So, I’m here at my laptop (sitting on my
bed with coffee and Oreos on my bedside table), hammering away at my keyboard
at a million keystrokes-per-minute, trying to make a dent in my students’
end-of-year reports. I suspect all Australian teachers are busy doing much
the same this weekend, and last weekend, and next weekend, and after school
most nights for the next couple of weeks! I’m taking a quick break to punch out
this post, wondering why the heck am I wasting
soooooo much time on these worthless things?
Let me give just 3 reasons why they a waste of my time, and need I say more.
1)
Student
reports do not improve student learning
This
one is obvious, is it not? Are there any parents out there who would actually
say, “I get a report from my child’s teacher twice a year, and that piece of
paper helps my child learn and achieve more!” Of course not, but let me cite
some research just to come off more professional. If you haven’t heard of New
Zealander (now living in Melbourne) John Hattie or heard of his work on
“effect sizes” I urge you to look him up. Long story short, I don’t see reports anywhere on his list of factors
which improve student learning outcomes. A few factors are sort of related,
such as “Student Self-Reported Grades” which states that a student’s
expectations of their own learning and the push for them to exceed those
expectations improves their learning, “Formative Evaluation” which basically refers to the assessment
used to inform teaching and learning, and “Feedback” information for teacher
and more importantly,the student, on where they’re going, how they’re going
and where to next*. Note that this last factor does not mean feedback given to
a parent about what their kid has done at school for the last six months!
2) Student reports take a teacher's time away from the things that matter
Consider
the point above, now consider how much time teachers spend writing reports.
Let’s conservatively say the average Primary School teacher spends an hour per
child on their report, twice a year, with an average class size of 25. Now consider how those 50 hours could have been better spent planning teaching and developing
brilliant learning experiences for their students, collecting resources,
researching curriculum and pedagogy and so on. Just think of what a teacher
could do to improve their pupils’ learning outcomes, if those 50 hours were returned
to them!
3)
Student
reports need to be so politically correct and full of jargon that parents can
barely decipher what their child can actually do
Aside
from the fact that any good parent already knows
their child – duh – and is very likely to know their child better than
their teacher anyway – duh – I don’t believe that reports accurately convey
information about a child’s learning. At my school, for example, we are not
allowed to say that a child “can” do something or “is able to” to do something - what the?
We can’t say that a child “needs to” improve in a certain area, rather we have
to say that their “future learning may be to…”. We can’t make subjective
comments or say anything about their personality or personal attributes.
Comments now need to be objective, specific, measurable and data-backed. Boring. PC. Useless.
*Some of Hattie’s work:
Hattie, J. 2009. Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to
achievement.Hattie, J. 2003. Who says formative assessment matters: Formative and summative interpretations of assessment information.
Hattie, J. 2003. Distinguishing expert teachers from novice and experienced teachers: Teachers make a difference.
