“If
you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined
to learn, no one can stop you.”
--Zig
Ziglar
By
Tommie Saylor
Kennedy
High School Principal
The
traditional teacher walks into the room, closes the door, reads and/or has a
student read from the textbook. The traditional teacher places notes on
the chalkboard, whiteboard, and/or the overhead for students to copy
down. The traditional teacher produces a few examples of how to solve a
problem on the board, how to balance an equation, how to write the “perfect”
sentence.
These
instructors, when asked why their students are not performing very well often
respond with, “I don’t know, I taught the material.” But what these instructors
don’t realize, is that it is not about what was taught, it is about what was
learned. Did the students “learn” the material?
The
traditional teacher collects every piece of work the students perform, making
sure to grade everything. In their eyes, if you don’t collect and grade
everything, the students will not do the work, will not read the textbook and
will not learn. The traditional teacher believes that by collecting and
grading everything, generating an average of points earned versus points
possible, a clear picture of the level of the students understanding of the
material taught is derived.
Simply,
the traditional teacher believes in constantly evaluating their students even
as they are trying to understand, comprehend, and master new skills. The result
is that those students who learn faster than others get better grades than those
who may learn at a slower pace. The traditional teacher’s grading system does
more to measure the rate at which the students learn, than the level of mastery
of the material taught.
Research
tells us that these “traditional” methods are no longer valid. Students
learn differently than they may have learned 50, 30, even 10 years ago.
In today’s society where students are bombarded with instant information on Google,
Facebook and Twitter, educational methodology must adjust to not only capture our
student’s attention, but also to teach the way they learn. Teachers need to be
part entertainer, to present “edu-tainment” lessons that captures their student’s
interests, build curiosity and taunts them to want to learn. Teachers need
to stoke the fires that burn deep within a student’s creative mind, building a
desire to learn that will serve them their entire life.
The
modern teacher understands that students learn at different rates, that the
“light bulb goes on” at different moments for each student. Knowing this,
a grading scale should be developed where the focus is on mastery of the
material not how quickly the material was mastered. Such a grading scale
is actually easier than the tons of record keeping necessary when the teacher
insists on grading everything.
In
standards based grading, the instructor develops a list of skills the students
are to master, then develops lessons to enhance the learning of said skills,
and then asks the students to prove that they have mastered the skills through
a variety of evaluative techniques. Essentially, the focus is on learning
skills not earning points, and the speed in which the students learn the skills
is irrelevant because there is no averaging of past performances when the skills
were first being explored, with current performances after the skills have been
mastered.
The
world is different from when we were kids. Society has changed, our
country has changed, and our students have changed. Therefore as educators we
must change. No longer are the “old ways” acceptable, old solutions for
new problems just don’t work. We need to take a good long hard look at
our current practices and ask ourselves, how is it working out for our
kids? Are we getting the job done? Are they learning, or are we
just teaching?
How
and where will you lead them. Making Kennedy the school of choice. Excellence
by design.
