The case of the three teachers, part two

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Yesterday, we met three teachers – Ms. Holmes, Mr. Chandler, and Ms. Spade – along with their principal, Ms. Doyle. Ms. Doyle observed each teacher deliver a tenth grade English lesson, and was now in the process of evaluating their work.When evaluating each teacher, Ms. Doyle examined the results of the assessments each teacher had given his or her students to measure mastery of the lesson’s objective. She also asked each teacher to examine the results independently and offer their own conclusions during the observation debrief.For the methodical Ms. Holmes’s lesson on identifying elements of similarity between poems, her mini-essay assessment found most students able to make connections at the level of plot, setting, and character and roughly half of students able to make connections between the themes of poems. It was clear from reviewing her students’ assessments that the difficulties with thematic connections came from an incomplete understanding of theme as it relates to poetry.The discussion-focused Mr. Chandler found that half of his students were consistently able to write research questions that met his expectations for clarity, focus, and depth, a quarter wrote good questions about half the time, and a quarter wrote questions that all needed improvement. Since his assessment only asked for students to submit a list of questions, he and Ms. Doyle couldn’t be sure based on the data about where learning broke down for the students still struggling with the skill.As for Ms. Spade, two-thirds of her students ranked themselves as comfortable connecting an author’s text to its historical context, while a third expressed less comfort. Ms. Doyle, however, noted that assessing students’ confidence doesn’t say anything about how well they can actually perform the skill in question.These three results demonstrate the importance of having good assessments of student learning. Continue Reading

The case of the three teachers, part one

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Hypothetical High School in Imaginary, Minnesota has three tenth grade English teachers: Ms. Holmes, Mr. Chandler, and Ms. Spade. All three have been teaching at Hypothetical for seven years, but they have very different styles. Their principal, Ms. Doyle, wants to know how each of the three is doing. Hypothetical’s scores on the tenth grade MCA have been slowly trending upward for the past few years, but too many students were passed between the three teachers at semester each year for Ms. Doyle to know for sure what each teacher’s “value-added” has been. A former English teacher herself, Ms. Doyle also knows there’s a lot more to being good than an increase in reading comprehension scores.Ms. Doyle decides to observe each teacher deliver a full lesson three times over the course of the year. Continue Reading

OPINION | Aiming higher

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By next school year, Minnesota’s English/Language Arts classes must adopt the Minnesota variation of the Common Core Standards. Here’s a sampling of the standards aimed at ninth and tenth graders:Literature “Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.”Informational Text “Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.”Writing “Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.”These are worthy skills, and I dare say one or two might still challenge many successful adults. A student who meets these standards will be well-read, inquisitive, and critical in her thinking. He or she will move to eleventh and twelfth grade prepared for success, and will then be positioned to do well in college. A teacher who can work with all students and their families to develop these abilities should be lauded for achieving this ambitious goal.A teacher who does those things, however, won’t be recognized for it through test scores. Continue Reading

Graph of the day: What’s up (and down) in MN?

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The recent report that the national unemployment rate fell to 8.3% in January garnered all kinds of positive headlines. Minnesota’s been in better shape than that for a while now; although January numbers for the state haven’t been processed yet, our unemployment rate in December was 5.7%. Continue Reading

OPINION | Sometimes they really are out to get you

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I try not to engage in irresponsible conspiracy-mongering. It’s too easy to get caught up in paranoia and beliefs about far-reaching networks advancing shadowy agendas…usually a recipe for gratuitous stress and anxiety. The world is interesting enough without conjuring up the Illuminati or faked moon landings. But then there are the times when a little responsible conspiracy-mongering is called for.A perfect example here is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The national syndicate of conservative legislators was recently profiled to great effect by Beth Hawkins at MinnPost. Continue Reading