Dr. Amy B Hollingsworth Berkhouse
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Why do I believe so strongly in Common Core standards and testing?

4/1/2014

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Why do I believe so strongly in Common Core standards and testing?

First, if you are not aware of the Common Core, here is a crash course from NPR.


Then, several articles featuring reasons for the Common Core, and what they do.

The Common Core and the Common Good: Our educational system is not keeping up with that of many other industrialized countries, even as the job market becomes more global and international competition for jobs becomes steeper. “American students rank 25th in math, 17th in science and 14th in reading compared to students in 27 industrialized countries.” That same report found that fewer than half of our students finished college. This ranked us 14th among O.E.C.D. countries, below the O.E.C.D. average. In 1995 we were among the Top 5.

Some rightly point to the high levels of poverty in our public schools to adjust for our lagging performance, but poverty — and affluence — can’t explain all the results away. One strategy of changing our direction as a nation is the adoption of Common Core State Standards, meant to teach children the skills they need to be successful in college and careers — skills like critical thinking and deep analysis.

The problem is that, in some states, Common Core testing has been implemented before teachers, or the public for that matter, have been instructed in how to teach students using the new standards.

Bill Gates: Commend Common Core: Right now,45 states are implementing new academic standards, known as the Common Core, which will improve education for millions of students. Unfortunately, conversation about the standards is shrouded in myths.

The standards are just that: standards, similar to those that have guided teachers in all states for years, except these standards are inspired by a simple and powerful idea: Every American student should leave high school with the knowledge and skills to succeed in college and in the job market.

Today, 80% of students say they expect to go to college while only 40% of adults have an associate's degree or higher. Clearly, the old standards didn't help them achieve their goals. Common Core was created to fix that. And at least 75% of teachers support them, according to several surveys.

Inconsistent standards like the ones we've had until now punish students who have to switch schools. Either they're expected to know material they've never been taught, or they're re-taught material they already know. But with standards that are not only high enough but also consistent, students will be able to move without falling behind.

Myth: Common Core was created without involving parents, teachers or state and local governments.

In fact, the standards were sponsored by organizations made up of governors and school officials. The major teacher unions and 48 states sent teams, including teachers, to participate. 

Myth: Common Core State Standards means students will have to take even more high-stakes tests.

Common Core won't necessarily add to the number of annual state tests students take. States will introduce new math and language arts tests based on the standards to replace tests they give now. 

Myth: Common Core standards will limit teachers' creativity and flexibility.

These are standards, just like the ones schools have always had; they are not a curriculum. They are a blueprint of what students need to know, but they have nothing to say about how teachers teach that information. It's still up to local educators to select the curriculum.

Six Ways the Common Core is Good For Students:

1. Common Core Puts Creativity Back in the Classroom

2. Common Core Gives Students a Deep Dive

3. Common Core Ratchets up Rigor

4. Common Core is Collaborative

5. Common Core Advances Equity

6. Common Core Gets Kids College Ready

Student success is the outcome every education professional works so tirelessly toward, and the Common Core will help them get there if it’s implemented well, according to the panel of educators.

“Yes, it’s an extra workload as a teacher, and it’s difficult…but it’s for the betterment of the students,” says Davis-Caldwell. “And if we keep that our focus, I don’t see why we can’t be successful.”

The Common Core's Unsung Benefit: It Teaches Kids to Be Good Citizens: The Common Core has started to take political flak from the right and the left. Conservatives worry about the overreach of federal incentives, while unions don’t want the standards connected to teacher evaluations. What is being lost?  The standards’ significant emphasis on reinvigorating the democratic purpose of public education. Making good on this promise presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redefine and reprioritize the special role that schools play in preparing students for active civic participation.

The Common Core identifies three texts—and only three texts—that every American student must read: the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution (Preamble and Bill of Rights), and Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. 

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I will make an amazingly bold, perhaps unbelievable claim. If a school district would hire me as “The Common Core Director,” within four years – if allowed complete control over the system – I could take any low-performing district, and get them to over 80% passing the graduation tests. This would be without firing ANY teachers, with ANY population of students (poor, rich, white, black, brown, ESL), and without expending ANY additional funds. How much do I believe I could be successful? I’m willing to stake my paycheck on it. An average Ohio school superintendent makes $150,000 a year. As a teacher, I made $50,000 a year. Pay me $50,000 a year for a director’s position for those four years, putting the extra $100,000 in a savings account for me. At the end of four years, if I have been successful, everyone wins. The students see success, I get the paycheck. If I have been unsuccessful, take that money and provide free tutors for the students.

