Head U Gator News
January 8, 2017
A grateful heart...
My heart is grateful for....
....
The End of Average
"Bloom and his colleagues randomly assigned students to two groups. All students were taught a subject they had not learned before, such as probability theory. The first group—the “fixed-pace group”—was taught the material in the traditional manner: in a classroom during fixed periods of instruction. The second group—the “self-paced group”—was taught the same material and given the same total amount of instruction time, but they were provided with a tutor who allowed them to move through the material at their own pace, sometimes going fast, sometimes slow, taking as much or as little time as they needed to learn each new concept.
When Bloom compared the performance of students in each group, the results were astounding. Students in the traditional classroom performed exactly like you would expect if you believed in the notion that faster equals smarter: by the end of the course, roughly 20 percent achieved mastery of the material (which Bloom defined as scoring 85 percent or higher on a final exam), a similarly small percentage did very poorly, while the majority of students scored somewhere in the middle. In contrast, more than 90 percent of the self-paced students achieved mastery.
Bloom showed that when students were allowed a little flexibility in the pace of their learning, the vast majority of students ended up performing extremely well. Bloom’s data also revealed that students’ individual pace varied depending on exactly what they were learning. One student might breeze through material on fractions, for instance, but grind through material on decimals; another student might fly through decimals, but take extra time for fractions. There was no such thing as a “fast” learner or a “slow” learner. These two insights—that speed does not equal ability, and that there are no universally fast or slow learners—had actually been recognized several decades before Bloom’s pioneering study, and have been replicated many times since, using different students and different content, but always producing similar results.
Equating learning speed with learning ability is irrefutably wrong. Of course, the conclusion that logically follows from this is both obvious and terrible: by demanding that our students learn at one fixed pace, we are artificially impairing the ability of many to learn and succeed. What one person can learn, most people can learn if they are allowed to adjust their pacing. Yet the architecture of our education system is simply not designed to accommodate such individuality, and it therefore fails to nurture the potential and talent of all its students."
However, we are trying to create a better system, where students are self-paced and more in charge of their own learning. I hope this renews your commitment to the process.
Calendar survey
I know that many of you have asked about the 2017-2018 school calendar so I wanted to provide you a brief update on its status. On Thursday, January 12, the district included in The LEADer, the district's e-newsletter, a link to a brief survey that asks four questions regarding the student-teacher calendar. In case you missed it, I have included a link to the survey in this email. These questions will help us determine what is most important for our parents, teachers, students and community members. The survey will be open until 4 p.m.on Friday, January 20. Once the district has collected the information, a proposed calendar will be recommended to the District Excellence Committee prior to the Board of Trustees vote on Monday, February 27. We are working diligently to finalize the 2017-2018 school calendar and we appreciate your patience as we work to create the best calendar to cultivate student success.
Here are links to the survey - it is available in English and Spanish, and there is a staff and parent/community survey. Please be sure to send the link to each respective group so that we may collect their feedback:
English Parent/Community: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQ09NGteBVQF9yEIrjJl-arC221pS925y-HafXH82i-zEEPQ/viewform
English Staff: https://docs.google.com/a/gcisd.net/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScIWPDGFCd72Gfmml_Ee0DoEuhYrbFy2_-5nYD3gUs-I4xKMA/viewform
Spanish Parent/Community: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeDvpLxzFo7I9EYBjW3-HWnAZ9bceRNu5E1MbV8f7qxgevQBA/viewform
DI help
VALOR
I will try to include some testimonials next week about VALOR and how great this could be for your own professional growth...
Sherlock Visits
Gatorville
We do have students who are wanting to teach classes, so if you're stuck, let me know!
Calendar
Monday, January 9
Tuesday, January 10
Spanish 2:55-4:00
Wednesday, January 11
3:00 Talent Show Audition
Thursday, January 12
3:00 Talent Show Auditions
Friday, January 13
Spanish 2:55-4:00
Bricks4Kids 2:55-4:00
Bowman Sports