Delusion of Grades

"The purpose of school is to get good grades," declared one of my students recently. The delusion of grades strikes again.

National Academies:
21st Century Domains of Competence

Online gradebooks prominently display A's, B's, C's immediately upon student/parent login. Digital D&F reports are emailed to school staff weekly. Paper D&F reports are mailed to parents at the middle of each trimester. Athletic eligibility is dependent on grades. Honor rolls, 504 plans, parent conferences—all are grade-focused. At every turn, grades dictate the academic measure of our children.

In the face of never-ending grades, my quest to be a progressive educator who values and prioritizes learning over grades often feels like a losing battle. Grades are confounding—they distract students, parents, and teachers from creating authentic learning spaces and from having meaningful conversations about learning. We are deluding ourselves with grades...

How can we counterbalance grade delusion in the classroom? While I am still required to keep a traditional gradebook, there are a number of things I've done to de-emphasize grades while facilitating better conversations about learning:

• I write only concise and useful feedback on student papers, but no grades—grades are entered into the electronic gradebook,
• I create holistic Help Guides and Standards of Excellence that outline what high quality learning looks like in the classroom—students use these to edit and check their work,
• I let my students see that I am a lifelong learner, and most importantly,
• I strive to have one-on-one conversations about learning with my students every day… while they are actually learning.

Despite these practices, much work remains to overcome grade delusion.

If we continue to prioritize grades over learning, we delude ourselves into thinking we can create environments of intrinsic motivation and lifelong learning in our schools. Grades reinforce a system of external rewards and extrinsic motivation; they frequently disenfranchise and ultimately disempower students.

The National Academies has developed a set of guidelines that emphasize deeper learning and transferable knowledge as part of a student's 21st century skill set. These skills have been preliminarily organized into three domains of competence—cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal—as a way to help define education in lifelong terms. Our conversations within schools, among students, between teachers and parents, and across the wider community need more focus on these competencies and deeper learning.

To teach for deeper learning, the National Academies guidelines recommends that instruction follow these research-based teaching methods:

• Use multiple and varied representations of concepts and tasks
• Encourage elaboration, questioning, and explanation
• Engage learners in challenging tasks
• Teach with examples and cases
• Prime student motivation
• Use “formative” assessments

Happily, I don't see any mention of grades in that list…

To break the cycle of grade delusion, perhaps we adults can teach ourselves to ask students, "What did you learn today?" and have it stimulate rich and compelling conversations.

Our Misplaced Fears about Technology

School teachers and administrators have a moral and ethical obligation to help students learn how to be conscientious 21st century citizens. When it comes to technology, though, we are failing in our obligation. Twice in this brand new school year I've heard well-meaning, but badly misplaced, messages from adults about the perils of technology. It seems that technology is the scapegoat for any less-than-desirable behavior among adults and children. Borne out of fear and ignorance, our biased view of technology reveals our technological illiteracy and ultimately perpetuates negative stereotypes and misconceptions.

Image courtesy of morgueFile

Technology itself is neither bad nor evil. The Facebooks, Twitters, and other social media environments of the digital universe all have the potential for both harm and good. In my opinion, the good far outweighs the bad. These technologies allow us to make global connections with a diverse range of peoples, cultures, and organizations, greatly enhancing our ability to share, learn, and grow. Our hyperconnectivity stimulates our social evolution and brings us closer together.

Sadly, school systems still seem ill-equipped to address the challenges and potentials of technology. It is easier to ban, censor, and filter than commit ourselves to promoting and encouraging positive digital citizenship. Is it any wonder that we find kids turned off by school when we ask them to turn off the very devices and networks that are most important in their lives? We can, and should, do better…

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) publishes some of the most comprehensive and forward-thinking guidelines for technology. ISTE's family of National Educational Technology Standards (NETS)—for students, teachers, and administrators—provides guidance about 21st century digital skills and best practices. I believe they should be required study for all educators and administrators.