How do I know I would be successful? I have done it all before, as part of the science department in Eagle Pass. We went from a 39% passing rate on the state science tests, to an 89% passing rate in four years.

I believe in the Common Core. A bare minimum helps all kids get at least a rigorous education, and a shot at college. Schools are always free to extend education, and should – teachers can still teach fun and exciting lessons in their content area, while providing each child with a quality education. And every teacher in the public school system is being paid using taxpayer dollars. Those teachers can teach however they choose, as long as they provide AT LEAST the common core that every other teacher is responsible for. It just makes sense.


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Top Ten Ways to Supplement Learning by Using Youtube Videos

2/26/2014

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Teachers today have a lot to compete with, when it comes to students and their cell phones. If I were a little bird in the back of the lecture hall during my talks, I can only imagine how many students are using their phones, iPads, or laptops to view funny videos from Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Maybe the students are present, but they sure aren't engaged. The new war in the classroom is teacher versus technology. Is zero tolerance for cell phones in the classroom realistic, or even smart? Really, the only way to beat them is to join them - and by join them, I mean give them something smart to do with that phone.


I use Youtube videos extensively in my biology lab for a multitude of different ways to supplement learning. Up until this semester, I have always projected the videos onto the big screen. When I talk about the dangers of DDT, I show videos of soldiers spraying DDT onto prisoners from Japanese internment camps to kill lice, of bald eagles sitting on their nests full of broken eggs, and how the pesticide bioaccumulates in living tissue. Just telling students about these topics is one thing - but showing them historical evidence, the way it happened in nature, and the way the chemicals interact brings the science to life.


1. Making microscopic interaction visible:


“Back in the day when I learned chemistry, there was no YouTube, no videos, and you just had to imagine molecules moving and hitting each other,” Chemistry teacher Jasen Gohn  said. “But now you can just bring up a video of, like, salt dissolving.” For my Biology students, reactions like diffusion or osmosis can be made large enough to see. I can also equate the processes to real bodily functions, like kidney dialysis, which brings the human elements to what might have been considered "boring" in the past. Showing my students pictures of DNA and Watson and Crick are one thing - showing them the actual structure of DNA and the way it functions to make life possible is much better. In Biology, much of what happens at the cellular, molecular, and chemical level is not visible to the naked eye. Videos make these interactions viewable.


2. Watching a lecture for one hour is often boring


Many college classes last between 50 and 90 minutes. One study noted that students can pay attention for between 10 and 15 minutes before they look away, stop taking notes, or look at their electronic device. Towards the end of class, note taking ceased, and students could only pay attention for 3 - 4 minutes. Youtube videos can be an engaging, good "distraction" from the traditional lecture. Videos can break up the monotony.


3. More demonstrations can happen in the classroom


Demonstrations are often used for convenience, when the entire class doing an activity would be prohibited by cost or time. When using video demonstrations, students can watch the teacher, instructor, scientist, or star doing the demo on video. Not only is this more economical, it's often more fun. If a student was not paying attention during class (as often happens in this new age of students who work full time, are parents, or who may be distracted) they still have the opportunity to to view the video later. 


4. Whether there are 20 or 200 students in the room, each student can have a front row seat.


Anyone who has taught a lab-based science course knows that you often have to go around the room, from lab bench to lab bench, repeating the technique so the students can be close enough to see. In a large lecture, an Elmo-device (basically a stereoscope that projects the demo to a big screen) might make the demo big enough, but it is often difficult to see. When I teach about gel electrophoresis, I have to walk around the room to eight lab groups, demonstrating the micropipettor eight times. If I had this technique on video, then each student could see how to perform the procedure. 


5. Anyone who knows science, knows you better have a backup plan.


If you are working with living specimen (in my lab, we work with bacteria, termites, betta fish, and crayfish), you know what happens if the organism dies. I think to all the times I've done the termite lab, and the termites just have other ideas besides doing what I want them to do. There are times of year that I've gotten a shipment of termites, and every single one of them is dead. What's the answer? Have the behavior documented on video! I order crayfish for my lab. Wild-caught crayfish. Catching things in the wild - it's a crap shoot. Do you want to take a crap shoot with your lesson for the day?


