Grading Practices

This week I have been involved in three extensive conversations about grading practices, and I also happened to look at one of my student's grades this week. In the following categories, she is currently earning the following scores:
Participation (in class and on the blog) - 89%
Objective and Written Exams - 99% (extraordinary!!!)
Content of Formal Essays - 69%
Mechanics of Formal Essays - 59%
This is very useful information because her overall grade in the class is a B ---- 83%. This student could look at her overall grade and say, "I am doing pretty well in this honors class." Or she could look at the categories and say, "I am doing a great job of thinking, participating, and studying for exams for this class, but I REALLY need to work on my writing skills."

That second statement is much more useful, in my mind, than the first. And because so many honors students (and their parents) are concerned with their overall grades, this is a student who will stick with honors, but also get the message loud and clear about her need to work on her writing.

The Impact of Film

My freshmen and I just finished watching Iron Jawed Angels (the edited educational version - just to be clear) in U.S. History. It is an HBO film about the woman suffrage movement and really does a great job telling the story of that movement. The discussion sparked by the film was excellent today, and I think that the students really understood the sacrifices that many of the suffragists made.

I was thinking tonight about the power of film to help us understand history. There are two other films that I show in their entirety during the school year: Ghosts of Mississippi during the Civil Rights unit, and Conspiracy in junior year Western Civilization during the WWII unit. (I get signed permission slips for both of these films.) I like to use them because something finally "clicks" for many of the students when they see these movies. It seems relatively easy for them to distance themselves from the "actuality" of history when they read about it or discuss it, but seeing the events happen in the films seems to make it real for them.

I am interested to hear about films that other teachers use to convey a sense of reality to students.

Intellectual Breathing Room

Today in our Professional Learning Community meeting, four of us spent two hours discussing the most vital concepts for students to learn in Western Civilization I. What came out of this discussion was a two-page document summarizing the important concepts and their philosophical underpinnings. It was, without a doubt, the most useful two hours of intellectual professional development time I have spent in my six-plus years as a teacher, and I look forward to our next PLC day to continue the work. I have to commend Littleton Public Schools: we have been asking for the time to do work like this for many years, and they came up with a way to provide that time. It is so nice to work in a district in which our requests are honored, and balanced to ensure that student success is what matters most.

Teacher Views - Commentary

In a recent post on my U.S. History blog, I asked students to react to a recent decision by the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which stated that "teachers in public schools have no constitutional right to express personal opinions in the classroom. A teacher's speech is 'the commodity she sells to an employer in exchange for her salary.'" The U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal of this decision, and thus upheld it.

I must admit to being torn about this issue. I certainly agree with the spirit of the decision, which as I read it states that teachers are not to attempt to politically indoctrinate students. In other words, I recognize the potential influence that teachers have over impressionable young people. My own policy is to never tell students what I personally think about political issues, asking them to argue in favor of one side or the other, and then being the devil's advocate if no one else in the class is willing to offer an opposing view. As a result, I sometimes find myself arguing what I personally find to be politically repugnant views. (As I tell my students, that is a very useful intellectual exercise, even though it is extremely difficult at times.)

On the other hand, I find it disturbing that the highest courts in our land have stated that the First Amendment (or at least part of it, anyway) does not apply to teachers when they are in their classrooms. Slippery slope, anyone? My point is this: the courts should never have made such a sweeping rule. Admittedly there are a small handful of teachers out there who do attempt to indoctrinate students. However, schools have processes to deal with those individual teachers via administrative intervention. Furthermore, if a group of students asks a teacher about his or her views, it could surely be seen as a "teachable moment" - "I think _________, and my reasoning process is for coming to that conclusion is ___________. Other people think ________, and their reasoning process is ____________." I would prefer the rule to be more in line with the standard operating procedure as it has always existed: teachers are expected to present each side of a debated issue and let students decide for themselves what they individually think. If teachers do that, is it really wrong for them to tell students which side of the issue they personally come down upon, especially when asked directly for their opinions by students? My philosophical answer is no. Of course, this isn't the first time that I have had a problem with a decision by members our esteemed judical branch, and it certainly won't be the last! :)

