To PARCC or not to PARCC - What's it really all about anyhow?
While the debate about testing plays out in classrooms, school committee meetings, and over coffee and social media, I am left wondering if we've all lost site of what it is we are trying to accomplish in the first place. I repeatedly come back to what it means to learn and understand mathematics. Words of wisdom from Alfie Kohn's 1999 book The Schools our Children Deserve still ring true within the debate over new standards and new testing, "As a result of the standard approach to math instruction, students often can’t take the methods they’ve been taught and transfer them to problems even slightly different from those they’re used to. For example, a seven-year-old may be a whiz at adding numbers when they’re arranged vertically on the page, but then throw up her hands when the same problem is written horizontally. Or she may possess a “rich informal knowledge base derived from working with quantities in everyday situations” that allows her to figure out how many cookies she would have if she started out with 16 and then received nine more – but regard that understanding as completely separate from the way you’re supposed to add in school (where she may well get the wrong answer)." Read more ....
PARCC and other next generation tests are attempting to test for that transfer - that ability to take skills learned and apply them to novel situations. The catch is that this has to become part and parcel of everyday instruction. If we want students to demonstrate knowledge through transfer and application, we need to allow them to construct understanding by wresting with novel, challenging problems as part of everyday instruction. Teachers must set "things up so students can play with possibilities, think through problems, converse and revise. That’s infinitely harder than doing a sample problem and handing out worksheets." (Kohn, 1999)
And, our textbooks are not much help in assisting our classroom teachers in making this transition, possibly from how they were taught mathematics to how mathematical understanding is best developed. In a recent report by Ed Reports, only one program reviewed was deemed aligned to the CCSS across all grade levels. Of course, publishers are widely criticizing this report as there are millions of dollars involved for them. For the world of publishing this is a financial matter. For politicians, perhaps, this is a platform for pushing a larger agenda. But for me, and for our students, it is all about what is best for children. And what is best is not always what is familiar and what is easiest. We must support our educators in developing their own deep understanding of the mathematics that they teach not only to prepare our students for a new test, but for the future they are walking into. "Knowledge is expanding exponentially. Students must learn the skills of assessing multiple data sources and applying skills of creative, critical, and integrated thinking to assimilate, sort, and pattern information. In a world of rapid change and global interaction, citizens need conceptual thinking abilities to understand increasingly complex social, political, and economic relationships."Find more ....
The debate is not new. And the answers are not new. I hope that we can all use the debate that is playing out over new tests as an opportunity to revitalize efforts around the education that our students deserve.
Resources with aligned tasks: