AUSSIE

Blog entry posted January 11th, 2010 by Dale Worsley

“Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race,” exclaims Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In my last blog, I suggested we let the question, “What is school?” guide us through the next decade. Following my own suggestion, ready to define the nature of education at every pass, I sallied forth to encounter for the umpteenth time the reality of the classroom and came across…Test Prep.

Indeed, two of my high schools have asked me to deliver workshops on how to prepare students to take their New York State Regents Examinations, which, to most students, is the rough equivalent of fighting a fire-breathing dragon with a broken wooden lance.

It is the reality of pedagogical experience to confront this dragon, though, so I will be brave and not shy away from it in this blog, just as I grapple with it in my work.

Three items of research, and a story.

First item of research: I read a report of a study that compared two methods of teaching a math concept. The first method had students learn the concept, do practice problems, then take a test. This is more or less the way math, and most subjects, are traditionally taught. Teach, then test. The second method had the students take the test first, then learn the concept, then take the test again. Exactly the same amount of time was spent on each lesson, and exactly the same amount of time elapsed before the students were tested. The second group scored significantly higher. Why? Simple. The students’ curiosity had been successfully aroused. (BTW: I looked through my files and couldn’t find the source of this research. Lifeline, please?)

The story: I mentioned this research to the teachers at the Lillian L. Rashkis school in Brooklyn, where some of the borough’s most academically (and emotionally) challenged students will soon be trying to douse Regents exams for the first time. I have been collaborating with the teachers there in the design and analysis of “predictive assessments.” One of the teachers, Emily Chandler, after hearing my report, tried giving her students a few multiple choice questions from past Global Studies Regents exams before they had studied the main content of the questions, with a view to testing out the research for herself. Lo! Behold! It worked! The students hungrily demanded to know: “What is democracy?” “What is an economy?”
It wasn’t like they hadn’t heard, and even used, these words before. The difference seemed to be that now they really wanted to pursue the answers.

Don’t try this trick at home…your home classroom that is…unless you see your class as a laboratory for action research. I’m not staking grandiose claims to the method. But hey, putting troubled students in hot pursuit of big ideas like democracy and economy, when they are normally in the pursuit of the more immediately gratifying happiness beyond school doors, can’t be a bad thing! (And their questions would function smartly as essential questions for units, wouldn’t they?)
Did I mention how patient, persevering and creative Emily and her colleagues are at Rashkis? If you want to see nurturing, differentiated teaching in action, I recommend a visit.

Now, for that second piece of research that bears on preparing students for pryomaniacal standardized high-stakes tests, which demonstrated the “Zeigarnik Effect”…wait…Gina says I’m pushing my word count here…one research article at a time. Okay, thanks, Gina. I’ll put it off until next week. But really, if you are a teacher or a waiter (oops, make that “server”) you really have to know about the Zeigarnik Effect, so I hope you can tune in.

Meanwhile, if you are a Regents course teacher, enjoy your test prep work with your students. I know that sounds oxymoronic, to include the words “enjoy” and “Regents Prep” in the same sentence, but at risk of being labeled a “Pangloss” or a “Pollyanna” (couldn’t decide which would be the deeper insult) I actually believe, from the reality of the experience related above and others that remain untold, that the dragon can be tamed.

PS: If you’ve been holding your breath for an update on Tom McMurrer’s Postal Project with his second graders, exhale. I had to postpone my visit to his school last week, but aim to get there this week and write a report in my next blog posting.