Eric said:
David,
Thank you for clarifying that there is an acceptable method of teacher
measured success. This said, I would like your thoughts concerning how it
is we decide what is success and what falls short.
I would surmise that not only is success very similar to failure in most
cases but also the method for distinguishing the two is too squarely on the
shoulders of the teacher to be an acceptable assessment of ability.
Your use of standards as measures of success is timely and helpful but
still I see too much policy and not enough method.
Your time is greatly appreciated,
Eric,
I'm not sure what interests are driving your querries. It seems like your
questions are about assessment, but your interest is in accountability.
Teachers need to, and do, make continuous judgments about how their
instruction is proceeding. They do so based on structured and especially
unstructured evaluations of how students are participating, what they're
gaining from instruction, etc.--for instance, they may change their tack
base on a "gut feeling" that something isn't panning out as intended. Of
course, these judgments aren't sufficiently reliable to constitute a formal
evaluation of a a student's progress, for instance in assigning a grade.
But these problems of reliability and validity doesn't seem to be relevant
to our previous line of discussion, nor does crossdisciplinarity have much
to offer by way of guidance, here.
David Kirshner
___________
Eric's original message:
In a message dated 2/22/2002 7:56:23 PM Central Standard Time,
dkirsh@lsu.edu writes:
Eric,
Your idea that
"achievement of success in a goal oriented activity system can only be
measured by the person achieving the success. Therefore, the student can
truely only be the measure of what is successful in the classroom"
is misguided. Yes, the locus for analysis of the success of instruction is
the student. But this is not the same as saying that the student's
judgments are all that are relevant. Students may participate in "a goal
oriented activity system" with little understanding of the goals and
intentions of the teacher who has designed that activity system. It is
teachers who need to (and fortunately do) make continual judgments about
the success of their instructional practices.
David,
Thank you for clarifying that there is an acceptable method of teacher
measured success. This said, I would like your thoughts concerning how it
is we decide what is success and what falls short.
I would surmise that not only is success very similar to failure in most
cases but also the method for distinguishing the two is too squarely on the
shoulders of the teacher to be an acceptable assessment of ability.
Your use of standards as measures of success is timely and helpful but
still I see too much policy and not enough method.
Your time is greatly appreciated,
Eric
_____________________
David Kirshner
Department of Curriculum & Instruction
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge LA 70803-4728
(225) 578-2332 (225) 578-9135 (fax)
dkirsh@lsu.edu
http://www.ednet.lsu.edu/tango3/coedirectory.taf?
_function=detail&Faculty_uid1=135&Users_uid2=135&_UserReference=59F4B47FBE3415E138CD68B2
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