“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” - John Dewey
As a parent I can really connect with this quote. All of the students that come into our schools and our classrooms deserve an education that we would want for our own child. My daughter is currently in first grade and I wonder what the educational system will have in store for her. As Darling-Hammond stated in the last paragraph, "As a country, we can and must enter a new era." Darling-Hammond states that we need the implementation of the following policies: The first is Meaningful learning goals. One of the main ideas I got from this was about assessment practices. Teachers so often teach to the test, when the policy in place is place that sets the standards low, we are not allowing our students to become critical thinkers or encouraging them to push themselves to a high level of achievement. As I think about this concept, I make connection to the brain science about creativity. When we assess a student, what is it that we are looking for? Are we looking for one correct answer or are we looking for the ability to come up with many possible solutions or make connections to things they already know, do we want them to analyze and think about a problem or to be able to follow procedure? When standardized tests change, naturally teaching changes with it. I feel like we have adjusted our testing, with that I wonder if we have given our teachers enough support to understand the shifts that they need to make in the classroom. This leads to the next area of reform. Intelligent, reciprocal accountability system includes Standards of Practice, Standards for Schools, and Standards for the System. If we change what we want our student outcomes to be, we need to support them in reaching these standards. I think this is one of the main reasons so many people hate common core; students are asked to perform differently and many teachers do not know how to get them there. Not only do teachers need to be provided the education in this transition, they also need the time to collaborate and the support of the school structure. For me, I have ideas and things that I want to incorporate into my classroom but I feel limited by time, and there is not enough support for students that need extra support emotionally, behaviorally, and/or academically. I believe that this is one of the places that money could have a huge impact. We, as a system are so short in manpower that so many people are stretched thin and can't maximize the great intentions and knowledge that they have. Equitable and adequate resources needs to be in place to allow students to excel. One of these resources is quality teachers. The system we have in place makes is so hard to fire teachers who are clearly not doing their job well. I think we need to provide support in becoming a skilled teacher and then make sure that they are held accountable. As I teach a class for future educators I go into many different classrooms throughout our district. It is so surprising to me that there is such a huge difference from one school to another. I know that it is even more extreme if you look outside of the district. This takes me back to the quote by John Dewey, my address should not dictate the type or quality of my child's education. I think this ties in with the fourth area of policy implementation, strong professional standards and supports. One of the quotes for Darling-Hammond stuck with me, "The best systems create high-quality professional learning opportunities, including time for teachers to work and learn together during the school day". As we are facing more cuts going into the next few years, one of the things that may be gone is our Professional Learning Communities. This makes me feel like we are definitely going in the wrong direction. We know through research that collaboration strengthens a school and we as teachers need to model what we want students to do. The systems need to be in place for that to happen. The last area, schools organized for student and teacher learning is something that I am excited to think about. I am so lucky to be in a school that has an innovative leader, he is driving us as a staff to rethink what school can look like. It brings up so many questions as we dive into the future of what education looks like at our site. Overall I agree with Darling-Hammond that we need to enter a new era. Education needs to adapt to the needs of our students.
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As I entered the classroom ten years ago I was eager to meet my students and looking forward to the challenges I had ahead of me. I was going to be teaching CPM geometry, which I had never been trained in, and High School Math, a course for juniors and seniors that had not passed the CAHSEE; a course with no curriculum, just a list of standards that needed to be covered. I had a blurry vision of what I wanted my classroom to look like. I wanted to the students to be engaged in the content and each working on things that made sense for where there were with their math skills and their life interests. I wanted to build relationships with students and pass on my love of learning math. I had the basics of my vision with no idea or support on how to get there. As the first few years went by I continued to reflect and adjust my practice; however, I was still not getting my classroom much closer to my vision. After my fourth year of teaching our district decided to partner with LMU and change the way we taught math. I saw this as my opportunity to push my practice to the next level. I became a part of a program that had a continuous cycle of learning, support, data analysis, and collaboration. As I was reading the ACOT, it reminded me a lot of the program that I participated in. Myself along with one other math teacher at my site would engage in a very targeted professional development each month, this was followed by an observation by our mentor from LMU who would script the lesson and record active engagement numbers. Following the observation we would debrief/plan and then in a PLC we would analyze student data. I engaged in this process for four years. After the first two year I started taking courses at LMU and became a math teacher leader for my site, where I supported teachers at my site in this same process and eventually did a lot of district work. Being involved in this transformed the way I taught. Although I did not have access to much in the way of technology, my classroom became more collaborative, student centered, differentiated and reflective. I captured my work in my classroom, supporting teachers at my site and work at the district in this poster. Being part of this program and reading about the changes that teachers reported after taking part in the ACOT, I connected this to the book "The Flat World and Education" where Darling-Hammond sites so much data on the influence of teacher quality on student achievement. It seems very clear that as teachers go into teaching very few of them are truly prepared for the job, if they do not get very specific support or seak professional growth of some sort, they will not be as effective in supporting students reach the desired outcomes. Starting two years ago I embarked on a new challenge in my teaching career. I moved back home to Napa, where I got a job as an Academic Specialist at New Technology High School, a project based school. I was not very familiar with PBL and although I had supported math teachers, I was now in a position to support teachers in all content areas. This is a school where access to technology and the way of teaching is very different. I think the fact that students and teachers have access to technology at a different level has helped me move into the adaptation and appropriation stages. I am excited to continue learning and pushing myself to get to the innovation stage. I am still working on having a balance between context and content and what that looks like. I feel that it is important that we teach the content in a way that supports students in becoming critical thinkers, collaborators, communicators and allows them to be creative. With this I want students to be able to look at a problem that they have never seen before and use the 4 C's and prior knowledge to come up with a solution. I still struggle with shifting mindsets away from the procedures of math to the creativity with math; I would love to find more technology and strategies that would support this shift of mindset. Overall, I am excited to be a part of an innovative step that is going to take place at New Tech High. I plan to continue pushing myself both in the classroom with students and in my collaborations with colleagues. Case Study #2 |
Kendra ParsonsAs a high school math teacher, I am passionate about bringing a joy of learning and of math to my students. Archives
April 2018
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