Heidi, my advisor, took another chunk of time today to discuss the focus of my Fulbright project. The more narrow the focus, the more doable the school visit/data-collection, and thus, the more attainable the goals.
Two of the dilemmas for me as a Chicago Public School (CPS) teacher are the ever increasing number of assessments CPS district leaders have added to the instructional school year and, now, the amount of time that CPS plans to lengthen the school day in 2012-13 (7.5 hours!).
From the Finnish perspective, both of these decisions are the total opposite to the successful policies and frameworks Finland has thoughtfully and incrementally implemented over 20+ years. Finland has been deliberate not to impose frequent standardized tests and, thus, so much more time can be devoted to instruction. The classroom teacher has the responsibility (and support) to conduct diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments. The schools each design and implement their own comprehensive end-of-semester evaluation. The third type of assessment is a random sample assessment conducted annually by the National Board of Education. About one fifth of the students per grade level take the national exam to gauge learning in reading, mathematics, and science. (Instructional time & schedules for another day.)
So... this disparity with assessment... I am going to dive deeper into the Effective and Efficient use of Assessment to Inform Mathematics Instruction with my school visits. How are they doing so well internationally with so few assessments? (Hmm, for science fair project colleagues and students out there... my hypothesis is: More time for instruction. Now I need to fine tune "my procedure" for the experiment.) Among the elements I plan to include are various school types, classroom observations, principal interviews, teacher interviews (before & after a lesson), and student interviews (after lessons).
Any thoughts or suggestions?
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