| This is the page for "The Film" GO TO MENTORS ON VIDEO What should they teach in schools? What shouldschools teach? What should students learn? |
| This survey was created by a teacher who wants to know "What should I be teaching in addition to the curriculum? What are schools failing to place between the ears of students?" Your comments are welcomed... Visit the FILM |
| READ the responses... What should they teach in schools? 1 2 3 4 5 6 What does Bill Gates think about U.S. Schools? |
| This is the script or rough film outline of the film "What Should Students Learn?" An alternative title is "Listening to Thomas Friedman." WORKING TITLE: What should Students Learn? Preparing for a Global Economy By Listening to Thomas Friedman Preparing to Compete in a global economy Preparing for globalization NARRATOR: Hi -- I’m a middle school teacher, 6th though 8th grades, students who are 11 12 and 13 when they begin the school year. School teachers are under pressure to produce improvements each year that can be measured. One of the most common ways to measure improvement is a standardized test, usually written. The next fifteen minutes will take you outside the typical classroom. This video explores the links between how subjects are taught and the needs of the emerging global economy. It’s emerging and growing because most kids didn’t need to know about competition from students in Bangalore. In 1985, if we sold or bought computers, we just had to know that Silicon Valley was an important place of innovation. If we wanted a job in an emerging field, we looked to computers and most answers came within the USA. Redmond Washington, California, companies like Wang and Lotus in Massachusetts. You probably heard of 80 of these terms. You just never had time to put them together. When I started to piece these parts of the emerging future together, it started with listening to Thomas Friedman. Quotes from Friedman Machinists in Wisconsin How should we teach? How should a teacher approach students to prepare them for the global economy? The coach By Dr. Gropnik Berkeley, CA It opens with a discussion of globalization and how outsourcing is “taking jobs” from people in the USA. Then there’s the question: What can each of us do to help make the transition to cope with the competition from other countries? We can become mentors. The mentor By Dennis Littky and Elliot Learning through interests and passions The Met School in Providence, Rhode Island 1. one mentor or teacher per class of 15 or 20 students. The same teacher for three or four years. 2. grading and feedback by narrative, not letter grades 3. learning through interests (including internships or apprenticeships). The teacher acts as a facilitator for the kids to find the right place and mentor for exploring the interest. 4. testing through performances of understanding (not a written test, a verbal “just like the real world” demonstration) The philosophy is explained at length in The Big Picture, a book published by Dennis Littky and through a web site at www.bigpicture.org What’s so special about the Met School? Nothing. They are doing nothing unusual. The Met school has what every school has: caring teachers, thorough evaluations and performances that look like “the real world.” Every school has caring teachers who know the names of 15 students Every school has teachers who follows the progress of those 15 students from year to year Every school has teachers who sit down with parents to give updates about how the kid has progressed. Every school encourages students at some point to stand up and speak about something that was learned. The Met School simply reduces the other functions of a typical school and increases these useful activities in its five pillars ( Oil prices continue to rise. Millions of U.S. jobs are expected to be transferred to India and China. What can the typical person do? New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has called for a double moon shot: (1) boost the technical skills of high school students and (2) reduce the nation’s dependence on imported oil. Is Friedman right? If he is, can we as a nation aim high and accomplish the equivalent of two Apollo programs? How would the programs be paid for? see >>>> DemocracyBonds.com What can non-technical people do to help reach these goals? What is the role for grandparents in the double moon shot? CONCLUSION OF THE FILM 1. Every adult has a role to play in education (see MentorsOnVideo.com) -- how can each of us encourage students to find their passions? 2. Schools could have different structures (smaller is better) -- we can each demand the break up of large high schools. (Those large buildings make useful hurricane and tornado shelters). 