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4-11-12 Teacher Evaluations and Teaching via Technology - In the News
NJ Spotlight - Fine Print: New Teacher Evaluation Guidance…Teachers outside tested subjects get leeway on how much student performance counts

NJ Spotlight - Plugged In: New Jersey’s High Tech Classrooms…Schools are using reading software while waiting proof computers improve basic learning

NJ Spotlight - Fine Print: New Teacher Evaluation GuidanceTeachers outside tested subjects get leeway on how much student performance counts

By John Mooney, April 11, 2012 in Education|

What it is: The Christie administration last month sent out notice of more than $2 million in grants for school districts to join the state’s teacher evaluation pilot now underway to develop a statewide system for 2013-14. Last weekend, it sent out additional guidance for the 10 districts already in the pilot, breaking down how student performance should fit into teachers’ grades in this first year as well.

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What it means: The guidance for the first time lays out how the vast majority of teachers in the pilot and the state as whole -- those who do not teach language arts and math in the seven grades tested by the state -- will themselves be graded for student achievement. It offers a range of options for gauging their students, but also gives districts flexibility to make that performance count just 15 percent of the final evaluation. That’s a big difference from the system for teachers in tested subjects and grades, who will see student test scores count for as much as 50 percent of their evaluations.

The reasoning: The measures for teachers in subjects like social studies, the arts and world languages have long been one of the biggest challenges for developing a teacher evaluation process that looks at student achievement. Unlike in math and language arts, there is no standardized test used across any state that can fairly compare achievement levels.

Work in progress: The administration says it still wants to get the student performance piece up to 50 percent for all teachers, but understands the obstacles that have surfaced. “We realize there is a ways to go to identifying meaningful measures for them,” said Justin Barra, communications director of the state Department of Education.

Test data in progress: It’s not like the test data is ready yet, either, and the new guidance puts off the time that pilot districts will see the data for its math and language arts teachers until next fall. It tells districts to fill in all the other measures first to develop an “interim summative rating” for the end of this school year, before the final data can be plugged in for a final rating.

Other ways to test: For teachers not involved in the state tests, the guidance lays out a number of options for districts to assess students in these grades and subjects, including teachers developing standardized tests of their own or systems to measure progress through student work, essays or “portfolios.”

Some rules: Those measures would still need to determine if a student is proficient or not, and the tests themselves would have to have some administrative oversight and not be scored by teachers judging their own students’ work.

School-wide measures count: For both teachers in and outside tested subjects and grades, 5 to 10 percent of a teacher’s grade will be based on school-wide performance measures. It may be test scores overall or within specific student groups. It also can include rates for graduation, college-matriculation, attendance or a half-dozen others.

 

NJ Spotlight - Plugged In: New Jersey’s High Tech Classrooms…Schools are using reading software while waiting proof computers improve basic learning

By By Jill Barshay, The Hechinger Report, April 11, 2012 in Education|Post a Comment

A computer voice guides 12-year-old Amir Accoo to spell the words he hears through his headphones: emergency, bulldozer, minutes. Accoo spells minutes wrong and is asked to try that one again, several times. Later, he clicks on a proofreading button.

“You check what you have wrong out of the spelling words I just did,” Accoo explained as he looked at different spellings of the word until he spotted the correct one and moved the cursor to it, “and you just click on it, like this.”

Accoo is in the sixth grade at Asbury Park Middle School, but because he is so far below grade level when it came to reading he goes to a new type of reading class each day instead of a traditional one.

Computer-driven classes are now spreading fast across the country to help bottom students catch up. Already more than 400 schools in New Jersey are using Scholastic Inc.’s Read 180 program that Accoo is learning from.

Other companies are marketing similar software, too. And, increasingly, it’s not just for the weakest readers, but for all kids, in all subjects and in all grades. Schools are deciding how much time kids should spend in front of a computer in the classroom, without a whole lot of evidence about what works.

Accoo is so excited, he can tell you how many words he’s read each day. On this particular day, it was 341.

 

Going High-Tech to Teach Reading

Asbury Park Middle School has three of these classrooms with a row of computers along a wall. The students work independently most of the time without a teacher’s help.

Linda Smolinski has been teaching for 32 years. This year her students are mainly Mexican immigrants and Haitian earthquake refugees. At first she was skeptical about using technology.

“I said ‘No. My kids can’t do that. There’s absolutely no way. My children don’t speak English. How do you expect them to sit at a computer and do something when I’m not even there helping them?’” Smolinski recalled.

She was eventually won over when Scholastic, the maker of the software, showed an increase in her students’ reading ability after just three months. The real test, however, will come later this year, when the state’s standardized tests will show whether or not the program is really working.

Superintendent Denise Lowe was hired away from Central Islip Long Island to help fix Asbury Park’s school system. The district has been a favorite target of Gov. Chris Christie because it has one of the highest per pupil expenditures in the state, but its test scores are abysmal. Some 90 percent of the students at Asbury Park Middle School qualify for free and reduced price lunch. That measure of concentrated poverty qualifies them for extra school funding from the state.

Lowe said she’d had previous success with Scholastic’s Read 180 software in Long Island.

“This was pretty much the first thing I told my director to do that we need to look into Read 180,” Lowe explained. She spent $600,000, which she admits is a big investment.

The Downside to Technology

Some educators are critical of these fancy high-tech classrooms. Newark wanted to show off its computers, but technical problems caused them to cancel before a reporter’s visit. And there are other problems.

“They’re hearing distracted voices, these unnatural voices and not seeing human lips mouthing the words,” said Sandra Priest Rose, the chairman of the Reading Reform Foundation. Her organization trains teachers to teach reading in poor schools in New York City.

“It’s terribly important to have that human interaction and that spontaneous interaction that you cannot get on a computer,” Priest Rose said.

She added neuroscience research has found that the act of writing helps the brain learn better than tapping on a keyboard. Although, she will concede the software program can offer some useful data.

Smolinski said the program provides detailed information about the students’ skill gaps every day.

“On one of our first tests, most of them scored high 80s low 90s. Most teachers would say, ‘Fine, I’ll just move on.’ I noticed that every one of them bombed antonyms. That told me that I did not teach antonyms and I didn’t,” Smolinski said. On the second test, her students again scored well. But the data report showed that they bombed capitalization.

And then there’s the Groupinator. It takes that skill gap analysis and places students in a group with kids who have similar needs.

“It tells me exactly what they need, when they need it. It does all my work for me,” Smolinski said.

Using Both Old and New Techniques

In Asbury Park, part of the $600,000 investment included bright-green beanbag chairs and cushioned rockers, where, after their computer time, kids like Accoo can kick back with an old-fashioned book.

“I get to read my favorite books,” Accoo said.” Right now I’m reading Captain Underpants. The book I just got done reading recently was Frankenstein. And Frankenstein is mostly about this scientist and he creates life.”Asbury Park’s teachers wish they could doctor more of these classrooms to serve all of their failing students. But right now there’s room for only 120 students a year.