LLED 360

I personally think our focus should be less on the case against grades but the case for grades with meaning. I think everyone has had the experience where they had a paper or an assignment or test returned to them and it had a big fat “B” or “C” on the front. And you thought to yourself “Well what the heck, this paper was totally ‘A’ material.” You flip through the pages and see various grammatical corrections and the odd sentence rearrangement here or there and a couple notes saying “I love your point here, but it seems vague to me”. More or less it’s a bunch of nonsense and leaves you wondering why you got the grade you got. Meanwhile the person next to you who wrote on the same topic writes a masterpiece and gets a gold star and set of balloon stickers floating around their “A” they received making you feel like a nobody. Here’s the thing, I believe certain students deserve better grades then others, I mean if one kid does all their homework and assignments as asked and the other does nothing, yeah I’m going to mark them accordingly. I think the discrepancy lies in two important factors: student progress/effort and expectations. When we are going to assess a student we better darn well tell them what we expect, If i’m looking for a lab report I’m going to say I want the following criteria, with the following expectations and a model example for them to work from. It’s about setting a bar and a standard for them to work towards and exceed! If you don’t tell them what you won’t or how you want it, very few will hit the mark that you have set in your head and forget to let everyone know about. The other factor is progress/effort, honestly there are a lot of kids who work their butts off to get a C in a certain course after starting the year around a D or F, I think that should be celebrated and put on a silver platter indicating their achievement. Because lets face it not everyone is good at everything, but effort to excelling in something you are down right terrible at deserves recognition. How I will incorporate that into my assessment in whether it is formative or summative I have yet to discover, but I will try my best to find a place where it fits.

This was our week to present and I must say I had some fun with this topic. Assessment has unfortunately become the dark side of education for many teachers and students, an unpleasant task that must be done and be over with as soon as possible. I remember growing up listening to my teacher saying, “I know these tests suck guys, but they will help you in the future.” Upon which I thought to myself, well geez sign me up coach sounds fantastic. We played on this evil idea of assessment at the beginning of our presentation and had students write a ridiculous quiz that assessed how well they read the assignment. We berated students for talking or not understanding really playing up the act. The point was to poke fun or bring up past experiences that many of us have gone through in the realm of assessment. What is sad, is that we can relate to these experiences, we’ve all had a teacher who assessed us in a way that was so unfair and left us frustrated and unable to display what we knew. This was our overarching message that I hope struck home to many in the audience. Don’t put your students through what you went through. Create assessments that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and express their thoughts, think of ways to challenge them in your questions that causes them to think, not just spit out the answer as it was written in the notes. Additionally I think we need to think long and hard about what it means to give good quality formative assessment, that tells students where they are at and where they need to improve. I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Funny thing about writing is it appears to come quite easily to us in our corresponding domains of education. I personally feel quite comfortable blabbering away about science, using the terms and vocabulary with ease. If we take the time to reflect on our journey to writing this away it’s likely not something that happened over night and took years of work to get us where we are now. Recognizing this concept I believe is key when teaching in our respected fields. Each year students enter into their subjects learning new words that they are asked and expected to use in the answers, discussions and responses. This is a skill that takes both time and patience. We as educators should be mindful of this and help them along the way in any way we can. I’m personally interested in implementing a writing assignment that asks the students to write on a certain topic in a creative way, using a list of vocabulary throughout their assignment. I think it will be a great opportunity for students to try out some words in a less stressful environment and it will be a good way for me as a teacher to see where there level of understanding is, in regards to the vocabulary pertaining to the topic.

Wednesdays class really struck a chord with me with the importance of using Multi-modality in the classroom. This is not done only to help ELL students but also to help engage all students!

Chelsey brought in a teacher from California to lecture us on different strategies on how to help teach ELL students. She works in classes that are comprised of at least 50% ELL students. We went through an exercise with vocabulary that made us write the word, give the definition of it, try, draw it and then use it as an example in a sentence. She also gave us sentence structure worksheets and shared stories with us from her classroom experiences so far. What I was most impressed with was that the majority of her strategies that she has used so far have been self taught.