3. Adults who lose their jobs to outsourcing should be retrained... how should the retrained be paid for? What will you say when someone asks you "What did you do to assist the Great Transformation, moving our ecoomy away from oil? What did you do?" The purpose of this video is to introduce viewers to the debate that Thomas Friedman and others have urged the nation to discuss. ==================== CONTENTS Text of speeches, interviews and references are available on the next page Bill Gates Steve Jobs The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman Asia, Automation and A by Pink. Transformation http://www.setamericafree.org/ An organization that supports alternative fuels About Big Picture Schools (notes after a visit in November 2005) Five pillars of Big Picture (as interpreted by a math teacher who visited The Met in Providence, RI, part of the Big Picture schools association) 1. Multi-year relationships -- The teacher stays with the same students for three or four years. The teacher teaches more than one subject. In the case of the Met, a high school in Providence, RI, the teacher stays with the students for all four years of high school. 2. The teacher is a facilitator. Teacher = Advisor = “how can I help you?” The teacher coaches the student to choose activities to cover skill areas (language skills, quantitative reasoning, etc.) rather than special subjects, like trigonometry, algebra or chemistry. One of the teacher’s prime activities is finding suitable mentors for the students. 3. Tests are by exhibition. A “stand up” demonstration of understanding is valued above a written test. 4. Learning through interests – the internships (set up with the teacher) are selected by the student. Academic learning is filtered through the student’s interests. 5. “I’m more than a letter in the alphabet.” Evaluations are made by narratives, not by a letter grade. The teacher can afford time to write two pages of narrative about each student during the grading period because the teacher has only 15-20 students to meet with. How can this model be adapted for middle school? >> more hands-on learning >> more interaction with outside mentors >> introduce grading by narrative >> “one classroom schools” – one teacher for several subjects. >> less emphasis on performance on a written test >> expand the standardized test to allow alternative ways of “performing understanding.” Howard Gardner, developer of the Multiple Intelligences theory, makes it clear that there are many ways of learning, so there should be more than one way to express a person’s mastery of a subject. Some people are inspired speakers and actors, but have a difficult time writing. Some people are good at building teams but do poorly when acting alone. In the real world, these people are called “managers” (because they know how to delegate). They don’t have to know how to do everything well. However, schools test students in a way that guarantees that most people who are good in one area are going to feel terrible about themselves because they can’t perform up to a standard in another area. In the work place, employees don’t have to perform in a well-rounded way. That’s why there is division of labor in an organization. As a math teacher, I’m impressed with the Big Picture’s philosophy and how the philosophy is put into action through the five pillars. The interview with National Public Radio (in April 2005) is particularly compelling and I recommend close listening to Dennis Littky. I used to “believe in” schools as large boxes that efficiently take in 1000 students and then churn out young adults. Now I see that I learned because I was with an adult who spoke to me and a few other people who were also interested in what I was hooked on. As a tutor, I see students “get it” after three or four sessions because I take the time to find out what the student is interested in and we shift the tutoring sessions toward those interests. What if schools were “places to explore my interests”? Dennis Littky describes one path to making a classroom that facilitates discovery. The Big Picture: Education is Everyone’s Business. I hope you will take time to connect with this remarkable organization >>> (401) 781-1873 Steve McCrea, Tutor and supporter of bigpicture.org cell 954 646 8246 Box 30555, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 Notes from a conversation with Lois Hetland (Mass. College of Art)McCrea: Gardner mentions gathering a portfolio as a way to measure understanding. How would it work for a standardized test? How could a portfolio be introduced as part of the standardized testing process? Hetland: there are issues about validity and the reproduction or duplication of results and how the test is evaluated. If the child repeats the test and gives a best effort, will there be a similar result? Is the test valid? Does it really test understanding? Can a second evaluator look at the portfolio and give it the same grade as the first evaluator gave? These are issues that can be worked out. The IRS doesn’t look closely at every income tax return. Only a certain percent are audited. So evaluators in schools could pull two percent of the portfolios from High, Average and Challenged learners. You can learn more about this by looking at books that describe portfolios. McCrea: Do you know of any schools that are assessing their kids in this way, with portfolios? Hetland: There’s a list of schools that use the Multiple Intelligences methods. McCrea: I’ve just visited the Met school in Providence, RI where students are given evaluations by a two-page letter (every 9 weeks) , not by letter grade. The teachers teach