Archive for the 'Teacher Training' Category

Teaching For High Expectations

Published by Robert Pondiscio on February 23, 2009 in Curriculum, Higher Education, Teacher Training and Teaching. 2 Comments

Why go to high school when you can go to school high?  In an anonymous piece on the Radio Free Exile website “Bob Smith,” a 59-year old former science teacher, describes how years of getting high while planning his lessons provided him with “insights into the educational process” and other “truly important things about teaching.”  Take, for example, his solution to the problem of how to explain the concept of density to middle schoolers.

Suddenly, a flash of the legendary insight: I just won’t teach density. Not at all. Never again. Now, as first year teachers learn, you teach what they tell you to teach. But as some teachers soon learn, you can teach what you like if everything you do works. I had been pretty successful in all the other areas of science I was teaching, and I realized that I would be doing everyone a favor if I unilaterally declared that piece of the pie dispensable, which I did, and I’m sure that no one ever missed it.

Believing he was at his most inventive and insightful while stoned, Saturdays became the day when Smith ruminated on his teaching, wrote curriculum, made plans, and got high.  “I sometimes laugh to myself when something I’ve designed has gone over well with the students. They would be amazed at the conditions under which the ideas were hatched,” Smith writes.

In fact, I should go so far as to confess that when discussing drugs with students – a requirement of science curriculum in those grades – I have presented to the students the positives as well as the negatives of marijuana use, including ‘reports’ that people often feel more creative and insightful, and that people smoke it because it’s fun. This is an important part of the drug education piece that is always omitted: telling kids why people use drugs.

If you’re concerned about having a teacher like “Bob Smith” giving his fair and balanced view of recreational drug use to kids, fear not.  He’s no longer teaching middle school.  He’s now an ed school professor. 

Higher ed, indeed.

Anyone Can Teach!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on February 13, 2009 in Education News, Teacher Training and Teaching. 11 Comments

Training or experience? Pedagogy or subject matter expertise?  Utah lawmakers are weighing what makes a good teacher as they consider a bill that would allow anyone with a bachelor’s degree to become a licensed teacher by passing competency tests in the subjects they wish to teach or demonstrating skills in those areas. The bill, SB48, was given preliminary approval Thursday, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

Now, most people who lack education degrees but want to become teachers must get approval from the districts in which they hope to teach and then pass subject and pedagogy tests. They may also go through an alternate process that requires them to take education classes before becoming fully licensed, among other things.  SB48 would allow individuals to go directly to the state Board of Education to become licensed and would not require pedagogy classes or tests.

“I know a lot of guys who have retired and are absolutely fabulous and would make wonderful teachers because they understand the marketplace,” says the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Chris Buttars said. “This is long past due.”

“This bill really is an insult to education,” counters another Senator. ”Teachers have a skill set that is unique, developed and is nurtured and trained. I think this bill expands the profession of teaching into a hobby of teaching.”

The bill requires a bachelor’s degree and passing a “rigorous” state test to teach elementary school. Anyone wishing to teach basic middle school and high school subjects would also need at least a bachelor’s degree and would either need to pass a state test or demonstrate competency in the subject with a major, graduate degree or coursework.

The Utah Education Association has come out against the bill.

Teachers and Quarterbacks

Published by Robert Pondiscio on December 9, 2008 in Teacher Training, Teaching and accountability. 5 Comments

In the new issue of The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell’s piece on teacher quality is notable for what it’s not.  Mostly, it’s not about teaching.  The majority of the article is about football.  Gladwell spills an inordinate amount of ink describing how college quarterbacks are evaluated and how hard it is to determine who will succeed in the NFL based solely on their college performance.  Gladwell is making the same point about teachers: for all the attention to advanced degrees and other certification requirements, you can’t really know who will be a good teacher until they get to the classroom. 

When he finally gets around to looking at teachers, Gladwell looks at videotapes of teachers with the Dean of the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, Bob Pianta, who has developed a system for evaluating student-teacher interactions. “Of all the teacher elements analyzed by the Virginia group, feedback—a direct, personal response by a teacher to a specific statement by a student—seems to be most closely linked to academic success,” Gladwell writes.

“Educational-reform efforts typically start with a push for higher standards for teachers—that is, for the academic and cognitive requirements for entering the profession to be as stiff as possible,” Gladwell writes. ”But after you’ve watched Pianta’s tapes, and seen how complex the elements of effective teaching are, this emphasis on book smarts suddenly seems peculiar.” 

