a variety of hooks for their learning to latch on to.
2.) Value comprehension above production. Babies get to listen to a language for 3 years before anyone expects them to do much more than grunt. We educators don’t have that long, but we can still be mindful of the way the brain learns.
3.) When you do ask for production, making oneself understood is more important than grammatical correctness. Verb conjugation charts and grammar lessons and noun-adjective agreement and subject-verb agreememt are important aspects of the language, because they make communication easier and better. But in terms of speaking, they’re less important than getting the main idea across.
4.) Above all, translate as little as possible. As little as possible, for me, turns out to be like one word in forty. Draw a picture, act it out, dance, show a video or a cartoon clip or a song, anything you have to do to get students to understand WITHOUT telling them the English meaning. The brain creating meaning is what language learning is, so the key to language learning (so my thinking goes) is to have the brain creating that meaning for itself.
TPRS starts with the same base assumption: language learning only occurs when the brain creates meaning out of new language. It then flips it on its head. It translates absolutely everything. You don’t introduce a new word without telling a student what it means. The theory is that having to create new meaning is more work than the brain needs to do, and it gets in the way of REAL language learning, which is processing the meaning over and over and over until it becomes natural. Instead of becoming a crutch, the translations become a spring board for creating meaning, which happens by processing a small amount of language (say, one sentence) in a lot of different ways, over and over until it is automatic. Blaine Ray, the presenter at yesterday’s conference and the first developer (I think) of this method, likens it to practicing the piano rather than learning grammar, or even learning vocabulary.
---
The differences between what I think works and what I saw on Friday are subtle, but profound. Apart from the differences of view on translating, there’s an issue of vocabulary. I try to cover a vocabulary set--people in school, buildings in town, the doctor’s office, for a total of 10 to 20 words--with accompanying practice activities every 2 or 3 days. In a school year that averages out to about 3 words a day (not including verb conjugations), for a total of some 500 words the students know well, plus some 1000-2000 extras that they’re expected to understand but not be able to produce. (Those numbers are arbitrary and based on personal experience, not research.) TPRS promises that at the end of Spanish 1, you will know 150 words. The good news is that they’re the most commonly occuring 150 words in Spanish, and you will know them like crazy. There are other important differences, like the role of students in the class and what it means to be proficient at a language, but I need more time and experience to process those.
Here’s the upshot: TPRS is EXACTLY in line with my learning goals. It gets the job done. Students understand Spanish, they speak Spanish well. After two 30-minute practice sessions, Blaine had a room full of new learners reading a 1-page story in German. By the end of Spanish II, his students were taking the AP test and having success on it. It’s creating language learners. However, it cuts directly across the grain of my thoughts on how to get it done. The question then is this: Am I a good enough teacher to do what is demonstrably best for my students?
The question of course answers itself. But it is MUCH scarier than I would have guessed. I consider myself a professional. I learn new teaching techniques all the time. I pay close attention to what works and what doesn’t and change my instruction accordingly. I try really really hard to synthesize seemingly contradictory best-practice theoretical requerements. But this--this is a whole other kettle of fish. Adopting a straight TPRS curriculum will mean all of the following things.
1.) My curriculum work over the last seven years will be essentially meaningless. The TPRS curriculum is based on acquiring the vocabulary most useful in most situations, and not at all about mastering communicative tasks. My learning goals and practice activities, my carefully constructed classroom management system designed to encourage respectful student interaction in Spanish, all of my work to adapt Marzano’s framework to a language class, all out the window. And just when I was starting to get it to work well.
2.) The state standards--a list of some 70 things that a student is expected to do by the end of Spanish II--are essentially meaningless. The standards which I thought were central to learning--the interactive-mode standards--are actually the least important. All of the culture is going to change, too, and I have no idea how.
3.) I’ll have to start TRANSLATING. I cannot emphasize enough how big a change in thinking this is. I imagine this is how hard-core Catholics felt after Vatican II. That is not in any way hyperbolic. I’ll have to accept that what I’ve always thought was best, isn’t. For the benefit of my current and future students, I’ll have to accept that I did less good and maybe even some harm to my past students.
