High Stakes Testing

This is my vacation week – February vacation – and I am enjoying it greatly. The thing is, I know that when I get back to work on Monday, everything is going to hit. In fact a couple other teachers and I call it boot camp – MCAS boot camp. We will be in high gear to prepare for our high stakes test. Fourth grade is a big year and boy, do we feel the pressure.

I am sad to say that I succumb to the pressure. What option do I have? I need to teach to the test and even though the real boot camp begins next week, the preparation really began the first weeks of school. Students learn about how to read and understand both question and petition prompts, develop a plan and produce a response. These responses have a bit of a formula to them and I teach it to my students.

Now, this is where I do have many mixed feelings. To some degree, I can’t help but think these are good writing skills to get under your belt, (at least while students are learning the basics of writing) but I have issues with this as well. When we stress the importance of producing a quality piece of writing in a DAY (such as in our “Long Composition” section of our test) are we deemphasizing the importance of each part of the writing process real writers go through? I think so!

I can’t help but wonder if we could find a new way to assess students’ writing capabilities and still find a way to standardize it across the state or even nation. (That is a whole other blog series.)

But it’s not just the writing piece of the assessment, it’s the others as well: grammar, comprehension and math strands. I know these are important skills, basic skills that students need to learn and master, but sometimes I feel as if I’m cramming for the test as I put my class in high gear boot camp. I can’t help but wonder, how much will stick? Am I doing my students a disservice?

Dr. Richard Hersh, a leader in education who addresses assessment, is often quoted, “Life is not a multiple-choice test.” This rings true and is something I need to keep in mind especially at this time of year. Even if my name is attached to my students’ scores, I need to remember that my methods of teaching need to continue to be reflective of my beliefs that students need more than good grades. They need skills that will allow them to be successful in all aspects of life.

This can be done in creative ways that are supported by arts education and integration. In fact that is the topic of the next blog in this series.

So while they do their MCAS prep books and practice filling in circles, I need to make sure that my students never lose sight of what it really means to explore new topics, challenge themselves, try new things and find the joy in learning.

And I can’t lose sight of what it means to find the joy in teaching.

Next Blog (due out on Saturday, February 20, 2010) – How the Arts are Connected to Today’s Education Needs

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Skills Our Students Need

This is part of the Education in a New Era blog series. To gain access to all the blogs in this series, click the tag “Edu in a New Era”.

In the last blog, I threw out ideas about how our society is changing and how that is affecting the workforce of the future and the current trends of education. But now, let’s look at other effects this will have on our children or, more accurately, what skills they will need to succeed now and in the future.

It’s not all about memorization of facts and figures anymore, it’s about how to process all the information we have at our fingertips.

It’s not how well you can do a menial task, but what innovation you can come up with when given a challenge.

And for us teachers, it’s about stepping back and letting students do something and fail, but then giving our students time to really reflect on their mistakes and learn from their experience.

Talk of these skills is not only a hot topic in education, but it is in the business world too, and rightfully so! People all across the professional spectrum are concerned with the skills students are acquiring and, too often not acquiring. Tony Wagner calls them “Survival Skills”, Daniel Pink’s concept is in developing six high-concept, high-touch senses. You may have heard about the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills which developed their own set of necessary skills and there are many organizations who work to promote the development of media literacies – something so important in this media rich world we live in.

Regardless of the person, organization or terminology, they all have many skills in common: innovation, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, initiative and flexibility. Click here to see a comparison of three sets of skills.

These are all arts-based skills!

When children and young adults look at and interpret a painting, they are thinking critically, when they work with a new type of media, they are problem solving, when they play in an ensemble, they are collaborating, when they play a game in PE, they are practicing good team work skills. But it’s not only in arts classes that students learn and develop these skills – it shouldn’t be!

All teachers do crave to teach these skills in their classrooms but can feel bogged down by curriculum demands and testing, let alone we do not have sufficient training in HOW to teach these skills effectively. Personally, I am only beginning to create my own repertoire of arts-infused teaching. Yes, I do activities that foster these skills, but I can do more and I hope to do more as I grow as a teacher.

But first, I guess I need to explore a bit more of the roadblocks before I can free myself of their grasp on my teaching.

Next Blog (due out on Tuesday, February 16, 2010) – High Stakes Testing and Other Creative Roadblocks.

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Workforce Preparedness

This is part of the Education in a New Era blog series. To gain access to all the blogs in this series, click the tag “Edu in New Era”.

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At a workshop I conducted just last week, we got into a small discussion about 21^st century skills and workforce preparedness. One person echoed a statement I’ve heard many times before:

We are preparing students for jobs that haven’t even been invented yet.

We do, in fact live in a global society that is ever changing. Yet how we find ourselves teaching is all too often just as Pam Harland says, “Teachers now simply type their lecture notes into PowerPoint instead of writing in chalk.” And by we, I do mean me.