Over the past couple months we have been been completing our readings, most of us hopefully, and giving presentations on what we have read. I know, for myself personally, that although I do obtain knowledge when I read, I tend to learn better when it is being explained our exampled and then letting me try and exercise to fully understand the concept. The book that has been assigned, although very knowledgeable, I find has been dry and after reading for a certain period of time I lose focus and interest. This occurred to me during this class. While the exercises Chelsey’s guest brought were simple they were effective. They kept me engaged and interested and also challenged me to think about past knowledge we have learned in the class. It also made me think about how I want to teach. I am a thirty year old man who possibly after an hour of reading needs to take a good break because I know that by that time I will have lost my focus. Now I have to put myself in a teenagers shoes who has been bouncing around from subject to subject, sitting for hours in seats and getting at best five minutes break between some classes. Even if I believe that the subject matter that I am teaching to the kids is interesting they may have already walked into my class completely disengaged. It is up to me, as with every teacher, to implement as many learning strategies as I can in each lesson to help students focus on what is being presented and help them absorb the knowledge and have fun while doing it.

In the end, if I am an adult who needs to break after an hour or so of learning and then expect a teenager to be doing the same thing without changing up my tactics, what business do I have teaching these kids in the first place?

After reading the article The Case Against Grades by Kohn I began to wonder, are we being too easy with youth today. Kohn suggests in the article that instead of grades we should implement “narrative assessments”. I understand that as an institution, education is trying to stay in touch with the youth it teaches and help provide an atmosphere that encourages students to come to school everyday and be motivated, excited and relaxed when it comes to learning. However, I do not believe that getting rid of grades is the answer. I believe that if students were to receive “narrative assessments” that probably they would be noticeably more relaxed in a classroom environment but at the same time I believe many students wouldn’t be as driven. If a student knows that they aren’t being graded perhaps they wouldn’t put the same effort into their work that they would if they were being graded. For example, this is out of school context but I still feel is relevant, when I worked for The Gap approximately ten years ago each sales person who worked there had a sales goal they had to try and achieve every shift. When an employee would arrive they would see where in the store they were assigned and then beside the section they would be given a fair but challenging sales goal. If an employee did not reach the goal they were not reprimanded or fired but if they were not able to meet goals regularly they might be asked to get advice from other employees to learn how to be better sales representatives. Now I can understand that when a customer shopped there it would be aggravating every so often to be constantly approached by employees offering to help, sometimes even being approached twice by the same employee because they forgot a face! This had happened because they were driven to accomplish a goal, an end product. When Gap got rid of the sales goals I noticed an almost immediate drop in salesmanship. Employees would congregate in the dressing area or stock room and customers would be looking for help. This was because the employees were not driven any longer. The same could happen with students. Without a goal to achieve students, quite possibly, will just give the amount of effort they need to adequately move on and nothing more. Does this mentality honestly benefit them?

Maybe the enemy isn’t necessarily the grade itself but in how we grade. Maybe teachers put too much emphasis grading the final product rather than the process that leads to the final product. I understand for some classes such as math that the final product is just as important as process. Even other science class and classes with tests that have definitive answers. I feel though that some class, such as many art classes, have the opportunity to put more emphasis into the process that the student is doing compared to the final product. If we,as teachers, give a very specific rubric of what we are looking for and let the students know before they begin then maybe we have the chance to really encourage students to experiment and be brave with their work and not worry so much about failing in the end. Emphasis will be focused on students work ethic and not so much on their final product. I believe that if the students know that their work ethic is the primary focus of attention for their grade that their final product will be good regardless and if not then if they tried hard at least they will not fail.

I thought I was lucky to be placed in the assessment presentation. Over the short practicum, the biggest criticism I received was about assessment; “How do you know?”; “How do you know that they know what you want them to know?”; these sorts of comments left me without much of an answer as every time I did try to reply, my SA would reply back with the same question. “I walked around and saw that they were doing the question correctly, with proper steps,” I say. They say, “Well how do you know that they actually understand and are not just following instructions?” It was a little irritating but I completely understood that they had me.

