it was Teacher Appreciation Week. were you appreciated?

Darren Paquin was.

Angie Collins has become a teacher’s pet, though it may have taken 22 years and a kidney.

Collins, 40, donated her kidney this week to her former Elwood Community High School English teacher Darren Paquin.

I got a free doughnut. It was more than enough.

time to throw concrete math instruction out the window?

This... could hurt.

In the first experiment, involving 80 students, some participants were given one concrete example before testing on the children’s game, while some were given two or three examples. One group only learned the generic symbols.

When tested on the children’s game, the group that learned the generic symbols got nearly 80 percent of the questions right. Those who learned one, two or even three concrete examples did no better than chance in selecting the right answers.

“They were just guessing,” Kaminski said.

In a second experiment, the researchers gave 20 participants two concrete examples and explained how they were alike. Surprisingly, this still did not help students apply the concept any better and they still did no better than chance when tested later about the game.

In a third experiment, the researchers presented 20 students with two concrete examples and then asked them to compare the two examples and write down any similarities they saw. After this experiment, about 44 percent of the students performed well on the test concerning the children’s game, while the remainder still did not perform better than chance.

This suggests that only some students, not all, benefit from direct comparison of learned concrete examples.

Finally, in a fourth experiment involving 40 students, some learned the concrete example first followed by the generic symbols, while others learned only the generic symbols. The thought here was that the concrete example would engage the students in the learning process while the generic symbols would promote transfer of that knowledge.

But even in this experiment, students who learned only the generic symbols performed better on subsequent testing than those who learned the concept using the concrete example and then the generic symbols.

The authors said that students seem to learn concepts quickly when they are presented with familiar real objects such as marbles or containers of liquid, and so it is easy to see why many advocate this approach. “But it turns out there is no true insight there. They can’t move beyond these real objects to apply that knowledge,” said Sloutsky.

Compare that with, say, the recent math-athon in the North Thurston district.

Pre-calculus students at North Thurston High School will show display boards of photographs of everyday objects that are examples of conics — circles, parabolas, ellipses and hyperboles.

“I just wanted them to see real math in the real world,” said their teacher, Julie Cassidy.

Boards showed photographs of nail polish bottles, mustard containers, bicycle racks, basketballs, garden hoses, shoe soles and more.

“I really liked it because it kind of gives you a more hands-on idea of math. I’m the type of person who likes to get out and experience in the world. I can’t sit at a desk and remember it,” said junior Raewyn Heim, 17.

Obviously, further studies are needed to see if Heim has it right. It could be that the hands-on aspect provides greater motivation for learners who aren't already college undergrads, the subjects of the OSU experiment. Also, if Piagetian principles are at play, the older students might just be more facile in the realm of abstraction. Still, as an English teacher, I have to go with this quote by one of the experimenters: "Story problems could be an incredible instrument for testing what was learned. But they are bad instruments for teaching."

Now you have a scientific reason to hate story problems.

The Salary Gap

Here’s a spin-off from the post I did yesterday looking at teacher and administrator salary averages over the last 35 years here in Washington State.

We’ve heard a lot in the past few years about how CEO salaries are outpacing those of the workers by an ungodly percentage; this article gives a good overview. I was curious to see if that applied on our level, too.

Here are the average salaries for central office administrators, principals, and teachers from 1973-1974 and the current school year:

	1973-1974	2007-2008
Central Office	$19,540	$101,475
Principals	$17,368	$92,103
Teachers	$11,295	$49,903

This table shows the teacher salary as a percentage of the central office and principal salaries for the two years above (teacher salary/other salary):

	Central Office	Principals
73-74	57.8%	65.03%
07-08	49.18%	54.18%

So what does it mean?

In 1973, the average teacher made about 58% of the salary of the average superintendent. This year, the average teacher makes less than half of the average supe.

In 1973 the average teacher made 65% of the average principal. Now it’s 54%.

You could argue, then, that teacher salaries have not kept pace with administrative salaries. You could argue further that, given how the state funds administration, that this means that local money is being poured into administrator salaries at an increasingly aggressive pace.

