Grades and Mastery

As educators we are constantly told that it's not about the students' grades; it's about whether students master the standard being taught and whether they can demonstrate that they have the necessary knowledge and skills. The problem is that we are still required by schools, our communities and even employers to assign grades and rank students. What can we do to close the gap between testing, assessment and grading, and the idea of true student mastery?First of all, let's take a look at the way we have traditionally graded students. Typically, we teach a lesson, have students practice with us…

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The Way We Think

I'll start by saying to everyone who doesn't teach math, please don't stop reading at the next sentence! I'm going to use some simple math examples to illustrate this article but I believe the thought processes apply to all areas. In order for us to teach the thinking skills that are necessary for solving math problems or understanding any concept in any area of study, we must first discover how we think and learn. Specifically, how do we gain real understanding, as opposed to memorizing a "trick" or set of steps long enough to pass a test with no ability…

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Questioning…What We Do

We talk at length about student learning, what we want students to learn, how we will approach delivering instruction and how we will know whether students have learned, but in the end it all comes back to whether students have acquired the knowledge and skills that we intended. How do we know and how do we get them there? I believe the answer lies in effective questioning. There are multiple ways to deliver instruction, but the key to all of them is using questioning techniques that guide students' thinking in the direction we intend and ultimately show us the students'…

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Are We Clear On That?

One very important piece of an effective classroom is teacher clarity. John Hattie's research in The Applicability of Visible Learning to Higher Education [Hattie 2015] assigns teacher clarity an effect size of .75 which is well above the threshold of .40 which represents one year's growth for one year's effort. This effect size makes it clear that teacher clarity is very important as we consider strategies for reaching our students, but what is teacher clarity? How do we make sure we have "clarity" in our classrooms?Teacher clarity is a simple concept to understand but can be more complex to actually implement. Clarity…

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Using Technology the Right Way

Laptops and other tools of technology can provide an excellent way to deliver instruction to students, but with an almost umlimited base of information available through the internet, how do we make sure students are getting the things that we want them to get? Student engagement almost always increaases when students use technology to frame answers to the big questions we give them but that engagement must be productive and lead to the learning objectives that we want them to know. So, how can we direct learning in a way that will make use of the tools of technology and…

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Wait for It!

As teachers, we ask a lot of questions, but do we question effectively? Do we often direct questions to the entire group with responses coming from everywhere? Do we solicit answers from all of our students randomly or do we select students we think are likely to know the answers? Are our questions carefully selected to match the standards we are teaching and do our questions lead to deeper thought processes from our students? Most importantly, do we wait, really wait, for students to answer? The way we do questioning as well as how we handle students' answers are an…

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Technology for Technology’s Sake

When questions arise in schools today about instruction, accommodation, differentiation or intervention, the first solution often proposed is "let's use the computer." Unfortunately, the most important question, "How will it be used?' is not addressed. The use of technology without teacher planning, direction, input and feedback can easily make a problem worse instead of better. The proper guidance of a teacher is usually more important than any piece of technological hardware or software and will ultimately determine the success or failure of student learning as a result.While it may be tempting as a teacher to use a computer or tablet…

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