SED 407 Reading Response: Daniels & Zemelman ‘Subjects Matter’ Chapters 3 & 4

Sorry guys, I think this one is especially rambly..

Reading these chapters, I was trying to reflect on my experiences with textbooks in middle and high school. It’s been a long time, so I don’t quite remember, but I’m sure that textbooks were used pretty traditionally in most of my classes – I was certainly very familiar and comfortable with textbooks by the time I graduated high school. I do remember being exposed to and assigned other types of texts though. I especially remember one science teacher requiring us to read a science biography – I read the autobiography of the physicist Richard Feynman and I loved it. I was already confident that I wanted to pursue a career in science at that point, but reading this book stoked that flame in me. While this one reading assignment wasn’t a totally transformative experience in and of itself, I think it serves as an example of one of the many ways this teacher (one of my all-time favorite teachers) was able to broaden my view of science as a discipline. In addition to the biography assignment, he also required us to read and think about current scientific discoveries – we read about science in the news and he challenged us to tackle primary source research papers. It wasn’t just about what was in the textbook (though we did read the textbook too) – science also involved the stories of people and discoveries, science had a history and a life beyond the textbook that was daily evolving, science was something that I could be a part of. This teacher taught in a way, presented science in a way, that got me fired up in the way that D&Z talk about back in Chapter 1 as the wish all teachers have for their students – he helped me develop the passion of a life-long learner.

I feel like I’m getting a little off topic here… I am writing about this teacher because he was a teacher who used the textbook strategically and sparingly. He had respect for the textbook as a valuable reference, but he didn’t let the textbook dictate the curriculum or be the only voice of authority. And I had several teachers like this one, across disciplines. I wonder now if I was just lucky to have had a lot of great teachers or if my experience might be reflective of the fact that I was in school before (or at the very beginning of) the standards movement in education. (I graduated high school in 1997, it’s not entirely clear to me when the standards movement began, but I don’t think it was in full swing when I was in school). I can understand how these days schools and teachers, under the pressure of meeting standards and being sold the idea that a particular textbook is a sure shot for success, fall into the trap of letting textbooks dictate curriculum. Not that I approve of this situation, but I can understand why it happens – the pressure is great and the textbooks seem like an easy ticket. So I am glad that D&Z are getting this conversation going, presenting an alternative, reminding us of what should be common sense – that textbooks have value, but they are not enough on their own – that teachers need to be critical of the textbooks they have at their disposal, to use them sparingly and strategically, to supplement them with other kinds of texts – this is in the best interests of our students, this is good teaching. I want to be the kind of teacher that approaches the textbook in the way the D&Z propose, I want to assign biographies or even fiction in my science classes, to give my students opportunities to encounter all kinds of texts – but how much freedom will I have to do that? This will depend on what school I end up at. Going beyond the textbook takes extra time and money – but that is a challenge I can handle. But as D&Z point out, some schools dictate not only what textbook is to be used, but also how it will be used. I would not want to teach at such a school, but I also feel that such schools need reform and how will reform ever happen if teachers who care about reform always chose to teach elsewhere? This question comes up a lot for me and once again, I’ll just leave it hanging there…

I want to say a little about my personal relationship to textbooks. I guess this just goes to show how much of a nerd I am, but I kind of love a good textbook (“good” being the operative word here). Not that I often sit around reading them in my free time (though that has happened), but I enjoy reading textbooks. I have always been a keeper of textbooks, rarely selling them back at the end of a semester. I love having them to turn to when I need information. In college textbooks were central to most courses I took (there were even a couple courses that I pretty much taught myself from the textbook), and I realize that this has left me with a strong imprint of this model of a course being structured around a textbook. But while this is a model that I am familiar and comfortable with, I don’t want it to be how I approach teaching my own classroom. These chapters by D&Z are a good reminder that while textbooks can be a valuable resource, they should be used as a reference, not as a framework for curriculum or a book that students are expected to read from cover to cover. I think it’s important that we teach kids strategies for reading textbooks so that they are comfortable with them whenever they encounter them in their future. I also think it’s important for kids to respect textbooks for what they are (provided said textbooks are worthy of respect), while at the same time being critical of textbooks and understanding that there are many sources of information beyond textbooks.

