Educational Laws / Rubrics

 Educational Laws

     In education 350, we are beginning our unit on the laws governing us as teachers. Specifically today, we talked about laws governing how children with disabilities are to be treated and the accommodations that have to be made for these students. One of the major things we talked about, is how the Extraordinary children teacher will collaborate with you in order to provide the needs that are required for a particular student. Specifically, how the EC teacher will work with you, as a teacher, to create the least restrictive environment for these students. There are four categories that students in the EC program typically fall under regarding least restrictive environments. The first category is inclusion. This means that the child will be included in a traditional classroom, and will have the same schedule as other students, they will just simply have accommodations. These students have a disability that does not generally disrupt the classroom or their learning, but they need the help of a one on one, a piece of technology, etc. The second category is resource. This means that a student is included in the traditional day for the most part. These students are pulled out of class by the EC teacher for one on one instruction. This may be during a certain subject that their disability is linked to. The third category is self-contained. These students are placed in a classroom that is separate from everyone else. They are still in regular school, and may join other students for parts of the day, but they spend most of the day separated. This may be a category that students with disabilities that exhibit behavior issues most likely fall under. This category also encompasses students who cannot handle the same level of teaching as most students, and need a altered or slower paced curriculum. The fourth category that students in EC may fall under is separate setting. These are students who cannot function in a normal school, and must have a non-traditional school experience to learn best. These students have a curriculum that is altered drastically from the traditional curriculum, and they provide much more assistance than regular schools. 

     This relates directly to the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards, standard 1d, which states that "teachers advocate for schools and students." It is extremely important that we recognize the needs of our students in the classroom. We, as educators, recognize when students need accommodations, and when students may need to be placed in the EC program. In my future classroom, I plan to make sure I am an advocate for students getting the accommodations they need by recognizing when a student is in need.

Rubrics

     In education 410, we discussed the use of rubrics. I think rubrics can be great tools to use in a classroom, and that they have many benefits. Rubrics help the teacher in many ways, such as making sure grading is the same across the board. It is difficult to grade students on a project or large assignment fairly without the aid of a rubric. An educator can try his or her best to grade the same across the board, but without a reference this is nearly impossible. Rubrics can also help teachers to justify a student's grade when it is in question. In reference to the students, rubrics can also be beneficial. If students have a rubric to look at, they will know exactly what they are expected to do, and can easily justify their grade. This helps promote self-assessment while working on a project. On the other hand, while rubrics are great tools for teachers and students to use, I do not believe you should pick any one type of teaching tool to rely on for everything. This relates directly to the NCTCS, specifically standard 4c, "teachers use a variety of instructional methods." I think if an educator decides that rubrics are the only tool they will use for projects or large assignments, they may miss out on other great instructional tools. We also have to remember that not every student learns the same way. Some students may not adapt to the style of a rubric as well as another tool. Alfie Kohn says "The fatal flaw in [the logic of rubrics] is revealed by a line of research in educational psychology showing that students whose attention is relentlessly focused on how well they're doing often become less engaged with what they're doing. There's a big difference between thinking about the content of a story you're reading (for example, trying to puzzle out why a character made a certain decision), and thinking about your own proficiency at reading."(Link at bottom). In my future classroom, I hope to use a variety of methods in order to find what works best for my students. I think rubrics are extremely useful, but I am not ready to commit to the fact that they are the best and only educators should evaluate students for large assignments and projects. I hope, with more research, to find other ways to assess students along side rubrics in order to help provide a variety of methods for my students in the future. 

http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/trouble-rubrics/?print=pdf

350: Life Simulation / 410: Student Self Assessment

350: Life Simulation

     In education 350, we played a life simulation game called "C'est La Vie: A Game of Social Life." In this game, we were each randomly selected a paper that gave us our character, social classes, and money starting off. The point of the game was to gain as many experience, health, and money points as we possibly could, which was determined by decisions made in the game. I quickly realized while playing the game, that I was at a huge disadvantage. There were many disadvantages to the neighborhood I chose to live in based on the money I had available, and the social classes I was affiliated with also made it harder to advance. Starting out with very little money, I had little to no opportunity to advance in the game. On the other hand, those with a considerable amount of money to start with as well as favorable social classes advance rather easily and likely doubled what they started with. As we debriefed after the game, my class quickly realized that this was a very good representation of what happens to people in real life. If you do not start out with anything favorable in this country, it is rather difficult to better yourself. On the other hand, those who have rarely struggle to gain more. This is a perfect representation of how generational poverty is very real in this world.
     So the question is, how can educators make a difference? Standard 1, element a, of the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards tells us that "teachers lead in their classroom." It goes on to say that teachers prepare students for "life in the 21st century" as well as "set goals" for students. As educators, we often get so focused on the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, the lesson plans, the assessments, etc, that we may forget that some students are just trying to learn how to survive in the world they live in. The way teachers can help students prepare for "life in the 21st century" may not always involve literacy or math skills. Some students may need teachers to show them what their life options are if they come from poverty, and what they can actually do to better themselves in the future. Some students goals may need to be focused more toward survival than education. As educators, we need to realize this, and make sure we don't get so wrapped up in the educational side of things that we forget about those who can't handle that yet. Abraham Maslow, a psychologist, designed a hierarchy of needs that explains why students who are still trying to survive cannot continue their learning.
Unless the physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, and esteem needs are met, a students cannot begin to fully achieve their learning potential. In my future classroom, I hope to be aware of the fact that some of my students needs still lie at the bottom of the hierarchy, and accommodate for them as best I can. I will do this by recognizing what their priority needs to be, and what I need to teach them, whether that is educational instruction, or simply survival and betterment instruction.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html


