Personal and uniqe connections are hard to fake

I have been taking a course about learning online. One of the topics we have been discussing is cheating online. This is my response to the question:

How do we know that the student we are communicating with online really did the work?

As many of you have already pointed out, cheating is inevitable. As educators, the more we police our students and barricade our tests, the more our students will learn to be secretive and find ways to “beat the system.” I still believe that cheating needs to have consequences and that we do need to be thoughtful in our security measures but we also need to look at why cheating occurs.

This topic reminded me of learning about Bloom’s Taxonomy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_Taxonomy.) In the cognitive domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy there are six levels of thinking. The lowest level of cognition is knowledge (recall, who, what, when, where, list, repeat…) and the two highest levels of cognition are synthesis and evaluation (design, create, judge, argue, predict, evaluate). My own educational experience was mostly comprised of assignments based on the lower levels of cognition. Such as, “Explain the causes of the first World War.” or “Identify the main topic in this story.” When we ask students to do what has already been done over and over again, we open the door to students to pass off other people’s work as their own.

Questions that are well written and require higher level thinking and personal or unique connections demand work that reflects those connections. Questions such as “Compare one of the causes of the First World War with a current event.” or “How does the topic in this story relate to something that’s happened to you?” are harder to plagiarize entirely due to the unique or personal connections required to write them.

I really liked some of the alternatives to testing provided in the article Lisa found: How do you prevent cheating in distance education? Assignments such as building websites help students to demonstrate their knowledge and show them that their unique voices and approaches are valued by our educational system. This doesn’t make cheating impossible but makes it less likely and develops higher level thinking.

I think that cheating online is a symptom of a broken education system that doesn’t speak to the learners it is trying to teach as opposed to the moral decline of the next generation. Perhaps if our students’ work made a difference beyond the classroom and was based on higher level thinking as well as personal connections, we would see more valid collaboration and original thought.

Diversity in Math

At my school we decided to multiage (grades one and two in the same class; grades three and four in their own class). We made this decision based on philosophy; not numbers. For the most part I enjoy having the greater diversity in the class. We have been able to establish a great community in a short time. Students work together and bring their unique gifts to each project. Many subjects are easy to manage in this setting. For example, in writing we all write about the same topic but I expect that the grade twos will write longer compositions and will use higher level thinking such as defending their ideas, giving examples or explaining something in more detail. Some grade ones also take this challenge and it encourages them to extend skills.

Math is somewhat more problematic for me in the multiaged setting. At around the age of seven (grade two) children seem to go through a notable change in their ability to understand mathematical concepts. They no longer see numbers one by one but are able to see them as part of a system. This opens up an exciting mathematical world of place value, base ten, number patterns, etc.

How does a teacher encourage this revelation without overwhelming the grade ones? In the past, I have separated the two grades to teach math but I feel that there must be a more dynamic solution to this problem that still allows students at different academic levels to work collaboratively.

One suggestion I have heard is to do "Guided Math." In guided math, the students are grouped (4 or 5 per group) by ability. While the groups are working independently at hands-on math tubs, the teacher works with one group at a time to target the skills they specifically need. This sounds like a good idea but, again, it streams the children by ability rather than allowing for the richness of diversity.

So far I am trying to create open-ended activities so that each child can take it as far as they are able. This allows all children to participate in the activity at some level and opens up rich discussion between students. However, it still poses problems such as: How do you motivate them to work to their maximum capacity? and Do the stronger kids spend too much time helping those who are struggling?

I don't have the answers yet. But I am determined to find a way this year to make it work.

Professional Development Day

Our staff had a professional development day that was amazing today. We went for a hike around the school community and met a Blackfoot elder. He told us stories of what things were like long ago. The Tuscany area used to be inhabited by the Blackfoot people. There is archeological evidence of 4 separate camps that date back to 8000 years ago. Tuscany is a beautiful area with a rich history. The elder also drummed and sang with us. I was expecting the songs to be more traditional but he sang about Mickey Mouse and Twinkle, Twinkle. He says that the English words help draw in the young Native kids.

After we spent time with the Native Elder, we finished walking around the 12 Mile Coulee area. We were asked to see if a part of nature stood out to us. For me the tall grass came to mind right away. I had noticed it first when we were sitting in a circle around the drum. From where I was sitting, it looked taller than the mountains in the background. As I continued to walk, I noticed how it swayed in the wind yet was sturdy and grounded. I felt like the grass was giving me advice for the year to come teaching at a brand new school. I will need to be flexible but grounded as I learn new ways of doing things. The grass had seeds at the top and that was a sign of new life and new beginnings to me.

Hello, hello.