The Test-Prep Culture Strikes Again!

Break out the popcorn- it’s movie time for AP classes around the city! It’s common knowledge that after the AP test, AP classes become a total joke. At LaGuardia, stories are passed down about the dumbest, most irrelevant movies teachers have shown for the last month of school, or which AP teachers expect you to actually come to their class after the test. It would be a lie to say that some part of me does not enjoy this payoff for hard work, but I do think it reflects poorly on the test-prep culture that we have entered.

Though they are test-prep courses by nature, I find that AP classes still teach you information that will be useful for life. Unlike most standardized tests and the SATs, I find the AP tests to be measures of real learning and understanding, not the ability to test well. Because of this, learning how to write essays or speak spanish for the AP test are skills that I will need forever. But in these last few weeks of school, when all learning in AP classes ends abruptly, I wonder if my teachers feel the same way. If the AP skills are life skills, why do teachers stop teaching the day after the test?

It seems to me that when the focus of a year is a test, teacher’s do not push themselves to go beyond. A month of school is a lot of time to waste just because “we took the test.” There are a number of skills we could be learning in this time to help us with any given subject in the future. The AP Composition test is over, but I have hundreds of essays left to write in my life, and other ways in which I will need to use the skill of being able to organize and write out my thoughts. There are hundreds of good books left to read and analyze. There are hundreds of countries I plan to visit where I will need my spanish skills. Additionally, the time after the test should be prized teaching time. To me, it’s every good teacher’s dream: with no test at the end, teachers can teach whatever they want, however they want, and at whatever pace the students need. Students and teachers complain a lot about the limits of standardized testing, but then so many do not take advantage of the freedom that comes when the test is over. I see this as a reflection of the era of extreme testing we have entered. I would encourage AP teachers and students alike to take advantage of this time of looseness to teach and learn in new, interesting and creative ways.

Source: Toni Bruno

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Budget cuts hit LaGuardia juniors

Last week, a number of LaGuardia juniors found out that their math tracks are being abruptly ended. As a junior in trigonometry this year, I was expected to take pre-calculus in the fall, and take the Math B Regents Exam in January. Now, because of budget cuts, seniors will not be allowed to take pre-calc. To learn the semester of content and prepare for the Math B exam, tutoring will be offered over the summer. This is not really an option for people (like me) who have summer jobs. Also, the only math classes being offered to seniors next year are Advanced Placement classes. For the juniors are in pre-calc this year, the situation may not be much better. Calculus may be cut next year, too, giving these juniors no way to complete their math track. A letter is being sent to all colleges explaining the sudden death of advanced, non-AP math at LaGuardia.

When I expressed my concern, the assistant principal of math told me, “Write to the Chancellor and Mayor and ask them to stop taking our money away in the middle of the year.” I told her I already had, and that was the end of the conversation. But this conversation is far from over. My school has been forced to make hard choices because of circumstances outside its control. LaGuardia has done its best to maintain its unique dual mission to provide students with both good arts and academic educations. But no school should have to make the choice to end a curriculum like math mid-year, without preparation or prior warning.

If, as the Chancellor and the Mayor insist, cuts must be made, they should not come from the classroom and force schools to make decisions like this one.
Perhaps the cuts could come from the testing budget. It seems that tests are multiplying faster than rabbits; kids as young as kindergarten are now being tested. Perhaps the needed savings can come from the production and administration of school Progress Reports, which are often inaccurate representations of a school.

The pattern is scary. Mid-year crunches are resulting in the loss of teachers and classes, which are the last things that ought to be taken away. If “students” were a budget item, we’d probably be the next to go.

Source: Toni Bruno

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Leeds Conference 14th May - Involving Students in Curriculum Design and Development

Yesterday Natalie, Sabine and I went to Leeds to a conference on involving students in curriculum design and development. We ran a workshop on the SAN and talked about all the ways in which we and other students get involved in curriculums in our departments. We had really great feedback from this session, with several people saying they were inspired to set up a network like we have in their own institutions.

Natalie and I then sat on a student panel at the end of the day with three other students from Leeds Met university. We explained our roles in curriculum design and development and then each worked with a group to look at issues surrounding such student involvement.

I got a few things in particular from this conference. Firstly our presence seemed to stress how important it may be to actually pay students involved in curriculum development as we are a lot more devoted to our role than many course reps may be. I again realised how lucky we are to be involved in CILASS and the SAN, for undergraduates do not usually get such an opportunity to get so involved in conferences. I also reaffirmed my belief that it is important to get students and staff in a two-way dialogue over curriculum issues so that students can appreciate how some of our ideas may not be realistic and our feedback will therefore be improved and more useful, as we can adapt our ideas to the real situation. Lastly, as Janine was saying in the last SAN meeting, again and again is brought up how to reach students beyond just those who are really keen to engage in curriculum debate. This appears to be an ongoing question..

