Robert Sternberg, former president of the American Psychiatric Association, says that "active and engaged citizens must be creatively flexible, responding to rapid changes in the environment; able to think critically about what they are told in the media, whether by newscasters, politicians, advertisers, or scientists; able to execute their ideas and persuade others of their value; and mist of all, able to use their knowledge wisely in ways that avoid the horrors of bad leadership..." Isn't this what we want for our students? How does our day to day instruction help students to become creative, flexible, and critical thinkers?
I hope the multi-texting lesson we worked through helps us to begin thinking of ways to let our kids do the hard work of making connections, thinking things through, and becoming aware of the multiple sides of every topic. Thank you for trying this out.
In Chapter 9 on page 116 Wormeli uses a very interesting word - confabulation. I had never encountered this word until I read this book. Please tell me what you think about confabulation.
9 comments:
Blog 9 Jane Gregory
I was very interested in what the author had to say about penalizing students who need to retest to show mastery. This section really makes me think, and I go back and forth with concern that students do not take the first attempt seriously if they know they can try again and again. My experience has been that if you give extra time for mastery before testing the first time, that students who are seriously trying will do fine. If I retest the others, they generally do no better because their efforts are just not there in the first place. I promise to continue to revisit his ideas here and rethink my position.
I disagree with the author when he states that homework should not be graded. Yes, homework is practice and should not be graded for total accuracy, but did the student follow the process being taught? Is the student working the problems in an effort to master the skill being taught? If so, a good homework grade provides appropriate feedback. Students have actually told me on many occasions that if teachers do not grade homework, they do not do it. And in the mathematics classroom students need to practice some on their own and some with classmates in order to adequately master the skills.
What an interesting term confabulation is!! I believe that I personally experienced confabulation for the first time in an eighth grade science class where the teacher was experimenting with a “new” concept back then called discovery learning. There was very little guidance and no literal teaching as we struggled to understand Archimedes’ Principle so I believe I made up much of the process. What a disaster! To this day I give frequent assessments and revision of instruction as the author suggests that we do in an effort to combat this problem.
I am very much opposed to grading on a curve, so in this I am in agreement with the author. I do not want my students to compete with each other. In my classroom, I encourage an atmosphere of everyone helping everyone. We’re all in this together and if we are a caring people we should help all of our groupmates to be successful. That is part of our responsibility.
I have been remiss in my responsibilities to blog on a timely basis with the group. Consequently I was asked to read the following book while commenting and clarifying what the book is about. This is not to be considered a blog but I'm not sure where to put it. Mitch
While reading “I Read It, But I Don’t Get It” by Chris Tovani, several responses came to mind. My initial response was that the content is the same stuff, just reconstituted that teachers have been doing for years to teach reading. As I continued by reading each chapter it was obvious the writer was building a complete case for teaching to students that have “faked” their way into high school using strategies to make it appear they were reading.
Chapter one is actually titled “Fake Reading.” In the chapter the students and the teacher talked of how they cheated on book reports. The teacher was able to put the students at ease by admitting that she hated book reports as much or more than they. The writer continues by writing of avoidance strategies. These are strategies that students use to keep from reading. These strategies may include inventing book titles for writing reports, reading the front and back flaps of a book and nothing else or just waiting for the teacher to give them the answers to questions she has asked instead of actually reading. It is interesting to note that the author states in the book that most teachers will give the answer in order to try to keep discussion flowing. In order to overcome apathetic readers in the first chapter the author determines to have her students rediscover one positive memory of reading. Many responded with children’s books that their mothers’ read to them. The biggest thug in the class brought in The Pokey Little Puppy.
