Article Rant…Significance of Context: …Equity and Reform

“…those of us in mathematics education have yet to take seriously, from an equity perspective, the significant differences between teaching contexts with respect to mathematics reform.” (Rousseau & Powell, 2005, p. 29)

My efforts at a mathematical reform pedagogy kept hitting roadblocks and this article nicely articulates all of those blocks (and I have a couple others I could have added). Yet, looking at those mentioned is at least a hopeful starting point for change towards equity. Far too often much of this type of research has been dismissed as an American issue that is not as relevant here in Ontario. I and many other educators that I had previously discussed similar issues with did not see the disparity in educational equity as drastic here, in Toronto as that of the experiences of “those Americans”, but for me that had recently changed.
When I began my own change in pedagogy towards mathematical reform I started to experience many of the same constraints to change as mentioned in the article. I had no time for instruction in the classroom (in addition to barriers that were mentioned in the article, a lot of my time was also spent on teaching social skills and group dynamics), and I had very few available resources. The NCTM lists what should be in every classroom as a basic for student resources/manipulatives, but in my school this does not exist. The less than adequate number of resources for a K-8 school is located in one open math resource room. Thus, it is not easily possible to gather supplies when needed and student use of manipulatives at their free will does not exist (I have spent hundreds of dollars of my personal money trying to remedy this). In addition, planning time is wasted on moving from room to room finding an area to work, trying to gather/beg for resources, doing redundant paper work and filing instead of preparing class activities, planning and reflecting on practice (not to mention the wish of moderated marking).
The disparities became even more apparent when I experienced a concurrent comparison of Toronto (urban) and Peel (suburban) classrooms. I had recently changed the school my daughter attended from TDSB to Peel district and hearing her perspective on the differences in classrooms as well as my own observations of the differences reinforced the inequities. Last year she was in grade 4 while I taught grade 4 at the school in toronto that she had left. This year she is in grade 5 as I teach grade 5 in the same school in toronto. She is still in contact with many of the students in my class (through msn, phone, emails, on line games etc.) and still attends gatherings with them. Therefore, I constantly hear from my students and her (regarding curriculum and class activities) “how come they did not do this, how come she gets to do that, how come they did not learn this, how come she got to go there? Although I am very glad for the opportunities and experiences my daughter gets, I am extremely frustrated at the lack of opportunities my students in an urban setting are afforded, especially when it is known that these students need the opportunities even more (students of colour in lower SES communities).
I am not sure how long it will take before the message of Rousseau and Powell, on these systemic constraints, has a great impact on what is happening in our urban schools, but it really is time to stop blaming the individual teachers for the inequitable progression of these students.
Sorry for the rant, but that is how I felt after reading the article.

The significance of the context

As I was going through this reading, I found that I was continually asking why. Why are students that we already know are disadvantaged getting access to the fewest resources? Why are their teachers getting less time to prepare and less professional development? Why are their class sizes the largest? I realize that the purpose of this article is not to address these questions, but that was my reaction over and over again.
It also made me reflect more critically on my own teaching practice. I wonder where I am on the spectrum of traditional and reform teaching and what I can do to move further toward what I know is the best for students.
When we looked last week as large scale assessment, we briefly discussed teacher pressure to teach to the test. The major difference between Ontario and the Classroom B context is that the EQAO is based on the Ontario curriculum, which means that by teaching the curriculum, teachers are preparing their students for the test and by preparing them for the test, they are teaching them the curriculum. I also agree that there are different pressures in different contexts about how important test results are and that this can change how willing teachers are to take risks with new teaching methods, even if they have research backing.
I also had some personal conflict with the content in this article because I teach at an independent school where my students come with significant economic and social advantages. I also have more preparation time, smaller classes, no standardized tests, access to many resources and weekly teacher development. I realize that in some ways, this is how the world works – those who have money, will pay for the best. At the same time, I wonder what can be done so that all students have teachers with the same support. Rather than stop independent school from providing this, I think that public schools should also have the resources and support that I get (although that might put me out of a job!)

Blogfolio hint

I discovered that if you look at the list of blogs on the right (grouped by month) that the blogs you posted or commented ar in grey instead of brown (with a few exceptions).

It made it much easier to find the posts I forgot to save in a folder.

“What we have described above is a set of predispositions and experiences with which teachers approach the task of constructing their knowledge of students.”

This quote made me think of my own practice with regards to evaluating students, and how the mark is in some ways a construct of my own knowledge of a student in relation to his or her mathematical knowledge. As a result, because I am always limited in the information I am privy to, that evaluation will always be lacking.

With regards to the first study mentioned in the Morgan and Watson article, I think it would be interesting and unnerving to have someone sit in the back of my class and observe the class on an ongoing basis – it would probably feel like teacher’s college all over again. I would imagine, like the teachers in the study, there would be behaviours that I would fail to notice. I would like to believe that I do not mix my assessment with my impressions of a student, but there are undoubtedly times that I likely do. I think a third party would be better able to observe when I do this. Related to this thought is the quote:

“On the contrary, the study suggests that informal assessments, including those that furnish information for summative assessments of performance, are inevitably and unavoidably influenced by a variety of factors that may have little to do with mathematical achievement.”