While children certainly must be protected from harm and exploitation, they also must be empowered to make responsible decisions about technology. Because technology has forever changed the landscape of our children's lives, it is incumbent upon adult educators to stop hiding and start embracing the power and potential of technology. On the arc of digital history, censoring and prohibiting technology in schools places us on the wrong pathway.

Learning Principles and Understanding

Our school district has adopted the following three learning principles:

1. Effectively accommodating a learner's preferred learning style, prior knowledge, and interests enhances learning.
2. Learners reveal and demonstrate their understanding when they can apply, transfer, and adapt their learning to new and novel situations.
3. Learning is purposeful and contextual.

After dissecting the statements and reflecting a bit, I interpret these principles as follows:

• Principle #1: Empathy—teachers demonstrate empathy for the learning diversity of their students.
• Principle #2: Lifelong Learning—teachers facilitate learning that leads to deep, enduring understanding.
• Principle #3: I Can—teachers create a meaningful environment where students believe that "I can learn, think, do, etc."

While still part of our school conversation, I am beginning to sense (thankfully) that standardized data no longer dominates our thinking. Courageous conversations which focus on learning and understanding are being explored and embraced once again. As part of our never-ending Hero's Journey, we seek insight and transformation, "Arriving where we started and knowing the place for the first time."

What learning principles guide and accompany you on your journey?

Whither Our Heroes?

We lost a hero yesterday, a giant of a man whose small step brought the Moon (and beyond) closer to us all.

Image courtesy of NASA

My circle of true heroes is vanishing; I watch as the legacies of wondrous deeds and heroic accomplishments fade into distant memory, replaced by vacuous rhetoric, empty promises, and dishonorable lies. I wonder and despair: Why has the wisdom, experience, and pursuit of science been relegated to pariah status, dismissed as an afterthought?

Whither our heroes?

Where are the visionaries, the women and men who still dare to boldly go? Our species squanders its hyperconnectivity—blindly rallying itself behind ideology, zealotry, denialism, hypocrisy, misogyny, hate, discrimination... and chicken sandwiches—while our air, soil, and water fill with toxins; our eyes, ears, and brains fill with pablum; and our Earth system teeters on catastrophe.

Our Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity are not enough to save us from our own greed, selfishness, and ignorance. We need Passion, and Clarity, and Courage, and Audacity!

Who are our children's Neil Armstrongs, Sally Rides, and Carl Sagans?

Who will speak for Earth… and when will we listen?

Whither our heroes?

Science Help Guides

I try to limit the quantity of paperwork that I distribute to students at the beginning of the year. I like to keep things streamlined and simplified, distilling classroom guidelines and expectations down to the bare essentials. Additionally, I don't distribute this paperwork to students on the first (or even second, or third…) day of school—it's better to jump right in and get the science started, giving students and me a chance to collaborate and socialize.

Once we are ready to talk about the classroom nuts and bolts, one of the most important documents I distribute are my Science Help Guides. These guides are a collection of standards of excellence for various tasks that we utilize throughout the year. Thanks to continuous feedback from and observations of students, these help guides have evolved over the years to their latest and greatest iteration. I tell my students annually, "These are the best help guides ever because they reflect the collective wisdom of every group of students who have preceded you."

Image credit: Microsoft Clipart

This year's help guides include the following:

• How to Be Successful in Science Class
• Standards of Excellence for Science Writing
• Masterpiece Captions
• Connect the Dots
• Data Tables
• Graphs
• Show Me the Math!
• Bibliographies and Picture Credits

I am proud of these help guides. They give my students and me a common language to share, work from, and build upon. While the help guides provide structure and support, I strive to ensure that they don't completely stifle opportunities for individuality. They are meant to be guidelines, rather than rigid rules. Student creativity beyond these guidelines is welcomed and encouraged.