Chapter 2 is aptly titled The Realities of Reading. In this chapter the true statement is made that adolescents have to work through much material in a short period of time with very little reading instruction. Couple this with the fact the material ranges from informative to historical and technical and it is easy to understand why we do have many dysfunctional readers. Many teachers are starting to realize that it is an unrealistic expectation for students to read and comprehend so many types of reading with little or no reading instruction. With the standards being what they are, many teachers feel they cannot take the time to “teach” reading. This can be a very shortsighted view. If a student doesn’t understand what is being read, they will not process, glean, and comprehend important points beneficial to end of course testing mandated by the state. At this point the author begins talking of background knowledge. When introducing new text, it is important to discuss background knowledge to better understand text. It is my opinion that this is where we encounter problems in South Carolina. Being a state of high poverty, many of our students don’t bring in an enormous amount of background knowledge because of few travel opportunities and exposure to different points of view. In addition, the author has identified seven strategies that are used by successful readers while reading. These include using existing knowledge, asking questions of the text, drawing inference, and monitoring their own comprehension. Ms. Tovani also identifies six “cueing systems” that help readers understand text. Three of these cueing systems.(semantic cues, schematic cues and pragmatic cues), are hardly ever utilized in middle schools or secondary schools. One reason for this is because middle school and high school teachers feel uncomfortable teaching reading and feel that reading should be learned in elementary school. The important idea in this chapter is to model, that is to show your students how, to read.
In chapter three, the author made the point that students and readers in general need to read for a purpose. An example given of this point relates to asking her students to read a story and write down the important points. The answers were all over the place indicating the students had no idea what the important points are. When instructed to look for a certain concept, the students were much more focused and able to read with a purpose in mind. This struck home to me for in many cases I have told students to read a chapter and we will discuss it the following day. As discussion time came, I was amazed at how many people apparently had not read the material. In actuality what was happening was they were reading but not comprehending because the material had no purpose for them. This chapter also maintains that students should be allowed to use sticky notes or mark in the margins for clarity or to come back to points they may not understand.
Chapter four deals with confusion when reading text. How does a person know when they are confused? It is important to teach thinking strategies to reluctant readers to help them identify when they are confused. I would have never guessed that most reluctant readers never ask themselves questions while reading. Instead, they will read the whole passage and realize they got nothing out of the words they read. In addition to not asking questions, reluctant readers don’t predict, clarify, visualize, or evaluate the content they are reading. All of these strategies can be modeled through the teacher by reading aloud, asking questions aloud, predicting and visualizing. When readers don’t have the voice inside their head asking questions, they are prone to zone out and lose interest making a probability of not understanding the text.
Chapter five is more of the same strategy building procedures to ensure better reading. The main points are to retell what you have read, re-read, notice patterns in text structure, adjusting your reading rate. A fair amount of space is given to repairing confusion during reading. The key to repairing confusion is sharing your responses to text and how you arrived at certain perceptions. By comparing with others, confusing text may take on new and concrete meaning.
As the book progresses into chapter six there is more discussion of connecting the new to the unknown or building on prior knowledge. The author suggests that most reluctant readers have more prior knowledge than they realize and it is up to the reading teacher to extract this knowledge and build understanding upon this knowledge. One of the prevailing themes throughout the book was the author’s ability to make the class a non-threatening environment. I believe it is imperative that all teachers strive to have conflict free or ridicule free classrooms. If students don’t feel safe from ridicule, there will never be open, stimulating, questioning discussion. In other words, learning will not take place. The book stresses the importance of using questioning while reading and asking “I wonder what.”
Jane,
I, too, have some problems with the homework thing. I do know that some teachers weigh homework so heavily that it causes students to fail. I do think this is very wrong. I know
Chapter Nine Blog 9
Approaches to Avoid When Differentiating
Assessment and Grading
Before I comment on the reading, let me say that our last class assignment on citizenship really made me think. I have always been of opinion that if someone wants to be a US citizen as long as they go through the process, it is all right with me. Then when I actually looked at the application as an adult, it only made me question the process more. The whole United States is a nation of immigrants. This is what our country is based on. We as a country need to rethink our application and its process. I am not saying make it easier, but I am saying make it equitable. I don’t know why the laws of each state on illegal immigrants are so varied, but what I do know is that our laws should not hurt children. As a child I had to live where my parents lived. If they chose to take me to a place where my living there was considered illegal, as a child I should not be punished for my parents’ decisions.
Now let me say to my chemistry, and math teachers that I have finally found a word that describes my trying to learn those subjects, “confabulation.” Where was Wormeli when I needed him! I understood exactly what the word meant after reading the side effect. This is exactly what homework does to the student who didn’t understand the math or chemical reaction problems in class and then went home to do the “homework”. And believe me it does take ten times the emotional and intellectual energy to go back and undo the wrong learning.
