THE INSTITUTE for Learning Centered Education NEWSLETTER

Edition # 3 December 6 , 2000

TOPIC: Two major challenges for educators addressing higher standards.

I believe there are two major challenges for all of us - and the State - to overcome if we want teachers to address new, higher standards in a meaningful way:

1. Teachers must learn to use project-based learning as a vehicle for teaching the curriculum that will be assessed on standardized tests.

2. We can preach until the cows come home that LESS IS MORE, but we will not see teachers approaching lessons with more depth until they learn how to integrate other disciplines into their own curriculums and until they get support from the integration of their curriculum into other disciplines.

Let’s take a look at each of these separately:

Many of the New York State, Delaware, and other State Standards require students to “demonstrate” and to “understand.” Student “demonstration” and “understanding”  cannot often be assessed through short answer questions and essays. “Demonstration” and “understanding” require performance-based activities for learning and assessment.

Yet, most teachers still view a project (i.e. performance task) as something they can do occasionally, if it won’t interfere with the curriculum. Teachers are not used to assessing student performance on tasks (projects), nor are they accustom to addressing the required curriculum through tasks. Instead they use tasks to reinforce (address peripherally) the curriculum already studied, or to provide a pleasant change of pace for students.

This is why, on the River Project - typical of many interdisciplinary projects - it is common to hear teachers say “I really like this, but now I have to get back to teaching the curriculum.” Teachers do not try to teach their curriculum through projects, they only seek to reinforce what has been taught, or to change the pace in the classroom.

As we know, It is possible to teach required curriculum MORE EFFECTIVELY through performance tasks than through lecture, but most teachers have not had sufficient training or experience to do this. Hence, they feel limited in the amount of time they can devote to project based learning.

I submit that until teachers learn how to address required curriculum through projects they will understandably be reluctant to devote more than a minimum amount of time to learner centered classroom strategies including projects.

On a positive note, we have found through our River Project and Pilot Projects that if teachers are asked to focus their projects around the standards they must address for standardized tests, they can adapt and then they recognize that projects can be more effective for teaching what has to be taught (not just for reinforcing what is taught through lecture, or for changing the pace).

2. We can preach until the cows come home that LESS IS MORE, but we will not see teachers approaching lessons with more depth until they learn how to integrate other disciplines into their own curriculums and until they get support from the integration of their curriculum into other disciplines.

The ELA teacher looks at the standards and sees more, not less, required of his/her students, and the temptation is to lecture more in order to cover more material.

The social studies teacher and the math teacher each look at the standards for their discipline and feel they must teach more, not less.

When the ELA teacher learns how to select books and topics that reinforce what is being taught in social studies, it will increase student retention and understanding of what students are learning in social studies while they are in ELA. Similarly, when the social studies teacher learns how to integrate ELA standards into social studies lessons it will increase the reading, writing, and comprehension abilities of the ELA students while they are in social studies.

Obviously, interdisciplinary and teaming approaches are effective ways to integrate student learning in many disciplines, but school schedules, and paradigms are so rigid that it will be quite a long time before interdisciplinary teaming approaches are widespread (even though they are increasing in use). However, scheduling changes aren’t required for teachers to reinforce other disciplines while teaching their own. It simply has to become a focus of staff development.

Here are a few simple examples:

1. When ELA teachers are teaching plot, character, setting, and reading comprehension, they can select content from historical eras that coincide with what is being taught in social studies.

2. Math and science teachers can require students to utilize the same rules of grammar and spelling that are being taught in ELA, if they are aware of them.

3. Math, science, social studies and ELA teachers can have students transfer their understandings, artistically - utilizing forms of expression being encouraged by the Art teacher. For instance, if the Art teacher wants students to learn to utilize a particular instrument for drawing, why not have teachers in other disciplines ask students to use that instrument to reflect their understandings with pictures or graphic organizers?

4. School plays can be utilized for every discipline to address standards around themes common to the production. Why not call together a teacher in each of several different disciplines, six months prior to a school play, and engage them in identifying standards they can address utilizing the school play as a culminating event?

( Most teachers will not begin to try interdisciplinary approaches to student learning until administrators understand the importance of creating environments that encourage such practices, and unless administrators are trained to make schedules more accommodating and to provide appropriate professional development opportunities.)

In conclusion, I am suggesting:

1. Teachers and administrators need training in how to teach the required curriculum through performance based tasks. (This requires a long-range approach, which should be addressed in the staff development plans required by the State.)

2. Teachers need training in strategies for reinforcing standards in other disciplines while addressing the curriculum in their own discipline. This can be easily accomplished in brief workshops, which provide a great deal of bang for the buck. ( A series of workshops and “in-class training” to enable teachers to become skilled in interdisciplinary teaching should be integrated into each district’s staff development plan.)

3. Administrators need training in identifying the kinds of staff development that will address the needs suggested in this article.

4. Administrators need training in how to think out of the box in creating schedules that will accommodate teachers who want to collaborate with teachers in other disciplines. Administrators also need to accelerate the alignment of curriculums (meaningful alignment, not the creation of Shelf Art), and they need to find ways of making it easy for teachers to have access to curriculums in other disciplines, which are written in user-friendly language.

5. Long range staff development plans required by the State need to address the two major points made in this article.

The author welcome comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If
you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.