all the subjects for four grade levels so that the students are known very well by their advisor. The emphasis is on connecting the student’s interest to the real world and finding rigor in the process. I would imagine that their “exam by exhibition” follows the Gardner model of assessment. Hetland: I’d like to learn more about the Met school. McCrea: In Florida, we use a standardized test called the FCAT. I’m interested in figuring out how an expanded FCAT would work. Would there be a set of guidelines for the appearance and contents of the portfolio? I’ve seen how a “high stakes” exam distorts people’s thinking, or rather how teachers twist and turn in order to respond to a standardized test. Hetland: This would not be a “best practices” portfolio. I would imagine that you want the standardized portfolio process to show progress in understanding, so there have to be a range of materials, not just the best of the student’s work. McCrea: If we have to have high stakes tests, let’s make them assess the students’ actual learning. A lot of students are picking up tremendous lessons in Social Reasoning and Emotional Intelligence. It’s clear to me that the FCAT assesses only a part of the linguistic intelligence and portions of the math and 3-D abilities. The rest of the learning styles and capacities are untouched. I’m curious to know how the portfolios could be constructed to accurately expand what is assessed. Hetland: There is some standard literature out there that will guide the creation of useful formats. (Dr. Hetland then described some books that are available at the PZ.Harvard.EDU web site). References for this documentary Portfolio Practices: Thinking Through the Assessment of Children's Work The Project Zero Classroom: New Approaches to Thinking and Understanding Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice T. Hoerr: Making a Multiple Intelligences School Making Numbers Make Sense: A Sourcebook for Developing Numeracy Critical Squares: Games of Critical Thinking and Understanding The Project Zero Classroom - Set of two books The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts and Standardized Tests, the K-12 Education That Every Child Deserves Educating for Understanding (Lois Hetland) Pythagoras's Bow Tie The Eureka Effect: The Art and Logic of Breakthrough Thinking Alison Gopnik, UC Berkeley The Teacher as Coach (Jan. 2005, NY Times Magazine) FROM THE BOOK DESCRIPTION at pz.harvard.edu: Imagine yourself participating in workshops organized according to several strands of work from Project Zero "Teaching for Understanding", Multiple Intelligences, the Arts, Portfolio Assessment, and A Culture of Thinking. While you may not have been able to attend our Project Zero Classroom Summer Institute, you can join us by means of this publication. The Project Zero Classroom: New Approaches to Thinking and Understanding is a resource to use again and again. In addition to chapters based on workshops, strand sections on "Teaching for Understanding, Multiple Intelligences, the Arts, Portfolio Assessment, and A Culture of Thinking" include additional readings to help you further pursue ideas. In this sense, it is a map and guide to a wealth of work from Project Zero. You might even consider reading with colleagues in a study group. Regardless of how you use it, this publication offers you ways to think anew and reflectively about classroom practice. Structure of "What Should Students Learn?" Part 1 Apparently, students should learn what they want to learn... there are no standardized kids, so why require a single curriculum? (See Robert Reich's comment in the Quotations for a Mentor). This part of the film focuses on multiple ways of learning and asks: How should students learn? Part 2 How should students be assessed? (Introducing Portfolios) Discussion with Dr. Lois Hetland, Mass. College of Art T. Hoerr, Use of Portfolios and how to make a school use the multiple intelligences ======================= PORTFOLIOS (See Gardner's point about how to assess students from Intelligence Reframed) If individuals indeed have different kinds of minds, with varied strengths, interests and strategies, then it is worth considering whether pivotal curricular materials like biology could be taught AND ASSESSED in a variety of ways. NEWFCAT.com www.oocities.org/teachers2teachers/newfcatexpand www.newcityschool.org Becoming a Multiple Intelligences School Thomas R. Hoerr (Principal, St. Louis) Page 27 Keeping a portfolio for each child – a collection of work and artifacts that give a picture of the child’s growth – is a way of capturing progress without using paper and pencil measures. Unless the portfolio is given credence an shared with parents as a report card is, however, it will seen as just a grab gag with little educational significance. At New City School, the spring Portfolio Night highlights the role of the portfolio. During Portfolio Night parents and children review student artifacts and refletions and put their hands on evidence of student growth. Families come together to celebrate student progress and accomplishments and to talk about areas needing more attention and effort. In short, reviewing portfolios gives parents an opportunity to view their children’s progress in all of the intelligences. IMPORTANT All items in a portfolio should contain a reflection sheet. Completed by students, teachers or both, these forms indicate the particular intelligence an item addresses and why it was chosen for the portfolio. Without a reflection sheet, it is easy for objects to lose their significance over time. Photographs of three dimensional accomplishments as well as audiotapes and videotapes that capture a student’s progress should also be included in each portfolio. ============== To see more material by Daniel Pink, go to his web site at www.DanPink.com I've collected some of Pink's writings and interviews at the GATES SPEECH web page See also the writings of Dennis Littky |
