Theories
We’ve broken down this section on theories into the following five categories:
Add a Comment Show CommentsCurriculum: What Should Be Learned?
Instruction: How Should Learning Be Designed?
Organizational Theory: How Should Schools Be Designed?
This section examines four different organizational theories of education:
Add a Comment No CommentsTotal Quality Schools
Definition
Total Quality schools apply the principles and practices of Total Quality Management to their administrative and instructional functions.
Basic Elements
When introduced in schools, the Total Quality process usually involves a combination of the following elements:
Understanding Systems and Processes–Education administrators make efforts to understand their school as a system containing many subsystems and processes. To do so, they often will “map” their systems and “flowchart” their processes. Schools will then strive to improve by redesigning their systems.
Using Data for Decision-Making–Employees learn to use data in decision-making. This frequently involves employing statistical methods to understand why processes vary.
Using Problem-Solving Teams and Teamwork–Classroom teams use common problem-solving processes and tools to tackle challenges and improve procedures. Students are often taught to use both methods and tools to improve classroom operations.
Identifying and Understanding Customer Needs–Schools identify the constituencies they need to satisfy, and attempt to understand their expectations and needs. Schools will develop measurement systems that compare their performance to their constituents’ expectations.
Quality Planning–Some schools use quality planning processes as a supplement to their strategic planning processes for identifying and achieving organization-wide goals. This will often involve developing organization-wide quality indicators, or “scoreboards”.
The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.
Add a Comment No CommentsCharter Schools
Definition
In concept, a charter school is a self-governing, publicly funded school that the community holds accountable for the results it produces–such as student learning–rather than for its compliance with school board or government rules and regulations.
A charter school operates without the typical restraints of an ordinary public school, for example, collective-bargaining agreements. Its enrollment is made up of students who want to attend that specific school–in effect, a charter school is a school of choice. In addition to its unique legal and governance structure, a charter school takes on elements of site-based management: People at the school site have the power to make critical decisions about issues such as budget and personnel.
Basic Elements
By January 1994, eight states had passed laws permitting the creation of charter schools. However, there are significant differences among these laws:
Some states limit chartering to existing public schools that want to convert to charter status, while others allow the creation of new schools.
Some states give responsibility for negotiating and approving charters to local school boards, while others bypass the local boards and allow entities such as community colleges, universities, and the state board of education to authorize charter schools.
Some states cap the number of charter schools that can be created, and some do not. Plus, some states give charter schools blanket waivers from existing state rules and regulations, while other states require rule-by-rule negotiations.
The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.
Add a Comment No CommentsAccelerated Schools
Definition
In 1986, Stanford University introduced the concept of accelerated schools, an approach designed to create success for all students by closing the achievement gap between at-risk and mainstream children. The idea is to radically change individual schools by redesigning and integrating curricular, instructional, and organizational practices so that they provide enrichment–not just remediation–for at-risk students.
The accelerated schools program assumes that at-risk students have “learning gaps” in areas valued by schools and mainstream economic and social institutions. The program also assumes that remedial approaches fail to close these gaps because they don’t build on the students’ strengths and they don’t tap into the resources of teachers, parents, and the community.
Basic Elements
When the accelerated schools program is introduced into a school, the process involves several guiding principles and values:
Unity of Purpose–Parents, teachers, students, and administrators must agree on a common set of goals for the school. These goals become the focal point of everyone’s efforts, serving as a framework for all curricular, instructional, and organizational initiatives.
Empowerment/Responsibility–Members of the school community can make important educational decisions, take responsibility for implementing them, and take responsibility for the outcomes. This breaks the stalemate among administrators, teachers, parents, and students: It stops them from blaming each other and factors beyond their control for the students’ poor educational outcomes.
Building on Strengths–This program identifies and uses all the available learning resources in the school community, instead of exaggerating weaknesses and ignoring strengths. For example, parents can positively influence their children’s education at home and help teachers understand their children better. School administrators could make a concerted effort to creatively work with parents, staff, and students, rather than merely complying with them. Plus, teachers bring valuable insights, intuition, teaching, and organizational skills to the table. Furthermore, the strengths of at-risk students differ from those associated with predominantly white, middle-class culture, and often are overlooked. And finally, communities are ripe with assets, including youth organizations, senior citizens, businesses, religious groups.
Getting Started as an Accelerated School
There are four initial steps for developing an accelerated school. They are:
- Take stock of where you are, and establish baseline data.
- Create a shared vision as a focus for change.
- Compare your vision to baseline information, then identify gaps and needed changes.
- Identify 3-4 initial priorities, and establish small groups to work on these.
Reading
Hopfenberg, Wendy S. and Levin, Henry M., Accelerated Schools. School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA (1990).
Accelerated Schools, Newsletter of the Accelerated Schools Project. School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.
Add a Comment No CommentsComer Schools
Definition
This is an approach to restructuring the governance and practices of individual schools, initiated by psychologist James Comer in the mid-1970s. This approach hinges on Comer’s theory of how children develop and learn, and the reasons that disadvantaged, minority children do not learn in schools.
Comer believes that children follow a developmental continuum. They are born, totally dependent, into a family that is part of a social network with beliefs, attitudes, activities, and lifestyles. Parents become mediators who tell children what is important. Children gradually learn to manage their feelings and impulses, in essence, to control themselves. Development occurs in speech and language, cognition, intellectual and academic understanding, and moral, psychological, and social dimensions. To learn, children must imitate and identify with authority figures, in other words, internalize attitudes and values by relating emotionally to others.
When children come to school prepared to learn in that school’s style, due to how they have fared in the developmental continuum, they are perceived as “good.” When they do not, they are often perceived as “bad.” For this reason, Corner attests individual schools must support further developmental growth.
