These are some problems that the editors of American Educator magazine have published in reference to the gaping holes in state standards:
~ Professional development is too often about pedagogical fads.
~ Too many districts don't even try to flesh out the state standards, leaving teachers to face that challenge on their own.
~ Students, especially those who change schools frequently, end up with gaps and repetitions - never doing an experiment with seeds, for example, but having Charlotte's Web read to them three times.
~ Textbook developers try to "cover" the standards by creating 800-page back breakers.
~ Teachers' (and administrators') guesses as to what will be on the state assessment often end up driving instruction.
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2 comments:
I agree with these problems mentioned in the American Educator magazine. I teach math, and the text book is enormous. Just as we were talking in class, our curriculum just slightly hits on the content. And just when the student understands one concept, on to another one! When I first came to my job the curriculum was the textbook, cover to cover! Last year they changed the curriculum because the student scores on the standardized tests were not as high as they expected. But I still feel that students need time to develop critical thinking skills within the area of mathematics, and this superficial "coverage" is creating robots, where all students are taught to think in the same way. Thanks for the information, it is really aligned with my thinking!
All of things seem to be true. I especially see how children with special needs receive a choppy, incongruous education. Even with general education, how many times do I start a lesson with my kids and hear, "I did this last year." I know that many of the programs that we administer are cyclical or spiraled, but we find ourselves changing what we need to teach based on the things that the kids have done before. The standards are working for us.
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