One of the many things we have learned throughout our classes at UIC is that when we begin to teach we must abide by many standards. We learn in Chapter 3 that these standards are here to focus our teaching and learning, guide the development or our lesson plans, and provide accountability to what we teach. These standards are here to help, but do they always help? Some of the standards are too vague, while some are too precise. But it gets better, there are more things being added like Common Core for example, great. How do we take these standards and not only apply them to what we teach, but most importantly make sense of them? Well, this week's readings are here to show us how to do so. Or at least make it a little bit clearer by giving us a few strategies. The standards we are supposed to abide by are also taken into consideration when companies make our textbooks. As we read this causes a "mile wide, inch deep" phenomenon in which so much is covered, but there is not much actually gained. Time isn't taken to actually teach and learn about the different topics.
Now let me tell you that I am one of those people that absolutely hates asking for help if I don't understand a concept or strategy being taught. I just nod my head, agree, and keep thinking about it until it finally clicks. I know that isn't the best way to go about things, but that's just me. It's how I've always done things, until graduate school of course. Now when I don't figure things out I read, a lot, and if I still don't know what is going on... THEN I go and ask questions.
With that being said, we should not rely on our textbooks as the sole teaching material. We should review the text book and find what we believe to be most important and use other materials that will aid us in teaching a bigger picture or as Jay McTighe put is "Big Ideas." This bigger idea could be the desired result in the Building Backwards Method (this is what I was referring to in the previous paragraph... now it clicks!), or even by asking appropriate questions that will get us to these bigger ideas. By using this method we can break apart the standards and find what fits in the different parts of our lesson plan! I think the Building Backwards Method is great! Especially since it finally makes sense to me. I thought I understood it before, but was missing the visual organizer/explanation to help me put it all into place.
I like your attention to the point of "mile wide, inch deep" phenomenon where so much "information" is covered but not much "knowledge" is actually gained. That is how I like to think about learning. I feel that when information can actually become knowledge, a known idea/concept/understanding within someone, then we have gotten somewhere. I feel similar to you as that when in high school, although I often did well in my classes, a lot of it was mindless memorization of information, or facts. This is the last type of curriculum I want to provide to my future students. I want to provide them with the bits of information that they can process, inquire, think critically about, and turn it into knowledge that makes sense for them, and be able to use that in their real lives. It will be challenging but I believe through hard work and determination and keeping an open-mind, this can be done.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both of you on this. I think this chapter does a good job of helping us figure out how to work with the standards and different requirements that we need to use while creating lessons. Although the standards are there for a reason it is helpful to use the Building Backwards Method to help us organize these in order to fulfill the goal that Jacki said, create meaningful content that isn't just superficial knowledge our students will soon forget.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Felipe. The prospect of being held accountable for meeting so many standards imposed by individuals, groups, institutions, and entities from without the teaching profession is one that, though I recognize and acknowledge the necessity of well-conceived guidelines, nevertheless inspires in me a certain amount of anxiety. It's important for us to remember, however, that standards--even those we may find counterintuitive or otherwise problematic--can prove useful, provided we incorporate them into our curricula and instruction in ways that promise to serve us and our students well.
ReplyDeleteFelipe,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you in terms of not relying so much on book material. I think one of the difficult parts about teaching is that we want to teach meaningful material, but these standards can sometimes impede us to do what we want with our students. However, I do believe it can be done, because I know teachers that dedicate a lot of time to their students which is very rewarding in the end. I am observing an 8th grade class at Jungman, and the teacher is amazing. I have never seen so many students get excited over presenting their work! The teacher gathers pieces of every teacher book that she has and does a completely new curriculum. She has definitely opened my eyes in terms of how to modify content and also abide by the state standards without jeopardizing the students' interests.
Just to build on what Jacki said regarding the “mile wide, inch deep” phenomenon, I agree with the sentiment that teaching too much information is a futile effort insofar as knowledge retention is concerned, and that providing an alternative curriculum that adapts to the rhythm and pace of the classroom is quintessential for helping students make sense of the material. I had this conversation with my friend before, and I am partial to the idea that mastery of content has to come before proceeding to the next item on the list. The only issue I see with this type of pacing is that it might run counter to the administrations expectations. Notwithstanding the aforementioned, I still think it is a cause worth pursuing.
ReplyDeleteHey Felipe,
ReplyDeleteIn your point about teaching breadth, but not depth, I totally agree with you about the danger of teaching a subject a mile wide, but an inch deep. It is something that, as a history teacher (in training), I worry about. There are possible solutions to this problem, one of which is to realize that it is simply not possible to teach everything that happened in history, and so you should pick and choose what you want to cover.
You can do this while still meeting the Common Core standards, and I think you would even be satisfied in your profession more, because you would get to teach more of what you want at a deeper level than you otherwise would. Just an idea, though. Just don't be afraid to ask for help!
Monte
Felipe,
ReplyDeleteAgreeing with everyone else about the the dangers of teaching students to simply memorizing facts and shallow understanding of a very extensive content area (also a teaching of history major as well) I would rather model and teach students to learn how to critically analyze history/information that they recieve and to draw a deeper meaning/understanding from it. As I was observing today, one interesting aspect that I noticed that students kept on repeating was the idea that primary sources are "closest to the truth". Minding that the students were only freshmen, this blind acceptance that something is to be considered the "truth" doesn't sit well with me. However, I believe that by carefully unpacking the standards and utilizing the most essential parts to teach critical thinking skills in regards to whichever subject that the students are learning would be my main goal in teaching. As long as my students learn how to think and question the information that they are being presented, I will be satisfied and won't worry too much about covering content in a rather "shallow fashion" since I would be confident that through the students' own critical thinking, they would come to question and to depen their understanding about a particular subject.
