ROLE discussed on TED site

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The amazing debate about eliminating grades that I moderated on TED.com last month sparked plenty of conversation about results-only learning.

With this scintillating debate in mind, I started a new TED discussion about creating Results Only Learning Environments world wide.

I hope you'll weigh in on this important conversation. Also, please share it with your PLN.

Why high stakes testing is all about money

Today, I received correspondence in my school e-mail inbox from a company, promising to increase student achievement on our state-mandated standardized test.

For the small price of $1,495, Coach Publishing declares, I can plop my students on computers and have them take practice test after practice test. Oh, but there's more: for my slightly-less-than-$1,500 investment, the company will also give me real-time test results and customized skills practice.

Courtesy eHow.com

If one wonders why it's so difficult to get bureaucrats -- the same ones who blame teachers for the problems in education -- to understand what's wrong with high stakes testing, there is no better evidence than this. Politics is about lobbyists, and education has no bigger lobby than the opportunists who keep producing these useless test-taking programs at exorbitant prices.

Let's see, for $1,500, I could purchase 400-700 paperback novels. If I do nothing more than put the books in my students hands and tell them to read all year, they will still outperform their peers, who use software systems, like the one referenced above.

It doesn't matter, though, because high stakes testing is a big money business. So, while the testing lobby makes billions, our students suffer.

Harvard professor on 21st century skills

Harvard professor, Daniel Koretz, has interesting views of 21st century skills. Although Koretz has plenty of thoughtful ideas about how we need to help students learn, his most insightful one comes roughly 4:30 into the video below.

Although Koretz doesn't use the term ROLE, his notion of finding solutions to big problems without a clear path underscores how results-only learning works.

Overcoming tradition

After 15 years as a traditional classroom teacher, I took a long, hard look in the mirror and pointed a finger. "You are a bad teacher," I said. "You are failing your students."

My intentions were good. I was integrating technology into daily instruction and doing everything I could to help my students pass our state's annual high stakes test. Still most of my students were more interested in class disruption than they were in learning.

Not all of it is good

One grading period after another, many of my students were failing. I was beginning to wonder how much even the so-called "A students" were learning. Something had to change.

After much research, discussion and soul searching, I realized that traditional teaching methods no longer worked. (They were never very effective.) I would have to change everything in my classroom. Like someone breaking a bad habit by going "cold turkey," I was going all in.

All traditional practices were abandoned. I eliminated homework, worksheets, rules and consequences, rows of desks and, most importantly, grades. My new Results Only Learning Environment became a student-centered learning community, built on collaboration, projects and autonomy.

Most people who have witnessed the death of traditional teaching in my classroom are shocked. Some ask, "What made you do it?"

"It was easy," I say. "I realized I had to overcome tradition."

"Oh, I don't think I could do that," most reply.

Maybe it's time that they and anyone still using traditional teaching methods take a long look in the mirror.

New video answers, What is a ROLE?

Intrigued? Join the Results Only Project today.

Teaching without worksheets is easy

In a recent post about the misconception of greatness in teaching, I shared an anecdote about a new teacher explaining how a so-called great teacher shared all of his worksheets with her. I immediately cringed at this, because of my strong belief that worksheets and the like erase any interest students might have in the subject matter.

Want a quiet classroom? Worksheets will help.

I have written widely about how a results-only classroom uses year-long projects in place of worksheets. Some educators are skeptical, most likely because they don't want to let go of their precious files filled with the worksheets that make teaching so easy, while putting students to sleep faster than a 30-minute lecture.  

Education researcher, Louis Volante, has found that among other things, worksheets have been proven to waste valuable class time and focus on teaching only rote skills (2004). Founder of MAX Teaching, Mark Forget, has suggested that worksheets eliminate the collaborative approach that is conducive to learning (2004).

My own experience tells me that worksheets are a crutch, used by traditional teachers, who have either no interest or no experience engaging students in real learning. The year-long project provides students with a menu of choices for demonstrating numerous learning outcomes over the course of an entire school year.

The teachers provides mini lessons (typically brief videos, discovery activities and models) and plenty of class time for project work. Students are engaged by the freedom that a workshop environment creates. Plus, since students help create the projects, they are intrinsically motivated to move forward with them, to watch them grow. 

So, if you build a powerful year-long project that integrates learning outcomes and provides students with plenty of choice, collaboration and time to work, you'll see that teaching without worksheets is very easy.

