As we implement higher standards across the country, it has become increasingly important that we identify and use a variety of strategies to assess student learning so that the appropriate interventions may be provided. 

One strategy is to encourage students to reflect on their reasoning and justify their work.  The idea of justifying your work in mathematics has to go beyond the use of inverse operations to “prove” that the calculation was correct. This way of checking is not justification since it does not address the student’s use of metacognition—the thinking about thinking—that goes beyond the use of an algorithm and takes you into their decision-making processes.

Recent conversations in my faculty lounge have drifted to the sentencing of educators in Georgia who were convicted of tampering with test materials. How did people who presumably care deeply about children end up breaking laws and serving prison time?

We as educators are trained to look beyond the results of a failure and analyze the cause. So what happened in Georgia, and is threatening to happen all over the country? Perhaps the problem is that an assessment is being used for purposes beyond its scope. I contend that if we as educators want to improve our discipline’s professionals, we need to use tools that are proven to do just that.

And neither are your students

Pause for a moment before you continue reading. Think about your friends, your family, your students. Think about yourself. Is anyone average? Of course not. All of us are typical in some ways and not-so-typical in others.

Moreover, this typicality is situational. My wife has spent much of her adult life being the shortest (but cutest) person in the room. My family is relatively tall, and so are our friends. When we visited Hong Kong, she was ecstatic because she was taller than most of the women we encountered. When she went shopping, they had lots of things in her size. (I should add that, despite her shopping disability, my wife has accomplished much in her life, and our house is packed with awards she has won as the CEO of a specialty hospital.)

With these two thoughts in mind—no one is average, and comparisons are situational—consider this question: Why is “average” in the statistical sense such a dominant theme in education? Why do so many people, especially policy makers and politicians, insist on ranking students, schools, teachers, and pretty much everything else on a single number, usually the average? The answer, of course, is because it is easy, and because in the past, looking at averages was a reasonable way to approach some challenges.

I’d like to take you on another journey along the road of the language of mathematics with a stop at the intersection of “math concepts and symbolic notations.”

Sometimes the mathematics conversation is just as confusing to students as this collection of signs is to a driver in an unfamiliar situation. There appears to be a variety of symbols used to identify the different types of roads in the area, just as we have a variety of concepts, operations, and relations that are conveyed through symbolic notations. 

To further complicate the issue, in math we sometimes have a variety of symbols used to convey the same concept or idea. Imagine the student’s dismay when he or she is not familiar with a new symbolic notation that is being used but is familiar (and perhaps proficient) with a different notation. This can certainly be a blow to some students’ math confidence.

In my previous blog, I argued for a dual topic approach to curriculum design. The framework outlined in that blog is based on a variety of research.

Some of this research is drawn from psychology and studies of human learning. These involve the development of automaticity and controlling cognitive load. Other design elements are associated with what we have learned over the years from international research, particularly the way successful countries focus on fewer topics with greater depth in their math curricula. Still other research is a synthesis of what we believe are best instructional practices in remedial and special education.

An Innovative Approach to Meaningful Embedded Assessment

In recent years, assessment has gotten a bad rap because of overuse and misapplication of mandated accountability tests. All of us involved in education, however, know that meaningful assessment is an important aspect of the learning cycle. We are particularly grateful that, in a time of frustration over isolated testing, embedded assessment is finally getting the attention it deserves.

Simply put, embedded assessments are selected learning experiences that are also used to measure a student’s understanding of the content. The assessment task is embedded in the learning experience.

March is Music in Our Schools Month. Since ancient Greece, music has been an important area of study. The Every Child Achieves Act of 2015 lists music as a core academic subject. So allow me to step on my music advocacy soapbox (we call them conducting podiums) and illuminate both why and how you can support music in our schools.

Advocacy for music in public education is important because it seems that in today’s society, where quality education is summarily evaluated by data from test scores, arts education is constantly threatened.

Among the recent trends in education, few are as notable (for the right reasons) as the growth mindset. This belief is, fortunately, very simple to understand. Mental abilities and other talents can be developed through dedication and hard work.

The opposite of the growth mindset is kind of a downer. It’s called the fixed mindset, and it suggests that intelligence, talent, and other abilities are more or less fixed at birth. It doesn’t matter what you do; you aren’t going to get better. (See, I told you it was a downer.)

While many language skills and comprehension strategies are embedded in daily lessons, teachers know that the overall purpose of each lesson sequence is to understand content related to a theme. The reason for reading a text is clear: The text is worthwhile. It is complex and rich. The topic is inherently interesting—or if it isn’t, yet, it will be once the students know something about it. The reader will be rewarded with understanding, insight, ideas, and new information.

Unfortunately, students who have reading and language comprehension difficulties much more commonly experience comprehension instruction that targets a specific skill or strategy. While the skill and strategy focus seems logical when students lack skills and strategies, what may be sacrificed with well-intentioned intervention organized primarily around specific comprehension strategies is the point of reading—the reward of reading to learn, preferably with peers who are also engaged.

At EdView360, we’re big fans of digital learning. We’ve seen the transformative effect that excellent digital instruction can have on students, teachers, and entire classrooms, and we couldn’t be happier today to be celebrating Digital Learning Day (DLDay).

Now in its fifth year, DLDay is an Alliance for Excellent Education event dedicated to celebrating the very best that digital learning has to offer. As educators, we also see today as an occasion to reflect on the changes that technology is bringing to our classrooms. What makes digital learning so great? And what exactly makes great digital learning?