| Additional notes from an interview with Dr. Lois Hetland, Ed.D. (April 10, 2006) Let’s remember where standardized testing came from: IQ tests and psychologists, where the object was to sort people into groups. It’s like checking the level of oil in the car to see if it’s running properly. Yes, engine oil is an important ingredient, but just having oil doesn’t mean the car will run. You have to look at the whole system. Similarly we have found that people who know the names of the parts of the car can often work to make the car function. But just knowing the names of the parts is not enough to be a good mechanic. We can’t shortchange our students by saying that standardized tests and book knowledge is unimportant because in fact society values these results. The capacity to use ideas and skills flexibly in novel situations. That’s the goal of education, that’s what we should be measuring. You can measure understanding by watching what people do, make or say. Standardized tests do a poor job of assessing understanding. Tests need to be valid and reliable. If I give this test ... ArtsPropel a project in Project Zero where participants kept journals and profolios. The Project Zero staff looked at the ways that experienced teachers keep portfolios and the staff distilled the best practices of porfolio keeping. See wideworld.pz.Harvard.edu See an article by Howard Gardner. What do we do as teachers if we see poor practices? Do we leave the situation, do we give up, do we practice guerrilla teaching, making a compromise? The community of online learning is an alternative to build support for teachers who want to reform standardized teaching. Portfolios need criteria. A portfolio is shaped by how it will be used and how we think about them. Portfolio Practice ebook will assist. Available from the PZ web site The critical question is what is the portfolio going to be used for: if it is for assessment, then we need to know if the portfolio will show change over time? The portfolio is not meant to be a best practices file. PROCEDURE to make portfolios part of a standardized test system Portfolios could be kept on file and divided into "High-Flying," middle achievers and "challenged" students. The external examiner could come in and take a sample of portfolios and those sampled items would be used to judge the school as a whole. The focus needs to be on “how do we assess the understanding of the kids” and portfolios can be used to do this. We need to change the way we are testing. Why should we change the test? 1. Time and anxiety spent on the current test are destructive to learning. 2. Learning is too important to allow the current test to remain the focus of student attention. Dr. Hetland ended the session with this quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Meade .... |
| More from Dr. Hetland... Notes from a conversation with Lois Hetland (Nov. 30, 2005) (Mass. College of Art) McCrea: Gardner mentions gathering a portfolio as a way to measure understanding. How would it work for a standardized test? How could a portfolio be introduced as part of the standardized testing process? Hetland: there are issues about validity and the reproduction or duplication of results and how the test is evaluated. If the child repeats the test and gives a best effort, will there be a similar result? Is the test valid? Does it really test understanding? Can a second evaluator look at the portfolio and give it the same grade as the first evaluator gave? These are issues that can be worked out. The IRS doesn't look closely at every income tax return. Only a certain percent are audited. So evaluators in schools could pull two percent of the portfolios from High, Average and Challenged learners. You can learn more about this by looking at books that describe portfolios. McCrea: Do you know of any schools that are assessing their kids in this way, with portfolios? Hetland: There's a list of schools that use the Multiple Intelligences methods. McCrea: I've just visited the Met school in Providence, RI where students are given evaluations by a two-page letter (every 9 weeks) , not by letter grade. The teachers teach all the subjects for four grade levels so that the students are known very well by their advisor. The emphasis is on connecting the student's interest to the real world and finding rigor in the process. I would imagine that their "exam by exhibition" follows the Gardner