Fiction High School

This essay was first published in educational Horizons, Spring 2006.

Fiction High School: Where Things Have to Make Sense

RETURN
edited 4/9/06

When asked about the difference between fiction and reality, it is reported that the award-winning author Tom Clancy said, "Fiction has to make sense." That got me thinking about our schools and what happens in them. And so it was that I decided to visit Fiction High School, where, of course, things have to make sense. I invite you to walk those halls with me as we peek into classrooms and hear the thoughts of faculty members who work in that school. These teachers are trying to use current research to help them make sense of classroom practice. They are, in effect, putting to practice what we now know about human learning.

What We Know about Human Learning: Five Major Ideas

Idea #1: The Nature of Intelligence

The teachers at Fiction High School recognize that the way people typically think about intelligence just doesn't make sense. Most people think that there is only one type of intelligence -- that which is neurologically fixed and measured by standard IQ tests such as the WISC and the Binet. That idea stems from early-twentieth-century notions of intelligence. The teachers at Fiction High School, however, are aware of the newer views of the nature of intelligence. For example, they know contemporary research suggests that neurologically fixed intelligence is but one part of intelligence. They understand that, as David Perkins demonstrates, much intelligence is actually learnable. Included among learnable intelligence is specialized intelligence that comes from experience and practice and reflective intelligence, the kind that enables us to be aware of our mental habits and to rise above our usual patterns of thinking in order to engage in creative problem solving and wise decision-making (Perkins 1995). So the teachers at Fiction High actively and purposefully encourage their students to think very carefully about what they do and why they do it, and they engage their students in all sorts of creative problem-solving activities through the use of such pedagogical techniques as problem-based learning.

Teachers at Fiction High are also aware that there are many ways to be intelligent, not just one or two. Many of their colleagues in other schools act as if verbal and logical-mathematical intelligence are the only or at least the most important types of intelligence. Fiction High teachers know better. Therefore, they allow their students to approach content in a number of ways, using their spatial intelligence, musical intelligence, and interpersonal intelligence, to name but a few of the multiple intelligences Howard Gardner has identified (Gardner 1983). It would not be uncommon, for example, to see math students at Fiction High sing into an oscilloscope and then identify various waves that appear on the screen. Yes, the teachers at Fiction High School realize that the ways their colleagues commonly view intelligence -- as a fixed entity from birth with which we are either blessed in abundance or do not have -- is more fiction than fact.

Idea #2: Motivation of Students

At Fiction High School, teachers know the research on motivation supports the idea that intrinsic motivation -- that which comes from within each student -- promotes student learning much more effectively than extrinsic motivation imposed upon a student. In fact, some members of the faculty even know of Alfie Kohn?s cogent argument, shepherded by ample research, that even rewards are punishments because they essentially control or manipulate students' behaviors (Kohn 1993). Not willing to go quite that far in their views of extrinsic motivation, the Fiction High teachers nonetheless follow a well-substantiated principle: if something is already intrinsically motivating for students, do not reward it with extrinsic reinforcers. Further, these teachers realize that human beings are born wanting to make sense of the world in which they live (see Piaget 1970 and others). They understand that students, indeed all humans, are social animals who enjoy learning in the company of, and in cooperation with, their fellow students (Wink and Putney 2002). Therefore, Fiction High teachers use the principles of active engagement and cooperative learning in their classrooms. For example, an English teacher might have students participate in a Socratic seminar during which they analyze a piece of prose.

The teachers at Fiction High School are surprised that so many schools foster among their students individualistic and competitive learning environments and that they use extrinsic reinforcers beyond even the traditional course grades to motivate their students. Of course, the external reinforcers often keep students working even if they see little meaning in their schoolwork. Still, what goes on in those schools just does not make sense to the teachers at Fiction High -- not, at least, in terms of what we now know about motivating students to learn.

Idea #3: The Way Students Learn

At Fiction High School, the teachers understand that students learn by actively processing information, by using that information, by receiving specific feedback on how accurately they understand and use it, and by thinking about the information and how it relates to other information they already know. Fiction High teachers know that lecture is but one of many methods to help students learn such information, and they know that lecture addresses only one kind of knowledge -- that which involves facts, ideas, and concepts. Students also need to know how to apply what they learn and even when it is appropriate to use the things they learn. They also need the time to reflect on new ideas and concepts they are learning.

Accordingly, teachers at Fiction High School use a variety of activities to help students retain, understand, and use what they are learning in their classes. The teachers know that the most powerful common process in promoting student learning is elaborative rehearsal -- when students are encouraged to connect the new things they are learning with what they already know (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000). Teachers provide plenty of time and opportunity to allow students to do just that. In science classes, for example, teachers ask students to keep notebooks, where they give lots of credit for items that were not part of the teacher's lessons. Magazine articles connected to course concepts, newspaper editorials, and examples of the everyday use of a scientific principle are rated highly by the teachers to promote the connection-making behavior that solidifies the students' growing knowledge base in science.

Teachers at Fiction High do not quite understand why their colleagues at many other schools depend so heavily upon telling students information -- lots of it -- and they do not understand why the students themselves equate memorizing this information with learning and understanding it. Perhaps, the teachers at Fiction High reason, the students can be forgiven, but the teachers should know better. The amount of information the lectures cover, and the relative passivity of the students during these lectures, make little sense in view of what educators now know about how students learn.

