KAA - King Abdullah Academy

Yesterday the members of my cohort visited the BRAND NEW King Abdullah Academy in Herndon, Virginia.  I was completely taken aback by the beautiful new building and the progressive and comprehensive program that will be instituted. As the daughter of an architect, we spent many nights around the dinner table talking about architecture (and also visiting places to view their arctectural design).  The building is beautifully designed and well thought out.  I imagine it will inspire its students greatly.

I taught at the former school, the Islamic Saudi Academy, in the mid to late 1990s.  It was a fascinating experience and one in which I have reflected on numerous times over the years. This new school is an overwelmingly huge improvement in every way from the old school. When I taught at the school 20 years ago, I did not find it particularly innovative in terms of educatonal thought and theory.  This is not the case with the new school.  With a New Zealander at the helm as the Executive Principal, new ideas, perspectives and philosophies are being implemented.  A truly global and forward thinking appoach is being actualized through the development of its STEM program and global minded philosophy.

When I got home from the visit, I emailed one of my former students who must be in his mid 30s. This student atttented UVA and then went to Law School.  After working for the DA in Manhatten, he is home in Northern Virginia, happily married to a women from Baharain with a small daughter. During our correspondence, he told me (to my surprise) that he and his wife are looking at the school for their daughter.  While I know he and I would not have thought the previous school would be a great educational choice, I whole heartedly think that this would be an excellent school for his daughter!

Understanding By Design - 6 Facets of Understanding

I have been familiar and have worked to implement Wiggins and McTighe's ideas in Understanding By Design , their groundbreaking book on backwards design and instructional planning
One idea in the book that resonates with me and the way I try to teach (and hope to inspire others to teach) are the Six Facets of Understanding.  These understandings are: explanation, interpretation, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. These are hugely applicable to the Social Sciences.  Each of these reflect more current trends in standardized curricula including the Advanced Placement Courses.

We stress that our students look at the perspective of any person writing or telling history.  This can be considered a higher order thinking skill as one needs to draw from other knowledge or understandings and anlyze how that has affected one's perspective.

By thinking about perspective one is intreperting and working to explain events, dynamics, or politica/social or economic movements.  Both of these also require analysis.

To me, one of the most important goals of my classes (and I suppose of education as a whole) would be to help students develop empathy.  I very much want for them to begin to understand the reasons behind behaviors and actions in history.  I want them to be able to put themselves in the shoes of others.

The culmination of all of this would be to develop a greater sense of self knowledge.  I want students to be able to put all of these things together to help them reflect on who they are and why they may or may not think or do what they do.

What is curriculum ?

Such a broad word.  What does it involve?  
Curriculum is that information that is be studied in a course of study.  It includes essential knowledge, understandings, assessments, strategies and activities. 
According Merriman/Webster Dictionary Curriculum can be simply defined " the courses that are taught by a school, college, etc."

Defining STEM and others

This is an interesting exercise and discussion we had in class tonight. Think of defnintions for these various things?

Science - the study of the processes of the physical and natural world and how it works.

Technology--anything that can help people with a task (the tools that can help find a solution)

Experts say:  any purposeful modification of the natural world

Engineering - a field of study of which the focus is the physical, structural, and electrical makeup of man made construction (someone who applies scientific theory and methods to design and build) Jim’s answer: problem solving with design

Mathematics -- the study of numbers and their relationship to one another and the analysis of their value. The study of relationships between things (numbers that are real or imagined)  based on logic

Art - the idea of promoting, creating or appreciating the aesthetics

STEM Education -- the study and practice of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in an interdisciplinary and practical manner.

STEAM Education- STEM with the stress on Applied Math or Art

The distinction between Science and Engineering -- scientists develop the principles and theories  and engineers apply it to evdescience is the theory and the engineering is things are built

Interdisciplinary teaching and learning -- connecting various disciplines

Course of Study - Then vs. Now

After analyzing the courses that I took back in the 1980s as compared to today, I realize that the more things change, the more they stay the same. So many of the required classes for students today, are eerily similar to the required courses for students today.  The biggest change that I see is an accelerated program of study.  Whereas a course that I took in 10th grade (for example), like Biology, most college bound students take in 9th grade.  Additionally, the big change is the AP label on so many courses.  Back in the 1980s, courses were not labed AP and we did not take the AP test. However, all of the courses I took were considered "college prep".  While my teachers worked to prepare us academically for college, they did not teach according to ANY set curriculum because that was PRE SOLs!!!
You can see MY program of study from the 1980s here and one for the present day here