I have to admit that at this point in the program and after the education courses we all took it is very hard to say anything else about teaching; it seems that all has been said. Not only that but it also seems to me that there is a big disconnection between what we are saying and what is actually happening in the classroom with students that may come from different places and backgrounds than us. I realized, though that if I try very hard and ignore some of the formulaic language I can still get enthusiastic about some readings. This week's texts plus the discussions we had in class last week really emphasized the importance of having a philosophy of teaching. It is so important to start teaching having a target in mind, especially for history. As a history teacher it is impossible to go over everything, but if my goal is to guide students to become critical thinkers and advocates for their own destinies than I know what histories I will chose. Not only do we have to help our students make meaning and create knowledge but we also have to think about becoming ourselves and helping our students become social activists. It's not enough to build knowledge we have to use it in a productive and transformative way.
ReplyDeleteHi Felipe,
ReplyDeleteThank you for questioning the implicit assumptions that standards are there to help. And while I agree that, as a whole, Common Core is moving in a much better direction, I am still concerned about the evidenced-based imperatives that inform, control, and dictate our teaching acts, and are used as the (very often) sole framework to determine the “effectiveness” of those acts. I’ve just finished The New Political Economy of Urban Education: Neoliberalism, Race, and the Right to the City by Pauline Lipman, a professor here. (I’ve never taken her, darn!) She cogently analyzes the ways in which the neoliberal ideology of market competition, coupled with white supremacy, has infused our discourse about what makes good teaching and has dictated the children and communities (low-income, African-American/Latina/o) on which private-public partnerships intervene with supposedly “more effective” and “efficient” business-based teaching strategies, that is charter schools (though not all charter schools!). With hiring and firing based on test scores, these schools are the sites for neoliberal (business-based) approaches to education and numerical articulations of “progress” are the swords they use. And while not as extreme, CPS too is a hotbed for discourses of accountability determined by scores and has historically marginalized low-income people of color. Thus, as Lipman reminds us, we need to not merely defend neighborhood schools as goods in themselves, but we need to critique what isn’t working and make them sites that can fight the inequality and corporate takeover in our city.
Hear, hear Elizabeth! That book looks like a great read, so thanks for putting that out there. Also worth reading (to those of you that haven't heard of it or read it) is The Death and Life Of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch--I'm only about 50 pages in, I'll admit, but I'm already considering it an indispensable text as a future educator. Many of the topics you bring up here, such as neoliberalism, the accountability movement, NLCB, standards, and privatized education are covered.
DeleteHola Felipe..
ReplyDeleteYes, the inch deep mile wide phenomenon is something that is being actively debated (it seems to me) within the educational community and the pendulum has definitely swung the other way when it comes to the most recent pedagogies. Everything I have been taught at UIC has focused on the necessity of the thematic/big idea picture and being forced to make choices on what you want to cover or can cover (and why). However. this gets more diffcult at the honors, and particularly at the AP levels of a particular discipline where the AP test demands far broader coverage and forces what could almost be deemed "rote memorization" (although as they introduce Common Core into those tests, this may shift somewhat). However. I have already heard my mentor teacher talk about this to the students in his AP US Govt. class. The other interesting thing re textbooks is that you will find that many CPS schools don't have the funds/resources to acquire textbooks for all of their students and they are not that often used, which complicates things even further. However, in the overall theme, I do think the Building Backwards method is very useful once you come up with a coherent theme/plan to your lesson plan or your curriculum.
I also think Oana made some great points in her response above
And..Elizabeth... I'm glad I won't be crossing paths with Prof. Lipman. She strikes me as quite the delusional academic. If she can't agree with the "neoliberal ideology of market competition", there aren't many places in the world left for her. After all, aren't we supposed to prepare our students for the world that is.. rather than for the world we.. or Prof Lipman would wish it to be? I wonder where we can find Prof Lipman's preferred environment? Currently I can only really think of North Korea.. as China and Vietnam have changed.. Cuba is changing and well if she's friends with some govt. official in Venezuela. Otherwise.. she needs to start a commune somewhere on the moon.
btw Elizabeth. I am doing my observation at a charter school that is 100% low income and 100% African -American. At first impression, I could not disagree more with Prof. Lipman.
ReplyDeleteFelipe-
ReplyDeleteI agree that we are told about standards from the very beginning of our program here. But then, I think they get lost in translation. We're always told to remember them, but not really to incorporate them. We're asked to research them, but not held as accountable for them as we are, let's say, the mechanics of making a lesson plan, or how to create measurable objectives for our students. Though, chances are, if we're applying what we've been taught to our units and lessons, then we're answering standards regardless (at least I hope).
The issue raised in chapter 3 about vague standards raises a struggle within our classrooms- even more to teachers who need to abide by these guidelines. We're asked to teach so much, but thoroughly study so little. I think that's why when we say "Great Gatsby" what often comes to mind is, "American dream." We've only been taught texts a minimal number of ways and then need to move onto the next. Although I don't agree with the "mile wide, inch deep" phenomenon, I think it's accurate. I think it's accurate because as teachers, we want to teach more of one thing or the bigger picture; that would be ideal. But in reality, we only have a certain time to work with the students who are sitting in front of us. Standards are forcing us to be broad, but I'm like you. I prefer the depth.