Point taken.  Gladwell concludes that teaching “should be open to anyone with a pulse and a college degree—and teachers should be judged after they have started their jobs, not before.”  He also estimates we’d need to try out four candidates to find one good teacher.  “That means tenure can’t be routinely awarded, the way it is now,” he notes. 

Over at This Week in Education, A-Rus says “Gladwell has no real way of getting us out of the current system of certification and tenure.” Fine, but that’s not his job.  If you point out that the Emperor has no clothes you’re not a failure if you don’t throw a robe over him.   Gladwell’s piece adds light, not just heat, to discussions about teacher preparation, training, certification and tenure.  Perhaps most importantly, the article has precious little to say about test scores, offering instead a nuanced view of what is and is not effective practice.  If articles like this also help move us past the “by their test scores shall ye know them” way of thinking about the teaching profession, and help start a conversation about what good teaching looks like, Gladwell’s done a useful service.

Student-Delivered PD?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 5, 2008 in Teacher Training. 6 Comments

I like Scott McLeod’s thoughtful and often provocative ed tech blog Dangerously Irrelevant.  But I’m a little skeptical about an idea he’s floating.  He starts off a new post with two self-evident observations:  1) Most staff development is awful, and 2) Kids are often technology “experts” on technology.  No argument there. But he follows those ideas off a cliff, proposing a Big Idea:  Have students deliver technology-related professional development for teachers.

The kids get the learning power and social/emotional benefit of being teachers and leaders. Adults and other students learn from the true experts. All we have to do is walk away from our egos and our fear and embrace our mission statements, the ones that say that we all should be learners and say nothing about from whom we must learn. How about it? You ready to start doing this?

How about no?  I applaud McLeod’s premise and agree that we should give kids every opportunity to be the experts.   Letting them be responsible for classroom computer maintenance and training for parents and younger students would be useful and “authentic.”  Perhaps I’m just quibbling about the what constitutes “professional development.”  But training that simply tells teachers how to use tech tools doesn’t meet my definition of professional development.  Good technology P.D. should be focused on effective instruction using technology — technology is a means to an end, not an end in itself – and that is (one assumes) beyond what a student can deliver.  We should be past the point of thinking we’re teaching with technology because we have computers and smart boards in the classroom.

TFA=AOL? OMG!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 12, 2008 in Teacher Training. 0 Comments

A-Rus at This Week in Education wonders if alternative certification programs like Teach For America are becoming the “AOL of teacher preparation programs — once innovative, and for a time dominant, but now increasingly outmoded.”  He posts a picture of those once-ubiquitous AOL discs to drive home the point.

The cutting edge of teacher prep now seems to be the residency model popularized in Boston and other places, and heralded in a recent report cited by EdWeek (Urban Teacher Residencies Touted). The other reason is that people like Barack Obama are talking about residency programs, not alt cert. TFA has grown tremendously in recent years, and had a lot of Republican support. I’m not sure it will have a similarly privileged position in an Obama administration.

Wasn’t it just last night that both Obama and McCain were pledging to boost America’s commitment to national service?  McCain touted TFA by name from the stage at Columbia and Obama has put forth a plan for “universal voluntary citizen service.”  Aren’t we looking at a need for 2 million teachers in the next decade?  Aren’t lines of applicants still failing to form outside struggling schools? 

We needn’t lose sleep worrying about TFA’s decline.  Russo did make me feel nostalgic for the AOL discs, however.  I used them for coasters.

Unusual Suspects

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 24, 2008 in Teacher Training and Teaching. 0 Comments

I’m as much of a creature of habit as anyone, and my daily blog reading features a number of de riguer stops: Joanne Jacobs, Eduwonk, Eduwonkette, Fordham’s Flypaper, This Week in Education, Bridging Differences, and D-Ed Reckoning. I read each faithfully and refer to them often in this space. There are, however, many more bloggers to whom I pay attention that have done great stuff recently that merited praise and eyeballs. Better late than never:

History is Elementary, a terrific site by an anonymous Georgia history teacher, who went off earlier this month on her state’s social promotion, er, retention policy.

