21CS

Capturing the Magic

Eduflack 21CS, Students, teachers

In education, we tend to focus most of our attentions on all that is wrong with our schools. By emphasizing the problems and trumpeting the shortcomings, we thing we can drive greater attention to potential solutions and possible fixes.

In the process, we tend to drive out meaningful conversations with the buzzing white noise of negativity. We simply don’t take the time to celebrate the successes, examine the promising practice, and acknowledge a job well done.

Last week, Eduflack had the opportunity to spend the day at Episcopal Academy, a terrific P-12 independent school in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. The reason for my visit? To observe and help with the school’s J-Term, an interdisciplinary program that the school’s high schoolers undertake.

The projects were fascinating, demonstrating just the sort of teamwork, collaboration, and integrated, project-based learning that we all seem to seek from a 21st century learning environment. More importantly, learners are engaged in new ways, bringing together what they’ve learned in other academic subjects and applying them in ways that align with the personal interests and passions.

Don’t believe me? Check out some of the items that have come out of this year’s J-Term. Tools like videos that look at:

More of their work can be found on Twitter, with the hashtag #EAJterm. And it is definitely worth checking out.

Some may say that there isn’t much a “public” school can learn from an independent school. They would be wrong. What drives students to learn is universal. Great teaching is universal. And innovative approaches to learning is universal. We may not be able to replicate down to the letter, but we can look to all schools – traditional publics, charters, independents, and parochial – for new and interesting ways to approach teaching and learning.

Many thanks to the teachers and students who let me share in the J-Term experience. (Particularly to those students who reinforced that Instagram is king with today’s students, Twitter is still a major driver, and Vine isn’t the “be all” that some say for the upcoming generation of college students.) And special thanks to Dr. T.J. Locke, the head of Episcopal Academy and a truly inspirational educator and leader. I learned a great deal during my day on campus, and seeing J-Term at work rejuvenated my desire to better focus on the positives and the truly transformative efforts underway in education today.

Seat Time or Competency?

Eduflack 21CS, higher ed

For most, the equation for earning a college degree is fairly simple. Take approximately 120 credit hours (give or take) and you get the sheepskin. For many, what is supposed to be a four-year endeavor can actually take five or six years. For a select few, they manage to shave a semester or two off the top before walking in their caps and gowns.

But is the true measure of college learning the number of hours you’ve actually spent sitting in a lecture hall? Is a college education about seat time, or is it about what you’ve learned and how you can apply it?

Over at Strategy Labs, an initiative supported by the Lumina Foundation, they are exploring a number of topics related to “state policy to increase higher education achievement.” One of the topics that is of particular note is the exploration of competency-based higher education. As the folks at Strategy Labs define in a new white paper on Competency-Based Education Initiatives, competency-based ed “allows students to earn their degrees by demonstrating specific knowledge and skills related to programs of study, as well as general skills, abilities and behaviors such as the ability to communicate well with a variety of audiences orally and in writing.”

Imagine that. College degrees focused on what you actually know and how you can apply it. Degrees that look at skills and abilities, and not simply time on task. A degree that, in theory, is outcomes based and not simply about the time-based inputs that went into the degree pursuits.

In looking at those states involved in national competency-based education initiatives, what is most surprising is that the vast majority of IHEs involved are public institutions, and not private or for-profit ones. Those states that can boast competency-based ed at at least one public college or university include: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin.

Add to it states that are seeing competency-based action at just their private or for-profit universities, and we can add Ohio, Tennessee, Washington, and Wyoming to the mix. And many states can also add partnerships between their community colleges and Western Governors University to the mix.

So which states aren’t in on the fun? Who’s still clinging to the old model of seat-time based college degrees? That would include Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The white paper is definitely worth a look, particularly when you see some “name brand” universities involved in competency-based higher education. Northern Arizona University, one of the true leaders in online higher ed, is on the list., So is DePaul University, IUPUI, University of Maryland (University College), the Minnesota State Colleges and University System, Texas A&M, and University of Wisconsin. The Kentucky Community and Technical College System is also representing. As are the Missouri Community Colleges.

