Marshall Memo 633

A Weekly Round-up of Important Ideas and Research in K-12 Education

April 18, 2016

 

 


In This Issue:

1. Five reasons not to use IQ tests – at all

2. How instructional coaches can build teachers’ trust

3. Grading less, learning from students, and giving better feedback

4. The potential and downsides of pre-assessments

5. Using Latin and Greek etymology to boost students’ ELA performance

6. A report on college and career preparation in U.S. high schools

7. The benefits of concentrating in one CTE area

8. Short item: An online database of science ideas and misconceptions

 

Quotes of the Week

“Today, no reason exists to subject elementary-school pupils to IQ tests. All the reasons that once seemed so important have since proved to be invalid.”

            Robert Sternberg (see item #1)

 

“Improvement [in writing] starts with volume. Volume suffers if I have to grade everything. Grading doesn’t make kids better. Volume, choice, and conferring makes kids better.”

            Kelly Gallagher (see item #3)

 

“Give students daily opportunities to leave tracks of their thinking, use those tracks to notice patterns, and adjust instruction on the basis of what kids know and what they need. Repeat cycle.”

            Chris Tovani (ibid.)

 

“Pre-assessment without associated action is like eating without digestion.”

Thomas Guskey and Jay McTighe (see item #4)

 

“High school should be about preparing young people for whatever future they choose for themselves. Right now, far too many graduates, especially those from low-[socioeconomic] backgrounds, have a diploma but no clear path forward.”

            Sonja Brookins Santelises (see item #7)

 

“Trust your mind, not your machine.”

            Thomas Guskey and Lee Ann Jung on how grading software can distort students’

achievement, in “Grading: Why You Should Trust Your Judgment,” Educational

Leadership, April 2016 (Vol. 73, #7, p. 50-54), available for purchase at                   

http://bit.ly/1SVrVtk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Five Reasons Not to Use IQ Tests – At All

            In this article in School Administrator, Robert Sternberg (Cornell University) remembers how intimidated he was by the IQ tests he was given as an elementary school student in the late 1950s and early 1960s – and how badly he did. “Today, no reason exists to subject elementary-school pupils to IQ tests,” he says. “All the reasons that once seemed so important have since proved to be invalid… Education leaders can demonstrate their own intelligence by steering away from IQ tests.” Here are the previous rationales and Sternberg’s suggested alternatives:

            • Old rationale #1: To identify a person’s true native ability – The idea was that IQ tests could find what a child was capable of irrespective of upbringing and social and cultural opportunities. So far, says Sternberg, all the ways we’ve tried to measure raw intelligence haven’t worked. Tests that contain questions on vocabulary, arithmetic, puzzle solving, and general information inevitably measure a person’s past social and cultural opportunities. Tests that use abstract geometric symbols produce results that are highly correlated with the amount of Western schooling a child has had. Tests that measure reaction time or brain functioning turn out to be unreliable. The bottom line, says Sternberg: “No existing IQ or other test can separate past opportunities from test performance.” In addition, New Zealand researcher James Flynn has found that over time, improvements in nutrition, medical care, technology, and schooling have produced a steady increase in IQ around the world – about 3 points every decade, or 30 points between 1900 and 2000. “The only reason the average IQ remained at 100,” says Sternberg, “is that test publishers kept renorming the tests, setting new expectations for what constituted a score at a certain level.”

            The alternative, he suggests, is asking students questions in areas they’re interested in and know something about – for example, with Eskimo children, hunting, gathering, and fishing, with Kenyan schoolchildren, herbal medicines against malaria and other diseases. “If you understand the child’s knowledge and cognitive skills in a domain that is really meaningful to the child,” says Sternberg, “you will learn what the student is capable of doing in other domains, if only motivated to pursue those other domains.”

            • Old rationale #2: To predict school achievement – Since past performance is often a good predictor of future performance and IQ tests contain material that students should have learned in previous grades, the idea was that IQ performance would tell us how well a child would perform down the road. But what if a student had mediocre or ineffective teachers in the grades just prior to an IQ test, or had a traumatic experience that affected motivation and performance? For these reasons (and also test anxiety), a one-time IQ assessment can be an inaccurate measure of a student’s potential for future success.

