Dr. Alex C. Pan

Say you are coming in for an interview as a teacher candidate. I, as the hiring principal, would need to know a few things about assessment. I would want you to answer a few questions as follows:

• Why should teachers assess students’ learning?
• What do teachers need to know about assessment?
• How should teachers measure students’ learning?

Can I assume that you are familiar with the following basic terms in assessment: Standardized testing and portfolio assessment; Norm-reference and criterion-referenced tests; Formative vs. summative assessments? Can I also assume that you know how to generate valid instruments to assess students’ learning?

I want you to tell me exactly what you would do to assess your students. Maybe you can show me some sample examples of your assessments on your students’ achievement. Can you describe how you analyze your students’ work and performances and how you modify instructional strategies and materials to address individual students’ needs? Can you talk about the biggest challenges you had in assessment?

Student achievement reflects how the learning goals are met. Assessments used to play an important role in providing teachers with specific information on how students have learned as well as how teachers should modify the instruction to help students achieve better. Ever since the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act took effect, many school administrators and teachers changed their regular routines of teaching into doing test preparations. Teachers are very much concerned about their students’ test performance. Testing and assessments become the main part of the instructional activity, rather than a major device to check on students’ understanding and to maximize students’ learning outcomes.

There are a few issues about assessments worth noting:

1. Assessment results do not always match the true effort of teaching and learning. Good test-taking strategies can be taught or modeled to yield better results. Such results do not necessarily reflect good solid learning. Many cramming schools and test-prep centers can train students to get good test results within a short period of time; while many other students who work hard but cannot achieve good scores because they lack good test-taking strategies.
2. The assessment performances can be enhanced via a shared responsibility between teachers, students, and parents. If the test results are not satisfactory, we should not blame solely the teacher or the student. Instead, we should look at various factors affecting the results and try to modify teaching and learning accordingly.
3. Assessment should be regarded as an overarching device to monitor and drive the instruction and learning. Many teachers consider standardized testing as the major form of assessment. However, there are many different forms of assessment that can be used to evaluate the students’ performance. Teachers can use observations, questions, game-like activities, worksheets, challenges, and other device (such as portfolios or projects) to assess. Genesee and Upshur (1996) in Classroom-based evaluation in second language education, write that the essential components of evaluation/assessment include four key elements: purpose of evaluation, information collection, interpretation of the information, and decision making.
4. In addition, assessment should definitely be tied to the differentiated instruction (DI), in that teachers should consider using different levels of materials/challenges, giving extra of time, assistance, and other support to help students with varied ability levels to achieve their best.

To sum up, assessment is an essential tool for good teaching and learning. Let’s not mess up desirable teaching and learning with test-driven agendas.

I used to have good memory power. I always believed it’s simply an effort to exercise one’s memory power. As long as you try, your memory power will be strong. Of course, repetition in drill and practice may constitute the effort. If you keep reciting the passages or songs, you will remember it. When I started teaching in college, I was able to know all my students by their first names, knowing about their backgrounds and in-class performances. As time goes by, I tried to keep up with this practice. However, I found it much harder to do than I did 20 years ago. My students appreciated my effort and regarded me as sincere because I cared. At this point, I realized that my memory power is weakened by ages. I’ve been checking around studies and anecdotal stories about the use of memory, and I realized that we need more than just an effort to keep our memory power strong. We also need strategies.

I have actually encountered people, both young and old, struggling with memorization tasks. Some of them felt their brains had betrayed them. Others felt frustrated with diminishing memory power. In fact, a little memory challenge or exercise will help our brain stay active and healthy. To avoid the aggravation of the memory struggle, we can take notes whenever we can to avoid the unnecessary memory burden for individuals.

The earliest memory I had in my life was before I was two. The memory was still vivid and fresh in my mind. My family was moving into a new house, where the living room concrete floor was still not dried yet. I stumbled in the room leaving my tiny foot prints all over the place as my elder sister started screaming. I got startled as I realized that I had caused trouble. However, I was laughed at and not punished. That was a unique memory and I enjoyed every bit of it till now. It occurred to me that if we can make an event special or unique, the memory of the event will last for a long, long time.

There are two kinds of memory: short-term memory and long-term memory. To prepare for a quiz or an exam, most people will turn to their short-term memory and try to cram as much as information as possible. After the exam, they would forget the “stuff” completely real soon. In order to put things into the long-term memory, one must internalize (and comprehend) the meaning of an event so that it will be encoded and stored in our brain cells.

There were nine presidents between Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt: Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland, and McKinley. How can you memorize these names in order? Try the following sentence: Joe got his gun and chased his crazy mule. If you pair them up and this is a free association to the content. Surely this makes it a lot easier to remember.

