The School's Role in Career Development (1972)

Should our schools be responsible for equipping our children with the means to pursue satisfying careers? In the 1972 issue of Educational Leadership, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Sidney P. Marland Jr. explores this controversial question, arguing for strong K–12 involvement in career development and outlining ways for schools to pursue curricula geared toward job success.

Read the article: Editorial: The School's Role in Career Development (PDF)

"If you are convinced, as I am, that career education is an important new element in education, that it does point the way to more relevant job preparation for people and adults, that it does bring improved motivation to all subject areas, then I think you will find yourself in the vanguard of educational change," notes Marland, underscoring his forward-looking philosophy that schooling is inextricably linked to career development.

For Marland, this goal can be promoted in three fundamental ways. First, teachers must break out of their sometimes insular profession and get up to speed on the career opportunities students will have in front of them when they graduate. Second, schools should strengthen their ties to industries and businesses. Last, educators should reach out to community leaders to explain the positive financial effects that career education will have by lowering unemployment and helping prevent crime.

Almost 30 years later, the question of how much K–12 education should focus on career development still looms large. Do Marland's arguments for job-oriented curricula resonate so many years later? Have we gotten any closer to his vision?

In "My Back Pages," we look at important issues through the historical lens of the Educational Leadershiparchives. ASCD members can access EL issues from 1943 to the present by signing in at www.ascd.org.

Teachers Tweet #esteach on Linking Evaluations & PD

Good evaluations let you know what you're doing well and where you need more support. Likewise, good professional development responds to areas of need and strengthens your teaching practice.

But it doesn't always work that way.

Tomorrow, June 30, from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. ET, Education Sector (@educationsector) is hosting two simultaneous panel discussions on ways to better connect evaluations and professional development. The first panel of policy folks will hash the issues face-to-face at the live event.

The first panel includes

• Jamie Fasteau, K–12 education policy team lead for the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
• Scott Thompson, IMPACT, the new teacher evaluation system for the Washington, D.C., public schools.
• Brad Jupp, senior program advisor for teacher quality initiatives, U.S. Department of Education, and also one of the key negotiators behind Denver's ProComp. 
• Jen Mulhern, The New Teacher Project, who worked with New Haven, Conn., on their new evaluation system.

The second panel is all teacher-bloggers (including our very own Marzano-series blogger, Dina Strasser!), and they'll hashtag and blog the discussion.

• Wookie Kim, a first-year TFA DC corps member, who was recently excessed from the rolls of a DCPS high school. He blogs at ABCDE (@ironwookster).
• Ann-Bailey Lipsett teaches K–1 special education at a diverse, full-inclusion elementary school outside of D.C. She blogs at Organized Chaos.
• Dina Strasser is a former Fulbright scholar who teaches 7th grade English in upstate New York, after 8 years of teaching English as a second language at all levels of education. She blogs at The Line (@dinastrasser).
• Tom White has taught 3rd grade in suburban Seattle, Wash., for 26 years. He is a National Board-certified teacher and blogs at Stories from School (@stories_school).

(Even if you miss the live discussion, these blogs, plus Ed Sector's blog, The Quick and the Ed, will provide archived coverage.)

Start your own third panel of experts by following and joining the discussion on Twitter (search the #esteach hashtag) and these blogs. Put teacher voices back in the evaluation and PD conversation! 

Synthesizing Education

If you're the kind of person who enjoys kicking around ideas and thinking critically about education, take a moment to check out Aaron Eyler's blog, Synthesizing Education. Tackling unquestioned assumptions and provocative topics, this high school history teacher seems to relish exploring the deeper questions.

Case in point: He kicks off his new series "Tough Questions" by asking if educators place too much emphasis on student engagement while leaving students ill-prepared for the rigors of higher education. A more recent post explores the same topic from a different angle. In "On Task vs. Engaged," he notes the tension between keeping kids simultaneously focused and stimulated and wonders if there isn't some value in encouraging students to concentrate on topics they might not be all that excited about.

Eyler is never shy to take apart an idea and explore its various implications. His curiosity and critical approach are welcome in a field often overrun with buzz phrases and trends du jour.

Work Hard, Nice Scores

Last week's most-clicked SmartBrief story posted the summary findings in the first of a multiyear study of KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) charter schools. In this study (commissioned by KIPP), Mathematica Policy Research estimates KIPP’s effects on achievement in 22 middle schools and finds a positive effect on students' math and reading scores on state assessments. The study compares test scores of charter students to scores of selected students in regular public schools who matched their academic and demographic backgrounds. Findings include:

• Sustained positive impact in reading and math in all four years after students enter KIPP schools.