4.) There is so much uncertainty. The uncertainty is not in the numbers, nor in my personal experience, but in dedicating myself to a whole new way of doing my job. Waking up tomorrow morning will not mean the same thing that it did on Tuesday.
All of this change and personal discomfort, and for what? Is what I’m doing so damaging that I can’t keep doing it? Some of my students are very good, and they’re not always the best students. So, back to the question: Am I enough of a professional, enough of a teacher, to change everything, up to and including the questions I ask myself about my day’s progress?
The question answers itself, really. I’m going to try to look at a different way. I now have a methodology that I hae seen work, with enough step-by-step elements to it that I can do it consistently, and enough flexibility that I will still have room to react to my students’ needs. That sounds like a good day's work to me.
Showing posts with label theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theory. Show all posts
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Friday, April 22, 2011
More about reading
In a comment on Coates's take on teaching reading, Ray says the following.
Readicide is on my reading list. At my school, we have a very functional, test-score-driven approach to teaching reading. It works for us; our reading scores are pretty good and getting better. But I end up with huge numbers of seniors (I teach both the senior English classes) who have no interest in reading anything again. So I just made it an assignment: Find a book you want to read. Read it. Tell me what you read. I have guidelines for people who need that sort of thing: They have to read 10,000 words every two weeks (a VERY light requirement) and the summary should be 100-250 words long. But when students want to break the guidelines, I repeat that the assignment is to read something and tell me about it. They can send me a video, an e-mail, turn in a paper, whatever. They have to use words in their summary, but other than that, I don't care about the format. I don't want the assignment to get in the way of the reading.
I have some anecdotal information to suggest that the assignment is having its intended effect. Some of my upper-level students are taking time to read that they otherwise wouldn't, because they all lead busy lives with rigorous academic schedules and more social activities than can possibly be healthy. They say they're enjoying the experience. Other students, including a few that hate reading, have reported, "This is the first book I've ever read for school that I enjoyed!". They're not books that I would have chosen for them, but then, that's the point, isn't it?
I worry about this assignment: I'm not really adding value to the experience. This is an assignment that they could do on their own. My good students can already read well, and I'm not doing anything to help the ones who aren't good readers. But the point is that they don't read on their own; they don't get a grade for it, so it's not seen as important. The anecdotes are frequent enough to keep me doing it, and I've since reviewed some evidence that helps justify it. Dan Brown, in his post "You can't compensate for not reading," says that independent readers just do better, and that makes sense. That point, however, raises another worry--am I affecting the "read on your own" thing by making it mandatory?
The point of that whole assignment description was to say that I'm eagerly looking forward to reading Readicide, which is kind of ironic, when you think about it.
Schmocker is also on my list--he also wrote Results Now, which Ray lent to me and I never got around to reading. Between the title and Ray's summary, Focus might just be the book I've been looking for. Those are reasonably good descriptions of my goals for the senior reading program.
My go-to guide for teaching reading is I read it, but I don't get it by Cris Tovani. In it, she identifies 8 or 9 skills that good readers have and outlines her lessons for how she teaches them and how she encourages her students to use them. I started out the year by presenting them, and it was surprising how few of them even my good readers did. I sort of stopped referencing those strategies directly to my students, but I always keep them in mind when I design reading assignments. I think that those strategies are a big part of what ELA class is, or at least what it should be.
It's been so long since I've been to school as an English teacher. I have a lot of knowledge about the theory of learning, from many many many very interesting seminars on Marzano's books, differentiating instruction, and RtI. From those seminars, I have a lot of "every teacher is a reading teacher" strategies. But I don't have a lot of specialized content knowledge about teaching ELA. I'm still an emerging practitioner of reading theory and writing processes. The more of these books I can get my hands on, the smoother things will be, I hope
Two good books that are must reads for those who want to change reading in schools are Readicide; How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It by Kelly Gallagher and Focus: Elevating the Essentials To Radically Improve Student Learning by Mike Schmoker. Gallagher describes how American schools are killing the love of reading in schools and then he gives a plan to change the issue. Schmoker’s book is how we can take some straight forward steps to increase student knowledge in every subject through teaching some very simple steps for reading, writing, and talking.I started to respond in the comments; when I got to the third paragraph, I just turned it into a blog post.
