Kim’s Ventures in Educational Technology

I came across this article last week entitled, “Teachers are Missing the Mark in Math“. The article reviewed a national study about the capability of teachers to teach mathematics, primarily at the elementary grades. The study recommends that colleges and universities develop more difficult tests to certify teachers upon graduation of teacher prep programs. The study attributes the poor preparation as the reason that US students perform much lower on standardized mathematics tests.

Because teachers are not prepared to teach elementary students math, Walsh said American elementary school students continue to lag internationally in math and science rankings.

The study looked at professors’ syllabi and textbooks to make the determination. While I am a novice researcher, I am not sure that one can gain great insight into the instructional strategies and practices professors used to design and deliver instruction. The study found the following:

. . . that 87 percent of schools studied, including all three Texas schools (the University of Texas at Dallas, University of Texas at El Paso and West Texas A&M University ), failed to adequately prepare elementary teachers for the math demands of the classroom.”

After teaching elementary and middle mathematics, I concur with the findings that many elementary teachers struggle teaching math at a level that helps students develop a solid foundation of mathematics concepts, algorithms, properties, etc. As a result, students progress to the next grade level ill prepared. Today, as I am sure you are aware or you wouldn’t be reading this post, there are tons resources available to assist teachers in designing effective math lessons.

I find it very interesting a comment made by Scherry Johnson who is the UT-Dallas Teacher Development Center Director. She oversees the teacher prep program at UT-Dallas.

. . . nobody at UT-Dallas knew that the National Council on Teacher Quality was evaluating the school, and suspects the study is full of mistakes because it looked only at syllabi and a textbook.

Unfortunately, many college professors have not taught elementary grade levels and have only experienced the result of poor mathematics at the elementary levels when the students reach them in secondary grade levels. In my opinion, elementary teachers carry the burden of providing students a foundation in all content areas without being able to focus solely on mathematics as in secondary grade levels.

When I taught middle school math, the level of instruction I delivered was much higher than when I taught elementary grade levels as I only had to focus on my math preps. I hate to admit it but my students didn’t receive quality instruction in content areas that were not tested with a standardized test. Although I was responsible for teaching social studies, social studies lessons and activities took a backseat to language arts and mathematics.

Over time, I became skilled at integrating content areas into the areas of instruction that were assessed by standardized tests exposing my students to effective lessons in all content areas. It was difficult and time consuming but I felt my students were well rounded as a result. Integrating technology components definitely upped the efficacy of activities, lessons and units that I designed.

I say this to make a point. Read the following quote from the Scherry Johnson from the article:

“I was totally surprised,” said UT-Dallas Teacher Development Center Director Scherry Johnson. “Right now, I’ve been sitting in on that methods class, and I am just blown away. They use manipulatives so the students are learning hands-on math, which is the best way for elementary students to learn math concepts.” (Italics and bold styles used for emphasis)

“Blown away” by using manipulatives? Surprised by the instructional strategies the professors employed in the teacher tech program which she oversees? Teachers in the elementary prep program only have to take one class on teaching mathematics and Johnson was commenting on “…that methods class…“. No wonder teachers are ill prepared when supervising advisors and professors have not kept up with trends, instructional strategies and technology tools to enrich instruction. Teacher prep programs are only as good as the professors. If the professors, or faculty members are experienced with many years in education but have not kept up to date on the latest educational trends and strategies to improve instruction teachers just entering the profession will struggle and quickly become frustrated and leave the profession.

Statistics show the turnover for teachers in the first five years is very high and I am sure the number is growing each year. I am not a professor and don’t proclaim to know all there is to being an effective teacher but I definitely make an effort to reflect, grow and learn to employ strategies that are research based to improve instruction. Incorporating technology components is a big focus in my lessons and activities although I have worked with ‘dinosaurs’ that believe in paper/pencil instruction and working out of the textbook with out supplementing with quality, motivating activies. It is a vicious cycle of generating ill equipped teachers producing ill equipped students who become ill equipped teachers over and over. The question now is how do we stop this cycle and generate effective teachers producing students who received quality instruction at each grade level? What are your thoughts?