The argument that I’d get from WASA and AWSP is that we need to attract quality people to the principalship and beyond by offering a quality salary. I won’t disagree with the point, but if you’re an administrator it’s also not a very good argument to make because it’s so damnably easy to turn on its head: don’t we also need to attract good people into the classroom by offering them a competitive salary as well?

I don’t know if these numbers matter, or if I’m reading them correctly. I think there’s something there, but I’m not sure what.

Any thoughts?

Laura Jones, teacher of the year

I don't know about you, but it seems like nearly everything I've been reading about teachers and education in the past few weeks has been negative. Political controversies, funding problems, teacher-predators, school violence...

Some good news, then: a Pasco teacher has been named this year's best in the state.

Laura Jones was among nine finalists for the award, announced at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. The winner represents Washington in the national Teacher of the Year competition....

Jones, 38, who used to work in marketing and public relations, is in her 12th year of teaching. At Pasco, she teaches marketing and specialty-foods marketing, runs the Deca chapter and helps students run the school store. She earned her teaching certification from Central Washington University and her master's degree in education from Heritage University.

Jones said she realized teaching was a calling while she was in her previous job. There, she said, she enjoyed training people and working with interns.

Of her career at Pasco, she said, "I have the most rewarding job in the world, and my students just make my day, every day."

It's a sentiment I'm sure most teachers share. Congratulations to Jones, and to the eight finalists who have been honored by the state.

Washington's online schools: failing students?

I wonder if anyone out there has access to the full Washington State Business Journal article that starts thusly:

Washington's two statewide online schools are performing below state averages, according to the latest Washington Assessment of Student Learning results.

In 15 out of 20 grade levels and subjects tested, the online schools had a lower pass rate than schools with regular classrooms.

In some cases, the online pass rate was nearly 20 percentage points below that of traditional schools. In eighth grade science, 26.4 percent of online-school test-takers met standards, compared with 45.6 percent statewide.

Students in online schools also skipped the test at a much higher rate than in the state overall. In the case of online 10th graders, fewer than half took the WASL.

Assuming the stats are correct, we can guess at some potential reasons online students might be lagging, WASL-wise, ranging from least to most cynical.

1. The sample size is too small for meaningful comparison, since so many digital students didn't take the WASL.

2. Online instruction is subpar to classroom instruction, for a plethora of reasons.

3. The students who take online courses are largely a disaffected group shunted or kicked out of regular classrooms. Their WASL failure was already a given.

I hope it's #1, or something like it. Online instruction is only going to grow in popularity--and if the results are poor, students will lose out in the process.

First day at a new school

What a strange day today was.

I did something I've been doing for years now, yet I did it in a brand new environment. What a weird and sometimes disconcerting feeling that was.

After spending the first four years of my teaching career at the school where I student taught, I had never known the feeling of truly teaching at another school. That all changed today, on my first day at Wenatchee High School.

Nothing was substantially different -- kids are kids, although working with my new publications staffs was a little different than usual because they don't know me yet -- but the little things throw you off a little bit. Things like the school not having a bell to signal the end of periods, but silent lights. Or transitioning from 90-minute classes to 57-minute classes and discovering you didn't plan enough to fill the shorter period for fear of overplanning in the first place.

All in all, though, it's been and exhilarating and invigorating process, moving to a new school. The department I've moved into is wonderful, and the teachers there have supported me in every way imaginable. I hardly could have asked for a better situation, and I know things will grow more comfortable as the month moves along.

But I can't help but wonder what's going to go on my old classroom tomorrow on the first day of school in Puyallup, especially with the staff of the newspaper I advised. It's a strange feeling, knowing kids you cared about so much are going to be led by someone else. But in time, these kids here will become my family, too.

Bethel teachers versus the WASL

WASL scores appear to be a major sticking point in the Bethel EA's negotiations this summer, which have entered mediation after threats of a strike August 30.

Using standardized test scores has its share of problems. Using WASL scores, though, presents a whole new set.

[Superintendent Tom] Seigel said Washington Assessment of Student Learning results or other test scores would be just one of many evaluation criteria and would apply only to instructors who teach subject matter on the exam.