These chapters bring up a lot of implications in terms of how I want to teach, which I will inelegantly summarize here:

• incorporate multiple types of text into my curriculum
• teach students the value of multiple sources and viewpoints – I love this quote from D&Z, “…it is unacceptable for schools in a democracy to teach young people that only one view is sufficient … We might think that students just need to learn the basics first and save the controversies for later – but too often, later never arrives.” I would add that it is also important that we expose students to the controversies so that we can teach them strategies for dealing with them.
• be a fact checker – keep up with developments in the content I teach so that I can bring it to my students attention if their textbook is incorrect or outdated
• keep a well-rounded classroom library – I am so excited about this and had actually already started an Amazon wishlist for books I would want in it
• strive for balance – in genres and types of texts used (fiction, nonfiction, classic, contemporary, primary, secondary, etc), in text level and length, in student/teacher choice of text, in “windows and mirrors”
• remember that readers do grow by reading “easy” material – students should have plenty of opportunities to read without struggle – but we should also challenge students to read at a higher level, while providing scaffolding for that challenge

D&Z note that a recent study shows that students preferred schoolbooks in paper over digital form. I was glad to read this, as a paper-preferrer myself. This got me thinking beyond preference to the implications of digital text on the learning experience. I am in no ways a luddite – I think technology can enrich the leaning experience in many ways – but I think we should be critical of the digital revolution. This article in Scientific American presents some interesting research on how reading on paper versus screen affects our brains and suggests there might be some cognitive advantages to good, old-fashioned book reading.

In addressing how teaching strictly to the textbook can lead to a focus on content-coverage in which the important big ideas of a discipline are lost, D&Z say, “It’s hard to make yourself put that textbook down and “teach less,” giving up so much time for one book, covering just one big idea.” D&Z propose that to do this, to teach more by “teaching less,” teachers should identify a few key concepts and link all teaching to these across the year (for example, a key concept in a history class could be “what it means to be an American”). This reminded me of the UbD concept of essential questions, ongoing inquiries leading to big ideas that “connect the dots of seemingly disconnected or disorderly content.” This idea of prioritizing the big ideas over the superficial coverage of every little thing in the textbook resonates with me – this is the kind of teacher I want to be – but again I wonder, how much freedom will I have to do this? 

A picture from David Macaulay's 'The Way We Work' - a book that I definitely want to include in my classroom library. Macaulay's books could almost be considered textbooks in that they present a lot of information - but they do so in such an engaging and beautiful way.

SED 407 Reading Response: Understanding by Design

As I was reading the UbD chapters, I found myself reflecting on my experience designing lesson plans in SED 406 (my first experience ever with designing lesson plans). Though I think I was doing some of what the UbD model outlines when I was designing my lesson plans, I think I would have been more successful if I had had the UbD framework to guide me. I like the way the UbD model organizes the design process into three stages and the specific questions posed in each stage that help the designer clarify the big ideas and essential questions of a lesson and determine instructional strategies and assessment methods. I know there is much more to the UbD model than the simple graphic below outlines, but I find this summary helpful and plan to use it next time I design a lesson plan.

Click for source.

When so clearly laid out, as it is in the UbD model, the idea that a curriculum is a means to an end – and therefore the design of a curriculum should begin with identifying what that end is – does seem like common sense. Yet, as the authors point out, this is not the typical approach to education – most teachers take an approach that focuses on superficial coverage of lots of content as specified by standards or outlined in textbooks. When I look at the content standards for science, I can understand how this might happen – the amount of content to cover feels overwhelming, I can see how it would be easy to focus on covering it all without stopping to prioritize or think about what is really important for the students to learn. I like this idea of prioritizing content – of identifying and teaching to the enduring and transferable ideas, the linchpin ideas – but I wonder how much freedom I will have as a teacher to do such prioritization. Will I not be accountable for delivering all of the content standards? Regardless of the answer to that question, I think the UbD model offers some excellent guiding questions to help teachers turn content standards into big ideas or understandings: Here is the content I have to deliver – what would use of this content look like? Here are the facts my students must learn, but what do they mean? What kind of changes do I want to see in my students as a result of this instruction? What are the best ways to guide and assess those changes?