            The alternative, says Sternberg, is to look at past achievement – course grades and achievement-test scores and take into account the context of those data. “This is why college admissions officers increasingly rely on high-school grades to predict college success,” he says.

            • Old rationale #3: To identify students with learning disabilities – The idea was to compare a student’s IQ score with his or her achievement in reading, math, or another domain and look for discrepancies. This sounds reasonable, but it hasn’t worked well, says Sternberg: “The intelligence test inevitably measures verbal skills, whether in listening, reading, writing, or speaking – so you cannot cleanly separate out measurement of intelligence from measurement of reading (obviously, a verbal skill). The same holds for other content domains.” It turns out that students with a disability function about the same in their supposedly disabled domain as students who perform poorly for reasons unrelated to disability; IQ doesn’t matter.

            The alternative, says Sternberg, is giving diagnostic assessments in specific areas, figuring out what needs to be improved, and working with students in those areas. “You don’t need the IQ test and never did,” he says. “If you want to know whether the deficit is domain-specific, just compare performance in that domain to performance in other domains. That’s all you really need.”

            • Old rationale #4: To identify students for gifted programs – The idea was to select students who are truly smart, not just hard workers and high achievers. “But IQ and achievement tests all measure about the same thing,” says Sternberg. For example, results on SAT, ACT, and IQ tests are all highly correlated, even though the first two are supposed to be achievement tests. “You don’t need an IQ test to identify students for gifted programming,” he says.

            The alternative is first to decide what you mean by “gifted.” If you say “high IQ,” you haven’t thought things through, says Sternberg. As Howard Gardner, Joseph Renzulli, David Feldman, and others have found, there’s a lot more to giftedness than what IQ tests measure. Performance-based assessments do a much better job – that is, looking at students’ actual work in the target area for giftedness – reading, math, science, art, music, and others.

            • Old rationale #5: To draw comparisons of your students to those in other districts – “However you make comparisons across districts,” says Sternberg, “don’t use IQ tests. They won’t tell you want you want to know.” The alternative: use achievement tests.

 

“Alternative Measures of Intelligence” by Robert Sternberg in School Administrator, April 2016 (Vol. 73, #4, p. 33-35), www.aasa.org; Sternberg can be reached at [email protected].

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2. How Instructional Coaches Can Build Teachers’ Trust

            In this Kappan article, Carla Finkelstein (Towson University) examines the delicate process of establishing trust with teachers. There are plenty of reasons for resistance to being “helped” by an instructional coach, she says, often manifested in shallow acquiescence, avoidance, or overt hostility:

-   Teachers believing (not without reason) that they’ve been singled out as deficient;

-   Fear of being judged and exposed as ineffective with students;

-   Fear that deficiencies unrelated to the presenting issue will be revealed;

-   A belief that the instructional coach may report on them to the principal;

-   Worries about being admonished by the principal;

-   Discomfort examining their own practice;

-   Anxiety about having to change.

“The coach is responsible for mitigating resistance,” says Finkelstein. “Unless the coach successfully does this, many teachers never sincerely engage in the learning process.” Based on her own work as a literacy coach, she offers the following recommendations:

            • Let the teacher “drive” the process. “This does not mean that the coach cedes all input,” says Finkelstein, “rather that the coach’s job in goal-setting is to search for points of agreement with the teacher and to direct her in ways likely to produce positive results.” Finkelstein describes how she got off on the wrong foot in an early meeting with a young second-grade teacher by asking what her goals were for their work together. When the teacher hesitated, Finkelstein regrouped: “What would you like to see your students be able to do this year in reading and writing?” This got the teacher talking energetically about wanting students to read books they enjoyed, practice how good readers think, write about their reading, show deeper comprehension, and engage in meaningful conversations about their reading. “That’s fantastic!” said Finkelstein. “Our coaching goals can fit right in with your ideas. I’d love for us to launch a reading workshop in your classroom. Can we talk about how that might go?”