I think the most interesting point however, is that Nat and I were pretty much the only non-sabbatical ’students’ attending until the panel at the end. The current debate seems to be that students should be involved in curriculum design and development.. But shouldn’t they then also be involved in the debate around how to involve students in curriculum design and development?

Source: Su Arnall

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The future of the SAN..?

So, we all know that the future of CILASS is less than certain. And we all know that the achievements for the university have been amazing. Can I also say that the SAN has been a big influence on this achievement?

I don’t know if that would be blowing our trumpet a bit, but people do seem to speak well of us. Which is nice.

I was at an IBL café yesterday, and amongst other things we ended up talking about how the SAN might continue without CILASS being a base for operations.

The things that we need to keep in the coming years are:

- Good inter-departmental connections
- Good student links
- Continued interactions with members of departments
- A place to make ideas heard
- Training for the students to lead the way

It seems to me that we already have an amazing place for all of this to happen.

Every department has students on the staff student committee - all it takes is to expand one of their jobs a bit (and maybe throw in a bit of money) and we have a perfect SAN. One that could potentially be better than what we have now because there would be official links to bringing change to departments?

Just a thought.

Source: jamesgould

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June Workshops: Student Activism 101

For the past couple of years, the NYC Student Union has ended its year with June workshops in MS. 51 eighth grade classes. In these workshops, we teach the students about the steps to creating change, and how they can adress problems in their school and education system. We also encourage them to join the Student Union next year, when they start high school. We have a had a lot of success in the past, and we have some new ideas for improvement.

This year, we’re also hoping to reach out to more middle schools. If anyone works in, attends, or is a parent in a middle school and you think the school would be interested in having us come, please get in touch with me! You can comment on this post, or email me at toni@taty.org. Thanks!

Source: Toni Bruno

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Constructive Assessment

I’m currently writing an essay which will make up 40% of my grade on Japan in the World. We were given a predefined list of titles to choose from, and I was pleased to find that one of them set me up perfectly for writing a 2000-word critique of the main analytical approach taken by the module.

It’s occurred to me that this is actually a form of module feedback. More importantly, it’s one that demands input from the student which is constructive, if they’re to argue their point well and receive a good mark! I’m sure that the essay component was not intended to perform this function, but it’s an interesting way to deal with the problem of eliciting constructive feedback. I’m sure with the intention in mind the idea could be transferred to many other social science modules.

That is, of course, if module leaders can suffer the insult of having their analysis and interpretations meticulously disagreed with by those students that do so. Personally, I’m only chancing my arm because the lecturer who designed the module last year won’t be marking this year’s essays

Have you had experience with modules which manage to obtain feedback through their assessment? Share your thoughts!

Source: Ryan

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“Twilight” Comes Too Early

WARNING: This blog may include spoilers for the Twilight series.

A few weeks ago I was talking to my neighbor, a 10 year-old boy at PS 321 in Brooklyn, and found out that he had just started reading Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Many of his friends and classmates were doing the same. This surprised me. I knew Twilight had engaged middle- and high-school readers, but I hadn’t realized it had reached a far as fifth-grade boys. And I was more than a little disturbed by this.

I’ve tried to find a non-biased summary of Twilight online, but it doesn’t seem to exist. So the following is my (very biased), but completely accurate, summary: The Twilight series is the story of Bella, a young girl who, in the first two books, falls in love with a vampire (Edward) and a werewolf (Jacob). She then spends the next two books pining over them, threatening to kill herself when one of them leaves her, distancing herself from her friends (so it’s not too hard to say goodbye when she finally becomes a vampire herself to join Edward), jumping off cliffs (to “hear Edward’s voice” getting mad at her), and purposely endangering herself so she will be rescued by these supernatural non-men.

“Despite all its modern accoutrements, the girls of Twilight are still girly girls, and the boys are traditional manly men. More specifically: The boys are muscular and unwaveringly brave, while the girls bake cookies, make supper for the men and hold all-female slumber parties. It gets worse for feminists: Bella is regularly threatened with violence in the first three books, and in every instance she is rescued by Edward or Jacob. In the third book she describes herself as ‘helpless and delicious.’”

Is that how we want young girls defining themselves? This is 2009: What about capable and strong? The Twilight books indicate that being “helpless and delicious” are attractive and desirable qualities. And are these hunky netherworld types the role models for young boys to follow? The young men in Twilight are all head over heels for Bella Swan.

