Monday, November 10, 2008
Chapter 13
What is your feeling about the author’s statement, “Whatever is taught in school should in some way possess transfer value, that is learning in school should have applicability…outside of school and after school years?” With the intense focus on testing, is education today enriching the lives of our students?
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39 comments:
Although we have learned thru this class that the SOLs are not a curriculum, it seems that too many teachers do use the SOL's as their sole curriculum guide. I have long had concerns for this issue. As a veteran teacher, I worry that we fail to broaden the scope of our curriculum beyond the SOL's. Unfortunately, I do not believe that we are enriching the lives of our students in ways that would provide this transfer of learning. As educators, if we are not providing a broad spectrum of experiences beyond just preparing for standardized testing, we are failing to provide students with rich experiences that will serve them well past the SOL tests.
When I look back on my pre college education I cannot remember anything that really stood out. I cannot remember anything that really enriched my life. I remember beneficial experiences that I had but not anything that really stood out from an in classroom situation. I feel that the SOL's can make it hard to enrich lives when teachers are working to keep their heads above water in regards to tests and standards they are face dwith daily. I feel that it takes a teacher to make a true effort to enrich the lives of students while aligning that enrichment with the standards.
I know that everytime I have brought up the curriculum question at my school I keep hearing that we do not have a curriculum, the SOL's are our curriculum. This is troubling to me because like Loren, I think back to the experiences I had in high school, pre-SOL's, and remember all of the fun things that teachers did to make learning enjoyable. Although I am not saying that teachers cannot or do not make learning enjoyable still, I do not see the little life lessons that teachers threw in, the field trips, the local history, the indepth covering of certain materials that students found interesting. Why, because you are on a pacing guide that dictates what, where, when, and how, so your students will have the knowledge for the SOL's. I feel that our generation turned out ok and we learned much more than what NCLB says we should and will know.
Clay Moran
I believe the focus in education seems to be on standardized testing and accountability for "learning" according to the Virginia SOL's. As an educator, I take seriously my responsibilty to educate beyond the classroom. The focus needs to be on enhancing learning through field trips, teaching virtues that inspire students, and creating situations for students to become great thinkers and problem solvers.
I believe the SOL's do drive the curriculum. However, I believe each teacher can be as creative as they desire and incorporate real life into many of their lessons. I believe we fall short on occasions with some teachers, but for the most part, I feel teachers are dedicated and devoted to their students and find ways to enrich lessons and provide real life to lesson planning. It is difficult, but we want students to reach higher standards while attaining applicable skills to prepare them for life.
I agree with Terri. Many teachers develop the curriculum used in their classrooms by aligning it with the VA SOL’s. This method of curriculum development is a disservice to their students. The SOL tests are usually testing basic knowledge as well as using the three lowest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. If teachers are only teaching their students so they can pass a standardized test then students are not being provided an enriched education. Teachers need to use the SOL’s as a springboard to learning. A lot of great teachers do teach beyond the SOL’s and incorporate applicable experiences that can be used outside of school and after school years. As future administrators we should encourage our teachers to teach the required material and to make it relevant to students’ lives. We should encourage teachers to invite guest speakers into the classrooms, provide field trips, incorporate technology into lessons, and provide real-life problem solving and critical thinking skills.
I think individual teachers make the difference in applicability of the curriculum. In my math classes, I strive to get the kids a real world connection to the material, they would be lost without it.
As educational leaders, we should all strive to help teachers find those real-world connections in their instruction.
I think that Terri makes a great point. And drives home the point htat SOL's are not a curriculum as we have learned. I feel like it is easy for teachers to teach to the standards and not broaden the horizons of the students. I toally agree wiht Clay also, my school seems to be driven by SOL's and that is driving what these kids learn and it inhibits expereiences that they are going to have. While a good teacher goes beyond the SOLS many teachers do not and lets be realistic how many actually do. So those kids could be missing ut on lifelong learning and experiences that would enrich their lives.