• After three years at KIPP, many students gain the equivalent of about an extra 1.2 years of instruction in math and .75 years in reading.

• KIPP schools studied drew higher concentrations of racial minorities and students in poverty, and their students typically started behind average achievement levels, as compared to local schools.

• The KIPP schools studied had lower concentrations of special education and limited English proficiency students.

Broadly, KIPP schools are characterized by longer school days, weeks, and years, and a school culture that some (including Pedro Noguera) have called "very regimented," with rigorous incentives for following rules. Students and staff adopt the credo, "Work hard, be nice."

KIPP critics say the schools benefit from some unique variables: highly motivated parents and the ability to weed out kids that don't fall in line with the KIPP program. The Washington Post notes this report's positive findings come at a time when the Obama administration is looking to expand successful charters.

Do these results speak for themselves, or should criticisms of KIPP temper expansion?  

Know What You Want from a Difficult Conversation

As a teacher who moved into the role of an assistant principal and then acting principal, author Robyn Jackson knows a few things about challenging conversations with educators. During her "Strategic Conversations for Instructional Leaders" session at ASCD Summer Conference, Jackson evoked personal lessons she’s gleaned from uncomfortable conversations inside the school building.

After learning from some hard knocks, Jackson wants educators--specifically administrators--to realize that difficult conversations can be conducted strategically, with a purpose and desired outcome. It's not always easy, but if administrators take the time for proper preparation and execution, Jackson guarantees it will be one of the best skills in their leadership toolbox. Jackson introduced her formula for developing targeted, individualized conversations to engage teachers as partners and create joint ownership over problems and solutions.

"When having strategic conversations with teachers, plan a series of interactions rather than just one," said Jackson. She introduced four types of conversations to have with teachers:

Tiers of Joy

No, we're not talking about the reactions of today's World Cup winners—we're talking about how high school physics teacher Kim Rodriguez, who presented today at ASCD's Summer Conference, differentiates homework and assessments for her students.

"One of the biggest challenges in secondary education," said Rodriguez, "is that kids have seven classes a day, and if they get homework, even if it's twenty minutes per subject, that's three hours of homework every night."

Rodriguez tiers homework into three levels: Straightforward, Uphill, and Mountainous. Also, homework sets are given out weekly, not daily. At the end of each week, Rodriguez gives a tiered assessment on the homework.

Rather than uniformity, tiered homework gives individual homework the challenge students need. For example, gifted students might find one-size-fits-all homework redundant. If I can solve this once, why do I have to do it multiple times? They may need less practice on a concept, while a struggling student could benefit from more practice.

Whether students do the homework or not, every Friday, Rodriguez checks for understanding with a tiered assessment that's matched to its corresponding tiered homework (Straightforward, Uphill, Mountainous).

One conference attendee asked if there are any consequences for students not doing their homework.

When Getting Different Kids Isn't an Option

In his ASCD Summer Conference session, "Becoming a Great High School: 6 Strategies and 1 Attitude That Make a Difference," Tim Westerberg discussed how there are really two options for school success: get started modeling best practices or get different kids! One of those isn’t an option, so how can educators start modeling best practices? Westerberg believes it all begins with modeling a "we-expect-success" attitude.

During his 20-year career as a high school principal, Tim Westerberg would ask teachers four questions each day: 

• What are you trying to accomplish?
• How are your kids doing?
• How do you know?
• What are you doing about the kids who are struggling? 

Watch Summer Conference Live

Unable to make it to a session? Couldn't get down to Orlando for the ASCD Summer Conference? ASCD has you covered. Select sessions will be streamed live over the next couple of days. All you need is a computer and internet access and you can hear what today's leading education experts have to say about what works and what doesn't in schools.

Tomorrow's highlighted session, "DI Makeover: Before and After Examples of DI Secondary Classrooms," with Carol O’Connor, Cheryl Black, and Kimberly Rodriguez, will focus on differentiated learning (DI) and offer examples of how it can be successfully implemented. Click here to watch the live stream of this session at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

Giving Students the Right Medicine

In this morning's session "A District's Journey to Student Success for All," Maria Chrzanowski and Stacey Harris of Amarillo ISD, Tex., discussed their districtwide reform effort. While explaining this, an interesting and alarmingly simple analogy was used to show why many districts have failed: medicine.

