I went to a workshop last week to help me better prepare my government class for the upcoming Missouri End of Course Exams - commonly referred to as an EOC test. These tests exist in several subjects. You can read all about them in the (get this...) College and Career Readiness section of Missouri's education website, or by clicking here.
First, let me say that the workshop was worthwhile. I got some very useful information on test preparation, on finding released questions that are great for practice, on some strategies that other teachers use to motivate and teach their kids. I think it's important to say that I would attend this workshop again. I would suggest it to other Government teachers in the area if I were asked.
But while I was sitting there in the middle of 6 hours of relatively useful stuff, I had the desire several times to be just about anywhere else in the world than in that seat.* That hit a nerve for me.
If you end a day tired and bored, imagine what it felt like for your kids. #satchat
— Alec Chambers (@ChambersAlec) November 8, 2014
*Not Syria. Or China. Or the deep south of the United States. Or the town in rural Missouri that has a "Bring back the Confederacy" billboard, which I'm sure is just about state's rights and not about the oppression of a particular race of people.
I often tell me students that one of the things I think about when planning lessons and activities is how I would have liked it as a kid. For example, I don't read instructions word for word at the start. Rather, I let the kids read silently for a few minutes, ask questions, and hit any big points I think might have been missed.
Too often, I forget to ask this question - Do the kids want to be here right now? If the answer is 'no', then what do I need to be doing differently. Even the hard and difficult stuff I make kids do should serve some larger purpose. The White House Decision Center is a great example. The kids worked really hard, read very difficult primary source documents, and have tough debates with each other. There was an event at the end that made it worthwhile.
So often we teachers struggle to leave our comfort zone. And yet equally often that is when the class becomes a place where kids want to be and where they are able to learn. That's not a mind-blowing idea, just something that we need to remind ourselves of every so often.
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Projects can be awesome or terrible depending on how they're done. If done right, a project can change the way one looks at the surrounding world. A project can speak to a greater truth that we may know, or sometimes more powerfully, a truth that we have not yet realized.
I lay claim to being a project-based teacher and I do have my students complete projects with regularity. It is rare, however, that those projects achieve a level of thought and understanding that would classify as world-changing. I think that my class completed one of those projects the past week at The White House Decision Center. You can read about that more in-depth here.
That got me thinking about projects and how they go in classrooms around the world. What makes your projects tick? What makes your students invest themselves so deeply in the project that it keeps you up late and night planning and grading and contacting and planning some more?
I want to create a Padlet called the Project Project and collect stories and tales of wonderful projects around the world. The launch date is November 3rd, 2014. We'll see where it goes! You can add to it below or share the link around the world!
It's been a busy couple of weeks here in Kansas City. I'm not particularly ashamed to say that my writing on this blog has taken somewhat of a backseat to these recent events.
Ever since that win on September 30th, my life has been a wonderful whirlwind of teaching and playoff baseball. Through a lot of luck and wonderful wife, we were able to get our hands on tickets to the clinching Game 4 of the ALCS. Then through more luck, a still-awesome wife and dedicated dad, we were able to buy tickets to all 4 World Series games. We sold Game 1 and Game 6 and my dad and I got to go to Game 2 and Game 7. While Game 7 did not go the way that we would have liked, it was an incredible run.
The emotions I felt and the excitement in this city were so cool as a person my age. Way too many words have been spent on the internet about how a whole generation has never seen the Royals be any good, but it really is true! The Royals have been terrible. Like worse than Phoebe's singing on Friends terrible. Like more of a joke than the Cleveland Browns terrible. Like, "Does a team still play in Kansas City?" terrible.
Anyways, I'm a teacher and that's what I do well. As sad as I am for the run to have ended without a championship, I am excited to get to bed before 10 PM every night this coming week! I'll save the baseball articles for writers much more gifted than I and leave you with this:
Go Royals.
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I am a big believer in authentic assessment. If you are unfamiliar with authentic assessment, it is more of a mind-set than any particular test or exam. As a teacher, my job is to teach both content knowledge (historical and social facts and theories) and skills (reading, writing, speaking, researching, etc...) To look at my job in a segmented way is to do injustice to one of these two schools of learning. I cannot, for example, teach a student to critically think about how to end the war with Japan unless the student understands the role of the President, his cabinet and the military.
Assessment is authentic in my mind when it is important to the student. If the student believes that they are on stage, if they are proving their learning or their skills, then they are being authentically assessed. That is why any tool can be authentic if it is used in the correct way.
I recently had the opportunity thanks to a grant from the Center Education Foundation and from The Truman Library Institute to take my US Government students to the White House Decision Center. The set up in simple - students take on the role of President Truman and his advisers. They use primary source documents, collaboration, and short speeches followed by questions from classmates to come to a solution to one of several problems faced by the real President Truman.
My class got to take part in the scenario on ending the War with Japan in 1945. For 5 class days, the students worked through practice scenarios ranging from a school bullying scenario to another scenario from the World War II era. Students were given their roles and practiced meeting in their advisory teams to find solutions to these scenarios. The two students playing the role of President Truman were able to learn how to lead a meeting and consider advice from different sources. Possibly most important of all, the students learned what it is like to work under pressure.
A Environment of Pressure
Throughout the entire process of preparation and the actual White House Decision Center experience, students were not given adequate time to finish their work. This is part of what made the assessment so authentic. As you read this, you're probably having a Well that's how it is in the real world... kind of reaction. And it's true! The lessons and activities I could plan if I could work for three hours each day and teach for four! But that isn't the case - I get 50 minutes to plan and teach six 50-minute classes.
The hardest part of assessing the skills and knowledge of students in an authentic way is to get the students to buy in even though they may not have all the time in the world. If they think that the activity is important, needs to be taken seriously and given serious thought, then you'll get the kind of effort that every teacher dreams about. If their only and greatest motivation is for their own grade, as important as that may be, it probably you and the students will always feel like something is missing.
The last 40 minutes of the experience were most incredible. At the end of the day, the two students playing the role of President Truman had to meet, take into account all of the advice they had been given throughout the day, and make a decision of how to end the War with Japan. Once they had made their speech explaining their choice, the rest of the class took on the role of the Senate Intelligence Committee and peppered the two with questions. For a full 40 minutes, the questions came and were answered with poise, composure and intelligence. The questions were all high-quality and well-thought-out. I was able to assess the kids on these skills throughout the 5 days of prep work and the decision center itself. That information has been invaluable as I've held follow up conversations with students in the past week. I'm now able to point to something specific when I tell them that they have a particular strength or weakness.
If you teach within driving distance of Kansas City, you need to
schedule a trip to the White House Decision Center. The organization of
the museum; the expertise of the staff led by Mary McMurray; the
authentic feel of the materials the students get to work with in the
decision center - all of it combined creates an atmosphere that is
serious, professional, quick, rigorous and most importantly, contagious.
Many thanks to the Truman Library for creating such a wonderful experience for our students. President Truman said that he wanted his Presidential Library to be more than a library and an archive - he wanted it to be a school of democracy.
Mr. Truman, your vision has come to fruition. I'm confident that you would have been proud of my students and proud of your staff. This feeling I get as I type this - that is the giveaway that our class has done something authentic and worthwhile. This is why authentic assessment is so hard to define and even more difficult to create, but why it is worth the effort every single time.
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