Over the last few years I’ve watched children progress to the next grade who rarely turned in assignments, children who rarely opened a book, children with a majority of Fs on their report card, children whose parents have been literally begged to come in and work with us on creating a plan for their student’s success (always a no show), or children who only succeeded during the school day by disrupting every lesson in some form or fashion.

Catching Sparrows is the blog of a high school English teacher who goes by Redkudu. She graces the Core Knowledge blog with her thoughtful comments from time to time. She’s also brave enough to refer her readers to things like hilarious and utterly inappropriate high school commencement speeches by minor celebrities.

I had not read Gary Rubenstein’s TFA blog until reader Brian Rude commented on it recently. If you know a first year teacher, do them a favor and tell them about this blog today. He’s been handing out pearls for the last month on lesson planning, classroom management, and common teacher mistakes. He advises new teachers what to say if asked, “Are you a new teacher?

Some kid is definitely going to ask you so what are you going to say? What most new TFA teachers incorrectly think is the best way to answer this is to exaggerate the seventeen days (or hours!?!) of practice teaching during the institute. To me, this is like bragging about your girlfriend in Canada.

“It’s not the right thing to say because when you eventually make a mistake that reveals that you must be a new teacher,” Rubenstein writes. “Then you’ll be not only a new teacher, but a liar.”

Speaking of which, here’s the piece of advice I wish I’d received in my first year: At some point, probably very late on a Sunday night, you’re going to face a choice: should I stay up and do more lesson planning? Or should I go to sleep. Choose sleep. The best plans on God’s green earth will come to no good end if you’re fried and can’t think on your feet. I always had a better day — so did my students — when I was well rested. I was at my least effective on short rest, no matter how much time I put into planning.

Circle Time On the Rug at 08:00 Hours!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 15, 2008 in Teacher Training. 2 Comments

West Virginia wants more veterans in the classroom. Not veteran teachers, just veterans. State education officials are looking to expand their involvement in the federal “Troops to Teachers” program, which was created over a decade ago to encourage more National Guard, reserve and former active-duty military veterans to become teachers.

“Veterans possess a wealth of knowledge, talent, skills and experience that they can share with West Virginia students,” the state’s Superintendent of Schools Steve Paine said in a news release. “Many of them have science, math and engineering backgrounds that we desperately need. They also bring a world view to the classroom that works well with our 21st Century Learning initiative to help our children succeed in a global economy.”

I have to admit that I utterly was unaware of this program, which sounds like a rock-solid idea. It’s surprising to hear it’s been in existence since 1994. A study cited on the TTT web site gives the program high marks for bringing more men, more minorities to education, as well as more teachers in inner cities, especially in special education, math and science.

I’d invite anyone involved in the program to post more about it.

Can’t Anyone Here Play This Game?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 15, 2008 in Teacher Training and Teaching. 0 Comments

Researchers have looked at just about every possible determinant of teaching success, and it seems there’s nothing on a prospective teacher’s résumé that indicates how he or she will do in the classroom. While some qualifications boost performance a little bit—National Board certification seems to help, though a master’s degree in education does not—they just don’t improve it very much.

Ray Fisman in Slate on “Why are public schools so bad at hiring good instructors?”

Something New Under the Sun

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 20, 2008 in Educational Policy and Teacher Training. 0 Comments

The New York Sun’s Elizabeth Green reports NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein wishes for his Department of Education to have the authority to certify teachers and principals.  Ed schools have that exclusive franchise right now.  Flypaper says the Boys of Fordham were at the Excellence in Education summit in Orlando where Klein discussed this idea, and will have more to say about it shortly.   Could get interesting. 

Don’t Hate, Appreciate

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 20, 2008 in Teacher Training. 1 Comment

Quick and the Ed’s Kevin Carey turns in a nicely written analysis of why Teach for America rubs some folks in education the wrong way:

I think there’s a sense among some that TFAers are parachuting into the teaching profession for a little while, grabbing a piece of moral authority, and then using it to further their already-privileged lives. A teacher like my aunt reading about state dinners for Prince Charles and limousines lined up outside the Waldorf-Astoria might wonder, not unreasonably, why it never occurred to all those rich and famous people to recognize or support her lifetime of service.

Another issue, says Carey is professionalism. It’s hard to argue that teaching should stand alongside law and medicine in professional stature when, as one commenter puts it “professions do not assign novices primary responsibility.”