It was really nice to have lots of time, for once, to consume content and learn like crazy. (And what was even crazier was that I was doing all this learning through my phone--why do we ban these things from places of learning, again?) But it was really nice to sit and reflect upon what others think, feel, and do in education and how I could apply those ideas in my classroom. While some points are still a little muddy in my mind as to their actual execution (I'm notorious for jumping into things head-first and figuring it out as I go, unfortunately, but if I don't jump in then I get paralyzed into immobility with my type-A overplanning), here's a short list of goals, commitments, and proclamations that sprang forth as a result of my content-consumption-fest:
- I would like to start phasing out grades, grading, scoring, or anything resembling a grading system from my classroom. Why am I doing this? Shawn Cornally (@ThinkThankThunk) really said it best:
Feedback only assessment is so powerful (no numbers). I can't believe how much better I know my students and how much more focused they are.
— Shawn Cornally (@ThinkThankThunk) May 1, 2012
While I like standards-based grading and have made plans for modifying it next year, I would eventually like to phase out grades all together and transition to a feedback-only system. I want to know my students better as learners, and you can't do that just by giving a few surveys at the start of the year. Starting conversations about their learning using feedback, I feel, will help me get to know them better--and get to know how I can assist them in becoming better learners. Also, I don't believe that a letter or a number can fully or accurately communicate to anyone what a student really understands, especially since any type of grade I give--whether it be a number, letter, or a unicorn prancing over a rainbow surrounded by butterflies--is viewed through the skewed lens of traditional grading that has been contaminated by things like effort, participation, and homework completion. I am also tired of fighting with my students and parents over letters and numbers that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, even though the system we have created tells them that letters and numbers do matter in terms of sorting and ranking kids into "Who's better than who" lists (class rank, GPA). I know that doing this will come with its own set of challenges and frustrations, but it will also come with a very special set of rewards if it refocuses students on learning rather than grades. I will write more on this as I start my phase-out (I plan on sneaking in "feedback-only" units in the second semester of this year with students scoring their progress based on feedback using their own Google spreadsheets); but until then, you can check out the links below--they are what inspired me to start all this no-grade craziness.
Not Grading is Awful by Pernille Ripp
Joe Bower's Abolishing Grading Resources
Episode III: Advent Darth Cornally by Shawn Cornally (see the section on "cramming," which I also hate with a hatred that knows no bounds.)
- Continue setting up the conditions under which students learn with less "me" and more "them." I did a lot during last school year by writing activities in Juno, writing assessments, creating different ways for students to assess their knowledge...but I felt like there was still too much "me" in my instruction, like it was still too teacher-contrived and teacher-directed. I do recognize the need for some teacher guidance in curriculum and instruction, but I feel like students need to be more in control over how they learn as well as what they learn in my classroom in order to help them on their way to being thinking, autonomous adults. I felt like I was still doing too much for students regarding the content "stuff," and not enough modeling of and activities designed to enhance their thinking skills. I want them to be creators of original solutions, not content peddlers, and this means having students create not only evidence of understanding but lessons for other students using tools like MentorMob, Qwiki, PowToon, and screencasting which are put on classroom and personal blogs for the world to comment upon. I would like to see (eventually) the students create texts for classes. I also want to develop my PBL units into more authentic forays into reasoning and thinking and solution-making. All of these thoughts were spawned after reading this article: Why Your Students Need Breathing Room
- I want to teach real science. As Doyle says over at Science teacher, "You give a child a real dose of science, the kind that recognizes but will not bow to experts, the kind that shows the universe is far greater than our collective imagination, the kind that rips our sense of reality inside out, well, then, you got a child with a real chance to be a trouble-maker." I want to create trouble-makers through the use of more authentic science problems as the basis for my curriculum, watching students rip their own sense of reality inside-out through searching and developing solutions to the problems. Lofty goal, I know; all I can do is to work on developing those authentic problems and monitor and reflect on how much canned teacher stuff subconsciously slips its way into the problem vs. authentic student learning that occurs. And screw up a lot, I'm sure, but learn from those screw-ups.
- Continue being accused of not doing my job. Because I don't lecture or use a textbook or assign worksheets or do a whole lot of things people traditionally associate with the job of "teacher," I get accused of not doing my job on a weekly basis during the school year. I even get a little pressure sometimes by some to start lecturing again, saying that students "need" a teacher to tell them some of the learning. My response is that students only think they "need" a teacher because we have set up the system to make them teacher-dependent. We lecture because it's the easiest and most efficient method of content delivery; but school shouldn't be about delivering content or efficiency or moving as many brains through a classroom as possible--it's about making thinkers and trouble-makers and people who can learn on their own. This is especially true in my 1:1 classroom, where I am trying to use the technology to help students help themselves to learning rather than depend on me. Students don't need teachers to lecture--they need teachers to help them come into their own as learners. As Jeff Utecht puts it, lecture as content delivery is dead.
Looking back over this post, it reminds me of the traditional "What did you do on summer vacation?" essays that I often had to write when I was in grade school. Maybe this year I'll ask my students to write one on the first day of class, except I'll ask them this instead:
"What did you learn over summer vacation? How did you learn it?"
I would be very interested in their answers.