I think that Terri makes a great point. And drives home the point htat SOL's are not a curriculum as we have learned. I feel like it is easy for teachers to teach to the standards and not broaden the horizons of the students. I toally agree wiht Clay also, my school seems to be driven by SOL's and that is driving what these kids learn and it inhibits expereiences that they are going to have. While a good teacher goes beyond the SOLS many teachers do not and lets be realistic how many actually do. So those kids could be missing ut on lifelong learning and experiences that would enrich their lives.
I agree with Christy's comment on working to make "real world connections to materials". We seem to be stuck in a standards based testing phase in education right now. I know the standards will stay, but I am still hopeful that as teachers get better at pretesting and assessment, they will find time to find ways to enrich learning. I ask students at the end of each year what they remember most about "__" grade. They talk about those problem solving activities, real-life simulations, reseach projects that they suggested, and those connections. Their eyes light up as they talk about these experiences. My concern is that if we don't start doing better at enriching learning for all students, we are going to loose more and more students to home schooling and virtual learning.
I feel that as a teacher, it is my responsibility to make the connection to the student’s lives. If we use real life examples to teach students, they will pick the concept up better. The best teacher that I ever had taught in ways that really connected with me by using real life situations that really mattered to me and that is the way that we should attempt to teach our classes. I feel that if I am not making it real to students then they are not going to retain the information.
Although there is a great amount of emphasis on SOLs, education still has the potential of enriching the student's lives. Teachers still have an opportunity to create rich and exciting lessons that can be applicable outside of school. Teachers must be careful about minimizing their teaching efforts solely to match the SOLs and be willing to offer learning experiences that will have students talking about for years to come.
I believe education today is enriching the lives of our students. Yes, we seem to focus on testing and are tested "to death." But, good teachers are creative despite the SOL's. They go out of their way to make real world connections. I'm in and out of schools and I see it everyday. I still believe students lives are enriched.
As an Elementary Teacher I feel that all the information I teach needs to have transferbility. Studies show that to have effective student learning you need to make that connection to their lives. I think the SOL's in VA do not take that into account. I think as a good teacher you need to emphasis the important life skills that they will need for a successful life.
that last posting was Pbetteken
One of the foundations of good instruction - with standardized tests or not - is to provide students with a real-life application of what they are learning. Our students are begging to know "why they have to know this" and as instructional leaders, we have to be prepared to support that question. The SOLs are a minimum framework that provide students with the skills to be successful adults. Teachers are doing a disservice to their students if they are not making connections from the content to their daily lives and futures.
I think that we all too often now teach to a specific test and that does eliminate the real world conncetion that our students need to see. I know that in my classroom students often question the need to know the information and it is a part of my job to show them those connections to the real-world. I think that the administrator must work diligently to make sure that teachers are not losing the concept of the "bigger picture" in their subject matter and help the teacher find ways to make those connections in the classroom if they are being neglected.
Most definetly learning should transfer outside of the classroom. I agree with others that we are driven and on a time schedule to teach these SOL's. I see many teachers focused on teaching what the SOL has required them to teach and then they move onto the next claiming that they do not have time to go beyond that. I have seen this affect problem solving capabilites of students and higher level thinking. It seems as if we are only moving students from the knowledge to application level of Bloom's taxonomy and not going furhter. I have seen children who have memorized multipication facts and have no idea how they got the answer or how to use those facts to problem solve. It seems like we are forcing kids to memorize a set of material long enough to take a test and pass. My most effective teachers were the ones who created real life experiences.
I worry that school - especially high school - has become a waiting room for real life, where the main goal is for the kids to prove that they can learn so that they'll be accepted into a college (and then spend four more years proving that they can learn). I've read that, within five years of graduating college, something like 3 out of 4 graduates are working in a field unrelated to their undergraduate degree. While we obviously teach students many useful skills and concepts that are transferable, I think we could be doing a much better job in this respect.