I agree with Wormeli’s ten approaches, but I know for many teachers, these no, no’s have to be used some of the time. I really hate the grading of homework (practice) but sometime it is the only way to ensure that students are making a conscious effort to learn the material. Nothing grates a teacher’s nerves more than struggling students who claim that they are really trying yet, they don’t attempt the homework so that the teacher can see where the mistakes are being made. The multiple attempts at mastery have to be a judgment call on the teacher’s part. The student who conveniently misses every test so that he can take it later puts me in an awkward position as a teacher. If it takes two or three attempts at every test maybe the student is in the wrong level class. Again fair isn’t always equal, but what stops all of the students from catching on to this and asking for multiple attempts at every major test?
Ok. I get it about assessing students in ways that do not accurately indicate mastery. IF I had to do any type of interpretive dance, the class would be over and done! But some assessments that are inaccurate don’t stand out quite so much. Teachers night need a little more help with this one.
I agree with the extra credit. Don’t allow it if it is to replace what should have been mastered. If it is to measure if something was done like a reading assignment, I think it is ok to allow the extra credit.
Yes avoid group grades, unless it is a pairing to help weaker students learn. Teachers have to use this sometimes to see if students respond better to peer teaching.
I say yes to not recording zeroes because a zero cannot be made up. The student might as well quit and many of them often do.
I am not so sure about not grading on the curve. My daughter proudly announced that she had tied with two other students in her AP World History class for the highest exam grade! How disappointed I was when she said that grade was a 79. We both needed that curve!
I like the author's statement in Chapter 9: "If we really want students to reflect on their mistakes and revise their thinking and/or performances, they have to know their efforts will count." I remind students that the most important thing is to try, and that they will learn from their mistakes. The author believes that a teacher should avoid giving extra credit. I disagree. I give extra credit by offering points based on participation and items that students bring in from home. This practice encourages enthusiasm and sense of ownership in the course.
I agree and disagree with the points in Chapter 9. In some cases, I could see offering students the oppotunity to earn extra credia and giving multiple attempts at mastery. Giving extra credit and another chance gives students hope if they have had a bad day or didn't quite have the concept mastered at the time. I know that group grades are not always just, but group projects are a necessity. Coming from the business world, you rarely work in isolation. I worked in the information technology department and we always designed and programmed in a team. It is critical to teach students to work in a group in school. If not, they will have a hard time being successful in the "real world." Also, the success of the project is up to the group. The weakest link can cause the project to not meet a deadline or not by successful. If the project is not successful in this case, the group is graded. Students need the opportunity now to learn how to deal with these members and how to encourage them to get their part done. This was something that I had to learn on the job.
The concept of re-testing has been difficult to fight--particularly with the freshman focus group I've been working with this year.
These students are so used to getting opportunites to re-test that they don't take inital testing situations seriously. They don't know how to take a test. But this problem goes back further--it's not just they these students are capable of testing well. They don't know how to take notes, they don't know what questions to ask in class, they don't know how to study, and all of this leads to an inability to pass a test the first go round.
In the transitional period--middle to high school--I've found myself having to show a little tough love. I was sympathetic at the beginning. If students didn't pass the test it's because I didn't teach the material effectively. So I offer retests. This can be taken advantage of--the material I'm working my butt off to relay in various and creative ways, is not paid attention to, because they know they'll have another chance. The extension of that problem is, students don't take the second chance seriously either. I'm not sure how to solve this problem. Therefore, the second half of the year, I've attempted to be a little firmer in my resolve. No retakes! Some students have woken up and seen the light. While others, are simply giving up.
Jane has some interesting comments about re testing. As a teacher I never retested but I believe that we must have other evaluation methods as well as testing. for whatever reason, some students do not test well.
I'm not sure about my stand on homework. In math, I feel that most work should be done in class under the teacher's watchful eye. By doing this the teacher can nip poor processes in the bud or help to explain ways to arrive at a conclusion in math. I rarely gave homework when I taught social studies because the students are in all day. As teachers we need to be aware that assigning too much work does not actually make us better teachers.
I think that “avoiding penalizing students’ multiple attempts at mastery” is one of the most important approaches listed. What is even harder to do with some students is to get them to make multiple attempts at mastery. We have to cover so much material in a class, that we are moving on to other topics that students have to work on and they don’t or can’t take the time to review and redo previous work. Some lessons will incorporate previous lessons so that we have a chance to recycle topics but that can not always be done.
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