model of assessment. Hetland: I'd like to learn more about the Met school. McCrea: In Florida, we use a standardized test called the FCAT. I'm interested in figuring out how an expanded FCAT would work. Would there be a set of guidelines for the appearance and contents of the portfolio? I've seen how a "high stakes" exam distorts people's thinking, or rather how teachers twist and turn in order to respond to a standardized test. Hetland: This would not be a "best practices" portfolio. I would imagine that you want the standardized portfolio process to show progress in understanding, so there have to be a range of materials, not just the best of the student's work. McCrea: If we have to have high stakes tests, let's make them assess the students' actual learning. A lot of students are picking up tremendous lessons in Social Reasoning and Emotional Intelligence. It's clear to me that the FCAT assesses only a part of the linguistic intelligence and portions of the math and 3-D abilities. The rest of the learning styles and capacities are untouched. I'm curious to know how the portfolios could be constructed to accurately expand what is assessed. Hetland: There is some standard literature out there that will guide the creation of useful formats. (Dr. Hetland then described some books that are available at the PZ.Harvard.EDU web site). References for this documentary Portfolio Practices: Thinking Through the Assessment of Children's Work The Project Zero Classroom: New Approaches to Thinking and Understanding Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice T. Hoerr: Making a Multiple Intelligences School Making Numbers Make Sense: A Sourcebook for Developing Numeracy Critical Squares: Games of Critical Thinking and Understanding The Project Zero Classroom - Set of two books The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts and Standardized Tests, the K-12 Education That Every Child Deserves Educating for Understanding (Lois Hetland) Pythagoras's Bow Tie The Eureka Effect: The Art and Logic of Breakthrough Thinking <http://www.oocities.org/talkinternational1/nytimes.html Alison Gopnik, UC Berkeley The Teacher as Coach (Jan. 2005, NY Times Magazine) FROM THE BOOK DESCRIPTION at pz.harvard.edu: Imagine yourself participating in workshops organized according to several strands of work from Project Zero "Teaching for Understanding", Multiple Intelligences, the Arts, Portfolio Assessment, and A Culture of Thinking. While you may not have been able to attend our Project Zero Classroom Summer Institute, you can join us by means of this publication. The Project Zero Classroom: New Approaches to Thinking and Understanding is a resource to use again and again. In addition to chapters based on workshops, strand sections on "Teaching for Understanding, Multiple Intelligences, the Arts, Portfolio Assessment, and A Culture of Thinking" include additional readings to help you further pursue ideas. In this sense, it is a map and guide to a wealth of work from Project Zero. You might even consider reading with colleagues in a study group. Regardless of how you use it, this publication offers you ways to think anew and reflectively about classroom practice. PORTFOLIOS (See Gardner's point about how to assess students from Intelligence Reframed) If individuals indeed have different kinds of minds, with varied strengths, interests and strategies, then it is worth considering whether pivotal curricular materials like biology could be taught AND ASSESSED in a variety of ways. NEWFCAT.com www.oocities.org/teachers2teachers/newfcatexpand www.newcityschool.org Becoming a Multiple Intelligences School Thomas R. Hoerr (Principal, St. Louis) Page 27 Keeping a portfolio for each child - a collection of work and artifacts that give a picture of the child's growth - is a way of capturing progress without using paper and pencil measures. Unless the portfolio is given credence an shared with parents as a report card is, however, it will seen as just a grab gag with little educational significance. At New City School, the spring Portfolio Night highlights the role of the portfolio. During Portfolio Night parents and children review student artifacts and reflections and put their hands on evidence of student growth. Families come together to celebrate student progress and accomplishments and to talk about areas needing more attention and effort. In short, reviewing portfolios gives parents an opportunity to view their children's progress in all of the intelligences. IMPORTANT All items in a portfolio should contain a reflection sheet. Completed by students, teachers or both, these forms indicate the particular intelligence an item addresses and why it was chosen for the portfolio. Without a reflection sheet, it is easy for objects to lose their significance over time. Photographs of three dimensional accomplishments as well as audiotapes and videotapes that capture a student's progress should also be included in each portfolio. ------------------- The following notes are from an interview with Lois Hetland, a professor in Project Zero. These are a transcript from the interview. April 10, 2006 Q: Portfolios are used to evaluate student learning, but