Blueprint for Reform

In reading the “Blueprint for Reform – Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act” by the United States Department of Education and forwarded by President Barack Obama, I am struck by the President's comment “[other] countries are being smarter about how to educate their students”. Based on this, and my interest in teaching science, I chose to dissect the section “A Complete Education”. The section addresses strengthening instruction in literacy and in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, while reforming standards. It addresses support for teachers in implementing and dealing with “more rigorous standards”. It particularly focuses on “high-need” schools and the awarding of state funded, competitive, “Focus Grants” to the ones who have adopted common, state-developed, college- and career-ready standards, or use technology to address student learning challenges in literacy. The reform mentions plans to expand access to college coursework and other accelerated learning opportunities, and improving access to a well-rounded education in general. In the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics section the reform states:

States will award competitive subgrants to high-need districts to support comprehensive STEM instruction in the grades and schools with the greatest local need. Programs must provide effective professional development for teachers and school leaders; high-quality state- or locally-determined curricula, instructional materials, and assessments; and interventions that ensure that all students are served appropriately. Subgrantees may use program funds to integrate evidence-based, effective mathematics or science programs into the teaching of other core academic subjects and for technology-based strategies to improve STEM education.

The reform goes on as such, mentioning higher standards and teacher support, answering all the hows with “throw money at the one's most in need”. What about the ones not “most in need”? The President said that the renovation of the plan would “renovate a flawed law” but “raise the expectations for our students [and] for our schools”. In this document I simply could not see how this motivating talk of higher standards and smarter graduates through higher standards and grants could be implemented in my own neighborhood school without qualifying for the self-identified rigorous grants for those only in the highest need. So I asked the Internet.

The Department of Education's website contains a more thorough explanation of the plan for the Complete Education. Chillingly, it first informs me that “From among U.S. postsecondary institutions, 16 percent of undergraduate degrees are awarded in STEM-related fields. By comparison, ... South Korea awards 41 percent (Phillips, 2007)”. In fact, most of the section is statistical data of the failing of teachers and students, with occasional sprinkles of victories like “The proportion of students achieving at the Basic level or above on the NAEP mathematics exam is increasing”. Then, an obvious and yet profound statement is made: “Teacher content knowledge in mathematics and science is important … Content experience varies among high school science faculty, who may not have a degree in the subject they are assigned to teach”.

This very important statement is addressed in the Supporting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education document. It claims the reforms plan to ensure that more prospective teachers, including STEM teachers, have access to high-quality preparation programs by doubling the funding for these programs. According to STEMfinity and the Department of Education's website this funding largely comes in the form of grant programs like “Investing in Innovation Fund” and competitive programs like “Race to the Top”. The document also asks states to hold teacher

preparation programs accountable for preparing teacher graduates. Quality teachers who are successful in their preparation can be recognized and rewarded with advancement opportunities (the document does not specify what kind, perhaps the proposed “Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Master Teacher Corps”) and additional compensation.

The reform appears to address the inability of current United States graduates to compete in the global job market in the STEM fields, and it's solution is to “raise standards” either metaphorically or through “improved assessment” and offer grants for the most needy schools who are willing to align their standards to the Federal standards and show they are making headway. Since I have never won the lottery I will presume my school will neither be the schools who do not need such grants (who does not need more resources, after all), nor be among the “most needy” schools that will receive them. The quality of my teaching falls to me. I must accept the teacher-preparation education I can get and build on it through periodic self-assessment and continual cultivation of my skills and resources. Money would certainly afford a teacher physical resources for their students in the form of newer textbooks, overhead projectors or computer projectors, and laboratory materials. Barring governmental windfall my greatest resource will be my dedication to instilling the passion and curiousity of science in my students, and my creativity. As a future science teacher I appreciate the possibility of more resources for my neighborhood school but do not believe these standards and methods effectively address the issue for the majority of schools.

Resources.

STEMfinity (2013). STEM Grants. Retrieved from http://www.stemfinity.com/STEM-Education-Grants.

United States Department of Education (2010). Blueprint for Reform – Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Retrieved from www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/blueprint/blueprint.pdf .

United States Department of Education (2010). A Complete Education. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/blueprint/complete-education.pdf.

United States Department of Education (2010). Supporting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/blueprint/faq/supporting-stem.pdf.

United States Government (2013) Reform for the Future. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/reform.

Goal Driven Assessment

Assessment is the broad term for obtaining information about something in order to evaluate it (Nitko 2011). The teacher derives a number of tests and non-tests from the learning targets presented to the students. The student's job is to understand the learning goals and strive to master them and display mastery through the tests and non-tests. Tests are systematic observations of a students' knowledge usually obtained using short-answer recollection or multiple-choice selection of facts, concepts, and procedures. Non-tests can be described as projects, essay papers, oral presentations, etc. The results of the tests are classified and numerically assessed or measured for grading and to represent the degree to which the student mastered the concept. These measurements combined with the teacher's experience of the student's performance is used to judge the evaluate the mastery of knowledge in the curriculum (Nitko 2011). 

Any and all information that a teacher gathers about a student can be considered an assessment used to inform various decisions, though not all of the information will be assessed for the student's educational evaluation. A teacher may assess, through observation of a particular student struggling with a lesson, that the student could reduce their struggle through a different study habit. The teacher may assess, through observation of the the entire class, that foundational material needed for the current lesson was not completely understood. 