As Strategy Labs notes:

Competency-based education is not new to higher education; however, there has been a recent resurgence of interest. The growth has been driven primarily by efforts to redefine the quality of higher education in terms of student learning, As states, systems and institutions more widely implement competency-based programs, there are a number of initiatives aimed at better understanding these programs, how to set supportive contexts for these programs and how to effectively scale and communicate about these programs.

As more states start exploring $10,000 degrees, as more IHEs recognize that students are consumers and their needs must be factored in, and as we demand more than a “well-rounded student” from those who attain a postsecondary degree, focus on competency-based education will continue to grow. The challenge will be how to meet the need without sacrificing quality. But these institutions seem to be off to a good start.

Maybe Math is Hard

Eduflack 21CS, CCSS, Math, Parents

We often hear the parent horror stories about the homework their children are sent home with. The backpacks packed with books that force kids to tip over. The assignments that require advanced degrees to complete. The hours of work for the youngest of kids.

The stories have gotten worse with the introduction of Common Core State Standards. Now we have parents posting ridiculous student assignments (usually on the math side of the learning equation), blaming Common Core for forcing their kids to focus on everything from the ridiculous to sublime.

Eduflack usually writes off such rantings. Common Core, after all, is all about the standards. Good districts and good schools leave it to the teachers to determine the best ways to actually instruct our kids. And those who complain about the state of homework reflect nostalgically on their own childhoods, forgetting that we all had some pretty bad years and some pretty horrific assignments in the good ol’ days.

And then I saw the homework assignment my second grader brought home this week. Less than a week into the new school year. In a district known as one of the best school districts in the high-achieving state of New Jersey. I get home from work to find my little princesa frustrated with the math assignment of the day.

How hard can second-grade math be, I foolishly think? I take off my suit and tie, change into the fatherly uniform of shorts and a t-shirt and sit down to help my emerging learner.

I find a photocopied sheet of paper that is practically blank. The math assignment has two sentences typed across the top of the page. The remainder of the 8 1/2 by 11″ harbinger of doom is blank. Plenty of room to show your work.

What were those two sentences? How hard could it possibly be to follow such short directions?

The bolded sentence read, “What is mathematics? Use words or pictures to provide your answer.”

Wahhhh?

When did my lovely second grader transform into Euclid or Archimedes?

When did second-grade arithmetic become a Greek philosophy course?

I know I’ve seen more than my share of Big Bang Theory. I remember the episode when Sheldon explains the meaning  and roots of physics. But I seemed to miss the episode explaining the universal meaning of mathematics.

And as someone who once actually studied calculus and took college statistics, I can honestly say this was the first time in my 41-plus years I’ve ever been asked for the meaning of math.

So I did what any caring father did. I faked it. I pulled out of my daughter an answer that I felt would suffice. To her, math was numbers. We through in a some plus, minus, and equal signs as well. She even went on to note how she needed numbers to enter the password on her iPod, to work the TV remote, and to tell time.

I considered the assignment done at that point. She read for 20 minutes, and then I let her go outside to ride her bike until it got dark. The edu-wife thought I should have pulled more meaning out of the edu-princesa for the assignment. But she isn’t even seven years old yet. How much meaning does math truly have for a six-year old?

I refuse to chalk this up to Common Core. Nowhere in the standards do I remember seeing the philosophical implications of math. But it does make me wonder about how we translate what kids are expected to learn into what is actually taught.

I wonder if maybe that mid-1990s Barbie doll is right. Maybe math is hard. 

And I wonder how Sir Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein would answer the question. Or if there is even a right/wrong answer here. Or how many more times will I be stymied by elementary school homework.  

Rising to the Teacher Challenge in Georgia

Eduflack 21CS, Achievement gap, HQT, STEM, Teacher Education, teachers

When we talk about the teacher pipeline, we often hear folks voicing their frustrations about how the old teacher education pathways just aren’t sufficient when it comes to getting truly excellent teachers into high-need schools. This is particularly true when we talk about placing math and science teachers in historically disadvantaged schools.

Seven years ago, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (a place I like to call home) launched an effort redesign teacher preparation to meet the needs of 21st century schools. The Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship program now “recruits and prepares the nation’s best and brightest recent graduates and career changers with STEM backgrounds to teach in middle and high school science and math classrooms. It also works with university partners to change the way these top teacher candidates are prepared, focusing on an intensive full-year experience in local classrooms and rigorous academic work.”