Beth Handman, PS 321’s assistant principal, says, “It is a perennial problem in elementary schools that children who are sophisticated readers end up with books laden with concepts that are beyond their emotional development. Young children can be very vulnerable to messages in literature. It would be best if children could wait until they were older to read these kinds of books.”

If that means they’re reading books like Twilight, parents and teachers should be familiar with the content and engage them in conversations on the messages and morals. Better yet, read it yourself — and decide whether it’s right for your child.

Source: Toni Bruno

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A Fab First CILASS Experience!

This is my first real ‘engagement’ as a CILASS Ambassador, and I facilitated the ‘Unlocking Technology for IBL: Sandpit Session’. Chris Clow, Ryan Jendoubi, Eve Stirling and Alex Ingleson unveiled their work-in-progress Video Clips of ‘How to’ and ‘Why to’ use technology for various aspects of study and IBL. 

I had always figured myself at least moderately savvy when it came to technology, but being in this session made me realise how much I could change the scope and meaning of my research by branching out and using some pretty snazzy gadgets. It also made me realise how much work CILASS is doing r.e. making technology an accessible and approachable concept for students and staff alike. The trust the presenters placed in the group to give feedback on a mid-production project was rewarded with really interesting and considered comments.

What I found particularly impressive about this session (aside from the stellar ‘How To’/’Why To’ videos which I think will be of tremendous benefit to the University at large) was the interaction between the presenting group of CILASS Ambassadors and those who attended the session. It felt like an especially productive environment in which everybody there got something out of the session. Great work!

Source: janine bradbury

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IBL & Employability Session at the Conference

The IBL & Employability session held by Natalie, Ali and Claire was a very interesting session. I had heard about this numerous times at SAN meetings due to it having been conducted at different Universities. The aim of the session was to get students to think about the kinds of skills and experiences that employers are looking for. Unfortunately, the people attending the session (while also being few in number), were mostly staff members - not exactly the target audience. This really was a shame, because it was a useful session not only for final year students but all students of any year. Regardless, the girls did a good job running the session anyway and the staff members really engaged with it. The example used was the Co-op Graduate Scheme. Natalie, Ali and Claire handed out questions that were actually asked on the application form for the graduate scheme, to get us thinking about the kinds of questions that are asked for graduate jobs. I confess I’ve seen very similar questions in a lot of application forms so this was very relevant.

We took some time to think about the questions and formulate the answers. The thing that struck me was that we only really start thinking about a time when we influenced a group…or other such experiences when we have to write it down on an application form. This of course means that over time, we forget specific instances of when we executed a particular skill. What this session made me think about is how we need to document what we do as we go along - we need to always be thinking about how what we do helps us to develop in ways that increase our employability.

The other thing that struck me was that this session was an excellent way to ‘raise awareness’ of what students need to be thinking about as they enter their final year at University. It is almost useless to be drilling in the idea of gaining skills for employment, to students who are a couple of months away from graduating, have dissertations to do and no spare time to now take on extra-curricular activities. The message inherent in this session would be incredibly useful for students who are in their first or second years, with plenty of time and opportunity to still engage in activities before it is ‘too late’.

A final point. The delivery of the session was interesting, enjoyable and encouraging. The staff members also appeared to enjoy it although it was not relevant to them. The discussions that arose were interesting. Well done girls!

Source: Kamal Bhana

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“Small Changes Big Difference” Challenge Session

The ideas I presented from my “Small Changes Big Difference” project in the Sociology department were received with interest at this session. The attendees were keen to offer their own experiences and opinions about my ideas.

We spoke a lot about blogs in particular. An interesting idea that I hadn’t considered before was suggested: maybe blogs have gone out of fashion in favour of applications such as Facebook and Twitter. There were a number of people who saw blogs as too complicated and time-consuming. Also it was mentioned that students might see blogs as too official to write their thoughts on, they might believe they are being assessed.

There was some disagreement as to what a blog actually is, with some seeing it as more of a personal diary and others as a collaborative tool. It was also expressed that staff find it frustrating when they give students detailed resource packs and students ask obvious questions anyway. We thought it would be good if MOLE had some kind of search tool on it for easier access to relevant information.

In terms of reading groups we spoke about how students can often find it easier to talk to other students about things they don’t understand as they speak the same “jargon”. There was a lady from the library who was particularly interested in this session as she is looking at connecting university students and sixth form students and some of the ideas covered this area.

After the session I spoke to a gentleman from Manchester University and he said he was really enjoying the whole day and he couldn’t believe that CILASS didn’t have full funding for next year as it obviously does such good work!!

Source: Su Arnall

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