410: Student Self Assessment

      In education 410, we discussed students learning to assess themselves, and whether this is more important than teacher feedback. This is something I had not previously considered, due to the fact that I want to teach kindergarten or first grade. The truth is, kindergarteners can be taught to self-assess, and to figure out where they need to continue to work. It may not be as in depth as an older student's self-assessment, but it is important none the less. We discussed data, and if we would be able to hand assessment data to a kindergartener in order for them to assess themselves, and my class came to the realization that data doesn't have to be numbers on a chart. Data can be brought down to a kindergarten level in many different ways. For example, Lyndsey Stuttard, a kindergarten teacher, had her students create a portfolio for each subject. They put every piece of work they completed into their separate portfolios, and at the end of a unit they would self assess themselves through the use of assessment worksheets created by their teacher. For example, students would be given the assessment worksheet shown here:
 
The students would then go back and look at their work and write down the date of the assignment that proves that they can accomplish the statement on the assessment worksheet. This seems very simple, but for kindergarten students this is a great way to get them to look back and what they can, and cannot accomplish. This connects directly with standard four of the NCTCS, specifically element a, which states that "Teachers know the way in which learning takes place." I think teaching students how to self-assess is important for further student learning. Self-assessment teaches students to take responsibility for their learning, and therefore helps them understand the importance of learning. They will be excited when they see growth, and will engage more in order to see that growth in the future. This helps students find an inner motivation for learning that will help them throughout their entire education as well as their future careers. In the future, I hope to find ways to promote self-assessment for my students, because I want every student to be intrinsically motivated to learn. I believe that through self-assessment, my students will begin to see why learning is important, and find a love for learning and achieving.

http://completelykindergarten.blogspot.com/2013/10/student-self-assessment.html

Poverty in Education / Using Assessment Feedback

     Poverty in Education

     In Education 350 on Tuesday, we did a small poverty simulation. As we entered the classroom, our professor asked us to randomly take a piece of paper that designated where you were to sit for the day. There were four people whose papers asked them to sit at a table in the middle of the room that was covered with food, art supplies, and poster board. Everyone else was seated in the floor around this table, and had no food and little art supplies. We were then asked to make a poster about poverty using the materials provided. Needless to say, the table in the middle had an abundance of supplies, and were able to make a poster that they were happy with. On the other hand, the people in the floor had to use the research article paper that they were given to help make their poster, and only had one or two markers. Many of the students in the groups with little supplies were very creative and created some unique posters, but you could still very much see who had access to supplies and who did not. This was an extremely eye opening experience, because this is what is really happening in education. Students have little to work with at home when assigned projects due to their socio-economic status, and do the best they can. They bring their projects to school, and are likely embarrassed at the obvious divide between who has all that they need and who does not. I think this connects directly with standard 2, element a, of the NCTCS. It states that "teachers provide an environment in which each child has a positive, nurturing relationship with caring adults." In my future classroom, I will provide students with the necessary materials needed to do any homework. I will make sure that I am aware of the struggles that come from being at a low socioeconomic status, and I will try my best to help these students reach their fullest potential by providing for them as best I can.
     Poverty not only affects a students ability to do their work, but also affects their physical, cognitive, and social-emotional readiness (see link at bottom). These students are often more worried about surviving at home than they are about school. They may not have eaten, they may not have slept, educators cannot fully ever know what these children go through everyday. What we can do, is make sure we provide everything we possibly can to help these students feel as if their essential needs are taken care of at the moment so that they can begin to learn. I also plan to differentiate in my future classroom in order to help students learn. Students that are in poverty tend to think differently than middle class students. They do not have as many life experiences to connect ideas to, and they may need a concrete example to help them understand. These students learn differently due to how they grew up. This is something that I will need to be aware of when I am a teacher in the future.

