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Re: [Phys-l] STUDY SUGGESTS NO CHILD LAW MAY BE DUMBING DOWNSTUDENTS

My son hated high school. (Now he's a college sophomore.) He said that
they spent the first half of each year learning the same things that
they had studied during the previous year. Teachers complained that
students hadn't learned it, but taught it exactly the same way as the
previous teacher had. His opinion was that if it didn't stick with them
from learning it that way during the previous year then they should try
something else. He also figured out that he didn't have to learn much
of anything because most of the first half of the year was spent
reviewing the previous year and most of the second half would be
re-taught the next year.

He had extreme test anxiety. We had high stakes testing starting at
late elementary. He was always convinced that he wouldn't be allowed to
move on. We once spent a week getting him over a skills testing session
(ITBS) that he was sure was going to keep him out of the next grade.
This was simply because he had heard that a high stakes test was being
developed and so he decided that this must have been it. He also
worried himself sick about the graduation test. I am not a fan of high
stakes testing for this reason. When we expressed concern about this to
the county during the development of high stakes testing for our
county/state, we were told that students like my son were in the
minority and so weren't considered a problem. Generally, I have found
that the students who need to worry about whether they will pass don't
worry enough for the most part while the ones who do worry shouldn't.

______________________________________
Mariam Dittmann, Ph.D.


-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
[mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Rick
Tarara
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 8:33 AM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] STUDY SUGGESTS NO CHILD LAW MAY BE DUMBING
DOWNSTUDENTS

We still have recess in Indiana--at least locally--but with so many
problems, I don't see it playing any kind of major factor.

What I mean about 'high stakes' testing--ON THE STUDENTS--is to have
serious
'gate-keeper' tests, testing MINIMAL acceptable knowledge and skills for

movement forward. Maybe at 3rd, 6th, and 8th grade. We do have
something
of the sort for getting a HS diploma. It seems absurd to me to advance
students on and on when they are stuck at 2nd grade reading and math
stills.
Such would require some special classrooms or schools to deal with
keeping
'age-appropriate' groupings, but if we have 12 year olds unable to read
then
we need to work on that LONG before worrying about Algebra. I'm not
concerned with algebra for the general population (college prep yes) but

rather basic reading, writing, and math skills. It wouldn't hurt if
students knew a touch of world and national history, a bit of geography
(my
college classes had no clue how far it was from NY to LA), and some
other
pertinent 'facts' so as to have something with which to work when we
decide
we want them to 'think critically', but what we really need is an
assessment
of BASIC knowledge and skills needed to function reasonably in the
society.
The testing should concentrate on that--and prevent advancement of those
who
refuse to 'try' and learn (and special help to those how are clearly
unable
to learn). There should be other consequences to lack of effort as
well--withholding driving privileges and the like. Putting all the
blame of
teachers because you don't like how they teach is not the answer
either--that's 'not their fault' either since they were trained
differently
than you would have liked.

I hope we can agree to disagree about the politics here--but I just hope
we
don't have to endure another 4-8 years of vehement hatred aimed at
whoever
our president happens to be--but I won't hold my breath on that one!
;-(

Despite the multiplicity of factors that are contributing to the
educational
malaise, I do think we could look more at 'successful' programs,
successful
school systems, and perhaps learn a bit. Of course, we will all have
different measures of 'success', but here in Indiana the ISTEP testing
is
the 'official' measure, and it is very easy to look at the state results
and
see one definite trend--one which is not often mentioned since it is
'politically incorrect'. The high scoring schools, the high scoring
school
systems, tend to be those with fairly homogenous populations and those
schools and districts with low scores tend to be those with a diverse
student populations. The public schools in rural communities tend to
score
considerably higher than those in large urban areas. The private
schools,
especially religious based, score higher than the public schools in the
same
communities. This might well relate to lots of the contributing factors
I
listed in an earlier note, but there may be some lessons here as well.
One
that some districts are trying, is separating the boys and girls in the
classrooms. School uniforms (of some sort) can also remove some of the
social posturing and peer pressure and that is being tried in some
districts
as well.

Rick (who went through Catholic education in St. Louis where most of the

high-schools were single sex institutions and then went to Notre Dame
when
it was still male only, and now teach at Saint Mary's College, a women's

college--and believes such education to has many advantages (with many
social disadvantages though!)


----- Original Message -----
From: "John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>




The tests that were being done by Shayer are things that according to
Piaget
were found to click in before age 10. Subsequent research revealed
that
these actually are understood at a variety of ages, and that some
adults
never understand them. Conventional schooling does not seem to affect
understanding of these tasks, but specialized teaching using the
learning
cycle with hands on/minds on lessons does have an effect. The
continuous
drill which has been instituted in schools in place of education
certainly
does not help students to understand these tasks. The water
displacement
task seems to be impossible for students before age 7, even when shown
it
by
experiment. Understanding of these tasks requires both brain
development,
and experience for students to construct this understanding. These are
examples of conservation reasoning.

These tasks are considered markers of concrete operational thinking
and
are
necessary to be understood, before higher level tasks. Notice that
they
did
not show research on the markers of formal operational thinking such
as
proportional reasoning. This latter maker of reasoning is only
acquired
by
about 25% of graduating seniors in the US according to my admittedly
limited
survey. But this is confirmed by others.

As to recess, this is where students interact in an unstructured
setting.
This is absolutely necessary to normal development, and is where they
acquire executive functioning according to the cognitive scientists.
It
is
not acquired in formal classroom settings. Without good executive
functioning they can not control behavior adequately for good
learning.
There are some programs designed to promote executive functioning, but

they
do not resemble conventional classroom lessons, and have only been
used in
a
small limited set of schools. The evidence is very positive that they
do
work. There was an article in the NY Times science section about
them.

As to the raising of the high stakes tests, there is no use beating
someone
for something that they have no control over. The teachers do not
understand or have the programs that are needed to promote good
learning.
When a student is at a low level of thinking, they can NOT learn
things
like
algebra. When they do not understand whether to add, multiply,
subtract
or
divide, any advanced math is opaque. They lack proportional
reasoning,
and
the conventional teaching of ratios is not useful in teaching it.

The answer is that teachers need to be trained in pedagogical content
knowledge. The TIMMS report shows that European and Asian teachers
have
such knowledge and ask students better questions. And of course the
American texts are entirely too long and clotted with undigested,
confusing
material. But along with this districts need to allow different
approaches
rather than saddle teachers with one size fits all teaching. While
teaching
gobs of material may not be as damaging in schools with high SES
students,
it is the kiss of death in lower level schools. Essentially it
promotes a
high dropout rate, which the school welcomes as a solution to
achieving
good
test scores. And dropout rates are very high, but schools find ways
of
hiding it such as claiming the student transferred to another school,
but
this is never verified.


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