{"id":4956,"date":"2015-07-10T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/?p=4956"},"modified":"2015-07-03T11:05:27","modified_gmt":"2015-07-03T17:05:27","slug":"helping-students-advance-at-their-own-pace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2015\/07\/10\/helping-students-advance-at-their-own-pace\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping Students Advance At Their Own Pace"},"content":{"rendered":"Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> 5<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"\"<\/a>This came across my feed the other day. It’s a great example of why it is so important to have people who understand BOTH teaching AND technology.<\/p>\n

Finding the Most Creative Ways to Help Students Advance At Their Own Pace | MindShift | KQED News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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In 2005, New Hampshire\u2019s Department of Education set a policy requiring schools to implement a competency-based system<\/a>, but didn\u2019t define the specific skills each school would be expected to master.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a great argument for state (or in my case province) wide curricula. The Canadian system has flaws, of course, but it’s better than a free-for-all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t any training nor was there funding for it,\u201d said Ryan Kaplan, Principal of Windham High School<\/a>\u00a0in New Hampshire.\u201d Every school had to figure it out on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

PRIORITIZING INNOVATIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n

The question of student pace \u2014 the main feature of a competency-based system \u2014 has not been the most important to Windham teachers and administrators. Instead, the school staff has worked hard to integrate technology effectively into its curriculum.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s a problem: integrating tech and developing a competency-based system need to be done TOGETHER. It’s not iPads\/computers first, THEN figuring out how to switch from drill and kill to a competency-based system. Technology is a TOOL, not an “innovation”. It’s what you use TO INNOVATE, not the innovation itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you do it with 30 students in a classroom. What does it look like and how does it work?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

OOOOH! I know! I’ve been doing it in classes that range in size from 6 to over 250, and using technology is absolutely an important part of that. However, the KEY is that I understand the technology – I know what it’s capable of because I know how it works<\/strong><\/em> \"Blind_men_and_elephant\"This is REALLY important. <\/strong>Without that, all you see is the outside. It’s like the blind men and the elephant. In order to really be able to SEE, you need to understand the beast. Most teachers, through no fault of their own, don’t. Unfortunately, most faculty in Education, ALSO DON’T, and this is a serious problem. Sure, they may be whizzes with their Apple devices, and they may be really competent USERs of technology, but the vast majority of them don’t actually understand how any of it really works. Therefor, they can’t possibly teach their students (who will become teachers).<\/p>\n

Bernasconi is skeptical of allowing each student to move at his own pace through content, worrying that a system like that will lose its rigor. She teaches some units in a mastery-based style, but only chooses topics that lend themselves to a clear leveling-up of knowledge, like genetics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See, here again, it takes someone who understands BOTH education AND technology. I’ve been doing this in my classes, and I’ve talked about it here<\/a>, and here <\/a>(search the tag gamification <\/a>on my blog for more).<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can I be effective and an excellent teacher when I\u2019m trying to teach everything at once?\u201d Bernasconi said. She teaches from a student-driven inquiry standpoint and can\u2019t imagine helping students moving at 12 different paces. As it is, she helps students interpret the driving question in an assignment, facilitates lab experiences, manages lab material and acts as a resource to students throughout the day. She doesn\u2019t see all that being possible if students are all in different phases of the process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Part of the problem is that this whole “student-driven inquiry” thing needs work. I don’t think we’re doing it right.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that where folks struggle with it is the infrastructure for it,\u201d Bernasconi said. \u201cHow do you do it with 30 students in a classroom. What does it look like and how does it work?\u201d In her genetics unit when she gives up some control over pacing, technology has been very helpful. She has a YouTube channel with video podcast lessons that students can check when they need help. But she\u2019s skeptical of relinquishing her class to technology entirely.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See? It’s NOT about relinquishing control to technology, it’s about gaining control of technology so it allows you to do the things you want to do. In order to make that work, you need to understand the technology<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get nervous about taking the human element completely out of it,\u201d Bernasconi said. \u201cA discussion in my class is really powerful. It\u2019s interactive; the students are asking questions; they\u2019re challenging each other\u2019s thinking.\u201d If students were moving at completely different paces it would be harder to leverage that community element of learning, she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The thing is, they’re NOT going to be moving at completely different paces. That’s part of the problem with the way educational “innovations” are implemented: people seem to think it’s always all or nothing. New Math? Great! Let’s change everything to that? Whole word reading? Let’s throw out grammar and phonics! The thing is, nothing works for all learners, in all situations, and all the time<\/strong> <\/em>(Mann, 2001, p. 241).<\/p>\n