Ideally, I would like to believe most of what we teach does transfer into the real world. But, lets be honest. It dosn't. Since I was in 8th grade I've been asking myself "why do I need to know this?" Sure, it helps, when I'm at home watching Jeopardy, but with most of the careers in our current society, there are a lot of things that we teach that we teach only because it's on the SOL.
For the second part of the question, is education today enriching the lives of our students? Definitely! I don't think that everything within the SOLs is useless. I think they actually help schools make sure they are teaching a solid curriculum. Through self-reflection, hopefully the people in Richmond will ask themselves if what we are teaching is "transferable" .
Yes, I believe in the author’s statement, items taught in school should relate to skills needed outside of school. Unfortunately not all skills transfer seemlessly to applications outside of school. Some things students learn in school are needed to develop higher thinking skills. These skills will allow them to learn skills later in life that will then transfer will to the real world. I can’t say I’ve used a lot of trigonometry in my life after graduation, but developing those skills has undoubtedly increased my ability for abstract and analytical thinking. Testing does not enrich the lives of student, quality teachers do.
I agree with the author’s comment. I believe that content that is taught should relate to “real life” situations. I also agree with Christy’s comment that I think individual teachers make the difference in applicability of the curriculum. As teachers it is our job to use the SOLs as a framework, but not be the curriculum. As educational leaders, we need to assist our teachers in learning how and applying the action of taking the concepts taught one step further and making them applicable to the students.
I agree with the author's statement, as do most posts. The purpose of education is to enrich the lives of students in order to function at their fullest potential in society. We cannot expect such an outcome without the expectation of providing applicable content.
I can't think of a situation where what we are teaching couldn't be transferable to real life. However,we will need to facilitate the connections that students make between what students are learning and how they will use this information in the future. If we achieve this goal then students will be able to tie in their life experience with the content we are covering. I was taught in a pre-SOL world. However, I can remember many teachers that enriched my understanding of the world. Much of the content that I was taught is what I am teaching now to my students. It is just the basics of what our students should understand but I do not see it as a blockade to my ability to teach my students.
I agree with what the statement says. The learning that is taking place in schools should be applicable to the outside world and the students lives beyond the current school year. However, by the nature of our current system, most students are taught to value the information only has nuggets to be use later on a test. Most students are not given the opportunity to take the information to the synthesis or evaluation level where it will be remembererd longer.
I believe that the current SOLs are a mminimum of what the studnets should learn. I do understand that some teachers make the SOL their curriculum guide, but others do not include everything thatthe SOLs encompass. As a minimum, the SOLs are a good start, but they should not be all that is taught. There are many things that should be taught in the curriculum that are not listed in the SOLs. Other items that should be taught can broaden the scope of the course, add studnet interest, and show the student why the teacher is so interested in teaching the course.
If one of our visions is to create life-long learners, then the potential of transfering skills and strategies taught in school should definitely be highly valued. Not only are we providing students with the tools necessary to enrich their lives, we are also enabling them to be successful in the varied career paths they will choose as they grow and mature outside of the classroom.
I think we all hope that what we are teaching does have transfer value for our our students. I teach language arts and I spend a lot of time helping my students make connections between what is going on in class and how they can and will apply it to life outside the classroom. While I might not be a fanatical proponent of SOLs, I do see their value as a solid curriculum base. However, I know my job goes beyond that because I view my job as teaching to the whole student and bringing enrichment every time the opportunity presents itself.
I agree with the authors statement and with other posts which speak to the necessity of the teacher providing the real life examples and application. However, I do believe that the intense focus placed on standardized learning has cut down on some of the opportunities students could have for meaningful learning. Due to this I believe that it is imperative that teachers be taught how to bring their content alive for the students. Teachers want to engage learners, but sometimes modeling is needed so that they know how to help students create meaningful learning.
SOLs are sometimes seen as "the curriculum" by the teachers because of the accountability they have for teaching to prepare for testing. Students may not be given as many opportunities for transfer of knowledge to real world applications because of the emphasis on doing well on standardized tests. Educators need to be made aware of this issue and we need to provide experiences which will allow our students think beyond our classrooms to real world applications of our teaching.