Finkelstein notes that she had already made two low-key visits to the teacher’s classroom before this discussion, one to lead a readaloud with students and one to watch a reading lesson. This allowed her to learn more about the teacher’s “turf” and acknowledge the teacher’s knowledge about instruction and her students. “The coach also needs to respect the teacher’s autonomy by offering feedback only on agreed-upon goals,” adds Finkelstein. “As tempting as it can be for coaches to identify areas for improvement, unsolicited suggestions can arouse defensiveness.”

            • Adopt a curious, problem-solving stance. The coach’s role, she says, “is not to fix lessons or teachers but to support teachers’ abilities to meet students’ needs. This view is critical to mitigating teacher resistance to feedback, which most teachers expect will be evaluative.” A smart strategy is to focus on what students have learned rather than the teacher’s skill executing lessons. “Collaboratively examining student performance can provide an effective third space for this kind of non-evaluative feedback,” she says. “Coaches can frame the job of educators as continual problem solvers who recognize that surfacing dilemmas does not indicate a teacher’s deficiency; it is an essential part of teaching and learning.” It’s also effective for the coach to invite the teacher to comment on lessons the coach teaches, focusing on how students reacted and behaved.

            • Walk the walk. “Coaches need to work as hard as teachers in every phase of planning, teaching, and assessment,” says Finkelstein. “It is the coach’s responsibility to dispel any perception that her job is easier or more relaxed than the teacher’s.” This means writing lesson plans, citing standards, teaching lessons, collecting books and materials, helping with assessments, doing grading, and helping with other paperwork. At the same time, the coach needs to think strategically about the teacher’s growth and development and ultimate independence.

            “Coaches also walk the walk by using their access to authority in schools to advocate for teachers,” says Finkelstein – for example, improvements in working conditions, additional planning time, and more instructional materials. “Such actions may gain coaches credibility and build trust with often overburdened teachers.”

            • Communicate clearly and transparently. Right from the start, coaches need to spell out key details of the partnership, including:

-   The goals and time frame;

-   When, why, and how the coach will observe in the classroom;

-   What non-evaluative feedback will look and sound like;

-   With whom the coach will (and will not) share feedback.

“Coaches must be particularly sensitive about writing down anything while visiting a classroom,” says Finkelstein, “because many teachers associate this with evaluations, which are often viewed as reductive or dismissive of the rich complexity of their practice.” One way out of this bind is to share with the teacher any notes taken during observations.

Coaches also need to deal with teachers suspecting they are spies for the administration. Trying to get too buddy-buddy with teachers may inadvertently reinforce that suspicion: “If you gossip about the principal with teachers, won’t the teachers wonder if you gossip with the principal about them?” says author Katherine Casey. In addition, coaches need to be sensitive to the potential impact of differences in educational background, age, gender, race, ethnicity, and cultural background compared to their coachees.

            “Trust is not something coaches can achieve at some magical point and then ignore,” Finkelstein concludes. “These recommendations are ongoing, recursive, and interconnected. Effective coaches attend to trust building at all times.”

 

“Thank You So Much for the Truth!” by Carla Finkelstein in Phi Delta Kappan, April 2016 (Vol. 97, #7, p. 19-24), www.kappanmagazine.org; Finkelstein is at [email protected].

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3. Grading Less, Learning from Students, and Giving Better Feedback

(Originally titled “How I Learned to Be Strategic About Writing Comments”)

            In this Educational Leadership article, high-school English teacher and consultant Cris Tovani bemoans the way her students used to ignore the comments she spent hours writing on their papers – and the fact that her comments didn’t seem to make a difference. Overhearing a conversation between two high-school athletic coaches, Tovani realized how differently their feedback was received and used by young players. “In a perfect world,” she thought, “teachers and students would work together toward a common goal, like athletes and coaches do. Students would care about the feedback we give them as much as we do.” This epiphany led Tovani to three conclusions:

-   Spend less time writing comments.

-   Modify instruction based on what’s learned from students’ work.

-   Build in time for students to revise their work based on feedback and self-assessment.

“Where I really needed to give feedback was before final assignments were due,” she says. “I needed a chance to reteach concepts, and students needed a chance to revise.”