  References

Forget, M.A. (2004). Max teaching with reading and writing: classroom activities for helping

students learn new subject matter while acquiring literacy skills. Portsmouth, VA: Trafford.

Volante, Louis. Teaching to the Test: What Every Educator and Policy-maker Should Know.

Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy.

Misconceptions of greatness

Newbie teachers are so quick to give veterans the "great teacher" label. They often hand it out as thoughtlessly as doctors, passing out stickers to toddlers after their yearly well visits.

A new teacher, whom I'm very close to, is preparing for her second year in the profession. In a recent conversation, she told me how she was getting ready for the school year.

Will a worksheet engage this student?

She received help from someone who just retired from her school. "He's a great teacher," she announced enthusiastically. "He gave me all his old worksheets and tests." Now, she explained, things would be easy, as she would have less activity preparation and lesson planning.

Because she means so much to me, I was devastated to learn that she believes that someone who uses worksheets and tests is a "great teacher." I must assume that she will bury her students with these decades-old worksheets and bombard them with boring, useless multiple-choice tests. After all, most young teachers want to emulate greatness. This is what they learn. Education professors and new teacher mentors teach the strategy: find a great teacher and do what she does.

The problem with this is twofold. One, there are very few truly great teachers. Two, this monkey-see-monkey-do approach does not lend itself to self-evaluation, research and discovery. These are the tools of great teachers -- not worksheets and tests.

I wanted so badly to look at this young teacher and say,"Please don't be that teacher. He is not great."

I wanted to tell her that I know that she can be so much better, but a  so-called great teacher had already influenced her far more with his worksheets and tests, than I could with mere words.

With great regret, I realized that her misconception of greatness may keep her from ever reaching it.

People are passionate, anxious about eliminating grades in school

I have spent a good portion of the past two weeks responding to comments on a debate I started on the TED.com Conversations page called, "Isn't it time to eliminate grades in education?" Since narrative feedback over grades is such a huge part of the Results Only Learning Environment, I wanted to see what others thought about the subject. The response has been overwhelming.

The debate is closing in on 600 comments. The range of feedback is remarkable, and many countries are represented (this, of course, is emblematic of TED). Some people are completely supportive of the elimination of grades and of results-only learning, while others are completely convinced that education can't survive without numbers and letters.

Along the way, I've learned is that people all over the world are passionate about education. Some people have left 10 or more comments, even creating debates of their own within my TED conversation. It's also obvious that although many are in favor of some kind of reform movement, they are still nervous about it.

What surprises me is that an idea so simple is being so intensely debated. I sort of expected people to just sign in and say, "Yes, you're right. Let's eliminate grades."

Hopefully, this is the beginning of a legitimate movement.

More from this TED.com debate later.

One problem with tests in school

When it comes to testing, there are far too many problems to list in one blog post.

I think this brief video certainly covers one of them

Take the Results Only Project challenge

The Results Only Project is an education movement. Project participants are asked to commit to any or all of the following ROLE strategies:

• Eliminate worksheets
• Eliminate homework
• Use quizzes and tests as diagnostic tools only (do not count scores against students)
• Stop all or most direct instruction, replacing it with discovery activities and brief instructional videos
• Design and use meaningful year-long projects that give students choice in how they demonstrate master learning
• Create a workshop setting
• Eliminate rules and consequences in your classroom
• Replace grades with narrative feedback
• Allow students to grade themselves

Creating Results Only Learning Environments all over the world is a major education reform movement that needs dedicated, progressive-minded teachers and administrators.

Join the Results Only Project today.

Please commit by commenting on this page.

My online Reform Symposium presentation is today

If you are interested in results-only learning and narrative feedback, don't miss my online presentation at the Global Reform Symposium, today at 2:00 PM EST.

I will speak for 30 minutes about crushing the ABCs, and I'll take questions at the end.

You can watch from the comforts of home or any place with an Internet connection.

Just click the link below, and you'll be taken to the room to view the presentation and hear me speak.

Click here to see Mark's presentation (note: you can enter up to 30  minutes prior to the presentation)

Also, the virtual room does not support Java, so iPads won't work (sorry).

Think grades aren't a hot topic? Think again.

I went looking for some opinion on narrative feedback over grades, so I posted a simple debate on the TED.com conversations site.

The results are remarkable. Check out this amazing TED.com debate linked here.