John Dewey's quote, "What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must we want for all children in the community. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy" is rooted in the idea of 21st Century teaching. Dewey's philosophy on teaching as summarized by PBS.org is that students' education must be relevant for students to engage and that education is in place to lead learners to be productive citizens. In this sense, we as a society, as educators and as parents have a moral and ethical obligation to meet the needs of the students as it relates to our societies needs. Dewey's philosophy is aligned with the instructional and assessment shifts proposed by Darling-Hammond.
Darling-Hammond's proposal for assessment is of great importance given that within education we almost exclusively use these scores to quantify success. While teaching math in Oakland, we gave 3 sets of assessments during a school year. The SBAC, The mid-course assessment and the end-of-course assessment. The mid and end of course assessments were task based assessments that were created by the district math team with teacher leader inputs. After administering the assessments, all math teachers from across the district came together at a central location, aligned our scoring with rubrics and scored every students assessment. We then used data dives at following professional developments to inform our instructional practices and curriculum changes. In juxtaposition was the high-stakes SBAC that administered at the end of every school year. Little was ever done at our site or district level to use the data to inform our instructional practices and many parts of the assessment were a mystery to most teachers. As said by Darling-Hammond in regards reimagining assessment, "Such efforts are unlikely to pay off, however, unless other central changes are made in the ways tests are used and accountability systems are designed. so that new standards and assessments inform more skillful and adaptive teaching that enables more successful learning for all students". In the past when meeting with parents or administration to discuss students growth, the conversation related to content retention and application. We would talk about the child's ability to show understanding and accuracy within discrete standards. Often times I would think, how is this preparing the child for what they will encounter in a job market 5 years from now. Over the last few years, I have focused my conversations on broader skills such as which strategies the students use, how they ask questions in class or how they support their partner or group when completing an investigation. While there is validity in discussing how a student performs in say, using operations on integers, education is more than checklist with a series of standards that you check off as the student shows fluency within them. In a post Darling-Hammond educational landscape, I could see a place where teachers were supported by being given opportunities to grow both within classrooms and as a professional. This would include input on assessments and curriculum and a professional learning community where isolation was replaced with collaboration and communication. In this landscape, students would be supported as a result of educators being supported. Teacher's would have the skills and time to meet the needs of a diverse classroom by using authentic data that is used a springboard for instruction, student support structures and pedagogy. Our federal and state institutions would view education with an equity focus, that puts stronger support structures into struggling schools to help close achievement gaps. With this, students would be able to clearly see the connection between education and society, and time spent in school would focus on experiences that would mimic the professional, post education world while providing students with opportunities to explore various careers through connected learning experiences.
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Joseph WilliamsI have a love for getting students jazzed about math, art and food. Currently educating youth at an alternative high school program in Portland. Archives
November 2017
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