Where is the Student Feedback?

Student feedback seems to be completely overlooked as a viable tool in assessing teaching and learning. Does anybody know of a school district that revises its pedagogy, based on what kids have to say? Traditional educators, whether they will admit it or not, cling to a strong distrust of kids. It's more about compliance than community and collaboration. No wonder it's so tough to find student voices as a positive force in curriculum and other matters.

I'm thinking about the best way to start a blog or wiki that invites students to provide useful feedback to educators...not sure yet about this one.

HB 322

Kentucky has been hit unusually hard by storms the past school year. The state legislature looks to be on the verge of passing a bill to allow districts to apply to to waive up to 10 missed school days. Kentucky's KEA teacher union is in support of the measure.
I oppose this bill, as it reveals major flaws in the high-stakes testing philosophy and school calendar.

Bashing Progressive Education...ABSURD!

Alfie Kohn's article on progressive education makes a great point--you can't blame any current shortfalls of our education system on progressive teaching and learning because, unfortunately, it's so hard to find:

If progressive schooling is actually quite uncommon, then it’s hard to blame our problems (real or alleged) on this model. Indeed, the facts have the effect of turning the argument on its head: If students aren’t learning effectively, it may be because of the persistence of traditional beliefs and practices in our nation’s schools.

Let's recognize that sacred cows in education might be doing less good than we thought. We need more examples of innovative teaching and learning practice at all levels of education.

Stimulus Bill and Education

Due to the recent passing of the Economic Stimulus bill, a large chunk of federal money will be used to fund education. From what I can gather, the number is around $100 billion dollars. This New York Times piece hints at how Education Secretary Arne Duncan might wield his power. I worry that huge chunks of this money will go to bail out state funding shortfalls, instead of stimulating reform. What is the best way to spend $100 billion dollars wisely in schools? How would you allocate it?

Practicing Creativity

Check out these doodles...I got this idea from a book about injecting laughter and creativity in the classroom. I present the templates to students and ask them to either explain what each image represents, or add to the images to make sense of them. It's hard to "teach" creativity, but there are many ways to practice. You might have to stray a bit from a strict adherence to content standards, but let's not abandon teaching creativity. There are plenty of brain exercises that are fun and worthwhile. Below are some samples of what the above doodles could become:

Green Dots

For many classroom assignments I consider it useless to collect papers at the end of class, then wait a day or two to grade and return to students. I want to know now if students are understanding formative material, ideas, and tasks. In addition, students also want immediate feedback.

One of the most effective methods I use for immediate feedback is the Green Dot. This means I will quickly assess work and put a green dot at the top of student work if it is on track. If the student is not right on, I will mark with a red marker what needs work. At first, I was surprised how quickly 8th grade students pushed to successfully complete classwork and receive instant feedback. As an added bonus, I can leave school at the end of the day with no papers to grade.

Let me give an example of this practice in context: students in my 8th grade language arts class are currently working on annotating song lyrics and will soon be writing short analysis papers. Before annotating, the green dot task was a creative review of poetic devices. I insisted that students get a "green dot" and they understood why. A simple, yet effective method, especially if you're more about gauging learning than hammering students with grades.

NCLB Funding/Reauthorization Coming?

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the new administration when it comes to federal involvement in education. The general consensus was that NCLB has some positive elements, but it is far too punitive. At least the current debate over economic stimulus plans does not leave out education and potentially massive funding increases. Hopefully we aren't funding flawed initiatives.

Either way, I hope the NCLB is significantly revised. I "voiced" my opinion by creating a sound essay last summer. Check it out. While it is an admirable goal to close the achievement gap, NCLB's policies are not the best means to get the job done.

Curriculum that Matters

There are many current educational catchphrases--always going in and out of style, of course--but ensuring that students are competitive in the 21st Century Economy has been tossed around a lot. I agree that students need more technology access and more courses geared towards creativity, innovation, and information accessing and manipulation. Oh yeah, can't forget science and technology.

In addition to implementing this 21st Century skills mantra, state and national curriculums need to be reshaped to teach more things that matter. Traditional teaching required experts (teachers) who facilitated access to knowledge. This paradigm has shifted drastically, because everybody has access to almost unlimited knowledge and resources through the Internet. So if a basic access to knowledge is now available, we don't need teachers as much to "deliver" knowledge to students.

If curriculums changed to start promoting more civic engagment, service-learning, "green" problem solving, authentic student technology use, it could be incredible to see how young people reshape the world. After all, they have the same access to knowledge as us adults do nowadays.

I'm not feeling particularly coherent. Does this make sense?