Readicide is on my reading list. At my school, we have a very functional, test-score-driven approach to teaching reading. It works for us; our reading scores are pretty good and getting better. But I end up with huge numbers of seniors (I teach both the senior English classes) who have no interest in reading anything again. So I just made it an assignment: Find a book you want to read. Read it. Tell me what you read. I have guidelines for people who need that sort of thing: They have to read 10,000 words every two weeks (a VERY light requirement) and the summary should be 100-250 words long. But when students want to break the guidelines, I repeat that the assignment is to read something and tell me about it. They can send me a video, an e-mail, turn in a paper, whatever. They have to use words in their summary, but other than that, I don't care about the format. I don't want the assignment to get in the way of the reading.
I have some anecdotal information to suggest that the assignment is having its intended effect. Some of my upper-level students are taking time to read that they otherwise wouldn't, because they all lead busy lives with rigorous academic schedules and more social activities than can possibly be healthy. They say they're enjoying the experience. Other students, including a few that hate reading, have reported, "This is the first book I've ever read for school that I enjoyed!". They're not books that I would have chosen for them, but then, that's the point, isn't it?
I worry about this assignment: I'm not really adding value to the experience. This is an assignment that they could do on their own. My good students can already read well, and I'm not doing anything to help the ones who aren't good readers. But the point is that they don't read on their own; they don't get a grade for it, so it's not seen as important. The anecdotes are frequent enough to keep me doing it, and I've since reviewed some evidence that helps justify it. Dan Brown, in his post "You can't compensate for not reading," says that independent readers just do better, and that makes sense. That point, however, raises another worry--am I affecting the "read on your own" thing by making it mandatory?
The point of that whole assignment description was to say that I'm eagerly looking forward to reading Readicide, which is kind of ironic, when you think about it.
Schmocker is also on my list--he also wrote Results Now, which Ray lent to me and I never got around to reading. Between the title and Ray's summary, Focus might just be the book I've been looking for. Those are reasonably good descriptions of my goals for the senior reading program.
My go-to guide for teaching reading is I read it, but I don't get it by Cris Tovani. In it, she identifies 8 or 9 skills that good readers have and outlines her lessons for how she teaches them and how she encourages her students to use them. I started out the year by presenting them, and it was surprising how few of them even my good readers did. I sort of stopped referencing those strategies directly to my students, but I always keep them in mind when I design reading assignments. I think that those strategies are a big part of what ELA class is, or at least what it should be.
It's been so long since I've been to school as an English teacher. I have a lot of knowledge about the theory of learning, from many many many very interesting seminars on Marzano's books, differentiating instruction, and RtI. From those seminars, I have a lot of "every teacher is a reading teacher" strategies. But I don't have a lot of specialized content knowledge about teaching ELA. I'm still an emerging practitioner of reading theory and writing processes. The more of these books I can get my hands on, the smoother things will be, I hope
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Management theory, education theory, and philosophy
I was thinking that this summer I might read some management books, based on the idea that big chunks of classroom management probably have considerable overlap with the most effective HR departments of major corporations. If management companies can find a way to convince employees that working for (for example) BP is actually a good move, then surely I can convince my students that reading is fun; at least my statement is true.
Before I got the chance, though, I read this article (h/t Making Light) that argues that business management theory is basically a stupid, corrupt sub-set of philosophy. Now in my college years, I had a philosophy instructor suggest that all knowledge was a sub-set of philosophy, and for all I know, he was right. But this philosopher-turned-business-consultant-turned-philosopher argues (I think) that the bond between management theory and philosophy are much more tight than a simple "philosophy trumps all" philosophy.