Using Assessment Feedback

     In education 410, we looked at the feedback from a math test in a real fourth grade classroom. Immediately my class realized how much work had gone into organizing the scores of the students' test results, and the organization it takes to keep track of everything. This fourth grade teacher used a chart to display all her data and feedback. On the chart were the pre-test and post-test scores for all students, the percentage of students that got each question right, the standard connected with each question, and the percentage of students that correctly answered the questions for each standard. I thought this was a perfect way to organize the data for a end of unit test or other important assessment. After analyzing what each part of the chart meant, my class was asked to create a lesson plan that could be used to reteach one of the standards that had a lower percentage of correct answers. This turned out to be very challenging. Together we began discussing the math standard we picked to reteach, and how we would teach this. As we conversed, we realized it was very hard to write a lesson plan for students that we did not know, and for a classroom that we were not a part of. In my future classroom, I hope to be able to organize my assessment data and feedback in such a way that helps me see where my students are struggling and how I can help them best. I think it is extremely important to make sure you do not just put a grade on a test, but that you use your assessments to help students further their learning. This connects directly to standard five, element a, which states that "teachers analyze student learning." This standard goes on to say that "teachers collect and analyze student performance data to improve school and classroom effectiveness. They adapt their practice based on research and data to best meet the needs of students."

The idea of race/Assessment Laws and Policies

     In education 350, we have been discussing the idea of "race." Is race a real, cultural difference, or is it something that the United States has decided to establish as a difference between people groups? Does the color of your skin truly change the person you are? These are all questions we discussed in class. In order to gain some insight to these questions, we watched a video based on the blue eyes/brown eyes experiment conducted by educator Jane Elliot in 1968, not long after Martin Luther King had been killed (See link at bottom). In her classroom, Jane Elliot convinced the blue eyed children that they were superior to the brown eyed children. She made the brown eyed children wear collars in order to easily be identified, and she pointed out each mistake made by a brown eyed child. It was very eye opening to see the children quickly accept the divide that had been made. The brown eyed children were isolated and avoided by the blue eyed children. Next, Jane Elliot switched the experiment and convinced the brown eyed children that they were superior to the blue eyed children. The blue eyed children now had to wear the collars, and were now avoided by the others. In both scenarios, the children that were labeled as lesser took more time to do a phonics lesson than they did when they were considered superior. At the end of the experiment, Jane Elliot asked her students if eye color really mattered, and they all agreed it did not. She then asked them if skin color mattered, and they again agreed that it didn't.
      I thought this was very eye opening that students would so quickly accept that a physical characteristic makes a person lesser.  I think, in the same way, this has happened in the United States between racial groups. When discussing an article called "the narrative of whiteness" in education 350, we discussed white privilege and the hardships and disadvantages there are to being of another race. I believe that this is something that society has simply accepted, just like the children in Jane Elliot's experiment. Although race is linked with the cultural background of a person, the color of their skin is not what changes who they are. Culture and the way a person grew up is what molds a person into who they are. In my future classroom, I hope to recognize the racial challenges faced by my students in order to combat them and make them feel as if they do not have to fit the mold society likes to put them in. I want my future students to feel as if they can achieve anything they strive for. This related directly to the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards (NCTCS), standard two element c, which states that "Teachers treat students as individuals." I hope to help my future students to know that I do not expect them to be the same as every other student in the room, and that I love and care for them as the individual they are.

      In education 410, we have been discussing assessment and what laws and policies the federal, state, and county have in place regarding assessment. While researching these laws and policies, I have found that the laws are mostly geared toward making sure students are all taught at a high standard, and therefore they provide standardized testing to ensure this occurs. Many of the laws and policies seem to be written for students with disabilities as well (links at bottom). I did not realize how many laws and policies about assessment would be focused on students with disabilities, but once I thought over the challenges many disabled children may face when assessing, I realized how necessary these laws and policies are. In order to fairly assess disabled students, they need to have proper arrangements and alterations made. Before these laws were in place, I do not think educators could have possibly gained accurate feedback from students that needed accommodations. Assessment and feedback are both extremely important when teaching students in order to know what areas they need further instruction on, and without the laws helping disabled students, as well as the laws ensuring that all schools teach at the same standard, educators may not know how to properly continue learning for their students.
      This relates directly to standard five of the NCTCS, specifically element a which states that "Teachers analyze student learning." In my future classroom, I hope to ensure that all students are assessed fairly and at a high standard in order to gain proper feedback so that I may help students to continue their learning. It is extremely important that I learn how to properly assess my future students based on the federal, state, and local laws and policies.


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/lesson-of-a-lifetime-72754306/
http://idea.ed.gov/http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/accountability/policyoperations/tswd/tswdguide1516.pdf