Hitch your wagon to a boulder
In a comment to my post on the NAAL results, HeatherB brings up an important argument which I've heard time and again. In her words:
The answer lies in expectations. If you're expecting students to learn at the higher levels of critical thinking and you have assessment aligned to that goal, then pedagogy can and will be oriented to teaching those skills. Instead, we're focusing on low-level skills with low-level assessment and what we seem to be finding is that the low-level pedagogy that goes along with that isn't very good at imparting even that level of knowledge. Put another way, as Lauren Resnick notes with regards to reading,
Moreover, we know from individual schools that you can teach a more high-level critical thinking approach and get great results (see for just one example H-B Woodlawn in Arlington, Va.). So, counterintuitive as it may seem, students' inability to succeed on low-level assessments isn't a sign that they are unable to grasp high-level concepts, but merely an indictment of the current assessment-pedagogy system. Certainly you can't critically read if you can't pass a 4-paragraph reading comprehension multiple choice passage, but then it's time to ask, what is wrong with our system that so many kids are ending up unable to perform that simple task?
I submit that one significant factor is that we upper bound our goals at passing that test (since that's what the accountability systems stem from) and so set our expectations relative to that standard. So, instead of getting more complex as we move our students through the grades, the curriculum simply gets more difficult. Again, use the tests as a reflection of learning expectations: Our system doesn't shift from basic "can you read" tests in elementary school to "can you critically read" tests in high school; no, the 12th grade tests are still overwhelmingly reading comprehension multiple choice passages, albiet longer and with bigger words. The argument of "let's teach students the basics first and then move onto the higher-level skills" falls apart because we a) never end up teaching many kids the so-called basic skills and b) never do move onto the higher-level skills. At that point, it's worth considering a paradigm shift.
Teaching towards the "basics" actually hinders learning of both the basics and the advanced because of everything that flows from that framework. If we held deep critical thinking skills as our sole standard and aligned our curriculum, assessments, pedagogy and auxillary structures to meet that goal, then we'd be getting somewhere.
[I]f your students aren't performing on the bottom portions of the taxonomy at a level to satisfy a stupid test, even if that's all you're focusing on, how do you expect them to perform at the higher levels?
The answer lies in expectations. If you're expecting students to learn at the higher levels of critical thinking and you have assessment aligned to that goal, then pedagogy can and will be oriented to teaching those skills. Instead, we're focusing on low-level skills with low-level assessment and what we seem to be finding is that the low-level pedagogy that goes along with that isn't very good at imparting even that level of knowledge. Put another way, as Lauren Resnick notes with regards to reading,
Cognitive theory ... suggests that processes traditionally reserved for advanced students -- that is, for a minority who have developed skill and taste for interpretive mental work -- might be taught to all readers, including young children and, perhaps especially, those who learn with difficulty. Cognitive research suggests that these processes are what we mean by reading comprehension. Not to teach them is to ignore the most important aspects of reading. (emphasis hers)
Moreover, we know from individual schools that you can teach a more high-level critical thinking approach and get great results (see for just one example H-B Woodlawn in Arlington, Va.). So, counterintuitive as it may seem, students' inability to succeed on low-level assessments isn't a sign that they are unable to grasp high-level concepts, but merely an indictment of the current assessment-pedagogy system. Certainly you can't critically read if you can't pass a 4-paragraph reading comprehension multiple choice passage, but then it's time to ask, what is wrong with our system that so many kids are ending up unable to perform that simple task?
I submit that one significant factor is that we upper bound our goals at passing that test (since that's what the accountability systems stem from) and so set our expectations relative to that standard. So, instead of getting more complex as we move our students through the grades, the curriculum simply gets more difficult. Again, use the tests as a reflection of learning expectations: Our system doesn't shift from basic "can you read" tests in elementary school to "can you critically read" tests in high school; no, the 12th grade tests are still overwhelmingly reading comprehension multiple choice passages, albiet longer and with bigger words. The argument of "let's teach students the basics first and then move onto the higher-level skills" falls apart because we a) never end up teaching many kids the so-called basic skills and b) never do move onto the higher-level skills. At that point, it's worth considering a paradigm shift.
Teaching towards the "basics" actually hinders learning of both the basics and the advanced because of everything that flows from that framework. If we held deep critical thinking skills as our sole standard and aligned our curriculum, assessments, pedagogy and auxillary structures to meet that goal, then we'd be getting somewhere.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, December 29, 2005 at 1:21 PM.
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