This intersects with the focus of this blog in several ways. First, the whole premise of the article is a critique of the education of managers. Shorter Stewart: We charge too much for MBA's and then we don't teach them anything. Many graduates of Harvard's MBA program are successful, but this is not because Harvard cranks out great MBA's. It's because you have to be very intelligent, ambitious, hard-working, and probably financially stable to get into the program. You have to be all of those things, only a lot more so, to graduate from those programs. Coincidentally, those skills are also requisites for success in any area, but specifically business management. So Harvard's MBA program isn't necessarily good at creating good managers, but it may be good at finding good managers.
In education, this question is asked of most advanced coursework: does my Honors English class create good thinker/communicators, or does it just find people who are good at those things and make them work at it? Is there really a difference? If there is, is it one that matters after graduation? If that's all we're good for, then why do we insist on educating everyone? Why not just find the best? (NB: Regular readers know that I am firmly dedicated to the principle of high-quality education for ALL students. I have no interest in being a cherry picker.)
Second, throughout Stewart's criticism, the parallel between business management theory and classroom management holds. In fact, in many ways it grows stronger and expands to include the whole field of education theory. Ed theory focuses on how people learn, what they should learn, how other people can get them to learn it, how we know when they have learned it, and what to do with them if they haven't (and if they have). It's a field of study which, like philosophy and management theory, has at its core a search for tools for quantifying and analyzing human experience. This leaves me with the resounding question: Should I be studying more philosophy than ed theory? Stop reading Marzano and start reading Kant?
Naaaaah.
Before I got the chance, though, I read this article (h/t Making Light) that argues that business management theory is basically a stupid, corrupt sub-set of philosophy. Now in my college years, I had a philosophy instructor suggest that all knowledge was a sub-set of philosophy, and for all I know, he was right. But this philosopher-turned-business-consultant-turned-philosopher argues (I think) that the bond between management theory and philosophy are much more tight than a simple "philosophy trumps all" philosophy.
This intersects with the focus of this blog in several ways. First, the whole premise of the article is a critique of the education of managers. Shorter Stewart: We charge too much for MBA's and then we don't teach them anything. Many graduates of Harvard's MBA program are successful, but this is not because Harvard cranks out great MBA's. It's because you have to be very intelligent, ambitious, hard-working, and probably financially stable to get into the program. You have to be all of those things, only a lot more so, to graduate from those programs. Coincidentally, those skills are also requisites for success in any area, but specifically business management. So Harvard's MBA program isn't necessarily good at creating good managers, but it may be good at finding good managers.
In education, this question is asked of most advanced coursework: does my Honors English class create good thinker/communicators, or does it just find people who are good at those things and make them work at it? Is there really a difference? If there is, is it one that matters after graduation? If that's all we're good for, then why do we insist on educating everyone? Why not just find the best? (NB: Regular readers know that I am firmly dedicated to the principle of high-quality education for ALL students. I have no interest in being a cherry picker.)
Second, throughout Stewart's criticism, the parallel between business management theory and classroom management holds. In fact, in many ways it grows stronger and expands to include the whole field of education theory. Ed theory focuses on how people learn, what they should learn, how other people can get them to learn it, how we know when they have learned it, and what to do with them if they haven't (and if they have). It's a field of study which, like philosophy and management theory, has at its core a search for tools for quantifying and analyzing human experience. This leaves me with the resounding question: Should I be studying more philosophy than ed theory? Stop reading Marzano and start reading Kant?
Naaaaah.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Brown / Brookings
I got an article from the Brookings Institute, reviewing the 2008 Brown Center Report on American Education, from my principal a couple of weeks ago. It's been sitting on my "to deal with soon" pile since then. (The "to deal with soon" pile is actually more of a metaphor, than an actual pile. It's spread across desks, counters, tabletops, boxes, and filing cabinets in 2 counties.) I've just now finished reading it. It looks at 3 issues: Comparing states' standard assessments to an international standard called PISA and their relative abilities to show educational efficacy; mandatory 8th-grade algebra programs; and an analysis of big-city student achievements compared to the suburban and rural school districts surrounding them.
