Content vs. Skills

Hello! One quarter of the school year has passed, unbelievably. I sent home a letter (via email) to parents and students, explaining the Unit 1 scores and what they mean, how to read and interpret the gradebook, and inviting them to reach out to me if I can make anything more clear. I called a few parents specifically, for those students with whom I have concerns. Mostly those concerns are about quantity of practice, because I don’t want to wait until there is a problem. I am generally seeking insight from parents, not complaining. I often have to emphasize that I do not want parents to punish their kids for their behavior. I’d like them to open conversation with true curiosity: “Hey, why are you struggling to get your work turned in? Is there something I can do to support you at home? Can I help you study, set up a regular and undistracted time to work?” I stress that the child is not a problem, but that I’m having trouble reaching them, and I want to establish a kind and respectful relationship in which the child has choices. Since we are talking about children, some of those choices will be poor, and that needs to be discussed and other options explored, together. This leads to interesting conversations with the parents, who are unused to this approach. They are usually relieved and grateful that I’m not asking them to begin a battle with their child, who is not really a child anymore at 17, honestly. I’m not saying that this always solves the issue, but often it gets the student in to see me. My only desire is to find out if there is something that I can better do to develop a relationship with him/her, and the first step is talking.

In an earlier post, when I was describing the characteristics of Learning Progressions, I said that “Content is the vehicle not the destination.” This means that the acquisition of skills are the goal in my classroom. But of course the content matters for our classes. Content knowledge and its application are inextricably intertwined. All practices require accurate content to move to proficient level and beyond.

“Skills not only create and give meaning to knowledge, they are also transferrable across curriculum areas and into students’ future lives, both vocationally and educationally.”[1]

Before students can apply information, they must know what the information is. So the most basic step is to know the vocabulary. To check vocabulary for each unit, they take “Content Mastery Checkpoints”. These are quizzes with 6-10 questions, of which the first 3 questions are matching: units of measurement, definitions of terms, and representative symbols that are used. The remaining multiple choice questions are pulled from a question bank, digging a bit deeper into the subtleties of the definitions. Students usually have 5 attempts on this over the course of each unit, approximately once each week.

Knowing this, let’s look at the learning progression called “Engaging with Content”. The first three levels address content knowledge.

•    For beginning, you must earn “at least 75% on any one of the content mastery checkpoints for this unit.”
•    For Developing you must earn “at least 85% on any two of the content mastery checkpoints for this unit.”
•    For Proficient you must earn “at least 95% on the most recent of the content mastery checkpoints for this unit.”

Why is this any better than simply grading the quizzes and posting a percentage? Well, it’s not better. However, it is more useful. The utility comes from several features. First, students see that learning vocabulary is part of a process. They are expected to learn a strategy that improves their retention of the information. (If their own strategy isn’t working it is usually fairly apparent after the 3rd attempt.) Second (and related), they must retain the knowledge over the course of the unit. The goal is not to get through a single attempt and then move on, but to take it five times over 5-6 weeks, strengthening their knowledge over time.  Third, they are learning the vocabulary for a purpose… to apply it to all of the other contexts, such as “Creating Explanations”, “Interpreting Graphs”, “Arguing a Scientific Claim.”

Therefore, we have built that into the achievement levels of the Engaging with Content learning progression. The focus here is on the Unit Project. At Developing level, students are also required to use the terminology in context, although they may not do this correctly yet.  At Proficient level, students are required to APPLY the concepts. In other words, great for them to simply know the vocabulary… they need to show me that they can use it to explain various aspects of the project that they have created. In order for students to demonstrate skills at an Advanced level, clear and correct presentation of concepts are required. You can’t separate higher order thinking from content expertise.  Content will always be important; it just doesn’t need to be the focus.

I have found that the common thread throughout all of the practices, all of my assignments, is communication. I tell them over and over: How do I know that you understand the material? It is your job to document your thinking so that I can tell what’s going on in your head! This message seems to make sense to most kids, and they definitely improve over time.

On a different note, I wonder how much I am forcing compliance from these kids. I have been reading “Troublemakers” by Carla Shalaby [2] this weekend. While her focus is on very young children (first and second grade), I can see similar issues in my 11th graders. How much of my good work is based on student obedience? I say I want to develop independent thinkers, but I am pushing my own agenda, demanding the expression of learning in a quite particular way. I have to think about this, and will post more about it in the future.

In the next post, I will compare retakes and reassessment, discussing the pros and cons of each, as well as how LPM addresses them.

If you explore further on this website www.reimaginedschools.com, you can find the professional development course “The Essentials of the Learning Progression Method”, in which you will learn how to create your own Learning Progressions. You can find Dave’s podcast “From Earning to Learning”, here or on your favorite podcast provider. The book “Going Gradeless: Shifting the Focus from Earning to Learning” describes the development of the Learning Progression Method from its inception, and can be found on Amazon.