Simply put, they argued that schools are essentially using one pill to solve every problem. If a student has a headache, you give him or her headache medicine. But if a student breaks something, then you probably should not give them the same pill. That, they said, is what many schools are doing in the classroom—using the same methods again to solve a plethora of problems, when they need to be looking at different techniques and methods. 

Instead of refilling one prescription to fit all students, differentiated instruction, they said, can act as many "medicines," giving struggling students the interventions they need. 

Welcome to the 2010 ASCD Summer Conference!

Welcome, attendees of the 2010 ASCD Summer Conference at the beautiful Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando, Florida. This summer's conference features respected educators discussing the latest in differentiated instruction, Understanding by Design, curriculum mapping, and What Works in Schools.

This blog, along with our Twitter feed and the Conference Daily web page, will have up-to-the-minute updates, in-depth coverage of the sessions, and information regarding any changes made to sessions and their locations and times. Please check back often for information on what is happening each day.

 

P.S. After today's sessions, consider coming to Sora Sushi for a tweetup with Heidi Hayes Jacob. Sora Sushi is located on the first level of the Gaylord Palms Resort and will last from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Please RSVP if you plan to attend.

Buddy or Boss?

Post submitted by Naomi Thiers, Associate Editor of Educational Leadership.

"So what is the relationship balance in a classroom? Where is that exact point at which students feel cared for . . . but know that they must respect the teacher and they are expected to learn?"

In "The Relationship Balance" in the June 2010 online issue of Educational Leadership, Cindi Rigsbee (author of Finding Mrs. Warnecke) tackles this delicate issue.

Teachers hear about the importance of building relationships with students almost every time the phrase "effective teaching" is uttered. But how do we keep those relationships in the right spirit—friendly enough to be real, but sober enough that students know we expect mature behavior and serious work in the bargain? 

Rigsbee shares stories of times she has seen teachers, herself included, stray too far on either the friend or the iron-fist end of the continuum. Communicating respect—for students, their time, and even the content we're teaching—so that we can present learning as a gift rather than an obligation is at the heart of the strategies Rigsbee recommends. 

So, how do you keep the balance right?

Too Early for Engineering?

Last week, the New York Times profiled elementary engineering programs, like the one in high-performing Glen Rock School District, just northwest of Manhattan, N.Y. As part of a $100,000 science curriculum redesign, schools in the district are adding 10 to 15 hours of engineering each year for all students in K–5.

While advocates see supports to math and science curriculum and creative and critical thinking, critics question whether students are actually absorbing engineering fundamentals from added elementary engineering curriculum or more generally participating in problem-based learning activities. Commenters on Joanne Jacobs' blog tend toward the latter perspective.

This article raises two questions, one curricular, and one economical:

Are early engineering programs, as described in this article, conveying engineering principles to young learners? Are limited school resources put to good use by adding engineering lessons to elementary curriculum?

Classroom Management 101

ASCD Express is looking for short, 600 to 1,000-word essays on the theme "Classroom Management 101." The theme description is below, and guidelines for submissions are here. Send us your submissions by July 9, 2010. 

Managing a class of 24 or 30 personalities requires a masterful ability to manage group dynamics; focus on individuals; execute sound judgment; and perhaps, most of all, inspire, engage, and motivate children or young adults to learn with a forward-looking vision. What basics of classroom management do new teachers need to quickly master to build a solid foundation for the rest of the school year? How can teachers retool approaches to discipline to make fairness and flexibility operative rather than uninspired rigorism? What affect can districtwide practices like looping have on building relationships and curricular depth so that transitions become less of a problem? This issue will share best practices or innovations for organizing materials, promoting collaboration for learning, teaching negotiating skills, and fostering a positive classroom culture.

EdBlog Watch: Classroots.org

Authentic engagement. Democratic education. If these phrases make you want to read more, perhaps in blog format, you're in luck. If you also like puns, a visit to the excellent blog Classroots.org just might feel like winning the lottery.

Blogger Chad, a humanities teacher in a charter school, does an excellent job of bridging theory and practice in a way that both classroom teachers and cultural observers can appreciate. For instance, the recent post "Two Rules for Music and School" takes on the debate about iPods potentially making students more isolated in their own worlds and uses it as a launching pad for creative lesson plan ideas, such as students creating their autobiographical soundtrack. The two rules: "It's yours and it makes you happy."