A few minutes ago I was reading an email containing my daily Diigo update and a bookmark from my Project Based Learning Group that submitted the blog site, “Wikis for Everyone“. The post, “A Classroom Wiki Webquest“, caught my attention featuring a teacher conducting a wiki webquest with her students about rock and roll musicians.

“For their first project, they created a Webquest about the 1980’s rock and roll scene. “Students were required to research about music in the 1980s and design a rock exhibit for a rock and roll museum. Students worked in groups to create various products – feature articles, press releases, teaching and student guides, and museum calendars – explaining the exhibit highlights.”

This project led to a project on the 50 greatest rockers resulting in the creation of a project wiki. The “RockWriteListen” wiki is laid out well with an introduction to the project, a webquest and student products. This was so awesome to see the extent and detailed length the wiki was utlized to facilitate this project. Initially, instruction on how to use the wiki and communicate expectations to the students took place.

“There had to be an entire mini-lesson on what was an appropriate response in the discussion section. The experience was useful. Looking though the discussions you will find that a lot of the students had great insights to add. And this insight went beyond `great page, cool graphics.”

Laying the foundation with clear expectations communicated is essential to the success of any project and as elaborate as this project became it was a necessary component that had to be woven into the instruction of the content as well. The teacher featured commented how the students had to work together to complete the components of the webquest project. Eventually, the teacher structured the 50 greatest rockers project so that each student was responsible for editing his/her own page.

Using wikis to their fullest potential is like venturing into new territory. You blaze a trail and learn from trial and error of ways to better facilitate and structure group projects such as those mentioned in the post. The teacher commented that using the wiki really expanded the learning opportunities and she also participated in the learning process.

“As for photobuckets and other widgets, the students really showed me how to do that. Once one student started it, I asked how to do it, then taught other students. We were learning from each other – myself included.”

That comment really struck with me. Students look to us to know all of the answers to their every question. Many teachers feel insecure about saying that they don’t know the answer but this is real world learning. This teacher took a risk, her students took risks and an outstanding project resulted that focused on content but provide so many rich, real learning experiences that is greatly needed for the 21st century flattened world.

As I was reading some of my educational blogs, I came across this news story about a principal threatening to kill a group of middle school science teachers if their performance on the 8th grade science TAKS test doesn’t improve and surpass state minimum expectations. The TAKS test is part of Bush’s NCLB and spearheaded the notion that testing is the way to improve teaching. Misaligned thinking that if a test is made harder a teacher will teach better and ultimately improved student performance will automatically occur directly as a result of the implementation of the test.

When legislators and others that are not professional educators put policies and laws into effect regarding education and testing you have the proponents for disastrous results. When a student takes 4 to 6 benchmarks every 9 weeks, practice tests in class, progress monitoring from from TAKS release tests, tutoring and testing in tutoring, and testing in regular class sessions, how are teachers able to schedule high quality lessons and activities that are rigorous, relevant and demanding that students WANT to participate? The key here is that successful teachers that have the undefined “IT!” to motivate, encourage, support and teach students as such a high quality level despite the many, many days of testing are leaving the profession in droves.

To remedy the situation, efforts should be spent on recruiting and mentoring those teachers with fantastic induction programs with resources, time to plan and collaborate, and a principal actually serve as a leader that is competent, knowledgeable and able to lead their campus to high standards with high expectations. A little bit of appreciation for these type teachers goes a long way in securing the best and brightest. When you consistently have to pick candidates from the bottom of the barrel, instruction will not increase nor will the morale and momentum of the campus overall. It is a cycle that makes or breaks a campus. Until a principals recognizes this and accepts how damaging their comments and actions are the campus will not improve.

On the contrary, if the level of appreciation is evident and teachers feel it, believe in the sincerity of their principal, and the principal actually walks the walk and talks the talk then achievement levels can rise like never before. It is critical to pair competent principals with the teachers that have the ‘IT!’ factor to function, collaborate and plan as cohesive team and campus. Any disparity between these two factors and you will continue to fight an uphill battle with the possibility of having a principal threaten to kill colleagues when threatened with low student performance.

Has testing gone too far in Texas? Read the article and see if you agree. What are your takes or experiences?