Idea #4: What Students Should Learn

At Fiction High School, teachers generally agree that, given the explosion of information and the rapid societal changes fostered in large measure by the advent of technology, we can no longer prepare our students with all they need to know during their lifetimes (Feden and Vogel 2003). For that reason, Fiction High teachers do not even try. Instead, they structure their lessons and units around such categories as core concepts, generative topics, and essential questions. What those all have in common is a focus on big ideas in each academic subject, upon which smaller ideas can be hung (Martin-Kniep 2005).

During a series of department meetings, the teachers at Fiction High agreed on what big ideas they would help students to understand. For example, the history department decided to structure one of its courses around a series of core questions: How is society organized? Where does authority reside? What are the costs and benefits of social organizations? The science faculty decided to use an essential question for one of its required units: Is gravity a fact or a theory? The math department related the topic of equations to the core concept -- balance -- and even partnered with the English department on cross-disciplinary teaching related to that concept. This coming academic year, every student and teacher will grapple with an essential question: How do we ever know if we made the right decision? This question will be connected to every course, and guest speakers will be brought in to address the questions.

The teachers at Fiction High School marvel at the tenacity with which their colleagues at other schools continue to fight the coverage battle -- covering more and more information at an increasingly faster pace. Of course, doing so does not make sense in terms of what we now know about what students should know. Human beings can remember only so much information. They need to understand important information, the big ideas from each discipline, from which they themselves can generate new knowledge to meet the challenges that will surely confront them as they live out their lives in an increasingly complex world.

Idea #5: How Learning Should Be Assessed

The Fiction High School teachers are well aware of the importance of standardized tests in the lives of their students. They know, too, that their school is judged on the results of these tests as well. But they also know that much of their students? performance on these tests is accounted for by factors over which teachers have little control, such as family income. What they can control is how they assess the learning that takes place among the students in their classrooms. They realize that the typical, traditional tests they have always administered are but one form of assessment (Sacks 1999). The teachers at Fiction High therefore make a concerted effort to incorporate alternative assessments, such as projects, portfolios, graphic organizers, and journals, to name but a few, into their assessment plans. Further, they make these assessments as authentic as possible (Burke l999). They construct rubrics, often with input from their students, to guide the evaluation of the student work. The rubrics also provide students with the specific feedback that they need to improve their work.

Teachers at Fiction High School also know that research indicates educators do far too much summative evaluation and far too little formative assessment. Thanks to researchers like Black and Wiliam (1998), the teachers now conduct assessment activities more frequently. That formative assessment gives them the information they need to adjust their instruction, if necessary, so that they can help students with problems they might be having in learning new or difficult concepts. It also helps them to identify and help their students to correct misconceptions that they bring with them to the classroom, or that they develop during instruction. In addition, the formative assessment gives the students more frequent feedback so they themselves can improve their learning. For example, in a history class the teachers use the "no hands up" strategy (Black et al. 2003) to gauge how students are thinking about ideas related to manifest destiny. Then they use the information to decide how to adjust their instruction and further their students? understanding of this important historical concept.

The teachers at Fiction High wonder, alas, why their colleagues at other schools stick to the age-old sequence of giving several unit tests (or one mid-term test) and then a final exam, with maybe a paper or small project thrown in for good measure (the same kind of assessment regimen that the teachers themselves endured when they were in school). The Fiction High teachers also wonder why all the tests, still predominantly multiple-choice and true-false, count equally toward the final grade. Should it not be performance on the final exam, after feedback from unit tests has been given and students have a second chance to learn information they did not understand, that counts the most? Well, the typical assessment practices of Fiction High teachers? colleagues at other schools simply make no sense in light of what we now know about best practice in classroom assessment.

Turning Fiction High School into Reality

Recall that Tom Clancy said fiction must make sense. For teachers, the question is: "Can we have reality make sense?" Can Fiction High School become Reality High School? The answer may well lie in our collective willingness to consider the five major ideas presented above and, like the faculty at Fiction High School, to put these ideas to use with our students, each and every day, in each and every subject, in each and every classroom. These ideas are based on the most current research and the best thinking of educational psychologists, and our students deserve no less.

References

Black, P., and D. Wiliam. 1998. "Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment." Phi Delta Kappan 80(2): 139–148.

Black, P., C. Harrison, C. Lee, B. Marshall, and D. Wiliam. 2003. Assessment for Learning: Putting It into Practice. Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Blythe, T., and Associates. 1998. The Teaching for Understanding Guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bransford, J., A. Brown, and R. Cocking, eds. 2000. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Burke, K. 1999. The Mindful School: How to Assess Authentic Learning. 3rd ed. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Skylight Training and Publishing.

Feden, P., and R. Vogel. 2003. Methods of Teaching: Applying Cognitive Science to Promote Student Learning. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Gardner, H. 1983. Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

-- -- -- . 1991. The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach. New York: Basic Books.

-- -- -- . 2000. The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts and Standardized Tests, the K–12 Education That Every Child Deserves. New York: Penguin Books.

Kohn, A. 1993. Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.

Martin-Kniep, G. 2005. Becoming a Better Teacher: Eight Innovations That Work. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education.

Perkins, D. 1992. Smart Schools: Better Thinking and Learning for Every Child. New York: The Free Press.

-- -- -- . 1995. Outsmarting IQ: The Emerging Science of Learnable Intelligence. New York: The Free Press.

Piaget, J. 1970. The Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child. New York: Orion Press.

Sacks, P. 1999. Standardized Minds: The High Price of America's Testing Culture and What We Can Do to Change It. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Books.

Wink, J., and L. Putney. 2002. A Vision of Vygotsky. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

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