Here are also a few other strategies that may be used to memorize things:

• Reorganize the information and make it well-structured information for quick processing.
• Try to understand the things to be memorized and try to teach about the things you want to remember to others.
• Use cloze passages.
• Use mnemonics.
• Use audio-visual aids and media.
• Create unique impression. Add a twist to the information to be processed. Sometimes fun and humorous messages can help remember things better.
• Record one’s own speech on things you want to memorize and recite after it a few times. You’ll be amazed how fast you can memorize things.
• Write down key words and outlines with good structures for hints to help memorize the information.
• Play the concentration games.

Here are a few exercises: Memorizing all the planets around our sun can be done with mnemonics. In order from closest to farthest from the Sun, these are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, (and Pluto is out) we can use the sentence: My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. How can you remember the five great lakes? Use the acronym HOMES for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Eerie, and Superior. The mnemonic ‘Super Man Helps Every One‘ lists the lakes geographically from West to East.

There are many other interesting discussions out there. CNN has hosted a few discussions on how to train your mind to remember anything:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2012/06/08/ted-joshua-foer-feats-of-memory.ted
http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/10/opinion/foer-ted-memory

There is a good lecture by the US Memory Champion Ron White on how we can memorize plenty of things in an efficient manner. Here is a clip on his ads: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oNFWmaPRpJQ.

Memorization is a task that requires constant exercise. Once you can manage it well, you’ll enjoy it.

Religion is prohibited in public education. I am not either for or against religions in public arenas. However, there are a few incidences that I am not quite sure how to reason to make sense.

On the American money bills, a label on the picture reads, “In God We Trust.”

Everyday in school, students start the day with the Pledge of Allegiance, which reads, “I pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”

These sound reasonable as we know that the United States of America was founded as a Christian nation. In contrast, there was another incidence that seemed inconsistent.

On January 14, 2013, a longtime substitute teacher Walter Tutka in Phillipsburg, NJ, has been fired after he shared a Bible verse with a curious student – and upon request gave the child a Bible during the lunch break. The Phillipsburg School Board voted to terminate the employment of Walter Tutka. He was accused of breaking two policies – distributing religious literature on school grounds and another policy that directs teachers to be neutral when discussing religious material.

OMG! That is tough, and very confusing to me.

However, I won’t make the same mistake because I am a Buddhist.

How can you get your students hooked to learning, even from the very beginning? Here are a few good hook examples:

New Jersey Devils:
The teacher started the lesson in a totally dark room. Then there came a weird noise mixed with scary screams and random flash light beams. Guess what’s today’s lesson topic? New Jersey Devils. The teacher then turned on the lights and started the lesson. The hook was quite engaging.

Dressed like a pilgrims:
Two teachers collaborated to teach a lesson on pilgrims. Students knew both teachers but did not realized that one of them played a “guest” pilgrim, dressed like a pilgrim, with her back facing students. They did not see the “guest” teacher’s face until later on. They found it intriguing and they loved the lesson.

Describe what it feels like in the bag:
The teacher prepared a few opaque containers with unknown stuff in each. The students who behaved the best were called upon first to explore the stuff and described how it felt like. This lesson is about adjectives to describe the touch sense. The hook caught everybody’s attention. They could not wait to behave so that they could explore the containers.

What do they have in common?
The first-grade teacher picked a few students to come to the front of the room and ask the class to guess what these students have in common. It’s not hard for them to figure out that these classmates shared some attributes, such as hair color, clothes, or glasses. Once they got excited about this activity, the teacher introduced the topic of the lesson about the attributes of geometric shapes. They continued to love the activities of the lesson.

A trip to the Mars:
This is captain Kirk talking. We are going on a mission to the Mars. In this mission, I command you to find out about the following things. Ready? The pre-recorded voice of command captured all students’ attention. They regarded the mission serious, imagining this is a true trip to the Mars.

Sing a song with varied lyrics:
Students love to sing the song “I’ve been working on the railroad”. The teacher simply modified the lyrics with other learning content. They learned new stuff with this familiar tune and enjoyed it a lot.

Estimation challenge:
The teacher asked students to estimate their own height in meters and centimeters. Most of them simply guessed at random. The teacher then provided them with rulers with both metric system and American measurement system to measure their height. They recorded both readings. They then double check the accuracy of the readings with the conversion calculator. They finally made a chart to show the distributions of heights for the class. This hook activity created personal relevancy and kept everyone going excited.

There are many other good hook examples, including showing interesting pictures for imagining and questioning, watching video footage to get a sense of certain concepts and events. Good hooks can give students an idea about what to expect in the upcoming lesson and get them inspired.

I had many “good” teachers who offered good advice and provided a nurturing environment for students to learn. However, I was impacted by a few different kinds of teachers, who were not too nurturing as those “good” teachers They challenged me to do things that I didn’t know I was good about. I had a chance to recognize my talents and passions. I’d thank those good teachers for all their effort, but I  truly appreciated those teachers who helped me find myself the real passion in learning.

