I found that the diagram on pg. 141 pretty much sums up the whole chapter for me, and applies to what we as teachers do every day. So let's take a look at what we do.
Paper work is the backbone of the teaching industry, all the way from lesson plans to student worksheets. We are organized and we do know where it is we want to go, our administrators want to have curriculum maps for the entire school year, there is no question we are organized. We have goals provided for us by the State of Michigan, the federal government, and our local school districts. Teachers definitely have the organization part down pat.
We also know what the performance is we want the kids to achieve. Sometimes I tell my 8th graders let's just give you all A's on your report card and then we can worry about you learning something!! They like the idea of getting the A's, it's the let's learn something that's the hard part. Performance takes many shapes and forms. Currrently we are taking the MEAP test, talk about knowing the desired performance, we've been preparing for the MEAP for weeks now. Everyone knows the performance that is expected on this test. Once again, just because the kids know the expectations does not mean they are going to perform to that level. This leads to the idea that some students will purposely do poorly on the MEAP, just because they know the expectations are so high from all the adults around them, others can't meet the expectations no matter how hard they try. Remember the part in the chapter where the military screened the personnel so they could get the recruits that would have a better chance of completing the task and only teaching those men the activity. The ones that didn't make the grade were assigned to other activities. That is not allowed in todays educational world, high schools are now only training kids to go to college. We all know that not all kids belong in college, we still need electrictions, plumbers, bus drivers, and construction workers. Our educational system has no room for training these students, this is one difference from the chapter and the diagram. According to the chapter training workers to do the best job possible and finding the occupation that will help the company grow and survive is a valued goal. That is not always true in education.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Chap. 3
Will the internet have a major impact on grade school students?
I think the internet will be a part of elementary school curriculum for a long time to come. The work world runs on computers, everything from working at McDonalds to being president of a major company, to owning your own business. All of these undertakings have computers attached to them, payroll, writing memos, e-mail, sending documents as attachments, ringing up a sale, setting up meetings the list goes on and on. People have to learn how to accomplish these tasks.. that falls on the schools. The little kids have leap frog, play stations, and Sesame Street. As they get older the "toys" get more expensive but the learning to manipulate them still lies with the schools. So keyboarding, typing memos, excel spreadsheets, database applications, cad programs will all need to be taught. It is very unlikely that a K -12 learner is going to sit down, by him/her self, at a computer and learn excel. It may not be a human being standing in front of a class that does the teaching though, it may be a computer tutorial program. Either way the learning will go on in an educational setting. Even though learning about computer games will take place outside of school, the education of business type programs will be taught in school. The progression will start with the little kids learning to navigate programs and servers, saving, opening, adding file names etc. and will progress to the upper grades where they will learn the current programs for business use. I suspect the need for classes like the one we are currently taking will also remain a necessity... the teachers after all have to stay one step ahead of the students. The more they learn in the early grades the farther advanced they will be in the higher grades. Teachers will not be able to rest on their laurels.. they will have to keep their skills current also. Hence the need for ongoing professional development.
While there are some excellent computer programs available for student learning I don't foresee the end of having human teachers standing in front of kids. The personal connection that teachers have with students is irreplaceable. So the computer becomes another learning tool instead of a replacement teacher.
As students get older the internet can become a source of income, or give people the ability to work at home. Teleconferencing, email, placing orders over the web all allow some individuals the ability to work from home. This is a huge change from the old days when everyone had to leave the house and go to work. As we are experiencing high gas prices imagine how nice it would be to leave the car in the garage and work from the living room couch.
Training and testing is also convenient on the internet. One example is the Federal Aviation Administration testing. The FAA can administer its flying tests to anyone in the country over the internet. This is a huge time and money saver. Students who need to take an exam simply sit in front of a computer take the test, it is scored immediately and the results sent to the FAA all without a human test overseer. The student knows immediately if he/she passed, and the FAA has the information needed to issue the appropriate license. This is one area where our tax dollars seem to be operating efficiently.
It will be interesting to see where the technology leads us in the future.
I think the internet will be a part of elementary school curriculum for a long time to come. The work world runs on computers, everything from working at McDonalds to being president of a major company, to owning your own business. All of these undertakings have computers attached to them, payroll, writing memos, e-mail, sending documents as attachments, ringing up a sale, setting up meetings the list goes on and on. People have to learn how to accomplish these tasks.. that falls on the schools. The little kids have leap frog, play stations, and Sesame Street. As they get older the "toys" get more expensive but the learning to manipulate them still lies with the schools. So keyboarding, typing memos, excel spreadsheets, database applications, cad programs will all need to be taught. It is very unlikely that a K -12 learner is going to sit down, by him/her self, at a computer and learn excel. It may not be a human being standing in front of a class that does the teaching though, it may be a computer tutorial program. Either way the learning will go on in an educational setting. Even though learning about computer games will take place outside of school, the education of business type programs will be taught in school. The progression will start with the little kids learning to navigate programs and servers, saving, opening, adding file names etc. and will progress to the upper grades where they will learn the current programs for business use. I suspect the need for classes like the one we are currently taking will also remain a necessity... the teachers after all have to stay one step ahead of the students. The more they learn in the early grades the farther advanced they will be in the higher grades. Teachers will not be able to rest on their laurels.. they will have to keep their skills current also. Hence the need for ongoing professional development.
While there are some excellent computer programs available for student learning I don't foresee the end of having human teachers standing in front of kids. The personal connection that teachers have with students is irreplaceable. So the computer becomes another learning tool instead of a replacement teacher.
As students get older the internet can become a source of income, or give people the ability to work at home. Teleconferencing, email, placing orders over the web all allow some individuals the ability to work from home. This is a huge change from the old days when everyone had to leave the house and go to work. As we are experiencing high gas prices imagine how nice it would be to leave the car in the garage and work from the living room couch.
