I am sick of hearing from teachers, “But I know I taught them that last year (or the year before, etc.)” when it is clear to the present teacher that they do not know that particular concept or skill. They say it as if that sentence says all that needs to be said.
The bottom line is that if the students have not learned it (in a real and lasting way) then the teacher did not teach it to them. They may have “taught” it to the class… but I would argue that such “teaching” is nothing more than presenting or lecturing.
Saying my students learned something just because they may have done well on my test is even not enough, if they cannot remember it later on.
I was reading the stories of the Trabuco Canyon High School students whose AP scores were invalidated because their school screwed up. That’s who the students and their parents should be going after – not the CollegeBoard. I hate to say that I actually think I am on the CollegeBoard’s side on this one.
At any rate, the students were upset about taking make-up tests at the beginning of August, and that they would not be able to do as well on them because they wouldn’t have enough time to prepare. Does that not say something about the quality of the AP classes at Trabuco Canyon? If the students have so forgotten the material that it would take them more than a few weeks of brushing up on the material to do well on the exams again? Sounds like Trabuco Canyon had problems with their AP program long before the exams rolled around.
I’m just saying.
20 July 2008 at 3:19 pm |
Ah, classic observation you have – the currriculum as taught vs. curriculum as learned. I’ve been reading some of the research coming out that attempts to explain why/how this happens.
For example, a change in the academic terminology from one year’s text to the next (even when it’s the same publisher! grrrr) came to light when we looked at a drop in math scores. 6th graders were learning about positive and negative numbers, while 7th graders were learning about integers. We failed to catch the transition in the vocabulary and lost some along the way.
Then there’s the whole idea of how memories are created and stored – different fragments in different parts of the brain. Depending on how each individual organizes how information is stored, they may have been attentive in the actual lesson, but failed to retrieve the information form long-term memory later. I saw that in asking for student to give more verbal step-by-step explanations of solving multi-step algebra equations, other classmates could hear the flaw in the reasoning or catch the misstatement and help to correct it.
That also helps move away from the teacher doing all the correcting and keeps it much more collaborative. I’m always amazed at how some students manage to explain to each other something I myself thought was perfectly clear, but was not “getting through” to them. Also helps me realize how my own language can be imprecise. Keeps ya humble, that’s for sure.
21 July 2008 at 12:10 pm |
I agree it is a classic observation… but it certainly does not negate its validity (not that you were suggesting that). I have heard about the change in terminology causing confusion, but at least at my school this does not appear to be the problem – at least not the major part of the problem.
I went to a Brain Research conference in February this year and learned an amazing number of things about situations that help students learn versus those that do not, so I know the information about the brain is getting out there.
What has frustrated me is the number of teachers that seem to abdicate their responsibility toward student learning by just saying, “but I know we covered that!”