Burned by Your Firewall!

How many times have educators been burned by their school’s firewall or web site filter? The number is probably too staggering to figure. But, it is a lot! Web site filters are put in place in schools that receive federal funds to buy computers. According to the Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000, filters must be in place or schools become ineligible to receive that money. I stressed educators in the first sentence because the web site filter is more of a hindrance for teachers than for students. “More often, filters hamstring teachers’ efforts to develop lessons that effectively prepare students for 21st-century challenges.” (Washington Post, July 11, 1009)
Filters are much less of a problem for students. Many students are so technology savvy that they know the way to get around these filters. There is even a group of students on Facebook called “How to access Facebook from school” that sends out strategies to it’s members so that they can freely go anywhere on the computers at school. Every time one of the school IT people or state-wide filter techs come up with a patch to fix how students are accessing the web the students will find another strategy around the patch.
I believe that we are better off teaching students about online safety than relying on a filter to do the job for us. Many courses, such as I-Safe, have wonderful programming that is started in the elementary schools to teach students about not releasing their personal information, what to do about online bullying, avoiding “phishing”, and being polite online. In the Middle and High Schools, this education can be continued in all the courses that have some online component or requirement.
Supervision is another key strategy discussed in the Washington Post article. If teachers spend more time walking about the computer lab or library while their students are online, students will have less opportunity to get off-task. Placing computers in highly visible places in the classrooms and library will also be helpful. The use of computer management software is also recommended. I currently use a program called Vision that allows me to see all the computer screens in the Library and the Computer Lab from my computer in my office. I can open chats with the students to redirect them if they are not on an appropriate site, freeze their computers so that they cannot continue what they are working on, or take over their computer in a demonstration mode and show them how to do something.
It is time to get rid of the filters that hamper education. Let’s continue to educate our students about online safety and manners instead of trying to prevent them from accessing the world wide web.

Yes! Contracts!

I am very excited! The Mandan Education Association and the Mandan School Board have come to an agreement on contracts for next year. The School Board and MEA have yet to ratify the agreement, but this is according to an article in today’s Bismarck Tribune. Many of you may wonder what the big deal is. The big deal is that we will have a contract prior to school starting in the Fall and we will not end up going to impasse. The big deal is that no one – not the teachers or the board members – have ended up feeling slighted. The big deal is there was no resorting to hurt feelings, name calling, accusations of hidden money, or arguing across the table. The biggest deal is that teachers will go back to school this Fall with very positive attitudes towards our employer and towards education. In some years past, teachers have felt under-appreciated by the school board. The attitude at the start of school has sometimes been hurt or anger on the teacher’s part, feeling like they are only going to work the hours they are paid for and whatever gets done, okay. If it doesn’t get done, well, the students will wait. (Yeh, I know, not a real professional attitude!)

The biggest deal is that if teachers feel they are being paid what they are worth and that they are appreciated, they are more willing to look at making changes. Maybe these changes have to do with a more constructivist approach to learning. Some teachers may wish to explore more inquiry directed learning. Teachers might be feeling so good that they want to revamp their lessons to include more critical thinking skills or revise their questioning strategies.

Students can only benefit from these great attitudes and happy feelings from their instructors. Students will pick up right away on the positive attitudes of their classroom teachers, and positive attitudes are usually catchy. Maybe students will feel more positive about the work they are doing. Students’ attitudes may be affected for the better as well. They may be more excited about coming to school, more excited about the material they are studying, and willing to work harder as a result.

Settled contracts going into a school year is a definite win-win for everyone. The going gets tough soon enough as we settle into winter (especially if we have a winter like the last one). With everyone willing to give a little more, our educational success should be a given.

A Test Is a Test Is a Test – Not!

This title is borrowed from an article about achievement testing from Educational Leadership. The author states that all achievement tests are not the same. Many times when achievement tests are used as the basis for research studies the name of the test is not even mentioned. Given that achievement tests differ from each other, it is like basing research results on the comparison between apples and oranges.
So why do I bring up achievement tests this week? Because of the impact that achievement test, i.e. high-stakes tests, have on the process of education today and on educators. Achievement tests are used in virtually every state in the nation. While there are advantages to achievement tests (Orlich, p. 341) I still feel that the tests are being used inappropriately. It seems to me that the achievement tests being used today are constructed on the most basic level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Many of these tests use primarily multiple-choice items; and while this is “... generally considered the most useful objective test item...” I believe that it stays in the knowledge outcomes and not the higher-level learning outcomes.
The other thing that bothers me about achievement tests is the correlation made between the outcome of the test and the quality of the education that the students are receiving in school. Either the teacher is doing a good job or not doing a good job. “... standardized achievement tests should not be used to evaluate the quality of education. That's not what they are supposed to do.” (The Problem With Standardized Achievement Tests) Teachers that take the time to teach their students how to be critical thinkers may end up being penalized because that is not what achievement tests measure. While we read in our text that Inquiry Learning motivates students to excel, tests with such high-stakes accountability can have the opposite effect.
Another problem point with standardized achievement tests is what these tests say to students with a low socio-economic-status (SES). When these students see their scores do they believe they are dumb? I hope not. I recently received a newsletter from the middle school that my daughter will attend next year as a seventh-grader. The whole newsletter was fulfilling the requirement that the school had to inform parents that this middle school did not make AYP for the year. When I looked closely at the results, it was the students in the low SES, as well as in the ethnicity category that scored so low, it brought down the results for the whole school. The principal informed us (parents) that we had a right to transfer our child to a school that did meet AYP, however, none of the middle schools in our town did so that is not an option. I wouldn’t even consider it. I still consider the education of my children at this school to be exceptional, low scores or not. I don’t believe that this is a measure of the quality of the educational that students receive at this school. However, less informed parents may be inclined to believe this. What a shame!
In conclusion, I hate to see what standardized achievement tests are doing to education. Teachers should be spending more time using the Inquiry model, discovery learning, and encouraging/teaching critical thinking skills. Teachers should not be spending valuable class time “teaching to the test”.