I also find it helpful to think about essential questions as questions that foster ongoing inquiry – the goal is not necessarily to answer the essential questions, but to keep them alive. As the authors write, “Serious learning always involves inquiry in the face of uncertainty.” I love this idea of presenting students with uncertainty (as opposed to certainties that they must memorize and regurgitate) and teaching them the skills and strategies they need to be comfortable with uncertainty, to let it guide their learning experience instead of shutting it down. Unfortunately, I think that many students have become so used to just being given the answers that uncertainty terrifies them and turns them off from the learning process. I love the quote from a teacher that the authors share, that we want our students “to know what to do when they don’t know what to do.” This gets at what the authors are saying when they say that transfer of learning is a primary goal of education – I think this is an important tenet for teachers to keep in mind. It shapes the design of instruction in that it demands authentic learning experiences that present students with genuine problems that “shift a student from the role of a passive knowledge receiver into a more active role as a constructor of meaning.”

What I find interesting about this inquiry approach is that it frames understandings (or big ideas) as inferences that students are guided towards, even if the statement of the understanding sounds like a fact. This relates to what the authors say about the purpose of an essential question being more important than its format. Just because the big idea sounds like a fact, just because the essential question may appear to have a simple answer, this doesn’t mean that instruction should be simple delivery of that fact – that is lazy teaching. A teacher’s role is to frame essential questions and understandings within learning experiences that help students come to their own understanding – only in this way will the knowledge be enduring and transferable. And this idea extends to assessment as well – as this UbD tenet states, “Understanding is revealed when students autonomously make sense of and transfer their learning through authentic performance.”

This idea that understandings appear to teachers (content experts) as facts but can be framed for learners as inquiry got me thinking back to Wilhelm and Vygotsky. As the UbD authors point out, understandings eventually become facts – as content experts, we take it for granted that the knowledge we have is the result of a process we once went through. What just seem like facts to us now are actually the product of active knowledge construction. To be better teachers, we need to take a step back and acknowledge this process – as Wilhelm does with literacy. We need to provide our students with essential questions that begin as teacher prompts but eventually become internalized as self-prompts. In this way, essential questions are scaffolding, supporting students as they work through the zones of development.

SED 407 Reading Response: Daniels & Zemelman ‘Subjects Matter’ Chapters 1 & 2

I’m excited by the outline that D&Z present for their book in the first chapter – looks like we are going to be getting into some concrete practical strategies for teaching literacy. These first chapters are a great basis for the strategies to come, addressing the importance of creating engaging reading experiences for students (getting them “fired-up”) and the fundamentals of what it means to be a good reader.

The fast-food project that D&Z describe is a great example of engaged real-world learning, where students are passionate about a subject and take ownership of the learning experience. What I appreciate most about D&Z’s description of the project is how it was tied into the curriculum. For example, alongside reading Fast Food Nation, the students were meeting the requirements of their biology curriculum by learning about nutrition, etc. I think this is very important – while I think the value of real-world student-driven learning is huge, I worry that often such experiences lack depth when it comes to learning content-area knowledge. (I am thinking here about my experience at the MET high school – the real-world learning I saw happening there did not seem to be meeting learning goals in terms of both knowledge acquisition and skill development – I did not see students being challenged to go deeper with their projects.) Not that depth of knowledge is the most important thing in learning – development of critical thinking, practice in self-expression, and engagement in the real world are important as well – but these things are not enough on their own. I’m curious to know more about how the students involved in the fast-food project were assessed over all – I imagine they must have had more traditional assessments in their courses. The project outcomes (such as the children’s book) did seem naïve to me, as D&Z themselves point out. And that’s ok I think – they are kids after all – as long as there is deeper learning being assessed elsewhere. I do not mean to belittle the value of getting kids fired-up – I share with D&Z that dream of my future students  “catching my fever of ideas” – I love my content-area and I want to share that love with my students in the hopes that they will love it too. Love of learning is the foundation of the development of life-long learners, which is what I want to help my students become. And certainly to focus only on knowledge acquisition without value placed on the process would be worse – like the example of Mr. Cosgrove’s class, where there was essentially no learning happening at all.

