Back to Work

I started back to work today. The Alaska Statewide Mentors all met at our office classroom at about 8 am. It was great to see everyone today, although there are a few missing due to health or travel issues. We worked mainly on backward lesson design or Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins.

Another piece of the action today was a talk by Les Morse, the state assessment go-to guy. He was very candid about his hope that teachers were still using best practice, problem solving and engaging learning in their classrooms to increase student achievement. I'm sorry to say that that has not been my experience, either here in Fairbanks or in other communities around the state. It seems like when the pressure is on for raising test scores, districts and teachers get less creative, not more. They analyze test-taking strategies and try to zero in on the types of questions that might be on the test rather than raising the boat by raising the lake. This is not to say that some teachers are not doing this! Oh, no....there are really some wonderfully creative, engaging teachers, both new and old who are continuing to challenge students. Les expressed that the lack of engaging learning would increase the drop-out rate and I agree.

Sorry for the short post- going back to work is really cutting into my free time....including sleep. More later.