Time. Is there enough to go back and fill in the holes? That’s a great question. A tough one. The realistic side of me, the side which tries to follow rules, says “no stinkin way we have time to fill in holes.”

I’m not stuck under the same pressures that you, James, and many others face in their classrooms. (I know in your post you mentioned that elementary pressures are different) I don’t have government requirements to fulfill. I don’t have high stakes standardized testing to dish out. I don’t have it, but I know many teachers live under such things.

It is with this limited understanding of your world, that I also have to ask, and would be asking myself if I found myself in your shoes, “Is all this high speed, little time for hole filling, good teaching/learning practice?”

I wonder where the problem is. If there is no time for hole filling, is that the student’s fault? Or is that the “too wide” curriculum’s fault? Should the student and teacher bend around the curriculum, or should the curriculum be bent around the student?

What I mean by that is this: If we try to stuff our students through the curriculum we have to cover, and have the main driving force of our work being to meet requirements at all costs (No benchmark, standard, or theme left behind) then I think we’re providing a huge disservice to our students.

Students getting left behind…now that’s something to fret about. It SHOULD be seen like this don’t you think? The curriculum should bend…or adapt…to the student. If there needs to be a slow down for hole filling, the curriculum should allow for it. Sadly, at least when I was in school, there was no such thing. The great marching band always played on. With our without you.

I liked your idea around frequent review and assessment. I think Cleve over at the English 360 blog, has a similar idea:”[…]”tests” that are so frequent that they cease to be thought of as tests. This gives everyone great feedback and improves performance as well as metacognitive practice.” (Cleve, 2006)

I think this concept of frequent review is vital, and reduces the need for testing. Constant concept recycling.

I also liked your thoughts around teachers needing to be aware of what is happening DURING their units - like who is following, and who is falling off? If you see someone slipping, that’s when you need to make rapid adjustments. Just in time fixes to how you’re delivering and doing your lessons. Totally agree with you there. Why wait for a test to tell you what you’re already seeing?

The classroom without tests. Well, sure! Assessment is needed, but like you say: there is more than one way to see how your people are doing right? What about building meaningful products which reflect the concepts you’re teaching? How can they show what they know?

Great things to think about Mark. I hope read more from you.

As James says, welcome to the conversation.

I appreciate you pointing out that what I did with the weak and strong students was done by Vigotsky. I’ll try to learn more about his methods.

“The system is you.”
I agree, and I disagree. I agree in that teachers are, in many ways, the gatekeepers of their classrooms. They have the power, to a certain extent, to build and manage the classroom environment. I like the idea of you being the change. That’s vital live out no matter what you do.

If your classroom environment sucks, how much of a role did you play in creating its suckiness? What can you do to change that? What can you do with assessment and testing? Are you able to change things in some way if they are not working well? We always need to be asking ourselves that.

Where I disagree with you is around the whole imposed from outside aspect to the classroom. Perhaps in ESL we don’t have to deal with too much of that, but folks who work in public schools often have to deal with tough government guidelines, benchmarks, standardized testing etc. You have little to no control over those, but they have great power in the classroom.

A little further thinking…I really liked Warlick’s thought that teachers have a great deal of innovative power. I wonder what would happen if teachers started to work closely together to challange some of the curriculum and high pressure standards tests.

Perhaps I ramble.

I’ve read some of your postings and many of your comments on Palimpsest Redux, but this is my first comment left for you.

I heartily agree with the importance of giving valuable formative and ongoing feedback after tests. But, like James, my first impluse is to ask whether or not there is enough time to really go back and work on the holes which appear after tests.

I’m currently interning in the BC elementary system and have been talking with my sponsor teacher (a seasoned and skilled veteran) about this issue - several considerations unique to elementary ed come up: there are no government exams for these grades (4 and 7 do have standardized testing, but not for the purpose of passing or failing students) so that pressure is not there, but students are often absent and have trouble keeping up as it is, also the skill and knowledge diversity in the average classroom is 5 grade levels, and many students are on adapted programs. These situations and others almost make teaching student specific.