Part 1:) Brown Center says that supporters say that PISA can offer policymakers evidence on what works and what doesn't around the world. Brown Center says not so fast, and states some problems with that idea. I don't know anything about the specifics, and until I start working on my doctorate in International Curriculum Alignment and Benchmarking, I'm unlikely to do so. But I'm pretty sure that we don't have any kind of standard curriculum around the world, we don't have any aggreement (and no plans to get one) with Europe on what our students should know, how well they should know it, and when. So to look at the standardized tests of Europe without any curriculum context is like comparing apples to, oh, I don't know, front-lawn sod. This is sharply different from the International Baccalaureate program, which does include some curriculum content. (Not saying IB is the answer to all questions. Just saying.)
Part 2:) California and Minnesota have passed laws that mandate algebra for all 8th graders by 2011. Brown Center says that we shouldn't have all 8th graders taking algebra, at least until we figure out how better to teach lagging math students. In other news, eating too much fat causes people to gain weight. Of course we shouldn't mandate algebra for 8th graders. High exptectations are one thing, but algebra involves a certain amount of neurological development that not all developing people have achieved by the age of 12-14. We should DEFINITELY have the option of 8th grade algebra available to those who are ready--heck, 7th (or 6th) grade algebra should be OK. We should DEFINITELY work towards having preK-7th grade math instruction strong enough to prepare 8th-grade students for algebra. But to require it seems like an awful idea.
Part 3:) Big-city schools are improving on standardized tests as compared to the suburbs and rural schools surrounding them. Brown Center says the progress is slow but steady, and is not prepared to say why this is. NCLB? Maybe. Mayoral control of schools? Not sure. I have no opinion of this. I'm happy for the big schools that have achieved good results. Nowhere near enough data to do any better than that.
Part 1:) Brown Center says that supporters say that PISA can offer policymakers evidence on what works and what doesn't around the world. Brown Center says not so fast, and states some problems with that idea. I don't know anything about the specifics, and until I start working on my doctorate in International Curriculum Alignment and Benchmarking, I'm unlikely to do so. But I'm pretty sure that we don't have any kind of standard curriculum around the world, we don't have any aggreement (and no plans to get one) with Europe on what our students should know, how well they should know it, and when. So to look at the standardized tests of Europe without any curriculum context is like comparing apples to, oh, I don't know, front-lawn sod. This is sharply different from the International Baccalaureate program, which does include some curriculum content. (Not saying IB is the answer to all questions. Just saying.)
Part 2:) California and Minnesota have passed laws that mandate algebra for all 8th graders by 2011. Brown Center says that we shouldn't have all 8th graders taking algebra, at least until we figure out how better to teach lagging math students. In other news, eating too much fat causes people to gain weight. Of course we shouldn't mandate algebra for 8th graders. High exptectations are one thing, but algebra involves a certain amount of neurological development that not all developing people have achieved by the age of 12-14. We should DEFINITELY have the option of 8th grade algebra available to those who are ready--heck, 7th (or 6th) grade algebra should be OK. We should DEFINITELY work towards having preK-7th grade math instruction strong enough to prepare 8th-grade students for algebra. But to require it seems like an awful idea.
Part 3:) Big-city schools are improving on standardized tests as compared to the suburbs and rural schools surrounding them. Brown Center says the progress is slow but steady, and is not prepared to say why this is. NCLB? Maybe. Mayoral control of schools? Not sure. I have no opinion of this. I'm happy for the big schools that have achieved good results. Nowhere near enough data to do any better than that.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Revisiting flashcards
This was inspired by a conversation with a student from Germany who isn't in my Spanish class, about how to teach vocabulary in a World Languages course.
I don't use flash cards most of the time. I try to incorporate communicative activities in my classroom as much as possible. So I try to avoid using "memorize the Spanish word / memorize the English translation" activities as much as possible. My students still have a vocab list with the Spanish on one side and the English on another, because they get nervous if they can't see their vocabulary. But I use it as a security blanket, not as a primary source of vocabulary. (That's the intent, at least.) I see flashcards, as a rule, as an extension of memorizing translations. Studies show that this is an ineffective method of learning a language over the long term.