Learning objectives should clarify the purpose and intent of the block of instruction for both the student and the instructor. By stating the objectives with behavioural criteria, such as particular verbs to universally mean particular actions, a teacher can succinctly state learning objectives to mean what they were intended to mean (Kizlik 2012). An example of an unclear objective is asking a student to “understand” something, as in “understand global climate change”. The student may not know where to start and probably will not study whatever learning objective the teacher had in mind. By using behavioral criteria and stating “identify causes of global climate change” the student has a concise goal. Having these concise goals helps the teacher communicate the lessons more fully as the students understand their part more easily. Within a lesson plan these specific learning targets written in behavioral language the teacher's curriculum and objectives can be communicated more efficiently to all parties and thereby helps organize teaching. 

A broad, heterogeneous domain tends to represent a developmental learning target that will require various mastery learning target to cover the whole domain. Each of the skills required will develop at different rates throughout the learning process. Reaching one mastery learning target does not represent mastery of all the learning targets within the broad domain, thus the two contraindicate each other. An example of such a broad, heterogeneous domain is “interpret statistical data found in material from a variety of disciplines” (Nitko 2011). The name of the task itself belies its broad and nonspecific nature. A narrow domain would be “construct a scatter plot of the statistical data presented in the paper Physiological Effects of Generational Organochlorine Contamination on Arctic Seabirds by J.A. Kepley”. In this narrower domain the task will show mastery of one of the skills contained within “interpret statistical data found in material” while concentrating the task on a single objective. However this domain is too narrow as the head and beak length of the Arctic penguin is not the real target of learning. A better learning target would be “construct a scatter plat from statistical data”. To determine if a learning goal is too broad, attempt to find several mastery objectives within it; if multiple objectives can be identified the learning goal is not suitable as a “mastery learning target”.

References

Angeli, E., Wagner, J., Lawrick, E., Moore, K., Anderson, M., Soderlund, L., & Brizee, A. (2010, May 5). General format. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

Kizlik, Bob (2012). A rationale for learning objectives that meet demanding behavioral criteria. Retrieved from http://www.adprima.com/objectives2.htm

Nitko, Anthony J. (2011). Educational Assessment of Students. Boston, MA: Pearson.

(Image Credit) Developers are not good testers. What you say? Software Testing Help (2012). Retrieved from http://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/developers-are-not-good-testers/

Bloom's Taxonomy

The original Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain (Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl,1956) contained six hierarchical levels of learning comprised of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis. Each level was defined by what the student could achieve once mastering the level and the website gives sample verbs that would appear in learning objectives pertaining to that level and a sample behavior.

In 2001 the taxonomy was revised to “fit the more outcome-focused modern education objectives “ (Huitt 2011). Some of the hierarchies were reordered, renamed, and titled “Cognitive process dimension” but the real revision was in adding the “Knowledge dimension”. In this second dimension each of the original “Knowledge” dimensions now had an inner hierarchy. The Cognitive dimension includes Factual Knowledge, Conceptual, Procedural, and Meta-Cognitive Knowledge. The intersection of these two dimensions shows how a student can “know” the cognitive process after learning the material. For example, using the Bloom's taxonomy, to “apply” “conceptual knowledge” of Bloom's Taxonomy a student should be able to “write objectives using taxonomy” (Huitt 2011).

Personally, as an aspiring teacher, this new taxonomy does not change my opinion about what assessment, evaluation and test are based on my reading of Chapter 1 in Nitko's fifth edition of Educational Assessment of Students. What this revised taxonomy will do is increase the effectiveness of evaluation,testing, and overall assessment by allowing me to refine my learning targets using the two-dimensional taxonomy as a sort of map. I will be able to ensure that throughout the course of instruction in a concept or unit I cover learning objectives from nearly all of the two-dimensional intersections presented in the revised taxonomy, thereby giving my students better scaffolding for their study.

References:

Huitt, W. (2011). Bloom et al.'s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Educational Psychology Interactive.Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/bloom.html

(Image Credit) Heer, Rex (2011) A Model of Learning Objectives–based on A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, Iowa State University. Retrieved from http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html

Learning Targets

Learning targets are statements about the information or skills students need to learn. There is a hierarchy of learning targets: State Standards are learning targets written by the local government mandating what students should know or master by a certain grade. These can be broken down into “content standards” written within a discipline to mandate what the student should know after instruction, or as “performance standards” which state what the student should be able to do after the content is learned. With these two types of standards the teacher shapes the curriculum. The teacher takes the content and performance standards and breaks them down into specific learning targets which define, in concise language, what the student will do or learn and be assessed on. These specific learning targets may be either “mastery learning targets” that can be assessed by knowledge recall such as a multiple choice test, or “developmental learning targets” which require several modes of assessment to accommodate the lifelong nature of the learning goal.

There are four major ways that learning targets contribute to improved classroom assessment. The instructor is able to align assessments with mastery learning targets and ensure that the assessment is really evaluating what the student is supposed to be learning from that unit. Secondly, learning targets allows the instructor to evaluate a student's progress in developmental domains by giving them concrete skills and processes that can be assessed in part and contribute to an overall assessment of the degree to which a student is mastering the developmental learning target at that level. Third, learning targets allow instructors to align assessments with state standards. This is especially true when the learning targets are derived directly from the state standards (which are really just learning targets) (Nitko 2011)! Fourthly, since learning targets specify what student should achieve by the end of instruction (Nitko 2011) the student, and their parents, will have scaffolding around what to be assessed on and thus study accordingly.

Nitko, Anthony J. (2011). Educational Assessment of Students. Boston, MA: Pearson.

(Image credit) Townsend, Matt (2012) Target's City Ambitions. Retrieved from

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-31/targets-city-ambitions