When I plan, I have to have extensions and adaptations for my students with exceptionalities. I have to think about each individual student’s abilities and plan according. Sometimes it feels like I am planning 4 or 5 different lessons just so that I don’t “leave anyone behind” or “dumbdown the genius”.

The point I’m trying to make is that the elementary classroom (I’m teaching g.6) is usually a diverse community of students with a wide disparity of knowledge and skill levels.

When thinking about how to make assessment more valuable for learning, I envision a model in which you take more time teaching concepts and skills the first time though with ongoing and frequenty assessment and daily review. Tests are kept to a minimum, while performance and activity products become the main focus of grading and feedback. Not only does this model seem more practical in relation to the skills necessary in the adult working world, but student stress level decreases and performance increases because the test doesn’t recieve so much emphasis and weight.

If a “unit ending” test reveals a whole lot of holes in student understanding and capabilities, then perhaps a lesson or two should be taken up trying to mend those holes. But, moreso, I think the teacher needs to reflect upon their own method: “How is it that I taught a four week unit on ecosystems and I didn’t know that Jonny would fail this test?” Perhaps the test is so un-authentic that the students were not able to show what they learned, or perhaps the teacher should have picked up on this problem 3 weeks ago and started adapting their lessons at that time, mending the holes as they began to form.

I’m just new in the system, so I lack experience and wisdom and probably contain too much idealism, but I also have not gotten stuck into old grooves yet. I’m currently wondering about the possibility of an g.6 classroom without tests, only small quizzes. What would a class be without tests?

Thanks for the thoughts and I’ll have to go back and read some of your older postings.

- Mark

You know, on some levels I feel your pain on being stuck between slowing down, and being pulled along by the system. On the other hand, I think about where you’re at, and the things you have to deal with, and I kinda feel like I’m just sorta play teaching - that the real stuff is being done by you and your peers, that that is where the real pressure is. (If that makes any sense.)

In my world, I can sorta be a little more of a risk taker. I can toss aside books. I can bend the rules, and “fight the powers” that be.

There’s heat.There’s flack, but it’s on a much umm…tamer level than what you have to play with.

I guess what I aim to say here is that…you seem to be between a rock and and a hardplace. But if you think it through…as I think you’ve been doing lately, is this sorta thing really ethical? Is it ok to move on if someone is left behind?

I think people like Richardson and Warlick have been nailing away at deeper, not wider curriculums. Amen. Deeper. Not wider. And let deeper also allow for slower.

I drive back to conversation around Journey vs. Destination II:
“via Christopher D. Sessums: A Change Agent Mantra:

My aim is to agitate and disturb people.
I’m not selling bread, I’m selling yeast.

-Miguel de Unamuno, writer and philosopher (1864-1936)

The next one via David Warlick over at 2 Cents Worth:

“Toyota realized that the real creative potential was on the plant floor. The creativity that brought Toyota out was the workers. The real source of innovation is in the trenches. (Whoa! Teachers are where the innovation is. How do we tap into that. How do we encourage, value, and share the creativity of the classroom. How about students. How do we tap into the creativity of our students to affect education?)”

Yet another role to tack onto our growing list: Teachers as innovators and subversion facilitators.

Perhaps the passionate teacher will always be locked in battle with the hoops. It’s sadly like a dualism: on one hand you advocate for true student centered learning environments, but on the other hand you are required to employ the hoops. Will the day ever arrive where the rules (and sometimes they are well meaning) are in harmony with the student and self directed, life long learning?”

If Warlick is right, the change is us.

this is bang on. The Goofy analogy smacks you up side the head with relevance…I wonder about this myself. Am I just pushing students along…hurry up, let’s go on to the next thing…with no regard for whether or not they have cleared the hurdle?
Unfortunately, I am wondering how much time the system allows for us to go back and revisit things…how much time is allowed for re-teaching, re-learning, working on mastery instead of limping through?
With courses that have gov. exams on a set date at the end of the course…it seems not much time is allowed for such things.
This is not good.
This is not good at all.
Thanks for your thoughts on this…