Instead, my students do glossary entries--they write the Spanish word and its translation, write a definition in Spanish or use the word in an example sentence, and draw a picture that illustrates the word. The idea is that by using the word in a meaningful sentence, they give it a meaningful context; by drawing a picture of it, they engage in non-lingustic representation, which helps with both retention and contextualization. I'll try to find the research on non-linguistic representation on vocabulary. The research is on the effects of vocabulary on L1 content learning, but it makes sense that L1 vocabulary acquisition strategies would work on L2 vocabulary, as well. The idea is that the students do one of these a day.
But this student, who learned English in Germany before coming to the United States, suggests a mechanism for using flash cards of the "L2-on-one-side-L1-on-the-other" effectively. It works like this--The student gets a box with 5 numbered compartments and 10 vocab cards. You run through the vocab, and every word you can translate and pronounce correctly moves up a compartment. Every day 10 or so new vocabulary cards go into Compartment 1. You study Compartment 1 every day, moving cards you know up. Compartment 2 gets studied every other day, with cards moving up as you go. Compartment 3 gets studied every week; compartment 4, every other week; Compartment 5, every month. After you know the vocabulary from Compartment 5, you can throw the card away, because you know the vocabulary forever.
Comparisons: If done correctly, both of these methods have students spending 10 minutes a day studying vocabulary, which is extremely helpful for long-term acquisition. (Source needed.)
Contrasts: The flash card box has a mechanism for revisiting old vocabulary; I ask my students to revisit their glossary, but have no way of making sure they do. The flash cards ask students to memorize vocbulary, while the glossaries ask them to use the vocabulary. Flashcards have students going over a large number of words each day, while glossary entries ask students to go over one word and use it in 3 different ways (including the one I purport to reject as effective). lashcards focus on 1-word-at-a-time acquisition, while glossaries ask students to use the words in sentences. The flashcard box places a specific value on knowing how to pronounce the words for advancement, and the glossaries do not.
Refinements: Flashcards could include pictures instead of words, where practical. (Turns out it's tough to draw a picture that represents conjunctions and words like "however.") I could include vocab quizzes for glossary entries, or some ongoing showing-off-glossary-entry speaking projects. Both projects could be modified to make them computer-based; this would use less paper and increase useability, but then accessibility would be a factor.
Mini-study idea: While presenting new vocabulary, half the class gets a flash card box and half the class gets a refined glossary entry project, with a limited set of vocabulary to choose from. Each assigment should be filled daily, and appropriate controls are put it to encourage and enforce compliance--the teacher checks the flash card box for changes, and checks in glossary entries, every day. After 1 week, the students take a vocabulary test that focuses on students' abilities to comprehend vocabulary; resulsts are compared. The test is re-administered after another week, and 1 month after the beginning date of the project, to test long-term retention.
I don't use flash cards most of the time. I try to incorporate communicative activities in my classroom as much as possible. So I try to avoid using "memorize the Spanish word / memorize the English translation" activities as much as possible. My students still have a vocab list with the Spanish on one side and the English on another, because they get nervous if they can't see their vocabulary. But I use it as a security blanket, not as a primary source of vocabulary. (That's the intent, at least.) I see flashcards, as a rule, as an extension of memorizing translations. Studies show that this is an ineffective method of learning a language over the long term.
Instead, my students do glossary entries--they write the Spanish word and its translation, write a definition in Spanish or use the word in an example sentence, and draw a picture that illustrates the word. The idea is that by using the word in a meaningful sentence, they give it a meaningful context; by drawing a picture of it, they engage in non-lingustic representation, which helps with both retention and contextualization. I'll try to find the research on non-linguistic representation on vocabulary. The research is on the effects of vocabulary on L1 content learning, but it makes sense that L1 vocabulary acquisition strategies would work on L2 vocabulary, as well. The idea is that the students do one of these a day.
