Re: [arn-l Digest] Vol. 3 No. 198 Messages: 9

[Scott Hays <shays@ccwebster.net>]

On Jul 29, 2006, at 3:21 AM, Peter Campbell  
<campbellp@mail.montclair.edu> wrote:

> Because our measures are
> flawed, because the questions of what counts and why are shaped
> socially, culturally, and historically, and because there is no
> divine Law of Assessment that says, “Thou shalt have criterion-based
> tests,” we have to work very hard to say, “This is what counts, and
> here is why it counts, and here is how I know it counts, and here is
> evidence of it counting.” This forces us to make arguments, to do the
> work of assessment, and not kick back and rely on the unquestioned
> wisdom of the ancients. Getting to say what counts and why is a
> profoundly powerful experience. It is an inherently contested
> conversation. It will always produce disagreement. But these
> disagreements are good. They are not outside the issue of assessment.
> They are the issue of assessment.

Two points in support of your concluding words, Peter, from the  
perspective of a 4-8th grade teacher.  Our district was using a very  
complex writing rubric that had been developed by a writing "expert"  
in the district and adopted with little input from the rest of the  
teaching staff.  When I came to work there, it had been in place for  
over a decade.  Teachers on the staff made reference to it when I was  
first hired, though it turned out no one else used it except four  
times a year on mandated writing exercises conducted in each grade  
level as part of the district's "multiple measures of performance".   
I found the thing to be excessively cumbersome and not particularly  
useful, especially when used on a regular basis (like during the  
course of regular writing instruction and assessment).  So I began  
using a rubric that I had stolen from some other source.  More  
importantly (in hindsight), I also involved the kids in the rubric  
and its use.  Like suggested in the earlier part of your message, I  
thought it was only fair that the kids know how they were going to be  
assessed and so I presented the rubric to them, explaining its points  
and the rationale for them.  We took time to use the rubric to score  
some samples (other teachers began to wonder, and ask, why was I so  
far "behind" everyone else), I encouraged them to use the rubric to  
"grade" more famous works (they loved that, actually), and then we  
tweaked the rubric to reflect what *they* thought were important  
considerations in writing and assessment.  Within a year, I had found  
an even better rubric to use, but continued the process of  
introducing it to the kids and allowing them to have input into its  
application.  At the insistence of students, we even added a special  
component to the rubric that reflected whatever it was that we were  
working on at that point in time; as I will never forget, one slacker  
seventh grader announced to the class: "If we're supposed to be  
learning this stuff, then we should get credit if we do it!"

After about three years at the site, other teachers began to notice  
that something different was going on in my classroom and with my  
students.  At about the same time, we were able to convince the Board  
to carve out some time from the extra minutes we were teaching each  
day to give us three hours of no student time every two weeks.   
Within three months, we had a new school-wide writing rubric that all  
teachers had a hand in creating (and a new district-wide writing  
assessment), and almost all the teachers began using it not only for  
assessment purposes, but also for instructional goals.  As you say,  
there was never agreement ... and when I left the school last year,  
teachers at the meetings were looking for new (and better) ways to  
improve the rubric and instruction.  When teachers are engaged and  
involved in the learning process, exciting things happen in the  
classrooms, too.

Which brings me to the second point, which is that teaching, itself,  
benefits from the same truism ("Getting to say what counts and  
why").  It is not restricted just to issues of assessment and writing  
instruction.  It has to do with learning and who is in control of the  
learning.  When teachers get fed up enough with mandates and  
directions from above about what to teach, when to teach, how to  
teach it, and with what materials it should be taught -- mandates  
that seldom take into account their own experience, expertise and/or  
creativity -- they have a tendency to just close the door and do  
things they way they think they should be done (and they do so  
privately).  Bring them together, however, and empower them to have  
some say in what counts and why, and suddenly you have a new ball  
game.  Entire states rapidly change direction (witness California  
between 1984 and 1997).  Really wise teachers quickly recognize the  
application of this understanding to the classroom ... in a teacher- 
centered classroom, students have little say and exhibit all  
behaviors associated with being stifled and controlled; taking the  
next step and making the classroom more student-centered energizes  
and empowers students as much as it does teachers.

I watched the burgeoning of exciting and creative uses of technology  
in California classrooms between 1986 and 1989.  Local grants (of up  
to $10,000) were offered to classroom teachers to support exciting  
uses of computer and electronic media instruction, with the  
stipulation that projects could be easily replicated and that  
recipients report their findings to each other via a new email  
service provided through the UC and CSU system.  These grants were  
connected to well-funded statewide residential institutes in each of  
the curriculum areas ... one did not need to attend one of the month  
long institutes, but it really helped if one did (if only because of  
the great ideas that were shared and practiced).  It may have been  
nothing more than a grand celebration of computer geeks, but my god  
was it exciting and creative.  Unfortunately, administrators and  
higher-ups quickly began to realize that they had lost control of  
what was happening ... I mean, kids at one end of the state were  
communicating with kids at the other end via email and video- 
conference calls about interdisciplinary research projects that could  
not be button-holed into a single content area and which could not be  
assessed by any known means of accountability.  The local grants  
ended in 1989, replaced by "model technology grants" (of hundreds of  
thousands of dollars) ... each great for the receiving school, but  
hardly replicable without the financial support and therefore a dead- 
end.  Unfortunately, exciting and useful technology applications in  
the classroom  began to suffer after 1990, and it has never recovered  
from that and related hits on the appropriateness of technology in  
the classroom from outside the world of education.

Scott Hays
shays@ccwebster.net

"Wrinkles only go where the smiles have been."
- - Jimmy Buffett