"Teachers obviously have a major impact on WASL scores," Seigel said. "To suggest you can’t use WASL scores somehow to suggest a teacher is doing a good job or areas they need to improve is like taking tests from a doctor and ignoring the results."

No wonder teachers are upset. To adopt Seigel's metaphor, using the WASL to evaluate one teacher is like waiting to take your temperature until the fever's gone down.

I'll focus on the sophomore year, because that's when the biggest problems arise. First, Bethel's proposed scheme places an unfair burden on English, math, and science teachers. History, P.E., art, and every other subject get a pass--at least, until they get their own WASL.

Second, since students aren't pre-tested on an equivalent test, instead taking an easier test three years before, there's no way to guarantee a fair benchmark. Are teachers evaluated based on how many students pass? Great. Then how much credit should two thirds of sophomore year's instruction count, versus the 8th and 9th grade years?

Are teachers evaluated based on improvement? Great. If Johnny fails in 7th grade, and fails again in 10th, whose fault is it? If Jewel fails in 7th grade, and passes in 10th, who gets the praise? There are too many intervening variables to be sorted out with just two snapshots.

These aren't just whiny teacher complaints; these are real statistical quandaries, which I doubt Seigel and other district officers truly appreciate. If I were teaching in Bethel, I'd walk out, too, if the district refused to back way from a poorly conceived scheme.

So this is how kids think?

Like a lot of teachers, I struggle with students who don't do their work. Since I've only ever taught at one school -- one that is in a fairly affluent area -- I've pretty much chalked my students' laziness and apathy up to the fact that many of them are simply spoiled children.

You know the drill: You call home, tell the parent that Johnny is failing, and the parent says, "I just don't know what to doooooooooo! Johnny always tells me he doesn't have any homework. And even when I know he does, he won't do it, so I just let him play his video games anyway. I don't know what else I can dooooooooooo!"

To which we all think: "YOU'RE THE PARENT!!!" Then we politely say, "Well, I just wanted you to know. Thanks for your time." And we hang up the phone shaking our heads.

Well, now I know it's not just a problem with me or my school or my students.

Check out this report at NPR from about a month ago. It talks about how managers in the workplace are growing increasingly frustrated with how needy employees in the 20-30 set are.

Companies are hiring consultants to help manage the "over-praised" Me Generation. The result? Kudos for showing up to work on time! Awards for getting a report in! Forget Employee of the Month — how about Employee of the Day! Some managers are resistant, saying the only praise they ever got was a paycheck.

I think this resonates with a lot of us teachers, who can't understand why students need a pat on the back every time they do something they're supposed to do. When I was in school, I never dreamed of not turning in a homework assignment. It might not have been my best work, but to simply not do it? No way.

Now, I rarely give homework in my classes because I know it's generally an exercise in futility.

Could understanding this "Me Generation" help us understand how to better motivate our students to do more, better work? We wonder why we should have to do this, but I think the question isn't so much "Why should we have to do this?" anymore, as it is "Are we willing to sink to that level in order to get the best out of our students?"

A lot of teachers will answer no. But is that really best practice?

Soldiering on in the Battle of the Sexes

The Clark County Columbian recently published an article which reaffirms what we already know: boys and girls have differently wired brains. What is unclear, however, is how we as an educational system should respond to this. Most school districts show a "gender gap" in their test scores. If there is a physiological reason for this, there isn't much a classroom teacher can do to make a difference.

I was chatting with some teachers recently about student behavior in the hallways. There were several comments about touching, slapping, horseplay---and I had to ask if this was primarily observable in boys. This is one of the main ways in which young men communicate and as schools, we do our darndest to stop them. I'm not saying that any behaviors which might be dangerous to others should be tolerated, but at some point we have to honor their needs. I worry that schools have overcompensated in recent decades to be far too "girl friendly" for learning. How do we make the playing field a level one?

standardizing the curriculum in the Bellevue district

In Bellevue, teaching is becoming a committee affair.