This is one of the casulties of NCLB...there are so many lessons I learned during school from field trips and non traditional activities that I still remember today that I feel are very important and sometimes lost today. Some teachers and schools focus so much on testing and positive test results that whether or not what they are teaching is applicable, they don't consider the applicability. The challenge for educators is to meet the SOL and other testing requirements while making it meaningful to the students.
I do agree with the author's statement that all that is taught should have transferable value to outside school. Without this the information taught is quickly lost and the children see no reason for learning the information.
I see that in some classes teachers are enriching children's lives beyond the SOL's, while in other's the facts for the test are being taught. Although any learning has the ability to enrich a life. Teachers must be creative in order to grab those students who will not take the learning further on their own.
I have to say that I agree with the author's comments. I also have to say that I can only recall one teacher (K-12) that was able to apply "real life" educational experiences to his classroom. I do think that today’s students are being short-changed by our educational system and it has become a recite-regurgitate educational experience for many students. I saw many statements that related to the teacher going beyond the standards and enriching the experience for the student. I think that is where we are at. I think it is up to the indivudual teacher to accomplish this on his/her own. As a side note this question reminds me of a part in the movie Lions for Lambs. Two college students propose the idea to their college class to do away with students junior year of high school. In replace of their junior year they would serve a year in the peach corps in one of the 500 poorest zip cods in the United States. That would be one incredible life lesson.
I believe that school should possess transfer value and that should be the ultimate goal of education. However, in our age of accountability it is difficult to always capture that zest and zeal for education. Yes, we enrich the learning experience by activating prior knowledge and simulating real-life situation but it does not always work especially in low- income and rural areas where they have limited exposure and experiences.
One area of definite concern to me is student use of technology in high school. I worry that the ways in which we ask students to use technology in the classroom has almost nothing to do with how they will use technology in their adult lives and jobs. I would like to see more teachers make use of things like interactive webpages, email, blogs/wikis, podcasts, etc. in their classrooms - and for them to shift away from using those technologies as merely new ways to disseminate information to students, so that the conversation goes in both directions and students are expected to process AND respond. Right now, I seem to be hearing more stories about high school and college kids getting busted for doing something stupid on MySpace than about those kids making productive innovations with technology.
I agree with the author's statement and strive to apply real-world applications, personal connections, relations to feelings, etc. in my classes on a daily basis.
I think the application of this isn't necessarily lacking more now due to testing, I think it is situational based on the instructor(s). I remember that as a student, I had plenty of teachers who made learning fun, memorable, and applicable but there were others who handed out worksheets, thrived on giving tests, and lacked teaching in a way that had transfer value (and this was before high-stakes testing).
All in all, I think it is very possible for all educators to teach in a way that students connect and use the knowledge outside of school and in the future.
I feel that in the educational system today there is so much emphasis placed on testing that it is extremely hard for teachers to feel they can stop and breathe let alone make sure everything they cover has value outside of school. Most teachers can't even cover the subject matter in real depth any more for fear they will fall behind the pacing guides. The things that stand out from school are usually the special projects a child does or a performance that is put on which makes it meaningful for the child. Those things must stay, as well as those specialties such as art and music, to make school enriching. Otherwise it is too easy to just focus on the core subjects and lose sight of the fact that we're developing the lives of children.
I totally agree with what the author is saying, but I don't feel that we are all doing this in our classrooms. I think that teachers feel rushed to teach their assigned SOLs and do not have time to put in the extras of how students can apply what they are learning to their lives. I believe teachers could do this, including me, if we took the extra time to add this into our teaching and take out some of the mundane worksheets we assign the students.
I had to add to this response because we just finished our literature discussions for books we have read in class. I have noticed in the six years I have taught that students are having a harder time responding to opinion questions. They are afraid to give wrong answers and I think it relates to the emphasis on testing. In testing there is a right and a wrong answer and it is hard for them to create an opionion because they have not been asked to express their ideas often.
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