By Staff
North Pointe
Grosse Pointe North HS
1st Place
Division 2, News Writing
Editorial
Able to boast Michigan Teacher of the Year and the Innovation Center, the science department has made great strides towards success. However, as the department barrels forward, it’s leaving a few things behind: the students. All the “new” the department is injecting into the classrooms brings with it new worries for students.
The problem: students are feeling less prepared for standardized testing. North students have a 36% proficiency rate on the science portion of the Michigan Merit Exam. Proportionally, this means that only three of the nine students present at our most recent editorial board meeting would have passed.
Science teachers have moved away from traditional teaching methods like lecture-based classes, note-taking and in-depth explanations of concepts behind the material being taught. Instead, they’re focused on the latest methods of integrating technology and modernizing their teaching systems.
In turn, students are left to struggle with the basic concepts and are forced to adapt to the technology being pushed on them. Using phones in class has become a burden. In fact, students are more apt to use Google to search for answers to the material they aren’t really learning than to use Google Classroom or WebAssign.
Group discussions often resemble the blind leading the blind. A vast majority of students don’t truly understand what they’re trying to learn in class until the teacher intervenes to go over the material.
Teachers are trying to have students learn material on their own because studies have shown that struggling with material increases brain growth. However, at a certain point, teachers need to teach the basic underlying concepts so students can struggle with the application of those concepts—not the concepts themselves.
It has become the norm for students to retake assessments. Even if they don’t understand the material, memorizing the answers and retaking the test is a simple way to get an A. And those teachers who don’t offer retakes often scale test grades, which makes it seem like students are understanding the material when in fact, they felt like they failed the test after walking out of the classroom. Nevertheless, the very next day the class is moving on to the next unit, and students have cracks in their learning foundations. Left alone to patch up the repairs, the structure fights to recover.
When does the shaky structure fall down? On tests such as the practice ACT the Class of 2016 took on Nov. 25. Other tests that scare students include Advanced Placement (AP) exams. Students fear that they don’t know what they need to, and passing rates for AP science exams reflect that. It has reached a point where students are just trying to pass the AP test, and they are realizing that they went through a year of Advanced Placement work only to have to retake the course in college.
Because student science scores are down, teachers are doing what they think will remedy the situation. Some of them make practice ACTs part of the classwork, replacing part of the curriculum. To make up for the time lost in class, they assign hour-long online video lectures as homework. Although the reasoning behind the videos makes sense, students see them as cumbersome and don’t make the effort to learn anything. These consequences go beyond standardized testing: students will also not be prepared for the college environment. In the end, science classes have become more of a memorization game, which is not what they should be.
Not all teachers’ styles are problematic. There are a few that take their time to thoroughly teach their students and use technology to enhance their teaching, not replace it. Students exit their classrooms confident about the tests they took and their understanding of their material, a feeling that many students aren’t having.
Our solution: teachers should submit their students’ uncurved, unscaled grades before any retakes as an accurate representation of class performance. Although the use of technology is beneficial in modern times, an effort should be made to shed the useless applications and consult some students on what the they think will help. The department needs to take a step back from innovation to look at how many students are struggling and falling out of love with science because of the new methods. Teachers’ “success” requires students to work harder as they take on more of the teaching role—instead of grasping concepts, they are grappling with them.
Change is needed so students are better prepared and aren’t relying on Google and group chats to wade through assignments and pass the class. At least most guides give rock climbers a hook and safety measures before leaving them to grapple.