In my previous school district, I was the only teacher teaching a physics course with set, district-wide learning outcomes. These same outcomes were also taught in physics classrooms at the other high school in our district. But at our school, I was one of the 2 physics teachers. The other teacher taught the AP-level physics courses. So, in many ways, I had opportunities to incorporate strategies I believed were best for learners and that I found worked best for them without being seen as out of alignment with anyone in our building. My amazing friend and one of my teaching philosophy goddesses, Katie Novak, stated the following misconception about alignment: All teachers must deliver instruction in the exact same way. True alignment, she says, is about shared goals, rigor, and outcomes. Thank you, Katie! Katie has taught me to truly believe that learner variability is the rule, not the exception. I encourage you to take 10 minutes to listen to Katie Novak explain it in the ...
Too often the grade is the goal for our students, and we lose sight of learning in pursuit of a number. School needs to be something bigger than a grade.
Couros, George & Novak, Katie. Innovate Inside the Box: Empowering Learners Through UDL and the Innovator's Mindset . IMPress. Kindle Edition.
Reading the new book by George Couros and Katie Novak Innovation Inside the Box has me rethinking how I communicate purpose in my classroom.
It is so easy for me to fall back into a mode where I accept compliance from my learners as an excuse to not define the purpose of what we do in class. Too often the compliance mindset sees the grade as the goal. It is the grade that is earned not the process or even the product. So, once the grade or credit has been earned the work can be forgotten.
In the 1972 film The Candidate, Robert Redford play presidential candidate Bill McKay. The clip below shows the ending of the film when -- Spoiler Alert -- McKay wins the election.
“What do we do now?”
His reaction to winning suggests that maybe winning the election was the goal rather that the what could be accomplished by winning the election.
How can I hope to make the learning important beyond “winning” the assessment?
Too often, I only frame the why as something that will benefit students in their future lives. The goal of the work done in class is a standard that is considered essential to the discipline. Or, getting this grade will open up more opportunities for you later in life. I communicate that this learning has more importance in the future than in the now.
This year I am challenging myself to define the Why of lessons in a more concrete, immediate, relevant way. My goal is to present Why’s for the assignments we complete. This could be related to content or a skill we are dealing with. At the start of this year, it will be general why. As the year progresses, my hope is that I can tailor some of the why slides to specific interests and aspirations students have communicated. Stay tuned...
Although this concept is not unfamiliar to me, your blog got me thinking:
ReplyDeleteRather than a quiz, I want to use this question for assessment. How will you (student) show me that you understand this concept? How can you convince me of your mastery? Be as creative as you feel comfortable, but that’s what I’m looking for.