could portfolios be used to evaluate a school? The way high stakes tests are being used? Dr. H: you are trying to assess the quality of the teaching by measuring the quality of the learning. What we're really doing is measuring how much kids have learned. We're also measuring what they've been taught. ...and whether what they've been taught is important enough to be spending their time on. It's a complex mix of things we're trying to achieve in assessment. There's nothing wrong with a standardized test as long as it doesn't shape the entire curriculum. We see arts being dropped out of the curriculum. Kids are being rote-drilled on reading, writing and math skills. The skills aren't enough for kids to succeed in the world. Students could succeed completely on the test but not have what they need for succeeding in the world. Skill is not enough. We need kids inclined to use those skills, to do something with them. The students also need to recognize "where are the problems out in the world?" To stay alert when an appropriate skill can be useful. Portfolios have a better chance of documenting and recording that kind of information than a standardized bubble test. The bubble test is good at telling you if someone can recall particular bits of information out of context But there is not a strong connection between a good test result and using that information flexibly in response to a new situation, to the needs of context. We need more effective measures if we want our kids to learn for understanding. That is, learn in a way that allows them to respond in an adaptive, critical and creative way to the problems in the world. We don't want to give them highly refined problems all the time with very clear answers. Problems in the world are fuzzy and you have to poke your way through them. Portfolios can give kids practice in that kind of thinking. "I've done something... Now, what is it for?" For example, we can ask, "How can we find out the truth about something that took place a long time ago?" as a goal for understanding. History is about finding out (how do historians think?), and what is "truth"? Well, students soon discover that history is not about a sequential list of facts. Students learn that history is about making interpretations and comparing positions. That type of understanding is more likely to show up in a portfolio than on a standardized test. You can see growth over time in a portfolio. How can you use a portfolio to assess whether a school is doing its job? Let's speak for a moment about standards Standards set by states are leaning in the right direction. They are trying to give a clear enough vision of what we want our kids to have to become disciplined thinkers. What are disciplined networks of information? How do we use this information? Now we can check our teaching to see if we are aiming in the right direction. Some standards are too fragmented (what is 2 + 2) instead of "why do we have algorithms?" The skills have to be in service of the understanding. It's not just skills, it's "skills for what?" Question: I often hear students ask me when I teach a matrix, "when am I ever gonna need this?" Dr. Hetland: in portfolios, we have kids and teachers self-reflecting about these big ideas that cut across the school. Then we can see how well is this school developing information in students' minds. So let's assume that every classroom has kids keeping portfolios. Kids reflect on what is in the portfolio and they select items to demonstrate specific learning.... So this is going on in every classroom in the state. If we have a random selection process when we drop into a school, then we have within our grasp the data to help us understand how well the school was aiming toward the particular goals. This random selection does not take kids off the task of really developing understanding. In systems, you get what you assess. That is a quotation from Lauren Resnick and everyone knows that it is so. If you measure a reading skill, you get that skill, not the understanding for using the skill. We name what we value when we test it. We currently value discreet information out of context. We end up saying that we don't value understanding and "using information logically and creatively in response to problems in the world." However, there is a problem with reliability. Reliability tells me that I won't get a wildly different result if the same person takes the same test one day apart if nothing new has been taught. If student A and student B each know the same amount, they should get the same score. Portfolios are subject to different interpretations. There is so much variation in the way kids learn. Are the people rating the portfolio going to grade in a consistent manner? It is not an insurmountable problem. Look at the international baccalaureate diploma. The external examiners are trained to evaluate in a consistent way. They achieve very high interrelated reliability ... But you have to train people to assess portfolios according to clear criteria. It would take funding and effort and commitment If we had a group of external evaluators, we would be getting a much richer evaluation of teachers and schools. |