Confronting the Missing Assignments Monster

Missing assignments have long been a problem at our school—students choosing for a variety of reasons to just not turn in their schoolwork. It's a frustrating, vexing conundrum that saps time and energy from our learning environment. I've thought about and researched the problem ad nauseam; while there is no quick-fix solution, I've drafted a document that will hopefully help rein in some of the rampant missing assignments that plague our school.

Please don't feed
the Missing Assignments Monster

The document I'm sharing evolved from many hours of discussions among the teachers at our school—during team meetings, department meetings, staff meetings, etc. The purpose of this document is to help clarify the shared expectations and responsibilities among students, parents, and teachers at our school so that the business of learning can rightfully be the focus of our efforts and energy. While this document alone cannot eliminate every missing assignment, it is one piece of a complex systemic puzzle that seeks to rebalance the learning equation in our school.

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Confronting the Missing Assignments Monster

As students become more independent in their middle school years, missing assignments can sometimes become a problem. It is important that students, parents, and teachers work together to ensure that missing assignments do not compromise our learning time and become a persistent educational challenge.

Students usually have missing assignments for one or more of the following basic reasons:

• Not using class time wisely and/or not finishing/completing assignments (distractions, socializing)
• Not finishing assignments at home (“I don’t have any homework” excuse)
• Not turning in assignments because of forgetfulness (planning, organization)
• Not turning in assignments because of avoidance (confusion, embarrassment, power struggle)
• Not making up assignments after being absent (out of sight, out of mind)

For Students: What do I do if I have missing assignments?

Missing assignments do not go away magically—you must apply energy and work to eliminate them:

• Be honest about missing assignments with your parents and teachers—do not lie, make excuses, or avoid your responsibility.
• Turn in any missing assignments immediately, even if they are not done—incomplete is always better than missing.
• Ask your teachers specific questions that will help you finish a missing assignment.
• Evaluate your use of class time:
• Are you distracted by your friends and socializing too much?
• How will you reduce distractions and minimize socializing?
• Create and follow a homework routine:
• Do you have a regular time/place to do your homework that is free from distractions?
• Do you check the online grade system at least once per week?
• Do you review the online weekly notes every Monday and throughout the school week?
• Practice organization and develop your organizational skills:
• Do you use your planner in every class, every day to write down learning goals, assignments, homework, due dates, etc.?
• Do you use study hall time well every week to help stay up-to-date with your schoolwork?

For Parents: What do I do if my child has missing assignments?

Missing assignments are first and foremost your child’s responsibility, so before emailing your child’s teacher:

• Monitor the online grade system and the middle level online weekly notes regularly, at least once per week, to identify and discuss missing assignments quickly.
• If your child has a missing assignment, ask your child why he/she did not turn in this assignment—ask for honesty and do not allow excuses.
• Encourage your child to take ownership for the missing assignment and require your child to turn it in the very next school day.
• Have a serious and heartfelt discussion with your child about using class time wisely and avoiding distracting situations.
• Help your child develop good homework routines and regularly practice organizational skills to mitigate missing assignment problems.
• Ask your child “learning” questions at home—encourage your child to teach you about what she or he is learning in classes at school.

Sometimes it feels as if you and your child’s teachers are stressing more about missing assignments and working harder than your child. In these cases, perhaps a dose of harsh reality is needed, especially as your child approaches high school. Allow your child to “fail,” but also to work through both the natural and your established consequences of missing assignments—be firm, be fair, be supportive, but avoid repeatedly bailing out your child if he or she is not being responsible.

For some students, the intrinsic motivation to get assignments done is not there yet. Do not teach your child that incomplete assignments are a reasonable choice or an acceptable option. You should give your child room to navigate their work independently; however, if they are not being successful, they need reminders (and follow-through) about established rewards and consequences. Start with both small and large goals: "If you have no missing assignments this week, then..." and "If you have less than two missing assignments this trimester, then..."

Many years of teacher observation and experience tell us that the best way for students to avoid missing assignments is to use class time wisely every day.

Please don’t feed the Missing Assignments Monster—stay focused on learning...

Pre-Lab Science Safety Video

Science safety should always be the #1 priority in the laboratory. Reminding students to be safe before performing experiments is key to creating a safe laboratory environment for everyone. I created a one-minute video slideshow to help remind students about the common science safety expectations in the lab...

Predicting State Test Scores: Folly or Sensibility?

Can teachers precisely and accurately predict student scores on state standardized tests?

Last week, teachers at our school were asked to predict our students' state test scores. I had extreme difficulty engaging in this task because I felt it was speculative, fraught with error, and ultimately had no statistical significance. The task continues to bother me, and I need to explore my unsettled thoughts and feelings more deeply.

Science Education vs. State Testing?

Predicting how students will score on a state-level standardized test feels mostly like guesswork; in fact, the task was described as being one of "gut feelings" and "guesses." I have no qualms with making educated predictions—this is something scientists do all the time. But I'm worried that this year's mostly random guesses will be used for evaluative purposes at some later date: "Why were your predictions wrong?"

