How Do You Measure Your Effectiveness

It's that time of year again. The final push in the marathon school year that ends with North Carolina's End of Grade Tests. I always have a mood change when the stress of the daily grind takes over at this time of year. I asked myself, "Why am I feeling this way?" I have some ideas.

This mood hit full force this morning on the way to work when I realized that most of my Wednesday afternoon would be reserved for test administrator training. That's usually a 2-hour or so ordeal where we go over things like the Testing Code of Ethics (again - and yes it's important), and dissect the test administrator's manual. Highlighters whiz across pages at breakneck speed and we all pay special attention to all the warnings and directions about how to administer these assessments reliably and ethically.

I fully understand assessment is necessary, and accountability is ultimately a good thing. Every business has it, and education needs it too. It's just that I have an issue with what our method really tells us at the end of the year.

This morning I was helping third grade students take multiple choice test items using ClassScape. Teachers can pull test items by state goal and create assessments that return detailed data about what students answered correctly and incorrectly. It's a powerful tool that lets us as educators know how our students are doing and what we need to review and reteach. It's basically an EOG test on the computer. Usually, when our students come to the lab I see a little excitement in their eyes and motivated pupils who know we're going to do something creative and "cool." Today, the reaction was just the opposite. That reaction was powerful too.

I can't answer for for anyone except myself, but I know I got into education because I wanted to make a difference. I know that's cliche', but it's accurate. I believe most good educators got into the business for this reason as well. But what does that look like? How do we define and assess the difference we made at the student level like we attempt to using standardized test scores?

The fact is - I don't think we do, and that leaves me with an empty feeling.

At the end of the year all we are left with are rosters with scaled scores, percentages, breakdowns, and roman numerals. That doesn't tell me enough about my effectiveness as an educator.

I'd like to know that I helped develop more than a good test taker, but helped develop the whole child. I'd like to be able to look at my rosters and say, I helped motivate a child when there was little motivation. I'd like to know I taught students successfully to understand and accept classmates that were different with different opinions. I'd like to know if what I taught was clearly conveyed as necessary for successful living. That list goes on, but you get the point.

I want to try something different with our students using our teaching blog at the end of this year by allowing them to reflect on their school year and see what they can convey about what they have learned. I'm still working on the prompt, but at least I will have an assessment of sorts that is bigger than any scaled score. The responses will be valuable because the students will define the assessment by reflecting on what was significant to them. It won't be constricted to an A,B,C, D answer on a bubble sheet. I don't think students reflect enough, and that is a valuable lifelong skill to master. Of that I am sure.

Help me, if you will, shape this prompt. How do we as educators measure our authentic effectiveness?

Personal Learnng Networks at NCTIES

Mrs. McMillan and I have arrived in Raleigh and have been working for over 4 hours on learning how to develop our personal and professional learning networks using applications/web 2.0 tools like Twitter, blogs (imagine that), wikis and the sort. By the end of the day we'll have spent over six hours developing our own networks, learing of new tools to use and can share that with our faculty and staff. It's great to know we have started that as a team with Teach21 and can now take that to the next level where they'll be truly powerful tools for information and collaboration. We'll learn all we can and post notes to our wiki.

Bolton Elementary's Mock Election 2008 - With a 21st Century Twist

Bolton Elementary Students participated in a mock election using 21st century learning skills October 28th, 2008. Teachers all over the school have been teaching about the election giving our students a well-rounded and comprehensive education about the process. A genuine effort was made to make this mock election as realistic as possible.

In the weeks leading up to our mock election all 2nd through 5th grade students registered to vote online using a custom form placed on the school's website. Each registration form was printed, and class sets were given to homeroom teachers. Kindergarten and first grade students were provided a voter registration card with a line on which to print their name. All students were required to have their voter registration and check in before they were allowed to vote. All the 5th grade classes took shifts manning the polls as classes came to cast their votes.

To complement instruction about the election the school's tri-weekly news broadcast team began doing election reports at the very beginning of the school year. They covered everything from polls, to political parties, and profiled candidates as well. Thanks to parental permission and the permission of our principal, the entire broadcast crew covered vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden's political rally held at nearby Wake Forest University on Oct. 23rd. Each of the seven students interviewed everybody from university officials, to local law enforcement, to people attending the rally and campaign volunteers. An edited report was shown on the Monday, Oct. 27 news broadcast.

The mock election was run off the school's teaching blog, "Bolton Bloggers," using a web 2.0 survey tool. This allowed classes to cast their votes quickly (around 10 minutes/class) and get on with the rest of their day.

ELECTION RESULTS

President (692 teachers/students casting votes)

Winner: Barack Obama - 576 votes (83%)

John McCain - 101 votes (15%)

Bob Barr - 15 votes (2%)

NC Governor (658 teachers/students casting votes)

Winner: Bev Perdue - 331 votes (50 %)

Pat McCrory  - 194 votes (29%)

Michael Munger - 133 (20 %)

 Local CBS affiliate WFMY News 2 covered the mock election on their 6 PM newscast Oct. 28th.

  

Teach21 IMPACT!

Mrs. Ferguson has been a teacher at Bolton Elementary for 28 years and she has seen lots of programs come and go. Following last April's presentation to the Bolton Staff where the concept for Teach21 was unveiled she invested herself by asking to be part of the team. She readily admits that technology and computers was not "her thing." She didn't much more than check her email with a computer. She's a wonderfully gifted teacher, but had not paired technology and her own creative teaching methods. Now, she says she has changed her "whole way of thinking" about technology and its use in the classroom. Although she knew learning to use technology might be challenging for her she saw the need to learn how. She enthusiastic, and with support, is making great strides using the few simple tools she has been given. It's already impacted her students. She shares her thoughts in this short interview.

Soaring With Success In Just Three Weeks

One of the pieces of the Teach21 puzzle are blogs (web logs). It was one of the popular things we learned about this past summer at our training, and our teachers really got excited about all the possibilities. Mrs. Byrd, one of our fourth grade teachers, is a natural when it comes to technology. She loves it, sees the power in using it with her students, and her classroom blog, "Soaring With Success," is already setting a high standard for what we are trying to accomplish this year. Mrs. Byrd has already layered her use of technology on her blog with video, Voicethread, and one of the most important pieces - setting up rules and parameters for her students to follow when using their classroom blog.
If you want to see the power of a great blog all you have to do is look at the Feedjit Visitor Tracking Gadget she has added to her blog. The wonderful things she is doing in her four-walled classroom here at Bolton have already spread from coast to coast. She's had visitors from as far west as Washington state, as far south as Florida, as far north as the District of Columbia, and some points in between. On Soaring With Success you'll find students who have memorized poetry, written their own poetry and read it aloud, and you can see a focused purpose to inspire both reading and writing using the blog as a motivational tool.
The most powerful part of Mrs. Byrd's success, in my opinion, is her willingness to COLLABORATE. Her colleagues have seen the things she's doing, praised her efforts, and she has reached out to offer her expertise to anybody who asks. This will no doubt allow these integrative tools to proliferate throughout our school and to many more students at Bolton.
CHECK OUT SOARING WITH SUCCESS BY LINKING TO IT HERE!