Students and teachers alike are free to download and use these help guides. They are published under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). I only ask that my copyright is honored and respected, and that I am given proper credit for the guides. Otherwise, I hope they are beneficial…

Beware Charlatan Science

“Science literacy is vaccine against charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance of the forces of nature.” —Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist

Image credit: Microsoft Clipart

Conscientious scientists do not cherry-pick data to fit their conclusions (that's bias), but allow data and evidence to inform, educate, and guide their research—no matter the unexpected results. Science is challenging and complex; yet we must be cautious of charlatans who seek to infect us with pseudoscience and denialism:

• Beware of charlatan "scientists" who cherry-pick data and selectively name-drop. Unfortunately, many members of US Congress fit into this category, especially those who subscribe to climate change denialism.
• Beware of charlatan "scientists" who do not understand what "uncertainty" means in science. Scientists must always consider, respect, and address the physical and statistical uncertainties in their data, measurements, and models, and they must express their results in terms of mathematical confidence.
• Beware of charlatan "scientists" who misuse the term "theory" (as in, "it's just a theory"). A scientific theory is a well-reasoned explanation based on mountains of evidence—it is not just a guess. An educated guess in science is called a hypothesis, which must be tested for validity before its veracity can be established.
• Beware of "news" organizations that claim to tell "both sides of the story" equitably. One dissenting opinion does not negate thousands of peer-reviewed, published research papers. One loud-mouthed argument does not constitute a fair balance.
• Beware of charlatan "scientists" who short-circuit the quality assurance and rigor built into the peer-review process. Scientists themselves are their own worst critics and very effectively weed out questionable science.

In an age of charlatanism, it is important that science education remain vigilant and true to how science really works. A good science curriculum teaches students about the nature of science and fully engages students in the complexities of scientific thinking, knowing, and doing. For more about How Science Works, visit Understanding Science, an amazing website developed by the University of California Museum of Paleontology.

Summer Unlearning

"At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past." —Maurice Maeterlinck

I've spent the summer reading, gardening, and enjoying the outdoors; now, there are just a few more unstructured days left until the new school year begins. How can I bring the myriad thoughts and ideas I've pondered over the summer back into the classroom? Simple in theory, but challenging in practice: I plan to unlearn.

Image courtesy: MorgueFile

Unlearn... ?

We no longer live in an analog, textbook world; we are digital, we are hyperconnected. Yet, much of our public school system is still structured according to outdated models and traditions, many of which are hopelessly broken. Institutional inertia is powerful, and change is slow and/or unwelcome.

To move forward in the 21st century will require tremendous change, a daunting and downright scary process. A good place to start is by unlearning—rethinking some of our "traditions," questioning their perceived validity ("Why are we doing this *this* way?"), and finally letting go of the past. To move forward it is imperative that we quickly unlearn, lest we become further mired in wasted time and energy.

On my personal list, I would like to unlearn (or continue unlearning) the following:

• Technology restrictions and limitations
• Grades: "Did I get an 'A'?" "Is this for a grade?" "Is this right?"
• Staff meetings
• Teacher-centered conference nights
• 45-minute class periods
• The "scientific method"
• Memorizing and standardized testing
• Homework

Is there anything you would like to unlearn? Will you join me in unlearning?

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I was inspired into thinking more about unlearning after reading two posts on the What Ed Said education blog:

10 Things Teachers Should Unlearn

1. Teachers know all the answers.
2. Teachers have to be in control of the class.
3. Teachers are responsible for the learning.
4. Students are obliged to respect teachers.
5. Learning can be measured by a letter or a number.
6. Teachers should plan activities and then assessments.
7. Learners need to sit quietly and listen.
8. Technology integration is optional.
9. Worksheets support learning.
10. Homework is an essential part of learning.

10 Things Parents Should Unlearn

1. Learning is best measured by a letter or a number.
2. Product is more important than process and progress.
3. Children need to be protected from any kind of failure.
4. The internet is dangerous for children.
5. Parents and teachers should discuss students without the learner present.
6. Homework is an essential part of learning.
7. The school is responsible for the child’s entire education.
8. Your child’s perspective is the only one.
9. Learning looks the same as when you went to school.
10. Focus on (and fix) your child’s shortcomings, rather than their successes.