The program is operating in five states — Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio. In places like Indiana, Woodrow Wilson is finding that its Teaching Fellows are exceeding expectations, with student achievement in measured math and science classes led by Teaching Fellows exceeding performance in peer classrooms.

Interesting what makes the program tick and how it does what it does?  You are in luck. Woodrow Wilson President Arthur Levine and EVP/CEO Stephanie Hull are hosting a Shindig discussion this week to talk about the Georgia program and ow the Woodrow Wilson model is getting the job done when it comes to preparing excellent STEM teachers for high-need schools.  

The discussion is open to all. Just register today for the Wednesday, September 10th online conversation. I promise you won’t be disappointed (and you’ll get to experience a terrific new online collaborative platform in Shindig). 

“Common Sense on the Common Core”

Eduflack 21CS, CCSS, Collaborative, national standards, Social media

With states, districts and educators working to ensure that
all students graduate from high school “college and career ready,” we are
hearing more and more about Common Core State Standards and their impact on the
classroom, particularly with regard to testing. What seems to be lacking from
that discussion, though, it a meaningful chronicling of what successful
implementation of the standards means. Until now.

This week, the Learning First Alliance rolled out a new
podcast series—Get It
Right: Common Sense on the Common Core. In LFA’s own words, “to help those
committed to the standards ensure the proper implementation, the Learning First
Alliance is spotlighting those communities that are working hard to get Common
Core implementation right. These podcasts tell their stories.

The Get It Right series launches with three interesting
discussions, all of which the importance of proper planning and collaboration
in the implementation process. These podcasts include:

In addition to the podcasts themselves, LFA has also provided
resources from each of the states profiled, as well as from its
member organizations.

If we are serious about ensuring every learner is college
and career ready, it is essential that we get CCSS implementation right. LFA’s
new effort helps all those involved in the process better understand what “getting
it right” really looks like in our states, district and schools.

This post originally appeared on the Collaborative
Communications blog.

Full disclosure: Eduflack has worked with the Learning First Alliance and many of its member organizations over the years.


Problem solving and PISA

Eduflack 21CS, Collaborative, international benchmarking

OECD is out with the latest PISA results. This time, the focus is on the problem-solving skills of the world’s schoolchildren. As we typically see, the U.S. students tested score above average, but definitely aren’t leading the class.

Check out my look at the topic here on a new blog launched by Collaborative Communications Group. And watch for interesting posts from a collection of smart, forward-thinking individuals there.

Career Ready, But What Century?

Eduflack 21CS, CCSS

Any reader of Eduflack knows that I am a big supporter of Common Core State Standards.  As one who changed schools, districts, and states many times during my K-12 career, I experienced first hand the frustration of our former patchwork of standards and expectations, and paid the price for it.

But my experiences as a parent of two school-aged children has me appreciating how many who don’t understand the finer points of why CCSS is so important can grow so frustrated by “the standards” being the reason (or the blame) for everything we do in our classrooms.
Last month, I wrote about my personal frustration with the eduson’s second grade classroom emphasizing “coinage” in math class.  In the name of the Common Core, I heard how every child needs to be able to recognize our monetary coins from both the heads and the tails position.
Now, we seem to have moved beyond the necessary coin recognition program and are focused on maps and direction.  The eduson is now bringing home worksheets ensuring he knows his north from his south, his east from his west, and can properly decipher a map legend.
So it begs the question.  In this era of GPS and Google Maps, is map reading really at the top of the list of what second graders need to know on their path to college and career readiness?
And if it is, are we preparing our kids for 21st century careers or 18th century ones?
After all, with a keen understanding of coinage and mapmaking, my son is well on his way to a fine career on the open seas.  He could go legit, sailing for Her Majesty’s Navy, or he could even go for the big bucks and take the pirate route (following in the footsteps of the eduwife’s ancestors, actually).
Guess we will see next year.  I understand that third graders might be focusing an sexton aptitude.

Blame Common Core!

Eduflack 21CS, accountability, CCSS, national standards, teachers

In the terrific movie South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, the Colorado town is faced with a scourge of extreme potty mouth.  The solution?  Blame Canada!  After all, Canada was responsible for serving as a home to a foul-mouthed TV show the community’s kids just loved. So of course we declare war on our neighbor to the north.  How else to deal with the cussin’?