Concurrently, your plan to use videos should have a backup plan. Don't rely SOLELY on those videos, or it will burn you.  The wi-fi will go down. Youtube will screw up. You will get a laptop virus. Stuff happens, and you have to have other things to fill the time if your video fails. And NEVER EVER EVER show a video you haven't watched yourself, from beginning to end. I once showed a video to my class on flying squirrels - it was NOT a video about flying squirrels by the end. It's still traumatizing to me, and probably to those kids!


6. Videos can be a good pre-lab.


Students often "forget" to read the lab, prior to coming to class. Even if they have enough time, they often don't have the willpower to read many long, scientific paragraphs. This is where videos can come in. "Flipping the classroom" is a technique where the teacher's lecture can be filmed for the students to view at home, and the classroom time is spent actively engaging with the materials. Classroom discussion can happen in a more lively fashion, where the instructor can facilitate and aid, rather than just delivering content to passive students. Many teachers are using Khan Academy videos that are professionally produced, rather than relying on searching for the best cell or DNA video they can find.


7. Videos can provide the diversity that may be missing in your teaching.


Like it or not, I'm white and middle class. And I know, that may make some of my students tune out. They might find me annoying, boring, or lame. Much of my department is old, white men. It's just the way it is. Finding new ways to reach out to female or demographically-different students is a bonus that videos can provide. I've seen amazing science videos such as this, by Wu-Tang Clan member GZA, who talks about the scientific method. Whatever it takes to get people excited about science - I'm all for it!


8. Vetting the videos is key.


There are a lot of crappy videos on youtube. Videos that make me cringe. Videos that use marketing to lure kids by product placement. Videos that are flat out providing misinformation. Your students will find these videos. Isn't it better for you to find good ones first? I know that my students may not be able to realize that they are being provided with incomplete or inaccurate information. When I teach about cells, I have to watch 10 videos to find that ONE good video to show my class. Students are searching for science topic videos. Vet the videos for them first.


In one of my FAVORITE moments of my whole career as a science educator, I was stopped by a young girl in the elevator at my university. She said, "Are you Amy Hollingsworth?" (I got a little scared, I never know where that question is going to go!) I told her yes. She said, "I am in Dr. X's class here MWF, and I just don't understand him at all. I was googling "Biology, University of Akron" and I found your whole set of teaching videos online, and I LOVE THEM! I feel like I know you! And your son is so cute!"


I had used lecture-capture for my Natural Science Biology Course, and had filmed my lectures for a whole semester. One day, we had a snow day, and so I had recorded my lecture from home. My four-year-old son had creeped into Mommy's videos, and had actually explained the distribution of fossils in Ohio (I know, I know, but he loves dinosaurs). So I guess that would be point 9. Videos allow the learning to go on, even when teacher or student can't be in class. And I connected to a student who might have not been successful in Biology. And I felt a little like a rock star, with a fan base.


If teachers don't use videos to their advantage, they are missing out on a strong pedagogical tool that can supplement learning. This semester, I am filming many of my labs, editing the video, and am going to provide the students with the videos to supplement lab. Point 10. This helps my TAs to get to spend more time helping students do the labs, instead of talking and talking and talking. More activity. Less repetition. Everyone wins!
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    Dr. Amy B. Hollingsworth

    Author

    Dr. Amy B Hollingsworth has worked in education for over 20 years. Most recently, she was a Learning Coach at the NIHF STEM School in Akron. She served as the Executive Director of Massillon Digital Academy. She was the District Technology Specialist at Massillon. She also was the Natural Science Biology Lab Coordinator at The University of Akron. She specializes in Biology Curriculum and Instruction, STEM education, and technology integration. She has written six lab manuals, and an interactive biology ebook. She has dedicated her life to teaching and learning, her children - Matthew, Lilly, and Joey, her husband Ryan, and her NewfiePoo Bailey.

    What's Amy Reading?

    • College Insurrection
    • The Chronicle of Higher Education
    • Digital Learning in Higher Ed
    • HuffPo College
    • Girls in STEM
    • The Simple Dollar
    • Tim Ferriss
    • Edudemic
    • Mashable
    • Inside Higher Ed
    • Gawker
    • io9

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