            In Tovani’s reading lessons, students now take four-question comprehension checks as they read, assessing how well they can summarize, analyze the author’s craft, annotate a text, and make inferences. Tovani grades these quickly (very few comments), gives them back the next day, and has students self-assess against a model answer. “Students compare my criteria of success with their performance,” she says, “and reflect on how my responses are alike or different from theirs.” If students do poorly on one of her quizzes, she’ll go over items in class, giving students a chance to add points by showing improvement.

            In her writing lessons, Tovani takes a cue from Kelly Gallagher, who gave her this rationale for assigning students four times more writing than it’s possible to grade: “Improvement starts with volume. Volume suffers if I have to grade everything. Grading doesn’t make kids better. Volume, choice, and conferring makes kids better.” This helped Tovani realize that she didn’t have to assess every piece of student writing, which allowed her to grade less and assess more: “I don’t have to always write the perfect comment or give a grade,” she says. “[W]hat’s most essential to improving the quality of students’ work is collecting feedback for ourselves from that work and noticing patterns in students’ skills (or lack thereof) that we can use to determine our next instructional moves.”

            Her new philosophy is, “Give students daily opportunities to leave tracks of their thinking, use those tracks to notice patterns, and adjust instruction on the basis of what kids know and what they need. Repeat cycle.” Here are some of her tools:

-   Reading think worksheets – Students jot on these as they do their independent reading, prompted to note pages read, stamina, use of their inner voice to remember what they read, and how their reading reflects new thinking (see the full article for a sample).

-   Exit tickets – At the end of class, students jot one thing they figured out and one thing they’re wondering about. Tovani spreads these out on a table and draws conclusions about the next day’s lesson. “I don’t waste time writing comments,” she says. “I simply look for patterns, and when I’ve figured out a few, I throw the tickets away.”

-   Response journals – In individual composition notebooks, students reflect on their learning for the day. Tovani reads a third of these each day during her planning period, takes a third home, and reads the rest the next morning. “I limit my comments and challenge myself to identify patterns,” she says.

Tovani continuously streamlines her process. She decides which qualities of students’ reading and thinking she’ll focus her feedback on and limits her comments accordingly. While commenting, she records her observations in four columns: students’ use of skills and strategies; confusing vocabulary; students’ questions related to the reading; and how skillfully students are dealing with a genre or text structure. She gives feedback or a quick correction to individual students or to the whole class.

            “As much as we’d all like to coach kids one-on-one,” Tovani concludes, “we can’t. Getting feedback from student work and giving students feedback to advance their learning are both essential, but educators have to be strategic in how we use these instructional moves. In the end, both teacher and students have to get smarter.”

 

“How I Learned to Be Strategic About Writing Comments” by Cris Tovani in Educational Leadership, April 2016 (Vol. 73, #7, p. 56-60), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/1SgYzpF; Tovani can be reached at [email protected].

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4. The Potential and Downsides of Pre-Assessments

(Originally titled “Pre-Assessment: Promises and Cautions”)

            Why give students pre-assessments? ask Thomas Guskey (University of Kentucky) and Jay McTighe (author/consultant) in this Educational Leadership article. The most common reasons are:

-   To see what students know and are able to do before embarking on a lesson, curriculum unit, or course;

-   To get baseline data against which to measure students’ progress;

-   To communicate course or unit expectations to students up front and allow them to self-assess against models of expert performance;

-   To focus students on the learning targets and get them thinking about how they will improve as a result of the lesson, unit, or course;

-   To get a sense of students’ preconceived notions, misunderstandings, misconceptions, and knowledge gaps;

-   To identify students’ interests, likes and dislikes, talents, and preferred ways of learning (surveys with questions like these also tell students that their teacher cares about them as people).

Notwithstanding these potential benefits, say Guskey and McTighe, pre-assessments can have the following downsides:

Beginning on a bad note – “If pre-assessments simply demonstrate to students how little they know, this exercise may negatively affect their disposition toward the upcoming event,” say the authors. Teachers’ messaging needs to emphasize that a pre-assessment won’t count against students and the purpose is to help make lessons more effective and fun, highlight what’s going to be learned, and allow students to set goals.