But this student, who learned English in Germany before coming to the United States, suggests a mechanism for using flash cards of the "L2-on-one-side-L1-on-the-other" effectively. It works like this--The student gets a box with 5 numbered compartments and 10 vocab cards. You run through the vocab, and every word you can translate and pronounce correctly moves up a compartment. Every day 10 or so new vocabulary cards go into Compartment 1. You study Compartment 1 every day, moving cards you know up. Compartment 2 gets studied every other day, with cards moving up as you go. Compartment 3 gets studied every week; compartment 4, every other week; Compartment 5, every month. After you know the vocabulary from Compartment 5, you can throw the card away, because you know the vocabulary forever.
Comparisons: If done correctly, both of these methods have students spending 10 minutes a day studying vocabulary, which is extremely helpful for long-term acquisition. (Source needed.)
Contrasts: The flash card box has a mechanism for revisiting old vocabulary; I ask my students to revisit their glossary, but have no way of making sure they do. The flash cards ask students to memorize vocbulary, while the glossaries ask them to use the vocabulary. Flashcards have students going over a large number of words each day, while glossary entries ask students to go over one word and use it in 3 different ways (including the one I purport to reject as effective). lashcards focus on 1-word-at-a-time acquisition, while glossaries ask students to use the words in sentences. The flashcard box places a specific value on knowing how to pronounce the words for advancement, and the glossaries do not.
Refinements: Flashcards could include pictures instead of words, where practical. (Turns out it's tough to draw a picture that represents conjunctions and words like "however.") I could include vocab quizzes for glossary entries, or some ongoing showing-off-glossary-entry speaking projects. Both projects could be modified to make them computer-based; this would use less paper and increase useability, but then accessibility would be a factor.
Mini-study idea: While presenting new vocabulary, half the class gets a flash card box and half the class gets a refined glossary entry project, with a limited set of vocabulary to choose from. Each assigment should be filled daily, and appropriate controls are put it to encourage and enforce compliance--the teacher checks the flash card box for changes, and checks in glossary entries, every day. After 1 week, the students take a vocabulary test that focuses on students' abilities to comprehend vocabulary; resulsts are compared. The test is re-administered after another week, and 1 month after the beginning date of the project, to test long-term retention.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
School in society, pt. I:
What teachers aren't
I suspect that this is going to be a leit motif of this blog; I spend a lot of time thinking about this subject. I took a class on Schools in Society in my education class, and occasionally revisit the materials of that class and use it to reanalyze my teaching philosophy. But that class was before NCLB, and though the perspective on schools has changed, the research has advanced, and the field is more important than ever, the argument about the roles of schools in society seems to have stayed in almost exactly the same place.
My thoughts today are on precisely what a teacher's job is. My personal definition of a teacher has changed somewhat from someone who speaks Spanish at students in a way they can understand, to a figure much more involved in a student's interaction with the world. School is the first big bureaucracy that a student has to navigate through, and as she approaches graduation, she has to deal with more and more of it. I still take a dim view of anything that emphasizes the structure of school over the content of classes, but since the structure of school is important, I've come to recognize that I have to be good at it, and I have to be good at making by students be good at it.
With the rapidly evolving ideas about what my job is and what my job should be, I've uncovered a lot of things a teacher is not. It takes approximately 15 minutes into the first class in an Education Professional Development curriculum for most teacher learners to discover that being a teacher is not (supposed to be) knowing everything and dispensing this knowledge, a quarter-cup at a time, into the empty but eager vessels that are the brains of students. (The other metaphor used is "writing on a blank chalkboard." I've read research that calls it the Atlas complex, because the teacher carries the world on his back the way Atlas carries the sky. It bears remembering what happened to Atlas: when the weight of the sky nearly broke him, Athene used Medusa's head to turn him to stone.) The "dispenser of knowledge" model of teaching has been refuted over and over again, but you still see it in societal expectations of teachers. (I'll update with sources if I can find them online.)