It is hard to take a good look in the mirror and see what it is that I am doing as a teacher and realize what I should be doing as well. Yes, from time to time I will share a BrainPop with my students as I join the class next door or encourage my students to practice their math facts for a period of time in the computer clubhouse, but the reality is that in my classroom, there is one piece of technology – my computer that I hoard to myself throughout the day for my own needs.

Grant it – I teach fourth grade, so I wonder, “Do my students really need to be utilizing technology in order to learn the 3 Rs that are so basic and important to their success?” I answer myself in many ways:

• No, they just need to learn those skills and the traditional way is best! At least in elementary school.
• Yes, there have to be resources out there that can assist in their learning and practicing of these skills.
• Yes, and it is my responsibility to teach students media literacy too!
• Yes, and I can also allow for them to use the technology they already do to respond to and discuss their learning.

Usually the yeses outnumber the nos. But then I think of the inevitable – our reality: there are constraints and pressures and test scores and AYP. But, what it boils down to is, regardless of what grade you teach, students are using, will continue to use and will be expected to use technology throughout their lives.

This is what leads to workforce preparedness. Is seems middle school and high school grades feel more pressure in this realm, since they are closer to the students who are actually out in the workforce. But we need to remember, I need to remember, that a students’ education is not just for a period of time, but throughout their lives and I play a large role in that. Even workforce preparedness, even in fourth grade! We all link to each other and all play a part in the gradual process of coaching students to become skilled workers for the future.

Technology is not the only skill we should be discussing, either. There are other skills too. We will explore some of those in the next blog. For now, ponder the idea of the future for which we are preparing our children.

Next Blog (due out on Saturday, February 13, 2010) – Skills Our Children Need

Make a Comment - We want to hear from you. What are your thoughts on this topic? What insights do you have to offer to the discussion? Comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Education Yesterday and Today

This is part of the Education in a New Era blog series. To gain access to all the blogs in this series, click the tag “Edu in a New Era”.


The theme of 21st century skills is high on the priority list of things to discuss and understand. In my experiences with professional development and continuing education, the idea of change and closing the global achievement gap is a hot topic. Education is changing, but very slowly and we need to help that change along or we are going to be sorry we didn’t prepare our students better for the skills they need now and for those we are unaware of in the future.

The arts can be a huge piece of the solution to get students from compliance to creativity, from rigidity to innovation. Over the course of the next few weeks, I hope we can discuss this topic more and more online. Join the conversation by adding your own comments and insights!

To begin, I’d like to offer you some of my notes from a professional development day my district sponsored for our entire staff. Mike Wasta of www.leadandlearn.com outlined for us the differences between education yesterday and today:

Yesterday / Today
Industrialized / Economy Knowledge Society
Compliance / Creativity
Efficiency / Efficiency
Strict Boundaries / Porous Boundaries
Success is possible with limited skills / Success is required with high skill levels
Opportunities are local/regional / Opportunities are global
Stable / Continuously changing

“In the beginning” schools were modeled after factories. Those privileged students were expected to memorize facts and figures in order to show their smarts and do well for themselves in life. Now, our job as educators is quite different. We are expected not only to teach ALL students regardless, we need to take responsibility for them if they don’t learn. But the biggest challenge is that the traditional school model doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. Our students need to be taught another layer of skills.

Wasta is not the only person from whom these ideas are heard. Daniel Pink, a best-selling author and speaker on business transformation and Tony Wagner, an education consultant have authored books about the state of our country at this time and the part education plays in preparing our students for the workforce. And of course there is the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, an organization that advocates for the readiness of children in the 21st century. We will be looking at their work in future blogs.

Amidst it all, there is truth (and hope) in how arts education and integration can not only help, but teach some of these skills we are finding necessary for our young people. People like Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland have done research on this, showing the intrinsic skills that studying the arts can instill.

I hate to admit it, but I often find myself teaching in that industrialized way. Through these blogs, I hope to come to an understanding of why and discover ways to change. It is my hope that your comments, ideas and insights will add to this journey.

Next Blog (due out on Saturday, February 9, 2010) – Workforce Preparedness

Make a Comment - We want to hear from you. What are your thoughts on this topic? What insights do you have to offer to the discussion? Comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Norman Rockwell - End Notes

This is part of the Norman Rockwell integration blog series. To gain access to all the blogs in this series, click the tag “Norman Rockwell”.

Doing this blog series, showed me the possibilities of Norman Rockwell’s paintings. The expanse of Rockwell’s works seem limitless – what an amazing collection of masterpieces. They always entertain and always bring emotion to me. I smile, I smirk, I swell up with tears. Each painting has its own story and everyone can find their own collection of Rockwells that truly speak to them.