Basic Elements
When the Comer process is introduced into a school, it usually involves the following elements:
- Changed School Governance–Parents, community members, teachers, administrators, and school staff collaborate in making key educational decisions.
- Creation of a Social Skills Curriculum–Schools need developmental programs for young children who do not learn certain types of skills at home. Typically, a social skills curriculum covers politics and government, business and economics, health and nutrition, and spiritual and leisure activities.
- Adoption of a Developmental Perspective Toward Children and Their Learning–This perspective incorporates three beliefs:
- All children are capable of learning.
- Learning is best achieved through the collaborative participation of all involved adults.
- Students enter school at different points along a developmental continuum.
The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.
Add a Comment No CommentsAssessment
This section examines three different assessment theories:
Add a Comment Show CommentsAuthentic Assessment
Definition
Simply testing an isolated skill or a retained fact does not effectively measure a student’s capabilities. To accurately evaluate what a person has learned, an assessment method must examine his or her collective abilities.This is what is meant by authentic assessment. Authentic assessment presents students with real-world challenges that require them to apply their relevant skills and knowledge.
Basic Elements
Authentic assessment accomplishes each of the following goals:
Requires students to develop responses rather than select from predetermined options
Elicits higher order thinking in addition to basic skills
Directly evaluates holistic projects
Synthesizes with classroom instruction
Uses samples of student work (portfolios) collected over an extended time period
Stems from clear criteria made known to students
Allows for the possibility of multiple human judgments
Relates more closely to classroom learning
Teaches students to evaluate their own work
“Fairness” does not exist when assessment is uniform, standardized, impersonal, and absolute. Rather, it exists when assessment is appropriate–in other words, when it’s personalized, natural, and flexible; when it can be modified to pinpoint specific abilities and function at the relevant level of difficulty; and when it promotes a rapport between examiner and student.
Authentic assessment is designed to be criterion-referenced rather than norm-referenced. Such evaluation identifies strengths and weaknesses, but does not compare or rank students.
Authentic assessment is often based on performance: Students are asked to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, or competencies in whatever way they find appropriate.
There are several challenges to using authentic assessment methods. They include managing its time-intensive nature, ensuring curricular validity, and minimizing evaluator bias.
Recommended Reading
Fourth Generation Evaluation, by Egon G. Guba and Yvonna S. Lincoln. Newberry Park, CA: Sage Publications.
The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.
Add a Comment Show CommentsClassroom Assessment
Definition
Classroom Assessment Techniques consist of a variety of feedback and discussion methods that gauge the quality of the learning process.
Basic Elements
Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs), also known as Classroom Research or Action Research, are a series of tools and practices designed to give teachers accurate information about the quality of student learning. Information gathered isn’t used for grading or teacher evaluation. Instead, it’s used to facilitate dialogue between students and teacher on the quality of the learning process, and how to improve it. As authors Patricia Cross and Thomas Angelo state in their book Classroom Assessment Techniques, “Teaching without learning is just talking.” CATs provide both teachers and students with “in process” information on how well students are learning what the curriculum intends.
The three basic questions CATs ask are:
- What are the essential skills and knowledge I am trying to teach?
- How can I find out whether students are learning them?
- How can I help students learn better?
The classroom assessment process assumes that students need to receive feedback early and often, that they need to evaluate the quality of their own learning, and that they can help the teacher improve the strength of instruction.
The basic steps in the classroom assessment process are:
- Choose a learning goal to assess
- Choose an assessment technique
- Apply the technique
- Analyze the data and share the results with students
- Respond to the data
CATs provide teachers with a “menu” of evaluation tools that:
- Check for student background knowledge
- Identify areas of confusion
- Enable students to self-assess their learning level
- Determine students’ learning styles
- Target and build specific skills
Reading
Classroom Assessment Techniques, by K. Patricia Cross and Thomas Angelo.
The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.
Portfolio Assessment
Definition
Portfolio assessment provides a body of student work–essentially, a portfolio–that can be used to appraise student performance over time.
Discussion
Portfolio assessment ranges from portfolios that demonstrates the student’s best work to an “expanded student record” that holds a full representation of the student’s work, from math equations to essays on literature. There has been some confusion in the field as to who the portfolio is being kept for. For example, in some cases, student portfolios serve as a replacement for the high school diploma or transcript.
The disadvantage of portfolios is that they’re not as quick and easy to evaluate, plus they’re hard to rank, as with a grade or score. Because portfolios are qualitative, many employers find them difficult to use as a determinant of a candidate’s skills. Often, employers would rather see a quantitative demonstration of a student’s best skills and work.
Some schools create portfolios that serve as a representative sample of a student’s work, showing the range of performance and experience. Such records usually hold far more information than employers need. Other schools want to use portfolios as an assessment tool to provide an alternative to standardized or teacher testing.
In some schools there has been much discussion on who “owns” the portfolio, the student or the school? Ownership implies who gets to decide what goes into the portfolio, where the portfolio is stored, and what happens to the portfolio after graduation.
Let’s look at the implications portfolios have on the following elements of education:
- Curriculum–Some people believe that using portfolios will enable teachers to broaden their curriculum to include areas they traditionally could not assess with standardized testing. How well this works depends on how much a curriculum is developed “to the test,” in other words, how much curriculum is geared towards achieving high test scores rather than learning for learning’s sake.
- Instruction–Portfolio assessment appears to compliment a teacher’s use of instructional strategies centered around teamwork, projects, and applied learning. Portfolios are also compatible with more individualized instruction, as well as strategies focused on different learning styles.
- Assessment–A portfolio can be used as an assessment tool. External assessors–employers, evaluation panels, and so on–can benefit from them. Teachers can also utilize them to judge student performance. Plus, students can use their own portfolios for self-assessment and reflection.
The content on this page was written by On Purpose Associates.
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