When my group met up to decide on how to do the presentation, the first thing we decided on was to not do a “powerpoint and regurgitate the chapter” sort of lesson with a fun little game that wasn’t too related to the material and was more meant to break up the monotonous presentation. We also wanted to have the class walk away from our presentation with something useful, something that was worth coming to class on that day.

Thinking a little outside the box, we decided on assessing the class’ assessment! Some sort of assessmentception. But the main course was to provide a structure to assessment with our worksheet, and to give time for each cohort to really think about how they’re going to assess their classes.

I found this week’s reading on the “Case Against Grades” very interesting but I don’t really agree with all the points that were made.  I found it ironic that the article suggests “replacing letter and number grades with narrative assessments or conferences.”  Isn’t this just another form of grading students without giving them a specific letter grade?  Although a letter grade wouldn’t be used, wouldn’t the narrative assessments still define a student as either strong or weak?  If entrance to university was based on narrative assessments, students will “better” assessments would still be granted entrance over students with “weaker” assessments.  I understand what the article is trying to say but I personally don’t see anything wrong with giving students grades based on a set of criteria (ie. a rubric), as long as these criteria are clearly stated and fair.  And if grades are based on fair criteria that shows proof of students’ learning, isn’t this a positive way of assessing students?  I do not agree with arbitrarily assigning students a letter or number grade for assignments, but if such a grade corresponds to a set of criteria then I don’t see a problem.  We can also incorporate written and narrative assessments to go along with the letter grade we have assigned a student as a way of justifying it.  Also, the way our education system is structured requires us to give letter grades to students, so as it stands right now we don’t have the option to assess students in a different way.  This is why I think it is important to make sure that the grades we are giving students are as accurate an assessment of their learning as possible.  If we didn’t actually HAVE to give letter grades, then it would be a whole other story.

(My Initial Reactions to “Hong Kong, Canada”)

After reading Tara Goldstein’s “Hong Kong, Canada” (twice), I have to say, I’m very intrigued by the opportunity to explore this piece as a drama based activity that deals with the complex issues ELL students face in their school communities. However, I have some concerns! While it’s clear that Goldstein has taken great care to give voice to her characters based on those that she observed as being silenced or even oppressed during her ethnographic fieldwork, I find the development of those characters that appear on the “wrong side” of this controversial issue, troubling. In this case, I am referring to the characters Joshua and Sarah.

The first time the audience meets Sarah, we watch in disapproval as she literally kisses another girl’s boyfriend in front of the poor girl – granted, on the cheek, but her intent (and disregard for Wendy’s feelings) is clear. Meanwhile, in the very next scene, we watch as Josh blatantly ignores Sam’s request to turn off the radio program even though Sam admits that it makes him uncomfortable. As the play develops we see Josh manipulate Sarah by flirting with her in order to get her to write an article for his paper, constantly interrupt others or refuse to see their point of view; we see him walk out on his girlfriend after she confronts him about refusing to introduce her to his family, and combine forces with Sarah to create a petition for an English-only policy at their school. I recognize that these are the characters that I am not meant to agree with as an audience member – but should I also dislike them outside of their controversial political/personal opinions? Why are there no scenes that offer a “softer side” to either of these characters?

In her notes following the play, Goldstein writes that Joshua should be played as “as confused and uncertain rather than confident and cocky.” She also writes that Sarah should be seen as “vulnerable so that she would not be represented as a self-interested, ‘bitchy’ Jew.” Informing the audience how she envisions these characters should be played is problematic for me, because I’m not convinced that these versions of the characters are clearly represented in the text. Of course, having an actor breathe life into any role changes the way an audience will understand the character on the stage vs. the way they appear on the page. However, it is the job of the playwright to make the intentions of the characters and their actions clear whether the reader has had the opportunity to see a live action version or not. It is not enough to ask the actor to play the characters as “vulnerable” or “confused” in a footnote. We need to see these scenes as a functional part of the story.

