#76 - Utilizing Assessment to Boost Student’s Confidence in their Learning Abilities
A Paper About Confidence & Belief in one’s abilities
A paper that I’m referencing in this Blog Post is: Assessment, Student Confidence, and School Success by : Richard J. Stiggins. And yes it is a very old paper as being published in the 90’s, (So it is over 30 years ago) but I believe it still remains relevant today. The topic that needs to be discussed is Confidence and how this plays a role in schools. Stiggins argues that we should, in fact, use assessments to build confidence, rather than intimidation. And so many of these themes still affect schools today and have been a part of the schooling system for many, many decades.
Old versus New Ways of Thinking
So it turns out that testing and standardized testing has been in effect on our society for a very, very long time. We have almost a hundred years now of testing being introduced into society through the schooling system. In fact, the College Board was founded in the 1930s to introduce high stakes testing to school systems. This was followed by intense backlash if scores were not met to standards set, and there was political plus social turmoil for teachers that did not meet the criteria. This trickle down effect of political pressure created a sort of pattern and so now it has created an intimidation effect. Yes, intimidation is the sole tactic or maybe even using fear to get people whether it’s teachers and students to achieve goals. Again, it started in the 1930s. In the 1950s and 1960s, Districtwide Standardized Testing was commercially available everywhere. And again, there was a threat of action on teachers If they did not perform well on these scores. The 1970’s brought forth Statewide testing and now this was a Statewide phenomenon. The 1980s was a Nationwide Spread of Standardized examination and assessments. Except, by the 90s, Standardized Testing was a National Concern, because If our scores weren’t kept up, then we would fall behind intelligence wise with the rest of the world. This phenomenon of standardized testing and using tests to intimidate students and teachers, has a negative effect on the school improvement problem. And so Stiggin’s offers an interesting solution, and that is to utilize assessments as a way to build confidence. He even talks about these three movies where are: Stand and Deliver, To Sir with Love, Mr. Holland’s Opus, in which the stories all tell of teachers utilizing assessments to lift their student’s confidence and achieve their goals in life.
Standardized Testing and the Affects on People
Now as Educational Leaders, what we want and are trying to learn in this course is how to retain more students and prevent dropouts. Except, we also want to do this in a healthy and non superficial way. If intimidation and threats are the means of motivating people in our school systems, it becomes more difficult to change the lower ends of the spectrum of students to get, grow, or even care about school in any way. These types of drop out students or lower achieving individuals have had their confidence and motivation crushed so completely that they absolutely do not care at all about school, nor district performances, nor anything concerning education. Those are the people that we are trying to reach Educational Leaders. So how do we do it? How do you reach these students that seem to be hopeless because they have no will nor wanting to have to do anything with school?
Not only that, but this problem affects the teachers probably the worst. Because they receive a lot of stress in regards to test scores. And so Stiggens states that Teachers usually react in one of three ways. These three ways being: First, they may get anxious or busy with no real knowledge or support of what teaching methods might raise scores. Second, they might get Defensive or Frustrated,and eventually they will decide to resist all school improvement efforts. Third, they might leave the profession altogether. So none of these outcomes are good for teachers. They leave Teachers in a horrible mental state and they create some of the worst cases of students that eventually drop out of school. And I use “worst cases” in a way to mean, “the most difficult to stop from dropping” and to get back on track towards student achievement and graduation. So as Educational Leaders what can we or even teachers do about this problem? Do we really want our students to feel lost, hopeless, give up, stop caring, stop learning, and the worst one: stop going to school?
Rethinking How We Motivate People
Traditionally, our way of thinking goes back many, many years into two types of camps. It’s either you study hard, get good grades, and achieve high test scores: then, good things will happen to you. Alternatively, If you slack off in studying, have poor grades, and don’t meet the expectations for standardized testing, then, bad things to happen to you. Except, we aren’t trying to help the traditional hard working and high achieving students. This way of thinking, again, creates a group of students that eventually think any attempt is futile in their education. We’re trying to help the most helpless students rise up and spur a rebirth in how they view their minds and their learning.
Another relationship this type of thinking has is psychological classical conditioning. The conclusion of this type of motivational creator is that organisms either just respond to reward or punishment. However, this is flawed, because human beings are complex organisms who can reason, plan, and make choices. Unlike simple organisms that ONLY respond to creature comforts or threats. This also creates another category of student, that is in some ways, worse than the helpless students that we talked about before. And that is students that cheat in order to avoid punishment. Raising students that cheat is immoral, because as a society we require people who are competent in their fields and are able to help others solve problems. The common moral argument to cheating is: “Would you trust a surgeon who cheated their way through college with your life”? Most reasonable people would be hesitant to say yes. So there is a certain amount of growth or hard work that a person has to eventually do before they are introduced into the social ranks of society.
The Trifecta Antidote to the Problem
Stiggens offers an interesting solution to these problems. He states that instead of using assessments negatively, teachers can utilize assessments on a more frequent time frame, for example daily, in order to rebuild student’s confidence and belief in themselves. The technique that he uses is a three step system. It starts with students in the classroom and students are shown in real time where they are and where their teacher wants them to be. This subconsciously creates a connection or a road that they can start following. It gives them a sort of finish line that they can work towards.
Afterwards, there is the next part which is record keeping. Teachers need to constantly compile, collect, or store student’s work so that the students can see for themselves that they are actually growing. This is the “Ahah!” moment for students as they can see how well they are doing over time. Next is communication, once students have a portfolio of some kind, they will need to present it to their parents or maybe even to the teacher as to what they have accomplished. This type of communication solidifies and creates a public broadcast from their minds that they have done this. Which in effect gives them confidence that they are growing.
Utilizing Learning Groups Instead of Traditional Pfessional Development
Like always, as Educational Leaders, we need to step back, take in the information, and figure out a way to take this knowledge, but transform it in a way that benefits our districts. Most teachers, admin, principals, are all already very busy with Professional Developmental Demands of the current school year. Not only that, If we wanted to try to implement this three prong strategy into the district, then how would we do so? What steps would need to take or what strategy would help us implement this type of assessment process that will help the students see growth and the evolution of their work and learning? It turns out that, instead of traditional Professional Development Workshops, we can use Learning Groups to have teachers get together and reverse the process on themselves. They themselves utilize this process and share with each other how they incorporate assessments in the classroom, share a student’s portfolio of work, and share their experiences. Students can also lead these events and have student-led conferences, in which the students unveil their work and how much more confident they are getting over time. What’s great about this approach is that it doesn’t require expensive planning of Professional Development and is practical for educators to implement. So in return, teachers become more confident in their abilities to dish out assessments to students and this process, and students benefit from the acquired experience that teachers receive. It’s a win-win process for both groups.
Well that’s the gist of the Research Paper created by Richard Stiggins in the 1990’s. It offers an interesting solution to the age-old problem of reversing those students who are in many cases very hard to save and bring back on track with their education. Whether you agree or disagree with this approach and line of thinking, confidence and belief in one’s self is a very important component for students as they are growing up and traveling from grade to grade in our school systems. So it’s one piece of the puzzle that is something we have to reflect on as leaders in Education.