But what really has been sticking in my craw is a list apocryphally attributed to Bill Gates, but in fact by libertarian Charles Sykes. The rule on this list that I constantly get stuck on is this:
No, what really irks me about this particular rule is the blatant expectation that teachers be students' "bosses," and that a teacher's primary duty to her students is to prepare them for the brutal, impersonal, emotionally neutral world of flipping burgers (a position Sykes refers to in one of his other rules as "opportunity"). Obviously, one of the tasks of a teacher is to prepare a student for life in the workplace. I'm not sure that the way to do this, though, is by modeling the behavior of a boss to someone who isn't being compensated for their work. This seems like thinking out of the Industrial Age--when public schools were expected to produce people who could do the same thing over and over for 60 hours a week, and things like management and decision-making were taught (if at all) in private education institutions.
We rightly expect more from our public schools, because fewer people have labor-intensive jobs that require no decision making. So in order to prepare students for the workplace, a teacher has to do much more than impress proper servility for authority. Information gathering and analysis, teamwork, self-reflection--in short, if a student receives a perfect education (yes, I know), and learns the lessons, he should be prepared to be his own boss, work independently, and lead others, as well as follow instructions.
I suspect that this is going to be a leit motif of this blog; I spend a lot of time thinking about this subject. I took a class on Schools in Society in my education class, and occasionally revisit the materials of that class and use it to reanalyze my teaching philosophy. But that class was before NCLB, and though the perspective on schools has changed, the research has advanced, and the field is more important than ever, the argument about the roles of schools in society seems to have stayed in almost exactly the same place.
My thoughts today are on precisely what a teacher's job is. My personal definition of a teacher has changed somewhat from someone who speaks Spanish at students in a way they can understand, to a figure much more involved in a student's interaction with the world. School is the first big bureaucracy that a student has to navigate through, and as she approaches graduation, she has to deal with more and more of it. I still take a dim view of anything that emphasizes the structure of school over the content of classes, but since the structure of school is important, I've come to recognize that I have to be good at it, and I have to be good at making by students be good at it.
With the rapidly evolving ideas about what my job is and what my job should be, I've uncovered a lot of things a teacher is not. It takes approximately 15 minutes into the first class in an Education Professional Development curriculum for most teacher learners to discover that being a teacher is not (supposed to be) knowing everything and dispensing this knowledge, a quarter-cup at a time, into the empty but eager vessels that are the brains of students. (The other metaphor used is "writing on a blank chalkboard." I've read research that calls it the Atlas complex, because the teacher carries the world on his back the way Atlas carries the sky. It bears remembering what happened to Atlas: when the weight of the sky nearly broke him, Athene used Medusa's head to turn him to stone.) The "dispenser of knowledge" model of teaching has been refuted over and over again, but you still see it in societal expectations of teachers. (I'll update with sources if I can find them online.)
But what really has been sticking in my craw is a list apocryphally attributed to Bill Gates, but in fact by libertarian Charles Sykes. The rule on this list that I constantly get stuck on is this:
Rule 4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.It's not the implication that tenure makes teachers lose interest in the quality of their work that sets me on edge. It isn't the suggestion that teachers behave like sitcom parodies of psychologists in the face of student difficulty. These may be true to varying degrees; all I can say is that I haven't seen it, and I'm not familiar with the research that says that these behaviors are problems. (Although my experience in education is limited, it seems to be greater than Sykes's, but I'll concede the research point to him for the time being.)
No, what really irks me about this particular rule is the blatant expectation that teachers be students' "bosses," and that a teacher's primary duty to her students is to prepare them for the brutal, impersonal, emotionally neutral world of flipping burgers (a position Sykes refers to in one of his other rules as "opportunity"). Obviously, one of the tasks of a teacher is to prepare a student for life in the workplace. I'm not sure that the way to do this, though, is by modeling the behavior of a boss to someone who isn't being compensated for their work. This seems like thinking out of the Industrial Age--when public schools were expected to produce people who could do the same thing over and over for 60 hours a week, and things like management and decision-making were taught (if at all) in private education institutions.
We rightly expect more from our public schools, because fewer people have labor-intensive jobs that require no decision making. So in order to prepare students for the workplace, a teacher has to do much more than impress proper servility for authority. Information gathering and analysis, teamwork, self-reflection--in short, if a student receives a perfect education (yes, I know), and learns the lessons, he should be prepared to be his own boss, work independently, and lead others, as well as follow instructions.
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