I believe good teaching may be defined as the act to reach the goals and objectives of the intended lesson. However, great teaching should be an effort or experience to build the connection between learning content and students’ inner passion. Such an effort or experience will be closely related to individual students’ personality, real life experiences, and their lure of learning.

Daniel Liston states in his article “The lure of learning in teaching” that powerful teaching engages and recalls a lure of learning…. In teaching with a love of learning, we (as teachers) attempt to lure our students into reaching beyond themselves, to connect with the subject at hand. In fact, the passion about learning exists in everyone. However, the love of learning may or may not be visible or evident.

How can we develop passion and gain success with passion? Passion will first need to be recognized and triggered. It will then be nurtured and developed. After we are capable of performing well on our passions, we should then be challenged to maximize our potentials for  accomplishing difficult tasks or meeting higher goals. Finally we will be able to say we are proud of our work because we are defined by the work we do and the accomplishments we can make.

People who are passionate about certain tasks tend to take ownership of the tasks. People’s passions are diverse. We can find students spending much time in math, science, computers, arts, sports, games, solving puzzles, gardening, sky watching, and many other tasks, though they don’t necessarily share the same passions. They don’t feel bored when they are engaged in the chosen tasks because they are passionate about the tasks. Every one of them can tell you a good story about how they got started and what it took them to get to where they were.

To help students develop passions about their own learning, teachers need to recognize their capability and potentials. Teachers should be passionate about the learning and invite students to be part of the process or journey of learning. Teachers will then provide adequate guidance and encouragement to lure students in learning. Although learning does not necessarily have to be fun, it should be relevant and significantly tied to students’ prior knowledge and personal experiences in order to trigger passion about learning. Once they found the passion about their own learning, they would continue the effort to improve themselves and be the master of their own learning.

We had two presentations on school reforms:

The first presentation is about the closing school models: close/ turnaround/ restart/ transformation. The models are highlighted in a YouTube video:
“It Can Be Done: Turning Around America’s Lowest Achieving Schools (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTiAPwpmLl0) In this presentation, we learned about the Title I School Improvement Grant Program and how the communities of Mobile, Alabama; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Chattanooga, Tennessee were successful in implementing turnaround, restart and transformation models to revitalize and transform their lowest performing schools.

The second presentation is about Race To The Top, abbreviated R2T, RTTT or RTT, is a $4.35 billion United States Department of Education contest created to spur innovation and reforms in state and local district K-12 education. The contest challenges state to create strategies in addressing 4 categories of reform: 1) Adopting Internationally benchmarked standards and assessments (to prepare for success in college and future workplaces); 2) Recruiting, developing, and rewarding effective educators; 3) Building data systems that measure student success and inform educators to improve instruction; and 4) Turn around lowest-achieving schools. A few states had won good funding while most others failed.

These presentations led to a good discussion about teachers’ concerns of jobs, quality of education, quality, and opportunity in general practice. Certainly, when schools are short of funding and resources, they will not be able to provide decent education for students. When the schools go under the evaluation pressure, the focus of education will be shifted to do more test preparation, rather than serious teaching and learning. When students fail to perform well on the assessment testing, the school may get closed and teachers will lose their jobs.

Can we distribute money equally among all the schools in the states? Actually, that funding will be insufficient to make a significant impact on all the schools in America if we choose to do so. The contest is based on the capitalism idea that schools may regard this as a good incentive to do better. This is the harsh reality. In American education, school funding was directly from the property tax. In a good school district, the housing prices are high, and the quality of education are equally high. The poorer school districts will never get enough funding. However, the school districts or states may stand a good chance by aiming high and taking good strategies and initiatives to change the school dynamics and win the grant to make a big difference.

Plenty of decisions are made in education everyday. Some of them are reasonable while others are hard to understand. Oftentimes we are wondering how they came to decisions in education. Here are some examples we have heard:

• Closing a program based on the superintendent’s viewpoint
• Slashing the budget based on the school district’s assessment
• Offering good money for someone as consultants to do nothing for schools
• Changing the education programs based on the policy and administrator’s liability
• Changing the way how teachers teach based on the NCLB Act
• Closing the school due to inclement weather based on the bus company’s (or bus drivers’) judgment
• Saving a teacher’s position based on a few powerful parents’ requests to the school district
• Establishing a new program with a referendum
• Setting the curricula based on the text book companies’ decision
• Changing the teacher’s tenure policy and teacher benefits based on the state government’s decision
• Deciding the appropriateness of education based on the Supreme Court’s judgment and ruling (e.g., Amy Rowley’s case)
• Making new initiatives of education reform with every new president

The decision makers for education may include elected officials, state and federal bureaucrats, school boards, administrators, textbook committees, parents, teacher unions, and individual classroom teachers. Many powerful politicians don’t understand education but they are very influential in the decision-making process. We should ask, “Do these people have the best interest of students in mind when making decisions in education?”