\u201cTo give over control of your classroom to your students, to trust them to learn and use the tools and the environment you\u2019ve created \u2014 it\u2019s terrifying,\u201d Bernasconi said. \u201cAnd the first time I did it I had no idea what I would get back. I was blown away by what students produced.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

News flash: You never actually had control of your classroom. It’s a myth. Don’t mistake disengagement for compliance.<\/p>\n

COMMUNITY PUSHBACK<\/strong><\/p>\n

The innovative teaching practices that Bernasconi and her colleagues exhibit, coupled with good test scores (top five in the state) and high achieving students haven\u2019t inspired Windham\u2019s teachers or parents to care much about moving towards the time-flexible education system that competency-based models offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are fighting against learned behaviors,\u201d Kaplan said. \u201cWe have learned a traditional system that we\u2019ve been using for 100 years.\u201d Parents and taxpayers don\u2019t see why that system should change. In fact, they see competency-based education as an intervention for low-performing districts, not for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have teachers doing incredibly innovative things, but using a more traditional way of assessing it,\u201d Kaplan said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a system where you have to pass every competency in the course.\u201d Students can still average out to a passing grade and advance to the next level, even with holes in their knowledge. It\u2019s that exact scenario that competency-based learning is meant to prevent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a true competency system you would need to pass everything and there would be no social promotion,\u201d Kaplan said. \u201cIt\u2019s where I feel we need to go. It\u2019s happening, but slowly.\u201d Without the support of teachers, parents and district leadership, and operating as a first-year principal, there\u2019s not a lot Kaplan can do to push the agenda forward more quickly.<\/p>\n

EXPERIMENTING AND RETREATING FROM COMPETENCIES<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kaplan feels better about the lack of progress Windham has made towards a more authentic competency-based system when he thinks about Campbell High School<\/a>. The school opened 14 years ago with the intention of being entirely competency-based, long before there were state laws requiring schools to take that route.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a true competency based system \u2014 and we opened with it \u2014 you did not have a letter grade,\u201d said Dennis Perreault, a veteran social studies teacher at Campbell. \u201cYou were either advanced, proficient or NC (not demonstrating competent).\u201d In less than a year local education officials told Campbell to get rid of that system and adopt a traditional A-F grading system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was kept is if you don\u2019t pass a competency, you don\u2019t pass the course,\u201d Perreault said. Similar to Windham, each department has its own set of competencies. For social studies they are fairly broad: Comprehension, analysis, evaluation, research and writing for the social sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re doing a lot of what we set out to do, but we\u2019re just not doing it in the manner that we thought we would be doing it,\u201d Perreault said. For example, the school has a policy that all students can retake any assessment that is part of their grade in recognition that each student learns differently. Perreault is comfortable with the middle path the community decided on because at its essence he thinks it allows for personalization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes. THIS. See? It CAN mesh with a traditional system.<\/p>\n

Bethany Bernasconi agrees. \u201cThere\u2019s great danger in a good initiative that\u2019s not done well,\u201d she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

EXACTLY.<\/p>\n

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It’s an interesting read – worth reading the whole article.<\/p>\n

Mann, D. (2001). Documenting the Effects of Instructional Technology, A Fly-Over of Policy Questions. In W. F. Heineke & L. Blasi (Eds.), Research methods for educational technology ; v. 1: Methods of evaluating educational technology (Vol. 1, pp. 239-249). Greenwich, Conn.: Information Age Pub.<\/p>\n