We do see a hint of Joshua’s “confusion” in Scene 7, but the lights fade before we get an opportunity gage Josh’s reaction to his Nana’s speech. Also, this occurs almost halfway through the play, so most of the audience has already made up their minds about him AND he almost immediately reverts to being closed-minded, (and in my opinion unlikeable)! Both Josh and Sarah are characters that function as antagonists in this story. They are presented as angry, ignorant, and unable to see viewpoints outside of their own. I realize that this version of the script is missing the ending – and I’d like to think that these two characters are given even a moment of redemption, but I somehow doubt it.

So I guess the point of this rant is – when writing/staging a political piece of theatre, should we represent those characters who the audience is meant to disagree with as horrible humans – or do these characters also deserve a range of emotional colours in order to create a more balanced representation of their point of view? Isn’t it our responsibility as teachers to offer our students fully realized versions of both sides of any issue, no matter how controversial it is? And if so, how would we apply this to a piece of writing such as “Hong Kong, Canada” where the text itself is meant to challenge one bias – but inadvertently creates a new one?

Recognizing and meeting the needs of ELL students can be difficult in a Drama Classroom – or so I discovered during my short practicum at Killarney Secondary, because there are fewer explicit indicators that these students might be struggling. I understand that is my responsibility as a teacher to get to know my students in order to make my classroom a space that is accessible to everyone, and after revisiting my school last Tuesday, I now realize that I still have a long way to go.

I witnessed an event that I’m having difficulty unpacking that involved a Grade 9 ELL student. On the day of my visit, the Grade 9’s were performing short scenes using 3 or 4 lines of dialogue while portraying different stock characters. However, after the student in question performed, my SA made a particular point of applauding his work, and exclaimed that “I’m so proud because, as the class may or may not know, English is not your first language – and you did very well. The character and the dialogue were very clear. Well done.” This comment was extremely sincere, in fact, it was apparent to me that my SA was quite emotional during this moment.

At first, I too was swept up by my SA’s enthusiasm in the heat of this moment. I felt that it was a moment of positive encouragement for this particular student, and offered recognition his accomplishments during the scene. However, when I was at home reflecting on my visit like a good little B’Ed student – I realized that I was feeling conflicted about what had happened. Even though it’s clear to me that my SA singled this student out to compliment him, by doing so he also highlighted that because “English is not [his] first language,” he is different from his classmates. The implicit message of this could be “I have different (ie. lower) expectations of you,” and by pointing this out to the class, it might actually change how this student is regarded by his peers.

So now I’m at an impasse, (and would appreciate input from my classmates). Is it better to single out our ELL students for the purpose of recognizing their progress – or does that only further separate them from the classroom community? What does the alternative look like?
Help!

The opportunity to write for pleasure is often decreased significantly after a certain age and become limited to writing solely for school assignments. At the same time, it can be difficult for secondary students to try out and experiment with new vocabularies in assignments when they count towards their marks. In example, I remember a friend back in secondary school who always had marks taken off of his assignment for using words from the thesaurus in a context that does not make sense. This in turn results with discouragement in his exploration of new words in writing activities that are forms of assessment. I believe that although they should be corrected, students should not be penalized for these attempts, as it is through these trial and errors that they learn the usage of different vocabularies.

The informal writing activities discussed in chapter eight represented activities that are low in stress where students will not be penalized for trying out new words. I also like these activities in that they can be incorporated in different subject areas. For a Home Economics class, there may be little chance for students to practice writing if the class followed a repeated cycle of demonstration – lab – demonstration – lab format. However, activities like “try these terms” can easily be implemented during the end of a lesson. I especially like the “perspective papers” activity as well as I can ask students to write in the perspective of various types of nutrients and allow them to practice narrative writing as well. Food culture and history of different cuisines can also be incorporated with this activity by having students write in the perspective of the historical person, or specific dish in relation to cultural significance.