Modified Curriculum Orientation

In the recent past, educational scholars have looked to define and better understand the curriculum orientation (or beliefs) that educators hold.  Among these beliefs are that curriculum should focus on:
1. Cognitive Process
2. Behavorial
3.  Social Reconstruction
4.  Academic Rationalism 
5. Humanistic and
6.  Ecclectic/Practical 
Each of these beliefs represent varying philosophical approaches. To focus on Cognetitive Processes is the belief that developing thinking skills is of the utmost importance.  A Behavorial approach/belief is focused not on the acquisition of knowledge or societal issues but of individual progress. Academic Rationalists adhere to more traditional beliefs of the acquisition of knowledge and Social Reconstruction encourages students to think critically and problem solve.  The Humansitic approach calls for attention to be paid to personal reflection and development.  Those who believe in an Eccelctic/Practical approach look to curriculum to investigate and mitigate local problems.

After 20 years of teaching,  my personal beliefs would tend toward Academic Rationalism as I have taught Advanced Placement History courses that stress the acquisition of knowledge. While many today argue that attaining knowledge is not as important in today's society as factual knowledge can be quickly obtained through internet search engines such as Google.  However, it is the attainment of knowledge, the understanding of that knowledge and processing/anaylzing it, that has been the focus of many of my years of teaching. 
After studying my own beliefs and taking S.B. Jenkins survey to measure my own beliefs, I was surprised that the results indicated that my strongest belief is that of "Curriculum as Techonolgy" or the Behavioural approach, particularly as this is not a content based philosophy. However, I do appreciate the attention individual progress that the Behavourial philosophy recognizes.  

15 Fixes for Broken Grades -- Who said they were broken?

The first time I heard of this book, about 8 years ago, many of my colleagues wondered "who said that our grading system is broken? 

People sitting in that initial meeting mumbled "well, this too shall pass". But, guess what? It hasn't passed! This book has caused educators to take a serious look at grading practices and how and why we give grades.  Initially the ideas were shocking and caused a lot of negative reactions from teachers, especially regarding the thought of not giving kids zeros (because according to this book, isn't giving a kid a zero for not doing an assignment assessing behavior?)

These ideas have caused a paradigm shift in FCPS.  Just last week changes in the Grading and Reporting Policies were announced by FCPS. You can see those here http://www.fcps.edu/is/schoolcounseling/documents/HSGradingReporting.pdf

Many of the ideas have been encouraged and are now becoming the root of new policies (such as discouraging/eliminating zeros).   I have included some of my own personal reactions here. And, while the items below are reactions to the fixes, for the most part, I agree with them philosophically and therefore would not change them.

• Fix 1:  Don’t Include Student Behavior.  This principle is strongly held by many educational practitioners today.  Grades should be based on mastery of the material. My classes reflect this philosophy.   While in theory, I agree with this, in practice and philosophically I do believe that by including some assessment of behavior can encourage the development of personal responsibility and a strong work ethic.   It also can help provide a record of behaviors that support mastery.  In years past, students could receive credit for being on time and positive behaviors in class.  I want to encourage students to develop strong, academic behaviors and to not rest on innate cognitive talents. Having innate cognitive talent is a wonderful thing, however, at some point in a gifted person’s life, they too would benefit by positive academic behaviors. Additionally, behavior such as participation can enhance the quality of a class discussion and raise level of learning in a class.  It would be nice to be able to recognize these contributions of students who do participate.  
• Fix 3:  Don’t punish academic dishonesty with reduced grades.  This idea is plausible in theory as using reduced grades as a punishment for cheating violates the ideas of Fix 1-that is grading on behavior. As a practitioner, I ask what other effective deterrent does a teacher have to discourage cheating.  Generally speaking, isn’t a person motivated to cheat on an assessment by grades?  What else does a teacher have to deter students from cheating?   
• Fix 13:  Don’t use information from formative assessments and practice to determine grades; use only summative evidence.  This idea fits nicely with the ideas from Fix 1 in that formative assessments could be reflective of a student’s academic behavior.  However, for years, I have included formative assessments as part of a student’s grade to encourage effort.  This has been important to me philosophically as I have mostly taught AP US History.  Knowledge and understanding of this subject is not innate but learned.  Typically, students who work hard on formative assignments find that this effort helps them master the material.  By including formative assessments and practice into a grade, it provides recognition ( and credit) for work done and helps students who are not strong test takers.  Including formative assessments in the grade allows for the teacher to keep a record of these efforts and the development of skills.