I would like to jump in here while I have a moment.

It took me only about a month of teaching high school math before I determined how ill-prepared I was for helping my students. Luckily, the graduate school I enrolled in after a distressing three more years in the classroom, shined a great deal of light on my problems.

It all started with a little text partially entitled "Error Pattern Analysis" by Ashcroft. I know this process has been transferred to other disciplines, but I know it works in mathematics. It provides an excellent formative assessment framework for continually monitoring student understanding and progress.

It can be applied easily on most basic computation concepts, but it can be used almost anywhere in the curriculum. It does not a require a deep mathematical understanding by the teacher - an issue I've always found puzzling to me - who is the idiot that decided I need a graduate degree in mathematics, or even a bachelor's for that matter, to teach anything up to and even including calculus? I have neither, and I have always been the go to teacher in schools I have worked to assist those who are struggling with their students - go figure.

By the way, Ashcroft's from England, and I was lucky enough to study with him and his complete curriculum - an incredibly valuable experience! And yet, he and his processes are unheard of by anyone I meet these days. The solutions to the problems in education, I believe, are much simpler than people think. Many of the answers are at our fingertips, but the wrong people are making the administrative and political decisions.
---- Katherine <kgotthardt at comcast.net> wrote: 

> No hold on : )

> 

> "We need to change what teachers do day in day out in the classroom

> and we need to get better teachers into the profession."

> 

> In the United States (in my state of Virginia and in other states) we have 

> Standards of Learning tests.  These tests require teachers to feed material 

> to students at break-neck speed with little time for formative assessment 

> other than constant testing.  Because of class sizes and the state 

> requirements (which spill into national requirements via the "No Child Left 

> Behind" act), teachers have VERY little time to address questions from 

> students who really have NOT understood the material.  Several times I have 

> heard the complaint, "I had a question but the teacher didn't have time to 

> answer it."

> 

> SOL scores in Virginia directly impact funding, and often negatively. 

> Qualified and quality teachers are forced to teach to the test.  To boot, 

> the states are cutting school funding, as is our county.  We have 

> over-crowding in, I would guess-timate, just about ALL of our county schools 

> which to me clearly indicates unbalanced priorities.  We have students in 

> TRAILERS attempting to learn in unstable environments because of 

> over-crowding.  How does this cost us?

> 

> Drop outs.  SOL failure.  Discipline problems.  Increased administrative 

> time addressing issues that could be taken care of in the classroom IF it 

> was manageable.  Failure to identify and properly address possible learning 

> disabilities.  And as we know, students who fail in K-12 have a harder time 

> contributing to the economy if and when they graduate.  This spills over 

> into poverty and unemployment rates.  It's all connected, and most 

> bureaucrats don't see it.  They think short-term, from budget year to budget 

> year with no thought of the future for the schools or the community.

> 

> So.....add up all the numbers from the above, and I KNOW they won't match 

> those in this article.

> 

> How are our public schools supposed to survive in such an environment?

> 

> Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt

> www.luxuriouschoices.net

> ----- Original Message ----- 

> From: "David J. Rosen" <djrosen at comcast.net>

> To: <specialtopics at nifl.gov>

> Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 5:14 PM

> Subject: [SpecialTopics 756] EducationGuardian.co.uk: Smaller class 

> sizes'not cost effective

> 

> 

> > Colleagues,

> >

> > Tom Sticht spotted this on the EducationGuardian.co.uk site and sent

> > it for our formative assessment discussion.

> >

> > -------

> > Note from Tom Sticht:

> >

> > This article about formative assessment appears in todays (2/25/08

> > Education Guardian online.

> > -------

> >

> > To see this story with its related links on the

> > EducationGuardian.co.uk site, go to http://education.guardian.co.uk

> >

> > Smaller class sizes 'not cost effective'

> > Anthea Lipsett

> > Monday February 25 2008

> > The Guardian

> >

> > Reducing school class sizes in an attempt to raise pupil achievement

> > is a waste of money for all but the youngest children, one of the

> > country's leading experts on assessment said today.

> >

> > Cutting class size by 30% gives children the equivalent of four extra

> > months of learning a year, but costs around &#163;20,000 for each

> > class every year, according to Prof Dylan Wiliam, deputy director of

> > the Institute of Education.

> >

> > He said the more effective method of "formative assessment" - where

> > teachers monitor their pupils' progress continuously and provide

> > appropriate feedback - could provide eight extra months of

> > educational development for only &#163;2,000 per classroom per year.

> >

> > "It can therefore be 20 times as cost-effective as reducing class

> > size in terms of pupil achievement," he told the annual Chartered

> > London Teachers Conference today.

> >

> > "Smaller classes do confer a benefit if pupils are unruly, because

> > fewer pupils in a class means less disruption. But as long as pupils

> > are well-behaved, then what you can do with a class of 20 is

> > generally possible with a class of 30.

> >

> > "Smaller classes can also be more cost-effective for five to seven-

> > year-olds, but research suggests the class size needs to be reduced

> > to 15 or less," he said.

> >

> > Wiliam added that investments in information communication technology

> > have also shown a poor return. But international studies have

> > confirmed that formative assessment can double the speed of pupil

> > learning.

> >

> > Some teachers use a "traffic light" system and ask pupils to hold up

> > different coloured cards to show whether they have understood what

> > they have been told. Red means "no", amber means "partly", and green

> > "yes". Pupils are also encouraged to evaluate their own work and

> > advise their classmates on how they can improve.

> >

> > The English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish education departments

> > have all provided varying degrees of backing for formative assessment.

> >

> > After three years of research in both the UK and the US, Wiliam

> > concluded that the approach would only take off properly if teachers

> > work together in school-based groups to refine their classroom methods.

> >

> > Wiliam and his co-researchers found that groups of eight to 10

> > teachers who meet once a month for at least two years can be most

> > effective. "It takes time to change teachers' ways of working,

> > particularly if they have been in the classroom for many years," said

> > Wiliam. "Simply telling teachers what to do doesn't work."

> >

> > "For example, most teachers have heard about research from the 1980s

> > which shows that if they wait three to five seconds after asking a

> > question their pupils' performance improves because they have been

> > given some time to think.

> >

> > "Even so, many teachers are still allowing less than a second for

> > pupils to respond. The conclusion we can draw from that is that

> > knowing what to do is the easy part of teaching. Actually doing it is

> > what's hard."

> >

> > Wiliam told EducationGuardian.co.uk that teacher quality was key to

> > any improvements.

> >

> > "To reduce class size from 30 to 20 would need 150,000 more teachers

> > and that would dilute the quality of teachers," he said.

> >

> > "We need to change what teachers do day in day out in the classroom

> > and we need to get better teachers into the profession."

> >

> > Martin Johnson, acting deputy general secretary of the Association of

> > Teachers and Lecturers, said the research should encourage the

> > government to "put its money where its mouth is".

> >

> > "Staff need to work together to learn how to teach more effectively,

> > but schools will need more resources to do this. [Wiliam] reminds us

> > that this would be very cost-effective.

> >

> > "Schools have benefited hugely over the last decade from having more

> > classroom based staff but much more training is needed to make their

> > deployment fully effective.

> >

> > "And while the government says it encourages assessment for learning,

> > its testing policies have stolen teachers' self-confidence so new

> > training must be provided and resourced.

> >

> > "School staff desperately need a contractual entitlement to training

> > which meets their individual needs."

> >

> > Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited

> >

> >

> >

> > David J. Rosen

> > Special Topics Discussion Moderator

> > djrosen at comcast.net

> >

> >

> >

> > -------------------------------

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> 

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