I’m glad D&Z presented their ideas alongside the Common Core. I know so little about the Common Core standards, yet they have this looming presence in my future. It was good to see some analysis of their strengths and weaknesses and to understand that while I need to meet the CC standards, this doesn’t mean that I can’t go beyond them – and D&Z offer guidance on how to do that.

At the risk of bringing up a topic that I could go on and on about and making this post too long, I do want to say something about the issues raised by D&Z’s discussion of what we learn about the American educational system when PISA scores are disaggregated by family income. As D&Z say, “We do not have a “mediocre” school system in this country; we have many centers of true excellence, and we also have some shockingly underserved students and communities.” In FNED 346, we read David Berliner’s ‘Effects of Inequality and Poverty vs. Teachers and Schooling on America’s Youth’ in which Berliner addresses these same statistics. Berliner points out that when variance in test scores is examined along with the many factors that contribute to those test scores, what happens inside the school accounts for only 20% of the variation – and teachers themselves are just one of many parts of that 20%. Good teaching matters, but it is not enough on it’s own to overcome the enormous influence of factors beyond the walls of the school – namely income inequality. These all makes me feel a little hopeless – especially when, as D&Z say, “The significance of these numbers is effectively moot, since school reformers have already sold the narrative of a sudden, precipitous decline.” As a nation we’re not even recognizing the real problem and all the time, energy, and money we are spending on “reform” is really just spinning wheels because it’s addressing only a myth about what’s going on in education. Yes, reform is needed, but it needs to fit the problem. One way of not giving in to the seeming hopelessness of this situation is to recognize that as educators, we must be actively involved outside of the classroom in addressing income inequality. But D&Z also offer hope in the form of literacy strategies that educators can use within the classroom.

Reading about the importance of helping students to activate prior knowledge (turn on the appropriate schema) before encountering new information in texts made me think of a recent photo I saw on an Instagram account I follow, Humans of New York. There has been some interesting education-related stuff happening with Humans of New York recently, which I won’t get into, but you can read more about it here if you want. The photo I thought of while reading D&Z is the one below, due to what the teacher pictured says about her students and gaps in prior knowledge. I worry that activating prior knowledge is not just about instructional strategies – often students enter a classroom with a lack of the prior knowledge they need for success and as teachers we must catch them up before we can even begin teaching them what we are supposed to be teaching. As this teacher says, you don’t even know where to start – there’s that hopeless feeling again… but we believe and keep going.

“Sometimes the gaps are so large, you don’t even know where to start. The lesson plan says that you’re supposed to be teaching about tectonic plates. But if they’re going to understand tectonic plates, they need to understand density. And if they’re going to understand density, they need to understand mass and volume. And if they’re going to understand mass and volume, they need to know how to multiply. And some of the scholars don’t know how to multiply. The gaps can be so large you don’t even know where to start. How do you fill the gaps created by years of miseducation? Sometimes it feels so hopeless you want to give up."

And finally, just a few notes that I want to record here about other things I want to remember about these D&Z chapters … readers actively construct meaning from text, it’s not just decoding (a student can get a 100 on a reading comprehension test and still not really understand anything they read) … the importance of teaching students to recognize the structure and kind of thinking required when encountering texts in different content areas … that teaching literacy the way D&Z propose is a “two-fer” – you can teach content while teaching reading strategies, plus the students get a deeper understanding of the content if they are using good reading strategies.