Since he arrived in Bellevue 11 years ago, [Bellevue Superintendent Mike] Riley slowly has shifted control away from individual teachers to committees, mostly made up of teachers. Those committees determine what all eighth-grade English teachers or all high-school biology teachers will teach and why. Teachers then write lessons for all their colleagues to use, or they adapt them from district textbooks. Adjustments are made as problems arise.

Teachers can take detours of a day or two to re-teach if they need to, but not much more, without committee approval.

Riley calls Bellevue's efforts "coordinated" or "coherent" curriculum. Critics deride it as "scripted."

The article, in true journalistic fashion, outlines the pros and cons and gives voice to teachers who both hate and love the new curriculum. The core disagreement is how much flexibility the new process allows--critics say it makes robots out of teachers, while proponents praise the amount of guesswork it takes out of the system.

In a way, it reminds me of curricular change my colleagues and I enacted at Capital High School over the past year. Crucial differences, though, made our process not only acceptable to all the teachers involved, but invigorating.

First, although we standardized some elements of instruction, we also purposefully respected teacher autonomy. We set up a book list and outlined lesson plans for specific activities like literature circles, but left it up to individuals to implement the curriculum in the way that worked best for them. We met frequently to discuss what was working and what wasn't, but at no time did we all follow the same daily plan.

Second, not only did we respect teacher autonomy, but we respected student autonomy, too, including three sessions of literature circles where students, with input from parents and teachers, chose their own books and read them together with small groups.

Third, and most important, our impetus to change came from the bottom up. We saw that certain students weren't being reached by a one-book-fits-all structure, and so we worked for months to revamp our curriculum. No principal, superintendent, or government flack breathed down our necks. Instead, we worked as professionals, and the result was impressive: student engagement, teacher confidence, and even district recognition.

Standardization, to a degree, has its benefits. The trick is finding the right degree--and teachers have to lead the way.




(Oh, and to Mike Riley, who thinks this country needs a national curriculum: what, are you crazy?)

how we pass the WASL

In response to a previous post, drpezz asks,

How does your school prepare your students for the WASL? Do you have an overall philosophy, tendency, or set of ideals guiding your teaching?

What about you personally?

I don't presume to speak for all the teachers at my school. However, I do know what's worked for me, and what's worked for my fellow teachers in CHS's English department. I'd imagine others have similar strategies. I'll focus on writing, because it's been at the forefront of my teaching over the past few months.

1. Philosophically and practically, success on the WASL is not the overall goal.
I believe that good writing is good writing, WASL be damned. If students aim for perfection through a process of constant revision and reflection, they'll become better writers than the baseline the WASL demands.

When I create or assess a writing assignment, I rarely think, "This'll be great prep for the WASL." I'm usually more concerned about the differing interests and abilities of the students in front of me. I want their writing to be authentic and thoughtful, and so I repeat this mantra: "Everything written is a work in progress." Every major assignment goes through three or four drafts, and gets feedback from peers and from me. We focus on narrative development one day, punctuation another, depending on what arises.

2. Even though I don't teach to the test, I teach how the test works.
At least once during the 9th grade and 10th grade years, students read WASL samples and score them according to the WASL rubric. They then debate their scoring in small groups, and lastly in a whole class discussion. They're harsh, even harsher than the WASL demands. (This is good, and it just might prove Point #1.)

3. Departmentally, we focus on WASL scoring at least once annually.
CHS English teachers score OSPI-provided practice essays using the WASL rubric, argue vociferously about the scoring, and then swap class sets and grade each others' students. It gives us a fresh perspective on our own writing instruction, and gives our students a less biased professional judgment of their abilities, without the stress.

4. Across departments, teachers share information.
For a couple years our school has focused on writing across the curriculum, with a measure of success. ("We're ready for math across the curriculum," a calculus teacher noted. I completely agree.) English teachers talked to various departments about assessing writing in any subject area. The administration provided funding for an afterschool writing lab, and, more important, reduced class sizes and a curriculum overhaul in the 9th grade year. (We'll see how that turns out in '08, but we're optimistic.) We presented our progress to the school, as did other departments that have undergone massive changes, in collaboration times set aside by our administration.

Hope that's what you were looking for, drpezz. Next question?