After attending parent-teacher conferences last evening for my kids’ school, I feel a bit of a South Park moment coming on.  Only instead of Canada, we are now blaming all of our educational ills on the dreaded Common Core State Standards.
I’ll try to forget the teacher who lapsed into edu-speak, using every abbreviation in the K-12 eyechart.  Sure, Eduflack knows all of the acronyms that were used in a relatively short conversation, but how many other parents in that class do?
I’ll try to forgive the one teacher who dropped guard to tell us that first graders used to have to answer 30 simply addition and subtraction problems in three minutes, but they’ve now extended it to 50 problems because too many kids were hitting the benchmark in previous years.
And I’ll even try to overlook the exchange over parent materials.  After commending a teacher for giving us two handouts from the Council of Great City Schools’ Parent Roadmap series (and remarking that it was interesting that our small, suburban school district was using materials from CGCS, but getting no acknowledgement that the teacher even knew what CGCS was), the eduwife and I simply got a tart response to the effect that the principal shared these materials, but they really aren’t relevant because “our school doesn’t do these sorts of things.”
But dear ol’ Eduflack can’t shake one of the discussions on what is happening in the classroom.
We started our discussion on the mathematics side of the ledger.  We actually spent most of our time talking coinage.  At issue was the ability to distinguish, on a work sheet mind you, the differences between the head of a quarter and the head of a nickel.  I was told that the Common Core requires knowledge of coins and recognition of their respective fronts and backs.  It took every fiber of my being not to point out that we are moving to a paperless world (has anyone heard of bitcoin, or even the new RFID bracelets that do away with currency in Disney World?), and the future of pennies and nickels are likely limited in our society.  And I resisted asking how recognizing FDR on the dime would make a second grader college and career ready.
Imagine my surprise to go back and look at the standards and indeed see that the second grade CCSS state that a student should “solve word problems involving dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, using $ and ¢ symbols appropriately.” So while this educator is indeed taking it a bit far, working with money is indeed a part of the CCSS.
We then moved on to the reading side of the coin, if you will.  And here my blood began to boil.  The discussion quickly shifted again to CCSS.  Here, we were informed that the standards require students to be able to “diagram words.”  No, not the sentence diagrams I remember fondly as a child.  Diagramming a specific word.  Recognizing that a word like “scream” has eight individual or blended sounds and being able to mark each of the individual components to a given word.
So it is asking students — second graders — to diagram the digraph, blend, digraph blend, closed syllables, glued sounds and the like.  Every mark counts.  Be sure to show your work.
The rub here it is all or nothing.  A student gets no credit for IDing seven of the eight pieces.  Miss one, and you get a zero.  Get a zero, and you are SOL when it comes to meeting “the standards.”
I went back to the second grade CCSS, and I can find nothing on these supposed word diagrams.  Is it an overreaching extension of the phonics components of the standards?  Is it an interpretation based on a veteran teacher’s past experience?  Or is it just more administrative gobbledygook that helps frustrate those parents just hoping to understand what is happening in their child’s classroom?
I’m tired of CCSS now serving as an excuse for just checking the boxes and drilling students.  I’m tired of the continued focus on inputs and not the actual outcomes or the students themselves.  I’m tired of the blame game.  
And I recognize a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.  It is one thing to discuss CCSS and related issues in our policy bubble.  It is something completely different to be doing it from those half-sized plastic chairs in an elementary school.  And while I know the acronyms and the dreaded standards that were thrown around, what about those parents who don’t?  Are they running home to teach the nickel?  Or to figure out for themselves home to diagram the glue sound?
For now, it seems we will all just continue to blame the Common Core.  Maybe it is time to follow Cartman’s advice and ask what Brian Boitano would do …

The State of Science, Fordham Style

Eduflack 21CS, CCSS, Science

As Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and their assessments continue to dominate our thinking and our grousing, it is only natural that we are keyed in on math and reading performance.  After all, that is what CCSS focuses on.  