Wasting instructional time – The results of pre-assessments are often not news to teachers, especially if a unit has been carefully planned to anticipate errors and misconceptions. To avoid giving pre-assessments that add little value, teachers should use them only when necessary, keep them short, using multiple-choice questions where possible, and limit questions to areas where the teacher genuinely doesn’t know how students will perform.

Creating management challenges – A thorough unit pre-assessment might well reveal four levels of student preparation in a single classroom: students who know the intended outcomes up front; students who have partial knowledge; students who have little or no knowledge; and students who have significant misconceptions. Trying to differentiate for all these students is a classroom management nightmare for even the most creative teacher. Guskey and McTighe suggest a compromise, with some highly engaging whole-class presentations and then significant decentralization and choice with frequent checks for understanding.

Consuming precious time looking at data – Written pre-assessment responses can take a lot of teacher time to score and analyze, slowing down the launch of instruction (especially for secondary teachers with multiple classes). When possible, teachers should gather pre-assessment data with individual student dry-erase boards, clickers, or other methods that allow for rapid student input and teacher analysis and decision-making. KWL charts can also be helpful (getting students to brainstorm at the outset what they know and want to know, and then at the end of the unit what they learned).

Guskey and McTighe conclude with three guidelines to ensure that pre-assessments are practical, provide useful data, and enhance student learning:

• Teachers should be clear about the purpose, both for themselves and their students. What new and helpful data will be gathered? Do students know why they are doing the pre-assessment?

• Decide how the information will be used. “Pre-assessment without associated action is like eating without digestion,” say Guskey and McTighe. Possible follow-ups include reviewing essential knowledge and skills with the whole class, addressing misconceptions, providing targeted instruction, linking content to students’ interests, and differentiating for individuals or groups.

• Use pre-assessments judiciously and efficiently. They’re not necessary for every new unit, say the authors – only when they can really add value and only if they’re short and can produce data that can be assessed quickly. Guskey and McTighe recommend against giving pre-assessments for individual lessons.

 

“Pre-Assessment: Promises and Cautions” by Thomas Guskey and Jay McTighe in Educational Leadership, April 2016 (Vol. 73, #7, p. 38-43), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/1SVdGVj; the authors can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].

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5. Using Latin and Greek Etymology to Boost Students’ ELA Performance

            In this article in Education Week, Laura Heitin reports on elementary schools that are teaching Latin and Greek roots, prefixes, and suffixes as part of their ELA curriculum. “A single root can generate over 100 words,” says Joanna Newton, a Virginia reading specialist. “It’s a paradigm shift in the way we teach vocabulary.” North Carolina grade 3-5 teacher Chris Schmidt is an enthusiast: “One of the lasting things the kids take from Caesar’s English is the fact that when you learn one stem you have some knowledge of countless words, and that hooks them.” Schmidt says that students’ attitude becomes, “This is something I’m trying to figure out. There’s a code in here, and I’m trying to break that code.” Ohio primary-grade teacher Diane MacBride spends two weeks on each root word. “Having conversations about words in 1st grade is huge,” she says. “It’s amazing to watch.” Her students take delight in finding root words in their independent reading and carrying their learning over to math class – for example, spotting that regrouping contains a Latin prefix.

            All this is distinct from actually learning classical languages; it’s a utilitarian approach to giving students insights into the roots of their language. The Common Core ELA standards suggest teaching Latin roots starting in third grade – but also advocate thematic units that build background knowledge. Some teachers are trying to blend the two approaches by integrating classical root words into curriculum units.

Heitin reports on several classroom activities. One is teaching a root word each week and having students build lists of all the English words that use that root. Another exercise is showing students a list of words and challenging them to pick the “odd word out” – for example, precook, preheat, premixed, and pretest (it might be pretest, which doesn’t have to do with cooking, or premixed because it’s the only one with an –ed ending). Yet another approach is constructing nonsense words made up of Latin roots – for example, an unporter is a person who won’t carry in the groceries.

