\”It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.\”

Designing educational policy to leave no child behind is the equivalent of driving forward by looking in the rear view mirror.

The article I read starts off by saying this. We should drop the name “No Child Left Behind” and make the defining goal for schools “A College Diploma in Every Hand.” According to the article, statistics show:

Americans with a bachelor’s degree earn roughly twice as much as those with a high school diploma. For young people who are the first in their families to graduate from college, a degree has the potential to dramatically change their life outcomes and end generations of poverty.

I can relate to this statement because I am the third Coddington (my dad’s side of the family) to attend a four year university. That is a high status in my family.

America is not making the grade when it comes to measuring college success. More than half of college students drop out within their first year of college. This article touched on standardized testing and preparing students for college. It stated that we should teach elementary and middle school students the basics; math, science, reading, and art, and that high school teachers should focus on preparing their students for college success.

High school students would not just learn history or science; they would practice being historians and scientists.

Schools should do more to prepare students for college success. Many schools now offer AP classes and I think this is a great start. But as for the standardized tests, are these really helping prepare students for what’s to come? Bob Lenz, author of this article believes that:

Rather than use standardized testing as the sole measure of learning, Congress should use college attendance and achievement rates for accountability in any comprehensive education bill.

I feel that this is true. We shouldn’t measure a school’s success merely on how well the students performed on the standardized tests. Students have different test taking skills, so this is not a fair way to judge a school’s success. Also looking back to the article, it mentions that “When you challenge students to put their mark on a subject, they will be more motivated to master the facts.” I feel that we need to do more to motivate our students to want to do well in school and to want to go to college. A college degree could change their life.

Article by Bob Lenz-the chief education officer and founder of Envision Schools, which operates four public high schools in the Bay Area.

San Fransisco Chronicle

Full Article Here 

The article I read, “Into the 21st Century: Technology, Teachers, and Nicky Future Ready,” was about schools in North Carolina implementing every kind of technology they can get their hands on into the classrooms. The author of this article, Terry Stoops states:

Yet catch phrases and buzzwords cannot hide the face that a “21st century education” is simply a more expensive and more bureaucratic of North Carolina’s current system of public schools…

The new and improved 21st century classroom would include a host of pricey electronic devices, gadgets, and toys, that, according to advocates, would put an end to silly, old-fashioned book learning.

When I first read this, I couldn’t understand why one classroom would need so much technology. Yeah it’s great and all, but is it really that necessary? I’m sure many classrooms could do without half the stuff that they have in them. Think back to when technology was just starting out. Students and teachers did not have much to work with, and some of the most intelligent scientists today grew up not knowing what a computer was.

North Carolina Newspapers in Education recently published a short introduction to 21st century education titled Making the Grade: Education for the 21st century. The tract explains:

In the ideal 21st century school, each school will have facilities and personnel that are necessary for a 21st century education. This includes individual classroom spaces — many with movable walls and flexible desk/table/cubicle configurations –and technology that is similar to what adults already use in the workplace. That means classrooms outfitted with an interactive digital whiteboard and data projector; a classroom set of individual student response devices; digital and video cameras; a telephone; one or more multimedia work stations that include printers, science probeware for experiments, digital microscopes and graphing scientific calculators for the upper grades.

Terry stoops believes that,

Advocates for “21st century schools” fail to explain how, for example, individual student response devices are preferable to students simply raising their hand, but that is not the point. The point is to convince parents that their child will be doomed to a life of destitution if he or she does not have access to individual response devices, science probeware, digital microscopes, and graphing scientific calculators–technology that most adults do not use (or need) in the workplace.

I agree with this 100%. As I mentioned before, many of the fancy gadgets classrooms have are not even needed, they are just their because the school could afford them and wanted to be up-to-date with the technology. The article even states that:

Elected officials and education leaders in our state have ignored the fact that educational technology has failed to improve student achievement in North Carolina in any significant way. Yet under the guise of the “21st century economy” they will continue to urge taxpayers to foot the bill for the latest ed-tech craze.

So is it really that necessary to spend so much money on high tech gear for students when it isn’t even improving their learning? Don’t get me wrong, I am all for technology in the classroom and learning new ways to use it and incorporate it. But I do not feel that schools should spend so much money on new tech. if teachers themselves don’t even learn how to use it, and if it doesn’t even improve the learning ability of the students.

Now you are problem wondering what the whole “Nicky Future Ready” thing is about in the title of the article, as well you should be. “Nicky Future Ready” is a cartoon character that was designed by North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s Elementary Education Division. Here’s how the dept. describes Nicky.

Nicky Future was “born” this summer. He represents the elementary children we teach in our classrooms. Nicky is “labeled,” but not with negative labels and stereotypes. He is labeled with the attributes of a future ready student! Do the students in your school “wear” these labels, too? These are attributes every student will need to be globally competitive in the 21st century.