And while NCLB promised to bring student science scores up to 100% proficiency after it finished its work on reading and math, we never quite got to NCLB: Science Edition.
So it is refreshing to see a new report, released earlier this week from the Fordham Institute, that takes a deep dive into what the individual states are doing with regard to science.  Its latest state-by-state comparison can be found at Exemplary Science Standards: How Does Your State Compare? 
The report builds on Fordham’s evaluation of next generation science standards, released back in June.
While an in-depth look of science standards is hardly the topic that wins big headlines or captures the media sizzle like t-val or high-stakes testing, it is an important subject that lies at the heart of meaningful student achievement.  For all of the talk about critical thinking and the analytical skills that so many bemoan being lost in our current testing culture, science is where we can find it.  So it is essential that our states are continuing to push their great science expectations so that students are knowledgeable and able on all things science.
And for those who just can’t get enough of the CCSS, Fordham also offers up a document looking at how science standards align with CCSS-math.  And thanks to Politico and its Morning Education platform for placing a spotlight on this important subject.
Happy reading!

Common Core Math, Common Sense Approach

Eduflack 21CS, Achievement gap, Arne Duncan, assessment, CCSS, Math, teachers

Earlier this week, EdSec Arne Duncan issued one of his strongest defenses of Common Core State Standards to date, taking CCSS haters to task for spreading misinformation and and offering “imaginary” criticisms of the non-federal standards issued in by the Federal government through Race to the Top and other new programs.

His defense is laudable.  Duncan is a firm believer in common academic standards for all students.  A fifth grader in Connecticut should be learning at the same pace as a fifth grader in Chicago or in Tuscaloosa or in Denver.  And like it or not, a state or a locality can still protect their academic autonomy even with CCSS as the guide.
But with so many folks focused on CCSS’ black helicopters and its role in leading an international takeover of our public schools where every child will be speaking French and using the metric system, and with critics on the other side of the ideological spectrum fearing CCSS assessments and believing that testing our kids in any way, shape, or form will destroy our children from the soul outward (despite decades of children who took California Achievement Tests, Iowa tests, Stanfords, SATs, ACTs, drivers tests, IQ tests, and Pepsi taste tests without too much damage), not much public discussion is being directed at HOW we actually go about teaching to the CCSS and ensuring that are kids are hitting the math and reading benchmarks we expect to see.
Last week, the State of Louisiana waded into this discussion, issuing guidance on what resources were best for teachers in teaching to the Common Core.  Interestingly, Louisiana’s Office of the State Superintendent did not recommend any specific math textbooks, finding that “none were sufficiently aligned to the Common Core State Standards.”
But it did recommend a new P-12 math curriculum created by a not-for-profit organization, praising it for its rigor and and alignment to CCSS.
The curriculum of note was developed by a national not-for-profit called Common Core (interestingly, the group was created years before the CCSS were ever adopted and is in no way affiliated with the CCSSI, though both share some words in their names).  Common Core “creates curriculum tools and promotes programs, policies, and initiatives at the local, state, and federal levels.”
Some might recall the K-12 ELA curriculum maps Common Core released in 2010 as part of its Curriculum Mapping Project.  To date, those ELA maps have been viewed more than 6 million times, with 20,000 educators from across the country formally joining the Mapping Project to ensure a “well-developed, content-rich curriculum.”
The math curriculum boosted by Louisiana is Common Core’s latest effort.  It was developed in partnership with the New York State Department of Education and is currently available on the Common Core website and through NYSED’s website.  The Common Core math curriculum will be available in print through Jossey-Bass at the end of the summer.
Why is this so important?  For one, Common Core’s efforts (in both ELA and math) are a direct response to the question of how do we teach to the CCSS.  They are real approaches to meaningful curricula that align to the standards, go beyond the basics, and really promote student learning and intellectual development.
Equally important, this is a curricular approach developed by educators for educators.  It wasn’t done “to” teachers, it was done by teachers, created with classroom needs and instructional improvement as a central driver. 
Clearly, we are still at the beginning of the CCSS implementation journey.  But Common Core’s efforts, starting with the ELA maps and rolling into this new P-12 math curriculum, is moving us beyond the CCSS rhetoric and vitriol toward some meaningful discussion and action in how to improve teaching and learning and how to ensure all students are meeting expectations.
(Full disclosure: Eduflack has worked with Common Core for years, including helping roll out the ELA Curriculum Maps.)