One challenge is when students come across false etymologies – for example, having learned that the prefix un- means not, students might think it applies to uncle, or having learned that temp means time as in temporary and contemporary, thinking it applies to temptation. In such cases, teachers might be as unsure as their students. “You don’t have to own all this knowledge,” says Newton, the Virginia specialist. “You can put ‘Words we want to know more about’ on the board and say, ‘Does anyone want to go home tonight and look up some of these words?’ We’re sharing that ambiguity with kids… That’s what real readers and thinkers do.”

 

“Can Latin Help Younger Students Build Vocabulary?” by Liana Heitin in Education Week, April 13, 2016 (Vol. 35, #27, p. 1, 14), www.edweek.org

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6. A Report on College and Career Preparation in U.S. High Schools

            In this Education Week article, Catherine Gewertz reports the findings of a new study from The Education Trust on the degree to which high-school courses prepare students for college and career success:

-   31 percent of students completed a “college-ready” curriculum: 4 years of English, 3 years each of math, science, and social studies and 2 years of a world language;

-   13 percent completed a “career ready” sequence: three 1-year courses focused on a specific career field;

-   8 percent completed both sets of requirements;

-   Looking at the grades students received in those courses, an additional 14 percent of students were below mastery level, i.e., not prepared for college and career success.

-   47 percent didn’t complete a college-or-career-ready sequence, most of them falling short of the math and science requirements (Algebra II was a big stumbling block).

The situation was somewhat worse for students from low-income families.

Too many students are “meandering toward graduation,” conclude Education Trust researchers Marni Bromberg and Christina Theokas. “High schools are prioritizing credit accrual, which treats graduation as the end goal. Instead of being prepared for college and career, many of our students turn out to have been prepared for neither.” The study makes the following recommendations:

-   State policymakers should ensure that high-school graduation requirements are aligned with the expectations of state colleges and universities.

-   States should also articulate the requirements students need to enter various postsecondary career pathways.

-   K-12 district administrators need to analyze transcripts, course schedules, and credit policies to identify courses with high failure rates and the subgroups of students failing each course.

-   District leaders also need to require course sequences that reflect the state’s higher-education expectations, even if those are more rigorous than diploma requirements.

-   Schools need to focus more intently on postsecondary planning versus credit accrual. This involves counselors and teachers being well versed in state college and university admissions requirements.

 

“High-School Coursework Seen Falling Short” by Catherine Gewertz in Education Week, April 13, 2016 (Vol. 35, #27, p. 8), www.edweek.org

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7. The Benefits of Concentrating in One CTE Area

            In this Education Week article, Catherine Gewertz reports the results of a new study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute on career and technical education (CTE) in Arkansas high schools. The key findings:

-   Taking three or more related courses in one career area boosted students’ chances of graduating from high school on time by 21 percent.

-   For boys, the boost was 23 percent, for girls 19 percent, for low-income students 25 percent (compared to students who didn’t take a coherent course sequence).

-   A CTE concentration correlated with a small increase in job and two-year college enrollment and a modest boost in post-graduate job pay.

-   Disadvantaged students weren’t tracked into CTE courses in large numbers; in fact, white and female students took the CTE sequence most frequently.

-   Among students who took seven or more CTE courses, there was a slight overrepresentation of low-income students, those with disabilities, and those with low- and middle-level achievement.

CTE “is considered a desirable elective for the majority of students,” says study author Shaun Dougherty of the University of Connecticut, “and middle and high achievers are not shying away from it.”

            Commenting on the Fordham study, Sonja Brookins Santelises of The Education Trust emphasized the importance of a coherent course sequence: “High school should be about preparing young people for whatever future they choose for themselves. Right now, far too many graduates, especially those from low-[socioeconomic] backgrounds, have a diploma but no clear path forward.”

            The Fordham study emphasizes the benefits of CTE concentration. “Even without expensive interventions such as intensive counseling or career placement,” says Dara Zeehandelaar, Fordham’s research director, “schools could see a big gain in graduation rates if they simply encouraged students to take a set of three or more related courses instead of ‘random CTE classes.’” It’s important, however, to follow Arkansas’s lead, leaving room for students to take courses in other fields for a well-rounded education.

