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Teaching to the (good) test is good

November 1, 2012 by

Teaching to the Test Is Good – if the test is good — writes Walt Gardner on Reality Check.

When he studied journalism at UCLA, students practiced writing news stories in a three-hour lab. The professor provided immediate feedback. Students practiced the skills needed to pass the final exam — and to work as reporters.

When I was teaching English, I took great pains to provide my students with practice writing what I thought would serve them best in the long run. I concluded that making a persuasive argument would meet this need. Therefore, I gave them ample practice writing persuasive essays in which they had to take a position and support it with evidence. It’s not that other forms of writing were not important, but I had to prioritize. Was this teaching to the test? Definitely. But students never knew which topic they would have to write a persuasive essay about.

As a speech teacher, he developed units based on speech tournament categories such as humorous interpretation and dramatic interpretation.

After each speech, students were asked to make constructive comments based upon a sheet that I handed out. This was my version of what my journalism professor taught me: appropriate practice followed by immediate feedback. The result was that students won a host of trophies and placed high in state tournaments held on college campuses.

Gardner would prefer to use standardized tests only to diagnose problems, but that’s not going to happen, he writes. “Therefore, I suggest we use our time and energy to design standardized tests that are sensitive to effective instruction involving the most important material.” It’s the only to build public support for public schools, he concludes.

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What the Chinese are studying

September 14, 2012 by

University enrollment has soared by 30 percent in China in recent years, but graduates are having trouble finding jobs, reports Online Colleges. “It’s estimated that one-third of China’s 5.6 million 2008 graduates were unemployed during their first year after school.”

Information technology tops the list of The 10 Hottest College Majors in China. China produced half a million IT graduates in 2009, but  there are plenty of jobs for well-qualified IT grads.

In addition to electrical and mechanical engineering, medicine, accounting, architecture and business management, the top 10 include English (not many jobs, but it helps with study in the U.S.), journalism (way too many graduates for the jobs) and law (too many graduates.)

Filed Under: Careers, College Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

‘I teach to empower kids’

March 30, 2012 by

I teach to “empower kids to live satisfying and productive lives,”, writes Esther Wojcicki, a long-time English and journalism teacher at Palo Alto High School, on Learning Matters. “I am helping grow adults.”

(Teenagers) tend to be energetic, creative and humorous, and their drive for independence empowers them to think outside the box. I love to see what far-out ideas they dream up. Some of them have turned out to be real winners. Kids are amazing — if you encourage them.

I try to create a classroom atmosphere in which students are not afraid of making mistakes. In fact, they are encouraged to take intellectual risks and occasionally fail, because that is the way they learn best.

Paly journalism students develop their own story ideas, she writes. Student editors assign the stories and supervise the reporters.  She lets them “do the work themselves.”

I know this is true because Woj was my daughter’s journalism teacher. Working on the newspaper as a writer, news editor and editor was one of the most important experiences of Allison’s life. Woj lets students lead, even when she’s the one who’s going to catch the flak. She really does grow adults.

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Student newspaper isn’t a PR sheet

September 8, 2010 by

On Community College Spotlight: A college newspaper that makes the administration happy isn’t much of a newspaper, writes Ron Feemster, who was fired as journalism instructor and newspaper advisor at a Wyoming community college.

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Are college newspapers obsolete?

August 5, 2009 by

Are student newspapers obsolete? On Confessions of a Community College Dean, the blogger wonders whether a student-written print newspaper that comes out twice a semester is worth maintaining.

I’ll admit some affection for any project that gets students writing readable non-fiction. The ability to assemble a coherent narrative out of a swirl of rapidly-changing facts is useful in all kinds of contexts, certainly including business. But it’s not clear to me why that needs to happen in the context of a newspaper.

I worked for my college newspaper for four years and used that experience to get a low-paying job, which led to another low-paying job, which led to a very good job at the San Jose Mercury News. The Merc has cut its reporting, editing and photo staff by about 60 percent. The editorial pages had 11  employees when I left in early 2001. It’s down to three.

I’d advise the journalism instructors to put the paper online with daily updates. Include video reports. Students will learn to gather facts and write clearly in the modern context.  In addition, make sure they know the average starting and median pay for print, online and broadcast journalists.

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College degrees that lead to a job

February 6, 2009 by

The most marketable college degrees of 2009 are nursing, computer/information science, engineering, economics and education, says MSN Encarta.

The least marketable degrees start with print journalism and include film studies, advertising, real estate and architecture.

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