When I was surfing the web the other day and saw an article regarding the length of the school day. Some schools in the Northeast were experimenting with a longer school day. I can see some advantages and disadvantages to that.
Advantages: more time for teachers to cover material that isn't on the test, more time for resources that have been replaced so students can pass standardized tests (art, music, physical education, etc), younger children are home alone for shorter periods of time or do not need a babysitter or after school program
Disadvantages: teachers have to work longer hours, students are in the classroom for even longer periods, more expensive per student (approx $1200 a student a year)
I'm sure I could think of more, but I'm not feeling great and just wanted to post something about this before I forgot about it.
Is lengthening the school day a reasonable solution for some of the problems that our educational system faces? Or would it just increase the problems that we are already faced with and possibly create even more?
Monday, February 26, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Too Many Words? Not Enough? Or Just the Wrong Ones?
Earlier today I was helping my sister with her AP English homework assignment. Her problem wasn't that she didn't know how to do the work, it was that she couldn't figure out what the prompt was asking for. On my way back to school (I live about an hour away, I drive back and forth three times a week for the youth soccer team I coach) I was thinking about how we, as teachers, affects how students think about problems.
Should our focus be on making students have to think critically about what the actual question is or should it be on the actual material of the assignment? To me this seems incredibly obvious but I was talking with some friends and it seems that in high school at least teachers often make students figure out what the question is before they can even think about how they would respond to it. It seems that if different teachers across the school, district, state, and nation use different styles for asking questions that students in their class could be at an advantage or disadvantage in any sort of standardized tests that students have to take.
On the other side of the coin, do students ever learn to think critically about questions they are asked if the questions they are given are simple and direct? I suppose that the subject of the assignment would generally allow for a direct question to be posed so that the student has to do some critical thinking. If that's the case then what would be the positives for using such indirect and often confusing questions?
Is there any sort of middle ground with this, or is it simply a direct or indirect method of questioning?
When I went to look up some examples of this (I don't remember the question my sister was responding to), it seems there is very little if any research on this topic. The majority of the research has to do with word order and leading questions in surveys. There didn't seem to be anything on whether or not there was a difference between asking direct and indirect questions. If anyone knows where I could find something, that would be quite helpful.
Should our focus be on making students have to think critically about what the actual question is or should it be on the actual material of the assignment? To me this seems incredibly obvious but I was talking with some friends and it seems that in high school at least teachers often make students figure out what the question is before they can even think about how they would respond to it. It seems that if different teachers across the school, district, state, and nation use different styles for asking questions that students in their class could be at an advantage or disadvantage in any sort of standardized tests that students have to take.
On the other side of the coin, do students ever learn to think critically about questions they are asked if the questions they are given are simple and direct? I suppose that the subject of the assignment would generally allow for a direct question to be posed so that the student has to do some critical thinking. If that's the case then what would be the positives for using such indirect and often confusing questions?
Is there any sort of middle ground with this, or is it simply a direct or indirect method of questioning?
When I went to look up some examples of this (I don't remember the question my sister was responding to), it seems there is very little if any research on this topic. The majority of the research has to do with word order and leading questions in surveys. There didn't seem to be anything on whether or not there was a difference between asking direct and indirect questions. If anyone knows where I could find something, that would be quite helpful.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Gender in the Classroom
In response to Amy Standen's "Gender Matters" from Edutopia (http://www.edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=Art_1749&issue=feb_07).
In case you don't have the time to read the article for yourself, here's the basic gist of it: Girls and boys are different. Girls and boys learn differently. Girls and boys learn better if they aren't sharing a classroom. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Standen tells us that. There is inconclusive evidence for why certain single-sex classrooms perform better than co-ed classrooms. There is also an issue of the cost of running duplicate classes. The main point of the article is that boys and girls have different learning styles and that there is a possibility that if they were separated then the more efficient learning styles could be used in each classroom.
That's a short summary of the article. Now, my turn.....first off, why!!? Didn't we spend almost all of the last century trying to get rid of segregation and fighting about civil rights? Why the sudden move backward? Gender segregation seems to go against all of the civil liberties arguments that dominated the last century. It seems contrary to what we have learned to believe in to go back and see if we can make it work this time. Generally when something doesn't work the first time and you change it, it still doesn't work when you put it back into its original form. There is also evidence that there is a difference in learning styles of Caucasian and African-Americans (I don't know the exact details, but I know that there have been numerous studies that show that standardized tests favor non-minorities), but we wouldn't even think about segregating classrooms based on race. Why not? Because we tried that once, and it didn't work, and society wouldn't approve of it. But yet, we are entertaining this idea of separating classrooms based on gender.
Instead of trying to solve this problem of learning style differences with last century solutions, we should look forward and try to find a modern-day solution. Rather than separating students based on learning styles (or preconceived conceptions of learning styles, as not all boys learn alike) we should try to find a solution that incorporates a variety of learning styles. By using a variety of teaching methods we can hope to reach a greater range of students without singling out any one group of students because of their learning style or any other difference they may have. Diversity should be a building block in education, not a barrier.
In case you don't have the time to read the article for yourself, here's the basic gist of it: Girls and boys are different. Girls and boys learn differently. Girls and boys learn better if they aren't sharing a classroom. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Standen tells us that. There is inconclusive evidence for why certain single-sex classrooms perform better than co-ed classrooms. There is also an issue of the cost of running duplicate classes. The main point of the article is that boys and girls have different learning styles and that there is a possibility that if they were separated then the more efficient learning styles could be used in each classroom.
That's a short summary of the article. Now, my turn.....first off, why!!? Didn't we spend almost all of the last century trying to get rid of segregation and fighting about civil rights? Why the sudden move backward? Gender segregation seems to go against all of the civil liberties arguments that dominated the last century. It seems contrary to what we have learned to believe in to go back and see if we can make it work this time. Generally when something doesn't work the first time and you change it, it still doesn't work when you put it back into its original form. There is also evidence that there is a difference in learning styles of Caucasian and African-Americans (I don't know the exact details, but I know that there have been numerous studies that show that standardized tests favor non-minorities), but we wouldn't even think about segregating classrooms based on race. Why not? Because we tried that once, and it didn't work, and society wouldn't approve of it. But yet, we are entertaining this idea of separating classrooms based on gender.
Instead of trying to solve this problem of learning style differences with last century solutions, we should look forward and try to find a modern-day solution. Rather than separating students based on learning styles (or preconceived conceptions of learning styles, as not all boys learn alike) we should try to find a solution that incorporates a variety of learning styles. By using a variety of teaching methods we can hope to reach a greater range of students without singling out any one group of students because of their learning style or any other difference they may have. Diversity should be a building block in education, not a barrier.
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