It is my hope that other teachers will continue to try some of these ideas out and also share their experiences and ideas. For the complete blog series, click the "Norman Rockwell" tab.

So, look out for old calendars, prints and resources online and create displays so that students can enjoy a piece of Americana while learning!

Norman Rockwell - Activity 7 Cause and Effect

This is part of the Norman Rockwell integration blog series. To gain access to all the blogs in this series, click the tag “Norman Rockwell” when accessing the Magazine on this site.

You are encouraged to try out these activities and to comment on the blogs, activities and ideas. You might even find that you can share other ways to integrate Rockwell into what you do! Your voice and ideas matter!

Muse Away!

ACTIVITY – Cause and Effect

We see cause and effect everywhere around us and it can also be seen in a snapshot moment of a Norman Rockwell painting. An effect is what happens. A cause is why it happens. With a little prompting, students will be able to identify these within the situation of the painting.

Procedure:

1. Have students look closely at the painting and allow for some time for first impressions and conversations about the characters and the situation.

2. Ask students to take a closer look at the painting and state the prompt that allows them to find details that lend themselves to cause or effect. For example:

• What is happening in the painting?
• What do you think caused that to happen?
• What will happen next as a result of that action?

3. Assist students in completing a t-chart that has cause and effect as the titles of the two columns. Sometimes you will fill out the left side first and other times you will fill out the right side first.

4. After a short introduction to the activity, invite students to work in small groups or on their own with a new painting. You may want students to complete the WORKSHEET.

Worksheet link: http://theinspiredclassroom.com/Rockwell%20cause%20effect.pdf

Implementation Ideas: (review)

• Have a copy of a painting for each student. (They do not have to be the same.)
• Give students a copy to use in small groups.
• Place copies of paintings around the room and have students do the activity while traveling from piece to piece in an “around the world” format.
• Do a shared lesson or activity with your whole class or with a small group.
• Create a center in your room where students can visit and complete the activity.

Extensions and Variations:

• Ask students to change the situation of the painting. A student states a cause and then says how that will effect the situation. For example, a student may state, “I will throw a ball at the boy.” The effect may be, “The boy will try and catch the ball and will drop the bottle in his hand.”
• Do the reverse of the above extension. Have a student state an effect and then state what could cause that effect to happen. For example, if the effect is, “The girl hits that boy,” the cause may be, “The boy pinched the girl.”

Final Blog in this Series (due out on Saturday January 30, 2010) – Wrapping it All Up

Make a Comment - We want to hear from you. What do you think of this activity? Any extension or variation ideas? Comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Norman Rockwell - Activity 6 - Character Studies

This is part of the Norman Rockwell integration blog series. To gain access to all the blogs in this series, click the tag “Norman Rockwell”.
You are encouraged to try out these activities and to comment on the blogs, activities and ideas. You might even find that you can share other ways to integrate Rockwell into what you do! Your voice and ideas matter!

Muse Away!

ACTIVITY – Character Studies
Norman Rockwell paintings are perfect for character studies. Each painting has at least one character that draws you into their story with their position, expression and action. With the right prompts, you can talk about one character for quite some time.

Procedure:

1. Have students look closely at the painting and allow for some time for first impressions and conversations about the characters and the situation.

2. Ask students to take a closer look at the painting and state the prompt that allows them to find details in the character. For example:
• What do you know about this situation by looking at the painting?
• What can you conclude from the expression on this character’s face?
• What can you tell about the character by his/her body language?
• What might this character be saying?
• What might this character be thinking?
• What would be a good name for this character? Why?

3. Ask students to complete the sentence starters from the worksheet to deepen their ideas of
the characters

4. After a short introduction to the activity, invite students to work in small groups or on their own with a new painting. You may want students to complete the WORKSHEET.
Worksheet link:
http://theinspiredclassroom.com/Rockwell%20character%20studies.pdf

Implementation Ideas: (review)
• Have a copy of a painting for each student. (They do not have to be the same.)
• Give students a copy to use in small groups.
• Place copies of paintings around the room and have students do the activity while traveling from piece to piece in an “around the world” format.
• Do a shared lesson or activity with your whole class or with a small group.
• Create a center in your room where students can visit and complete the activity.

Extensions and Variations:
• Ask students to practice their quote writing skills by having students write a monologue of what the character is saying or a dialogue between characters in the painting.
• Practice point of view by asking students to write a short story about the situation in the painting from the character’s point of view.
• After students have completed the worksheet, ask them to put the character into a new situation or story. You could put the character into another NR painting. Ask students to elaborate on the new situation or story with the character they are studying.

Next Blog (due out on Thursday, January 28, 2010) – Activity 8 - Cause and Effect

Make a Comment - We want to hear from you. What do you think of this activity? Any extension or variation ideas? Comments are welcomed and encouraged.