Chad's arts-focused charter school holds an Expo Night in which students share their work with their families, and his description of the effect this process has on students is inspiring.

"The night reconfirmed for me the need for schools like ours that allow [students] to be flexible with 'schooling' so students who experience frustration with school don't feel trampled underfoot by the speed of standards-based instruction mapped to EOC SOL tests," he says. "We try to pursue learning alongside our students and remove the 'school' obstacles that have become antagonistic parts of their life stories."

Read Chad's blog at http://www.classroots.org.

Carol Ann Tomlinson on Learning Styles

Post submitted by Carol Ann Tomlinson, ASCD author and expert on differentiated instruction.

The term "learning style" is often used as a cover term for lots of things that are probably better called something else. I've used the term "learning profile" to include learning style, intelligence preference, culture-based learning approaches, and gender-based learning approaches. When looked at in this way, there is broader ground for conversation—to some degree because of research, and to some degree because of theory.

Dan Willingham, a fellow professor at the University of Virginia, has attempted to debunk the idea of learning styles and has used the issue to question education research.

I believe Willingham clumps several bodies of somewhat different work into what he refers to as "learning styles." For example, Howard Gardner does not think he's writing about learning styles when he talks about multiple intelligences, nor does Robert Sternberg when explaining his model of the triarchic mind. So, in my read, Willingham's use of the term "learning styles" is not precise.

Further, he assumes a stance about what he calls learning styles that I don't think many educators recommend: a test-and-label approach to the topic. Does it make sense to give kids a "learning style survey" and assume that our preferences for how to learn are fixed? Absolutely not. The same person will learn differently in varied contexts, and that should be a given in classrooms. The goal should not be to pigeonhole students, but rather to provide options for learning and to help students become increasingly aware of what supports their learning at a given time. (Thomas Armstrong addresses Willingham's criticisms of Gardner's model in Multiple Intelligences in the Classrooms, 3rd ed.)

Willingham feels the concept of learning styles is discredited (not solely by research, but also by knowledge of the brain) because he thinks learning styles theory suggests, for example, that people learn math through music. His read is that music engages a different part of the brain than math does, and that it's not possible to learn math when the math part of the brain isn't involved. That's no doubt true, but that conclusion doesn't discount the likelihood that people differ in their approaches to learning.

Good Morning, Mr. iPad

Last week's most-clicked ASCD SmartBrief item is a blog post on a familiar theme: how will new technology change learning? In particular, CEO and cofounder of Envision Schools (a charter school management organization operating in California's Bay Area) Bob Lenz asks, "Will the iPad and similar technology revolutionize learning?"

Lenz's commenters shift the conversation to how teachers' roles will change as mobile technology decentralizes learning. Notably, one teacher shares that her district laid off 400 teachers while rolling out LCD projectors in each classroom. She asks if technology is more important than teachers, a good question when the majority of discussions about technology's effect on learning seem to think schools of the future will be like Ronco roasters—set it and forget it.

As teacher Bill Ferriter noted in a recent post here, "Without a good teacher making decisions based on their knowledge of kids, content and instruction, tools are useless."

Rather than ask whether new technologies will be the silver bullet for schools, it'd be more interesting if Lenz had asked his readers if and how mobile technology or personal learning devices have changed how they learn and/or access new learning, and how they could envision those experiences translating to the K–12 environment.

For example, Weblogg-ed's Will Richardson notes that most of us learned how to use our mobile devices through hands-on experimentation and that this contrasts with the prevailing school culture on new learning, where users are "conditioned to wait for direction on what to learn, how to learn it, and how to show they've learned it."

Teacher Education Goes Online (1991)

The year was 1991. Some educators remember it vividly; the youngest were still toddling around. Like the new teachers of today, the Internet—and its use in education and professional development—was in its infancy. And as usual, Educational Leadership took readers to the leading edge in the November 1991 article "Teacher Education Goes Online."

• Read the article: Teacher Education Goes Online (PDF)

Brace yourself as we go back to the future. The article documents two forms of emerging technologies teachers are using: satellite delivery of instruction and computer-mediated communication. For each technology, author Lynne Schrum gives three different examples of implementation at university programs and inservice teacher trainings, ranging from the satellite-driven Teachers on Television program at Iowa State University to the electronic bulletin board system, Teacher-LINK, at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.

