Reflect and Evaluate - Reflections on How Adults Use This EFF Skill

"Part of the perceived need to teach thinking skills has come from a growing awareness that society has changed, and skills appropriate a generation ago may no longer prepare students for the world beyond school. The rate of change within society is accelerating so rapidly that it is difficult to assess what factual knowledge will be needed in the future, and this means that schools should be less focused on imparting information than on teaching students to learn and to think for themselves. Students faced with a future in an unpredictable world will need to gain the skills that will give them the greatest control over their lives and learning, and for this they will need to think critically and creatively at the highest possible levels, and to develop an awareness of global issues and problems."¹⁶
-Robert Fisher

Insights From Field Research:
Using the Standard to Guide Teaching and Learning

Judy B. Wurtz
Sweetwater Union High School District, Division of Adult and Continuing Education, Chula Vista, CA
ESOL Level 2; In-class activity that uses the Standard to transform a required reporting exercise into a learning experience.
Teacher data from the second round of field review, conducted 1998-1999.
(Adapted from Equipped for the Future Content Standards, p. 50.)

What are the steps you will look for in order to know if your students are making progress toward meeting the Standard?

1. Students will read and understand "learner results" as listed on the CASAS TOPS (tracking of programs and students) update record.
2. Students will ask questions about the "learner results."
3. Students will ask for clarification of the teacher's expectations.
4. Second semester students will be able to identify areas in which they have made progress (or goals met) since they began to study.
5. Students will be able to explain their choices either orally or in writing.

Describe what took place during the learning experience.
As a whole class, students filled out most sections of the TOPS entry and update records. We then looked at the "learner results" section briefly. Students put the forms into their folders and I passed out enlarged copies of the goals and achievements listed in the "learner results" section of the TOPS form. We discussed and explained each one, using Spanish when necessary. I then told the class that I wanted them to look over the lists and check any goals they felt they had achieved, even if they had only been in the program for a short time. Teachers are being required to do this as part of our accountability reports to the state.

Students checked all of the goals or results that they felt were appropriate, chose one which they either considered to be a greater goal or an area of greater success and wrote a few sentences about why they chose it.

Sentences were very short but their expression of their goals or achievements was poignant.

How was learner performance different or similar to what you anticipated in planning for the activity?
As expected, students had difficulty understanding the instructions but were persistent in their attempts to do so. Their questions were more probing than I had expected:

• "Why are we doing this?"
• "What's the point?"
• "Why don't the newer students think more in terms of the future instead of trying to reflect on too short a past as an ESL student?"
• "Give us examples."

What evidence of student progress did you see and how did you document it?
Students moved through the following stages:

1. Confusion
2. General questions
3. Specific, clarifying questions
4. Make choices
5. Write a short explanation of one of their choices (documentation)
6. Fill out the TOPS update record (documentation)

Look at the steps you identified for making progress. How does the evidence relate to these steps?
I was only able to document steps 4 and 5 but we have filled out the TOPS forms in the past and, for the first time, I feel that the students truly reflected on the positive results of their learning. The students were able to check specific things with knowledge and confidence because of the process we went through. None of the students asked me "Should I check this one?," a question not uncommonly asked in past semesters.