 

“Study: Tracking Not an Issue for Career-Tech-Education” by Catherine Gewertz in Education Week, April 13, 2016 (Vol. 35, #27, p. 6), www.edweek.org

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8. Short Item:

            An online database of science ideas and misconceptions – This American Association for the Advancement of Science website http://assessment.aaas.org/topics has key understandings, common misconceptions, and actual student performance in 16 areas of science knowledge, as well as quick quizzes to ferret out students’ misconceptions:

Life Science

-   Cells

-   Evolution and natural selection

-   Human body systems

-   Interdependence in ecosystems

-   Matter and energy in living systems

-   Reproduction, genes, and heredity

Physical Science

-   Atoms, molecules, and states of matter

-   Energy: forms, transformation, transfer, and conservation

-   Force and motion

-   Substances, chemical reactions, and conservation of matter

Earth Science

-   Plate tectonics

-   Weather and climate I: Basic elements

-   Weather and climate II: Seasonal differences

-   Weathering, erosion, and deposition

Nature of Science

-   Control of variables

-   Models

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About the Marshall Memo

 


Mission and focus:

This weekly memo is designed to keep principals, teachers, superintendents, and others very well-informed on current research and effective practices in K-12 education. Kim Marshall, drawing on 44 years’ experience as a teacher, principal, central office administrator, and writer, lightens the load of busy educators by serving as their “designated reader.”

 

To produce the Marshall Memo, Kim subscribes to 64 carefully-chosen publications (see list to the right), sifts through more than a hundred articles each week, and selects 5-10 that have the greatest potential to improve teaching, leadership, and learning. He then writes a brief summary of each article, pulls out several striking quotes, provides e-links to full articles when available, and e-mails the Memo to subscribers every Monday evening (with occasional breaks; there are 50 issues a year).

 

Subscriptions:

Individual subscriptions are $50 for a year. Rates decline steeply for multiple readers within the same organization. See the website for these rates and how to pay by check, credit card, or purchase order.

 

Website:

If you go to http://www.marshallmemo.com you will find detailed information on:

• How to subscribe or renew

• A detailed rationale for the Marshall Memo

• Publications (with a count of articles from each)

• Article selection criteria

• Topics (with a count of articles from each)

• Headlines for all issues

• Reader opinions (with results of an annual survey)

• About Kim Marshall (including links to articles)

• A free sample issue

 

Subscribers have access to the Members’ Area of the website, which has:

• The current issue (in Word or PDF)

• All back issues (also in Word and PDF)

• A database of all articles to date, searchable

    by topic, title, author, source, level, etc.

• A collection of “classic” articles from all 11 years

Core list of publications covered

Those read this week are underlined.

American Educational Research Journal

American Educator

American Journal of Education

American School Board Journal

AMLE Magazine

ASCA School Counselor

ASCD SmartBrief

Better: Evidence-Based Education

Center for Performance Assessment Newsletter

District Administration

Ed. Magazine

Education Digest

Education Gadfly

Education Next

Education Week

Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

Educational Horizons

Educational Leadership

Educational Researcher
Edutopia

Elementary School Journal

Essential Teacher

Go Teach

Harvard Business Review

Harvard Educational Review

Independent School

Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk (JESPAR)

Journal of Staff Development

Kappa Delta Pi Record

Knowledge Quest

Literacy Today

Middle School Journal

Peabody Journal of Education

Perspectives

Phi Delta Kappan

Principal

Principal Leadership

Principal’s Research Review

Reading Research Quarterly

Responsive Classroom Newsletter

Rethinking Schools

Review of Educational Research

School Administrator

School Library Journal

Teacher

Teachers College Record

Teaching Children Mathematics

Teaching Exceptional Children/Exceptional Children

The Atlantic

The Chronicle of Higher Education

The District Management Journal

The Journal of the Learning Sciences

The Language Educator

The Learning Principal/Learning System/Tools for Schools

The New York Times

The New Yorker

The Reading Teacher

Theory Into Practice

Time Magazine

Wharton Leadership Digest