Training and testing is also convenient on the internet. One example is the Federal Aviation Administration testing. The FAA can administer its flying tests to anyone in the country over the internet. This is a huge time and money saver. Students who need to take an exam simply sit in front of a computer take the test, it is scored immediately and the results sent to the FAA all without a human test overseer. The student knows immediately if he/she passed, and the FAA has the information needed to issue the appropriate license. This is one area where our tax dollars seem to be operating efficiently.
It will be interesting to see where the technology leads us in the future.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Chapter 2
What is Instructional Design?
We have this wonderful model for instructional design, I am going to try to fit it into today's educational scheme.
Analysis, hmmmmm some educator who long ago taught school, probably for a short time and has since become a government employee, decides that the State of Michigan should see how all of the children in Michigan are progressing. How well are the children in Michigan learning, are they all learning at the same rate, and the same things. The answer must have been no, because the solution was to give the kids a test, hence MEAP. Once the process was started it grew and grew, like all good government departments. So instead of having just one test we are now testing many subjects, at many grade levels.
Design, part of design is to write objectives in measurable terms, we have GLCS and HSCS now for all grade levels. They are not written in measurable terms, that is for the teachers to figure out. Just make sure you are teaching what the state wants. But wait there's more, some data gurus have come up with the MEAP blueprint. This piece of data examines the test questions and tells teachers what percentage of the test questions are asked in which catagories of the test. For example, more narrative questions are asked than informational on the ELA portion of the MEAP, this helps the teachers in instruction and what to focus on the most.
Development, the MEAP has been an ongoing testing project, it is constantly being refined. When the economy is going strong the developers of the test put in some paragraph writing questions. These require extensive resources to score as many man hours are needed for reading all that writing. When the economy is not doing so well, like now, then the questions are multiple choice these are much more objective and a machine can score them which is very economical. The MEAP makers are always trying out different ways of conducting the test. One year the questions are all the same, this comes under attack because some students don't have the same background knowledge as others. So the developers put in a variety of questions, this comes under attack because some of the questions are harder than others. So we know that the test is constantly being refined.
Implementation, we have a testing window so all students are taking the test at the same time. Students that are slower readers or writers are given more time and extra help. This has also been refined so that the students are now all taking the same portion of the test on the same day.
Evaluation, there are two kinds of evaluation, formative and summative.
Formative first, teachers are constantly going over MEAP data to revise their instruction. When the results come out meetings are held to go over the progress that was made on the MEAP. In other words "how did our kids do", if the answer is they didn't do so good then instruction will be revised so they perform better the next time. This helps keep all school districts on the same tract teaching the same curriculum across the state. If the answer is we did great then the teachers will be told to keep doing what is working, you must be doing something right because the kids are doing well on the test.
Summative, results of the various school districts are published in the newspapers, for all the world to see. Parents can see which school districts are doing well on the test and get their students into those districts. The reverse of this is the districts that aren't doing so well are labeled as failures in a public forum. School districts doing well publicize their results in hopes of attracting more students, more students means more funding for that district.
It appears that the MEAP test fits into the instructional design model presented in chapter 2 of our book.
We have this wonderful model for instructional design, I am going to try to fit it into today's educational scheme.
Analysis, hmmmmm some educator who long ago taught school, probably for a short time and has since become a government employee, decides that the State of Michigan should see how all of the children in Michigan are progressing. How well are the children in Michigan learning, are they all learning at the same rate, and the same things. The answer must have been no, because the solution was to give the kids a test, hence MEAP. Once the process was started it grew and grew, like all good government departments. So instead of having just one test we are now testing many subjects, at many grade levels.
Design, part of design is to write objectives in measurable terms, we have GLCS and HSCS now for all grade levels. They are not written in measurable terms, that is for the teachers to figure out. Just make sure you are teaching what the state wants. But wait there's more, some data gurus have come up with the MEAP blueprint. This piece of data examines the test questions and tells teachers what percentage of the test questions are asked in which catagories of the test. For example, more narrative questions are asked than informational on the ELA portion of the MEAP, this helps the teachers in instruction and what to focus on the most.
Development, the MEAP has been an ongoing testing project, it is constantly being refined. When the economy is going strong the developers of the test put in some paragraph writing questions. These require extensive resources to score as many man hours are needed for reading all that writing. When the economy is not doing so well, like now, then the questions are multiple choice these are much more objective and a machine can score them which is very economical. The MEAP makers are always trying out different ways of conducting the test. One year the questions are all the same, this comes under attack because some students don't have the same background knowledge as others. So the developers put in a variety of questions, this comes under attack because some of the questions are harder than others. So we know that the test is constantly being refined.
Implementation, we have a testing window so all students are taking the test at the same time. Students that are slower readers or writers are given more time and extra help. This has also been refined so that the students are now all taking the same portion of the test on the same day.
Evaluation, there are two kinds of evaluation, formative and summative.
Formative first, teachers are constantly going over MEAP data to revise their instruction. When the results come out meetings are held to go over the progress that was made on the MEAP. In other words "how did our kids do", if the answer is they didn't do so good then instruction will be revised so they perform better the next time. This helps keep all school districts on the same tract teaching the same curriculum across the state. If the answer is we did great then the teachers will be told to keep doing what is working, you must be doing something right because the kids are doing well on the test.
Summative, results of the various school districts are published in the newspapers, for all the world to see. Parents can see which school districts are doing well on the test and get their students into those districts. The reverse of this is the districts that aren't doing so well are labeled as failures in a public forum. School districts doing well publicize their results in hopes of attracting more students, more students means more funding for that district.
It appears that the MEAP test fits into the instructional design model presented in chapter 2 of our book.
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