Nicky “wears” seventeen attributes: (1) self-directed responsible worker, (2) multi-lingual, (3) critical thinker, (4) effective communicator, (5) relationship builder, (6) health-focused life-long learner, (7) financially literate citizen, (8) creative/innovative thinker, (9) knowledgeable global citizen, (10) strong team contributor, (11) proficient reader, (12) science savvy, (13) literate consumer of media, (14) capable technology user, (15) effective problem solver, (16) curious researcher, and (17) skilled mathematician.

Wow these seem like high standards to set for an elementary student. Not sure how many elementary students will be multi-lingual, financially literate, science savvy skilled mathematician, or even a capable technology user. Yeah they will be able to accomplish some of these things to a degree, but they won’t be a pro.

Here is a link to show you what Nicky looks like. Nicky Future Ready

So overall, I feel that this article shows the advantages of technology but also the disadvantages of having too much. What Terry Stoops says about this issue pretty much sums up how I feel.

North Carolina’s children still need competent teachers and capable administrators, not classrooms full of technology or posters of cartoon characters, to be successful in school and beyond.

The Leland Tribune

Terry Stoops – Terry Stoops is an Education Policy Analyst for the John Locke Foundation

Full Article Here

O.k., where to begin. First of all, this was an awesome experience and I am so glad I made the decision to go. I had never been to any kind of academic conference before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. In the end I feel that this was a great experience and highly recommend any future teacher to attend. It helped a lot to be able to pick different sessions to listen to, ones that I was interested in hearing.

The conference started off with a keynote by Kathleen Blake Yancey which she called “Literacy, Technologies, and the 21st Century: Where We Have Been, Are Now, and Are Going”. She is a really good speaker, but I did find parts of her presentation boring; I knew most of it, it was pretty much common sense. Yancey’s presentation focused on three main points for the definition of 21st century literacy.

1)We have a choice of technologies, 2) We are networked, and 3) this kind of literacy requires intrapersonal knowledge, articulated through various forms of reflection.

W hat I really enjoyed about Yancey’s presentation was how she compared digital natives versus digital immigrants. This means, print natives learn from digital natives, and digital natives learn from print natives. Those who grew up knowing only how to write in cursive are learning from those who grew up/growing up knowing how to use computers and digital writing techniques.

The next speaker I listened to was by Jill VanAntwerp called “Hanging on by your Fingernails until you gain a Toehold: Advice for Future Teachers from New Teachers”. I chose to attend this session for two reasons, 1) Jill is from Grand Valley, and 2) her presentation was specifically for future teachers, which is where I fit in, or will fit in. Jill summarized her presentation by saying:

I will summarize some of my findings from 50 interviews with teachers in the Grand Rapids area (graduates from many colleges and teachers in many disciplines) about their orientation and induction periods as well as their first years. These teachers have a lot of good advice about how to handle those first years successfully.

I was extremely shocked with Jill’s statistic that 50% of new teachers leave the profession within the first five years. This actually quite scared me. I got to thinking that maybe this profession is harder than I thought. I just hope that after all this money I have spent to become something that I have wanted since I was in the first grade, that I do not become one of the 50%. Overall, I loved Jill’s presentation. I feel that it was very honest, coming from a teacher itself, and very practical. She spoke on many ideas for teachers to incorporate into their classrooms and things that go right when you first start teaching, and things that can go wrong. This opened my eyes and made me realize what I should look for and try to avoid once I start teaching.

The third session I attended was by Maja Wilson called “Why Rubrics Don’t Work for Me: Reclaiming Subjectivity in Writing Assessment”. Maja’s presentation was summarized as follows:

Rubrics represent writing assessment’s “view from nowhere”–our attempt to provide the illusion of objectivity by giving students a universal (generic) response to their work. Not only do rubrics fail in their attempt to be objective, but this very attempt keeps writing teachers from recognizing, honoring, and using the value of subjectivity in their teaching and assessment of writing. The presenter will show how current assessment practices are problematic, and will give examples of assessment conversations with students that help students become better writers at the same time that they value subjectivity.

Maja’s presentation opened my eyes to a few things. For starters, I always found myself a fan of rubrics. All through middle school and high school I had to write according to a rubric. This didn’t leave much room for imagination, but it was a starting place and kept me on track. It also prepared me for standardized tests, which I think is a big thing for rubrics. I do agree with Maja’s theory though, when she pointed out that grading by a rubric is objective. When we grade by a rubric, mainly for MEAP writing tests or other standardized tests, we are reading and grading what is written and not leaving ourselves or the student open for any imaginative thoughts or creativeness. Her presentation mainly focused on the MEAP and what the readers are looking for. I liked what Sarah Reaser said about this idea, “The MEAP rubric basically wants all of the readers to agree on what a good piece of writing looks like. When in reality writing means different things to different people.” In the end, I realized that rubrics should not be used in writing assessment, but students should be taught some specific forms to be prepared for what standardized tests are looking for.

Overall, I really enjoyed this conference and I hope to attend next year’s. I learned a great deal and plan to apply most of it to my own classroom.