This illustrates the problem I have with informal assessment – how do I do it without being biased? I know that this is next to impossible and as a result I don’t think it is fair to count towards a grade. If need be, in parent teacher interviews or discussing marks, I would rather give my impression of what I think is going on and make it known that I only have a limited snapshot of the situation pertaining to a student’s work or achievement.

Using Research to Improve Large Scale Assessments

This weeks papers made me realise how easy it is to become complacent with one’s assessment practices. While I have worked very hard to make my math classes more accessible to students I don’t t really challenge my assessment practices, even after being part of a pilot for a reform assessment program (all subjects). I changed my practices, but don’t routinely question my assessment practices. I am fairly comfortable with other teachers watching my teaching, but I would be very uncomfortable with having others examine my assessment practices.

In assessing, I will now be looking for systematic biases (do I assume students with IEPs know less for the same written content?) and want to look at recorded biases against specific groups. Also I recently had a long conversation with a mother of smart boys who get discouraged by unclear evaluations. My own daughter (grade 11 functions) just got discouraged by a rubric marking rather than simply right or wrong. The rubric was bang on, but my daughter had truely never been graded on communication and thinking before.

Unlike some in the class, I didn’t see the articles as complete critiques of the EQAO and teacher assessment practices, rather a call for further improvements. There have been changes to EQAO since this report. I have noticed that recent EQAOs do not have questions broken into parts see question above or http://www.eqao.com/Educators/Secondary/09/BookletsandGuides.aspx?Lang=E&gr=09&yr=10

And the students get one mark that encompasses all categories. So I wonder if EQAO now has a clearer matrix as to which topics are covered to ensure more consistency to the curriculum and year to year.

Our board has been using moderated marking with grade 9 teachers for 3-4 years to help teachers prepare for the test. It has helped change teacher attitudes about what is important to teach. I think our students are seeing more rich problems and understanding what good answers look like (with flexibility). We have now extended it to all college and Workplace math teachers to push their assessments and learning activities from short calculations to richer problems. So even if the current EQAO isn’t promoting investigations it is promoting rich tasks.

I appreciated the Morgan & Watson article because it provided a vision of how assessment of investigations could occur- using moderated marking to develop more consistent assessment practices and then have teachers assess in class investigations with an consistent evaluation rubric and possible invigilation. The current Ontario “summative project” with little guidance and only an exemplar is not pushing more investigations in the classroom. If this is a important goal for the Ontario curriculum, Morgan & Watson provide some guidelines to creating an somewhat equitable assessment of investigations. As Suurtamm Lawson and Koch argue, assessments “defin[e] what is worth knowing, hence what is worth focusing on in classrooms” ( p.41).

Morgan & Watson: Assessment of students'...Issues of Equity

I approached the reading of this article with hopes of discovering information to help improve my assessment practices. I have felt, like others have mentioned, as if I will have had to explain my assessment/teaching practices one day since I have chosen not to “teach to the test”, but allow for creativity and logical understanding. This has left me on my own in my department and open to much comparison this year. Since reading the articles (Suurtamm as well) my conclusion is that I can only continue what I am doing, unless I find colleagues to do moderated marking with, and to keep a continual awareness that there are "possible alternative perceptions and interpretations" (p.102) and that there is not only one correct way of assessing my students’ work. If I am able to get the opportunity to dialogue and incorporate moderated marking with colleagues that would be an improvement, but until then I can only keep in mind, and possibly quote, “reliability is not a concept that can be applied simplistically to assessments of students’ mathematics. …tighter specification of criteria will lead to stereotyped responses from both teachers and students –in opposition to the value ascribed to creativity, openness and authenticity within ‘reform’ discourse” (p.103). With this in mind I can have improved confidence that what I am doing is the best I can do if I am going to continue my attempt at reform pedagogy.

Exercising professional judgment when it comes to assessing

As I was reading Devika's post this quotation stood out for me:

"Ultimately, without clear direction, teachers make their own decisions [...]" (Reys and Reys 1998, p. 237)

This quotation that Devika posted reminded me of a discussion we had a while back in this course about what it means to be a professional in the field of education. I remember Indigo pointing out that unlike doctors who ultimately have the same goal of saving a patient's life, the goals of teachers are often dissimilar because educators have different views on what content should be learned and how learning should take place. Part of this may lead to teachers doing amazing things in the classroom and encouraging students to become critical thinkers, while another part of this lack of consistency may lead to teachers acting on a misguided view of what professional judgment means. However, without a clear direction from the Ministry, teachers are truly left on their own to figure out what they should teach, how they should assess but at the same time be able to take responsibility (hence, the accountability piece) if ever a student, a parent, a colleague, or an administrator takes issue with how the teacher is doing his/her job.

My question is, how does this belief (that a teacher should exercise his/her professional judgment in what specific content/topics are taught and how assessments are carried out) align with practices like EQAO? It seems like a much easier and safer path to follow for teachers to "teach to the test" in the case of something like the EQAO if for no other reason than to not have to justify one's professional reasoning skills when, for example, an administrator or a parent asks why another teacher's class spent weeks preparing for the test while this teacher's class carried on with regular lessons not tailored to EQAO. Are there any ways to get around this issue, I wonder? Even if we had more holistically-assessed inquiry tasks as suggested in the Suurtaam (2008) article, would it just bring up more questions about teachers' professional judgment when it comes to assessing a piece of work without a clearly defined marking scheme?