Reasoning Abilities

This year one of our goals in Western Civ has been to help our students see the relevance of what they're learning. During every unit we focus on the legacies of the people we are studying, and the ways in which modern life is similar to and different from the lives of the people we are studying. Additionally, we've been talking to the students about the reasoning abilities that Western Civ helps them develop. After all, it really is pointless to memorize and regurgitate a bunch of facts. What matters most is that, if given two or three pieces of information, they can put that information together in reasoned way that helps them figure out an answer. So far they seem to be responding positively to the message. Hopefully they are also starting to see results in terms of their abilities to reason.

Technological Leaps

My freshmen are currently studying the entry of the U.S. onto the world stage - better known as "1890-1920 - The Age of American Imperialism," and two technological applications that I learned through 21C have definitely come in handy. When we were talking about the Panama Canal, I brought Google Earth up on the screen and we were able to see the canal from above. It was finally easy to show the students that the canal actually cuts from north-west to south-east across Panama, and they enjoyed seeing the photos that visitors to the canal had uploaded onto Google Earth. Secondly, I happened across an interesting quote about American imperialism during the early 20th century and posted a possibly controversial blog topic about the quote on our class blog. I will be interested to see where the students go with it. Neither of these technologies has radically changed my teaching, but instead have added new dimensions to student learning that really weren't as possible before.

PLC talk

Last night I spoke with a parent during Back to School Night and she asked how our first official PLC day went. I was happy to report how well I think yesterday worked, and how much we accomplished. I also told her how nice it has been to work with two other teachers (who aren't even officially on the same PLC team) in the PLC format. We have been planning Western Civ together once per week, reviewing the past week and looking forward to the next. We have also been writing our homework checks together and I have to say that it is so much more enjoyable to plan with other teachers because combined planning fosters creativity. Today we will discuss how the students did on the first homework check and what we might change.

On another note, I posted the big questions for Western Civ Unit 1 on the side board of my room so that they are always available. The students and their parents seemed to think that it was useful. I really like this big question focus!

New Opportunities

Summer is about done. I know that because the first Broncos preseason game is tonight. Oh yeah - and I'm back at school. :) Anyway, it's been a relatively uneventful summer, exactly as I planned. I finished a lot of projects around the house and finally got to read the books in my "when I have some free time" stack. I also spent some time reflecting on my past few years of teaching and thinking about where I should go from here. It's a good time to think about that for a couple of reasons. First, I am entering my seventh year as a teacher and finally feel comfortable in my own skin. The other thing is that I am going to be a mentor to a new AHS teacher this year. (Hopefully she sticks around longer than the student-teacher I had for three weeks a few years ago! :)

One direction in which I've been moving is toward the bigger questions. I teach history, and although I've never been a "learn these names and dates" type of teacher, I think that last year was the best I've done in terms of encouraging students to think about the big picture. We're talking about using big questions as our framework for Western Civ this year, and I am excited about the idea.

I've also used a class blog with my honors freshmen with varied results for the past two years. Blogging has never been a requirement in my class, and I plan to continue with that policy. It has been most successful during first semester, partially because it's new during first semester, and (I think) because I have always had two sections of the class during first semester and one section during second semester. The classes are small, so 50+ people voluntarily blogging seems more successful than 20+ people voluntarily blogging. The good news is that this year I will have two sections during each semester. Of course, success also depends upon the personalities of the students as bloggers. The class blog seems to be most successful when students suggest some of the blog topics, and when there aren't any "dominant bloggers" - those students who are always the first to comment - in depth - on every single topic. This is a fine line to walk, because I have no desire to discourage prolific bloggers, but I can also see how they can unintentionally intimidate their classmates.

So, what am I hoping to accomplish this year? I hope to be a sounding board for my mentee, providing guidance when she asks for it but also staying out of her way so that she can discover the teacher she is meant to become. I also hope to continually encourage my students to think about big questions and use tools like Blogger to further their learning. I have other goals too, but I think I'll start with those.