An inset article, "Computer to Computer: Mentoring Possibilities," covers the radical innovation of electronic mail, a tool that helps students "realize that computers are not technological mysteries but useful tools that facilitate learning and reflection."

Although it's fun to read the quaint language and wide-eyed wonder used to describe technology we now see as commonplace, it's also instructive to see how little has changed. Yesterday's bulletin boards and e-mails to professors may have evolved into sophisticated social networks and interactive videoconferencing, but the work of facilitating communication and bridging distances is much the same.

In "My Back Pages," we look at important issues through the historical lens of the Educational Leadership archives. ASCD members can access EL issues from 1943 to the present by signing in at www.ascd.org.

Public Buy-In Missing from Standards Adoption

Is it any wonder that American education standards are such a 50-state patchwork? Rollout of the Common Core standards highlights the haphazard state adoption process and general confusion among the chattering class about what it all means.

Three states approved the standards before they were even finalized—Kentucky, Hawaii, Maryland—and all took different routes in doing so.

• Kentucky convened a meeting of its K-12 and higher education councils back in February and got unanimous agreement to support the state’s adoption of the standards.

• Hawaii’s state board of education formally adopted the standards on May 20, two weeks before the final standards were publicly released, prompting some Hawaii board members to wonder if they could even adopt something that technically didn’t exist yet (the final standards), or whether they were only approving the draft form of the standards and would have to later adopt the final version.

• In Maryland, state leaders were so eager to show their commitment to the reforms in their Race to the Top application, that they took the unusual step of "endorsing" the Common Core—again before they were finalized—and promised to adopt them at the next state board of education meeting, in June.

Aside from a rush to approve the standards before they were complete, what all three states have in common is a complete lack of public involvement, short-circuiting the typical standards setting process, which invites public comment and possible revisions to the standards under consideration.

Speaker Spotlight: Nancy Frey

Students can learn individual accountability best by being part of a collaborative learning group. Summer Conference presenter and author Nancy Frey explains that collaborative learning in the classroom often demands intense scaffolding and adjustment from skilled educators, but student rewards from productive group work are too great to ignore.

In a recent ASCD Authors page interview, Frey talks about her coauthored book, Productive Group Work: How to Engage Students, Build Teamwork, and Promote Understanding. If group work is implemented properly, Frey maintains it can benefit students’ self-esteem, communication, and social skills as well as lead to higher levels of academic learning and retention.

Most adults have experienced group work that resulted in one "worker bee" taking on all the responsibility for a project. Frey insists that each task in productive group work must require individual accountability for each team member. Without clear responsibilities for each task, groups will fall into old patterns and no one truly grows.

Frey also encourages educators to allow the possibility of failure. "Fear of our students’ failure keeps us locked in the same practices that have become comfortable and familiar," says Frey. Instead, she suggests experiencing the possibility of failure helps students develop the skills necessary for deep learning.

Tasks that offer a challenge or a problem to solve makes all of those previously discussed principles come alive. It’s the wrestling with a task that [can] cause students to rely on one another. A spirit of cooperation can bloom when a group is collectively faced with a difficult task. Here is where failure plays an important role in learning … if success is guaranteed, it’s not going to result in learning.

When students fail, educators have the opportunity to dissect what went wrong and adjust their instruction accordingly. Above all, Frey wants teachers to resist the "easy way out" and letting a student work alone. Perhaps group work can be an accountability exercise for teachers as well? 

What scaffolds do you provide your students in group work?

Curricular Border Patrol

"Hacienda Heights, like most California towns, its schools are suffering from stretched budgets and over-crowded classes. But one issue has pushed the community over the brink . . . "

It's . . . Communism! wrapped in the invisibility cloaking Mandarin curriculum of a California middle school.

Last night's Daily Show spoof is funny because it parodies narrow-minded yokels. It's scary, however, because in some districts and states, ignorance and fear have political power, and they're tinkering with public school curriculum.

It's ironic that right when the job market clamors for global citizens and critical thinkers, some groups are lobbying to censor international influence and conflict from public education.  

Over at the Whole Child blog, Alseta Gholston digs into the intersections of culture and curriculum—and the current backlash against "multicultural" education—in her post, "Educating for Interculturality and the Right to Cultural Education."

Who should decide what's kept out and what's kept in school curriculum?