To progress from random guesses to educated hypotheses to informed decisions requires controlled methodology, meticulous experimentation, and detailed data collection in order for conclusions to have validity. The peril lies in jumping from guesses to conclusions, which I fear is where we are headed.

In our current system, few people in the educational realm—administrators and teachers alike, let alone students and parents—completely understand how the sausage is made when it comes to creating standardized tests. Our state provides technical papers on its website that explain some of the behind-the-scenes details on how state tests are created and scored. These papers are long and dense, and many of the methodologies described within the papers require an advanced understanding of statistics. Nevertheless, having reviewed the papers, I gleaned some valuable (if disturbing) insight into the sausage-making process.

Our state establishes four categories of performance on standardized tests: advanced, proficient, partially proficient, and unsatisfactory. These four categories are delineated by cut scores on the various tests that students take each year, which include writing, reading, math, and science. The cut scores are established through a process which determines the probability of a student correctly answering a particular question on the state test. For example, a test question will be considered to be a "proficient question" if a student has a 2/3 probability of answering that question correctly. Each test is a mixture of questions that fall across  the spectrum of cut score categories.

State tests are mainly comprised of two types of questions: selected response (i.e., multiple choice) and constructed response (i.e., written sentences and paragraphs). This model exists because both selected response and constructed response questions are easiest to score and statistically analyze. Selected response questions are either right or wrong, and constructed response questions have a rubric-based scale for scoring via keyword analysis. Selected response questions are limited in their ability to assess high-level skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving. Constructed response questions are limited to matching student responses against key words and phrases found in the scoring rubric—creativity and originality are not part of the equation.

The combination of the question response type and cut scores allows for the "best" statistical analysis of student performance on state standardized tests. These details have been tweaked over the years to a level of optimization that permits the state to categorize students as advanced, proficient, partially proficient, or unsatisfactory. The very way that tests are constructed prevents all students from being either advanced or unsatisfactory: if all students are unsatisfactory, the test is too hard; if all students are advanced, the test is too easy. Thus, the tests themselves have been constructed in such a way that there will always be a distribution (or variance) of scores across all four categories—proficiency exists in realm of endless statistical manipulation in which there will always be winners and losers, and the game will never end.

Which brings us back to the question of whether teachers can predict test scores…

If we assume that teachers can predict (guess) test scores, how valid and reliable are those predictions?

Recall that student performance on the state test is sorted into four categories: advanced, proficient, partially proficient, and unsatisfactory. What are the probabilities that a student will fall into one of those categories? In our school, very few students fall into the unsatisfactory category: our students are generally good writers and readers, and since state tests are reading- and writing-based students will be able to decode and respond to the test questions fairly well. Those students who score unsatisfactory tend to fall into the following categories: special education, English language learners, and intentional non-learners. If you are unable to read/write in the English language because of learning disabilities, language barriers, or complete apathy, then you will probably not score highly on the test. Because these conditions apply to a relatively small group of students at our school, we can predict that most of our students will either be advanced, proficient, or partially proficient. I, then, have a one-in-three chance of correctly predicting  my students' test score. To be safe, I will tend to classify each student as "proficient" unless I have a solid feeling or reason for choosing advanced or partially proficient. There is very low risk to my predictions, which makes them feel little better than guesswork.

If I wanted to make better guesses—more educated hypotheses—I would need to fully understand all of the variables involved in standardized testing. What are the variables that determine whether a student is advanced, proficient, partially proficient, or unsatisfactory? I alluded to the fact that students who score unsatisfactory may do so because of many different types of barriers. In a similar argument, students who score advanced probably have many fewer barriers which impede their performance. Can we quantify the myriad variables and barriers that affect each and every student's performance on a single set of tests given once per year in a highly artificial testing environment? (um, no...) Then, how can we predict, with accuracy and fidelity, how students will score on these tests?

If we accept that our test score predictions are nothing better than guesses, then what validity do they have at all? One of the rationales posited was that the prediction exercise increases inter-rater reliability, the measure of how reliably different people can assess and score the same test. To improve the accuracy and precision of inter-rater reliability requires knowledge of the test itself. Here we encounter another large barrier. Our state has deemed (rightly so) that it is unethical to "teach to the test," and that access to and use of testing materials throughout the school year is prohibited. It is not possible to improve inter-rater reliability in a vacuum; without data to work with, our best-intentioned predictions are still merely guesses. At most, our year-to-year predictions can be considered "persistent."

In meteorology, scientists rely on a wealth of data in their attempts to make precise and accurate weather predictions. At the lowest level of weather forecasting is persistence, the notion that tomorrow's weather will be the same as today's weather. This type of forecasting is valid only if weather conditions don't change in that time period. If any variable changes, then a persistence forecast is extremely poor and unreliable; in fact, it will probably "bust". Beginning meteorology students learn quickly that persistence forecasting is highly unscientific and that accurate weather forecasting relies on deep understanding of how all weather variables are interacting and evolving throughout atmospheric time and space.

