This week, we have been focusing on standards and rubrics. I enjoyed the class where we unpacked the standards and really got to dive into what the standard actually meant. This helped me make sense of my rubric that I created and what it meant. It hit me that the rubric was picking apart the standards and that was one thing. The next step is to unpack the standard to determine the order in which a teacher should teach concepts, which would then outline the path to developing a unit. I used to think that developing yearly plans and units was extremely stressful, which it still can be, but I know now that it is really just a matter of unpacking standards.
With this in mind, I skimmed over the writing samples that my cooperating teacher gave me to get a rough idea of where the students in my class fell on my rubric. I knew before this, that my class is the low flyers out of the entire second grade, but I honestly did not realize how low they were. My cooperating teacher suggested a few students who would be great for me to work with, so I glanced at their work especially close. Working with the students that were suggested will definitely be interesting, but I am up for the challenge and it will be a great learning experience.
I've also been finding the term "unpacking the standards" to be really interesting and surprisingly complex. I've been thinking a lot about how the standards guide teaching and what this means for teachers today. It seems to me that the standards guide what you teach, but not necessarily how you teach it or how you assess it. I think the challenge then, is for teachers to still maintain their creativity even when they don't necessarily have the freedom to choose what they are teaching in terms of content.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in terms of evaluating student work at my practicum school, I've noticed the same thing. It really scares me how far behind some of the students are. For parent-teacher conferences, my cooperating teacher photocopied a list of what reading "letter levels" correspond to which grades. Many of our students are YEARS behind. I keep thinking: how do we catch them up while also making sure they don't miss out on other important things, like interacting with their grade-level peers and being able to access grade-level content in a manner accessible to them.
I have heard so many heartbreaking stories about students my teacher had helped when she had them in lower grades (she has gone from years and years of 1st grade, to a year of 2nd, to a year of 3rd now) who have now literally stuck in the same reading level for months or even years at a time. It's heartbreaking and horrible considering our school has adopted this curriculum that is supposed to be encompassing of all students of all abilities with the goal of moving them forward. The amazing part of having these small projects like Observation of a Reader and Evolution of a Writer is that we are going to make a personalized impact (although small!) on a student's life! That's awesome!!! It's important to look at how incredible it is when we see these small victories in our students because as I am beginning to notice with some of the teachers in our placement, seeing these victories is what gets you by on some of the days and others, it only motivates you more!
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