When we are ignorant of the variables that affect a student's performance on a state test, I feel that our attempts to predict a student's future performance lack sensibility and are at best folly…

The Balance of Science Learning

A shared article in a recent issue of Science discusses the concept of science learning progressions: a continuum of really big ideas in science on which students focus their entire K-12 educational journey.

The domains of science learning

The authors postulate that science learning encompasses three domains: content (knowledge), practice (skills), and epistemology (thinking). I envision a Venn diagram wherein these three domains are represented as overlapping circles (see figure). If we were to represent the relative importance/emphasis of each domain in both our curriculum and school cultures by the size of its circle, I judge the content circle would be the largest and the epistemology circle would be the smallest. If we wish to have the domain circles all the same size—at all grade levels—what we would have to change about our curricula and our school cultures? (Put that on your staff meeting agenda!)

Attempts to expand the size of the epistemology circle would, in my opinion, engender fear, anxiety, and resistance because of myriad entrenched institutional and cultural barriers in our school systems. State tests ask (require) students to regurgitate content; teachers continue to emphasize content; students/parents/teachers are conditioned to seek only the "right answer;" students/parents/teachers resist critical thinking and problem-solving because it's too hard; progress monitoring systems spit out grades and scores ad nauseum... the list of barriers is endless.

I wish that our epistemology circle was much larger: "the process of science" vs. "the scientific method," open inquiry, problem-based learning, teachers and students as scholars, etc. To create a "culture of epistemology" (if we choose to do so) requires a massive and deliberate shift in thinking among adults, especially if we expect to see deeper thinking within our students. Otherwise, our inertia will probably continue steering us down the content pathway.

We do great things in our classrooms, but have we achieved balance among these three science learning domains?

Why Writing Matters

A language arts colleague at my school shared a link with me, "20 Great Writers on the Art of Revision," which prompted me to ponder why writing matters—for all students, and in all content areas (science included).

Image courtesy of MorgueFile

This quote from novelist Vladimir Nabokov most resonated: “My pencils outlast their erasers.” Writing is never a one-step process, is never easy, and is never done.

Many of our students—more often boys than girls—see writing as a destination rather than a journey. They race to complete any writing task without giving much thought to what they’re actually writing. And editing/revising? Forget it...

At my school, we do a fairly thorough job of teaching kids how to write and expecting kids to write across all content areas, but I wonder about us teaching them WHY to write:

• Why do we write? Why does writing have value? Why do these words on a page matter?
• Why should I as a writer care about what I write? Why should I agonize over every word, sentence, phrase, and punctuation mark?
• Why should I always throw out bad writing? Why should I throw out good writing?
• Why should I care about my audience? Why do I have a responsibility to my readers (and who are these faceless readers anyway)?

Whether it’s writing a masterpiece caption in science class, writing mathematical problems, writing computer code, writing a blog, or writing the next great novel... whether it’s written by hand or written digitally... whether it’s written for millions of people or written just for one, quality writing always matters—to articulate our thoughts and ideas, to make meaning and communicate our understanding, to teach and learn, to share our world with others.

A big "thank you" to all teachers who teach kids (and remind kids, and cajole kids) to own their writing. When I was growing up, I had a few good teachers who would not tolerate sloppy writing. Period. They were strict and tough, but fair—these are the teachers I remember and honor the most.

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PS: I wrote the original draft of this message in a Google document so that I could track my revisions. The first draft took me 29 minutes to write, and in that time I had over 30 major and minor revisions—not including typos. Writing takes practice, practice, practice...

The Science of YouTube

If you are looking for engaging, entertaining, and excellent science on YouTube, you can't go wrong with the following channels:

Image courtesy of: Compixels

• Crash Course: teaches you ecology and chemistry
• Feynman Series: promoting scientific education and scientific literacy in the general population through the mind of physicist Richard Feynman
• MinuteEarth: science and stories about our awesome planet
• MinutePhysics: cool physics and other sweet science
• Periodic Table of Videos: your ultimate channel for all things chemistry
• Sagan Series: promoting scientific education and scientific literacy in the general population through the mind of astrophysicist Carl Sagan
• SciShow: where the science goes
• Veritasium: the science video blog from atoms to astrophysics
• Vsauce: amazing facts and the best of the internet

What are your favorite YouTube science channels?

Investigating Water Temperature

Research Question: How does temperature affect ocean water? Specifically, how does the temperature of a purple solution (hot vs. cold) affect the movement of the purple solution through room temperature water?

In our quest to better understand ocean currents, we investigated the effects of temperature on the motion of fluids through water. Students set up and performed a controlled experiment that tested the movement of hot vs. cold potassium permanganate solution (aka, "purple stuff") in columns of room temperature water. Watch as one group of students performs a trial (hot on the left, cold on the right):

Based on the experiment, ponder the following questions:

• How does temperature affect ocean water?
• How does temperature affect the way water moves?
• Which is more dense, hot water or cold water? What evidence from the experiment do you have to support your answer?
• How might uneven solar heating of the Earth (equator vs. poles) cause ocean currents?
• How do you think ocean currents affect global weather and climate?

To better appreciate how and why scientists monitor and study ocean circulation, explore NASA's Aquarius Mission website, which has many excellent animations such as the one below: