....I posted this in a FB group, also, but would love to know what you all have to say. For those of you who use alternatives to the traditional textbook, quizzes, and tests approach, how do you feel confident that your child has learned and retained the knowledge? I'm thinking more towards history, science, and literature, than the core.
I just do. I look at the textbooks and I know no one learns anything or retains anything from those things. And textbooks are written by textbook writers, not by people who are knowledgeable in the subjects.
Great question!!! I guess the reciprocal question would be...How do people who use tests, textbooks, quizzes feel confident that their child has learned and retained knowledge? Both questions are pretty interesting...since both methods have mixed results. Retention is going to vary regardless of learning method. Writing a test and getting 100% doesn't mean you're going to remember anything at all three months down the road. And it doesn't necessarily mean you can apply that knowledge in meaningful ways to problem solving, or have long term retention of it. Ultimately, retention is about caring enough about something enough to revisit it on your own....rather than running from it as fast and far as you can at the end of the unit. My kid was raised K-7 unschooled....which is about as free-thinking as you can get on the home school spectrum, I think. No tests, no grades, no textbooks. BUT, she also went to public school 8-12....traditional tests, texts, homework, etc. If I were to use her experience as a model....I'd have to say that the skills and retained knowledge from her unschooled years drive her life more significantly than much of her public school experience. The kid hates history. But she's a perfectionist...so she crammed the data, did the work, wrote the tests....and got the As in both American and World history. She admits she now has nearly no retention of it, and has no interest in revisiting it. She simply doesn't care. If you don't care...it's very hard to attain retention. Mirror that with learning to identify parasite ova and learning to do a complete blood count at her grandparent's veterinary clinic at age 10. The world of microscopic structures utterly captured her attention, and she started bringing home books, doing research, creating a lifelong passion... Something she willingly (and joyfully) revisits on a daily basis. Ultimately, I think learning and retention...has very little to do with grades. Learning and retention comes from feeling inspired, excited, engaged....it comes from that Aha! moment of seeing how you could apply that information to something that affects your life or the lives of others. It's about WANTING that information, desiring it, needing it! I remember when Elle was little...trying to get her interested in figuring out area for basic geometry. I took her to the carpet store. LOL. I had her pick out four carpets she liked, and write down price per foot, padding per foot, installation, ect. When we got home, her assignment was to measure her room and figure out how much each of the new carpets would cost. It was a great problem. She had to measure, multiply, multiply again, add three components, figure out TAX...add it all up. There was a ton of room for error and confusion. But she took the job really seriously and worked through it very diligently because she could understand how it affected her life to know this information. It made it useful and worthy of retention. Test scores do not mean retention. Test scores, particularly on data recollection topics, do give a pretty good indication of an important skill....organization and temporary assimilation of information.....but they have very little to do with retention. Test scores on process based topics...math, a lot of science, reading, writing...are a more significant measurement of "knowledge" because they evaluate mastery of using learned skills.....not just massive data recollection. So to make a short answer long....lol... I feel confident that my child has learned and retained knowledge when she demonstrates caring about the knowledge, has a future interest in the knowledge, and wants the ability to apply the knowledge to problem solving. That's retention. You can throw a lot of spaghetti at a wall. Only some of it will stick. At some point, you have to come to terms with the idea that some kids will not care about or ever choose to invest in certain topics. They're like people that way. They're all different. If we're really really honest.... a lot of what we teach kids is of no importance what so ever. If the spark of excitement doesn't catch, and they don't care about retaining it...the entire process of teaching an unwanted topic is an exercise in futility. Not saying we shouldn't try all topics. Throw that spaghetti! But if it's just not sticking, step back and ask yourself if it really matters.
For me, one of the most important things to teach was the ability to apply basic principles to a new problem or situation. It's comparatively easy to learn how to respond in specific situations, but it's not easy to know how to respond to a new situation. So, around the dinner table, we would have discussions and I would ask our children how they would respond in a given situation, or come up with problems that require a different way of thinking. This is how I gauged their true understanding of an issue. Could they cope, or did they flail around? This can be done with any subject. I'd come up with lots related to math and physics, of course, but it doesn't have to be. How might things be different today if Germany had condemned the attack on Pearl Harbor and tried to ally with the US? What can we learn from bacteria that today feed on plastics? How would you protect the US from the current Ebola outbreak? How can you tell that Tolkien and CS Lewis were friends? How would life on Earth be different if our planet's axis was at the same angle as that of Uranus? How much money would you save or cost a month if you turned your bedroom light off every time you leave the room? How many adjectives have you heard today being used incorrectly as adverbs? What might the US be like today if the North had not discovered the South's battle plans during the Civil War? I'm not sure whether this helps, and it's hardly quantifiable, but hopefully you can see what I'm getting at - or maybe that's "at what I'm getting."
Steve, I think you've hit on the heart of my concern. Workbooks work for us--we love them--I love them!! My kids are "nerds" and love doing school, going through the lessons in each subject. But I fear the "fill-in-the-blank" trap. CLE is not nearly as prone to that problem as certain other workbooks/textbooks. But I'm finding the application of the knowledge stays on the page. Good thoughts, all! Crazy, I think we have finally found something on which we can agree--acing the test isn't everything
The biggest problem with fill-in-the-blank based programs...in my opinion, is the lack of writing. Kids need to learn to write full sentences, paragraphs, stories, essays. Writing teaches so many things. Organization, sequence, categorization, persuasion, forming and expressing theory/opinion/information. Kids should be writing in first grade. A lot of programs don't even address putting together a sentence for a report or research paper until kids are much much older. That's a BIG blind spot in my opinion. The importance of acing the test....depends on what the test is measuring and what opportunities that mastery gives you access to. If you really want to drive a car....acing the actual road test where you demonstrate skill...matters. Acing the written part, not so much. They'll let you take that part over again and again until you memorize the right answers. Skill test = more important. Parrot Data test = less important. Works the same for college admissions. The ACT doesn't measure how much you can remember from history or science or your required phys. ed. or computer class, or geography, or any other data based learning. The ACT measures how skilled you are at the activities of reading, doing math, writing, comprehending information presented in research formats from various disciplines of science. The ACT measures skill mastery. Skill mastery opens doors and opportunities. Very few things in life are "everything" But as far as education goes....Mastering skills application...is pretty huge. Simple memorization...not so much.
Maybe it's the difference between open-ended questions and closed-ended questions. Closed-ended questions assume there are only right answers, formulaic answers, even rote answers, but for the more difficult and advanced questions, there may be many or even no right answers. Thinking about this, maybe even more important is encouraging our children to ask their own questions and, over time, helping them to find the right questions to ask. These days, when my (grown) children come to visit, they ask me more questions than I ask them - and I'm happy about that.
Oddly enough, I've just been reading a book on a completely different topic, yet the words seem appropriate to this discussion. Apologies for presenting a Christian example if you do not subscribe to the same. "Jesus did not say, 'I am the answer,' as we often say in slogans: 'Christ is the answer.' No, he is the Way to the answer. If a teacher would give the answer to pupils studying math, would that help? No, it would weaken. Instead of giving the answer, the teacher gives the way to find the answer. The pupils themselves find the answer if they know the way. So Jesus does not give us ready-made answers. That would weaken us. Instead he gives us the Way - the Way to find the answers. Take his way, and the answers come out of the Way. Apply his method, his Spirit, his Way, to any situation and you've got the answer. So he doesn't give answers, he gives the Way to answers." I don't recall Jesus ever asking a closed-ended question - filling in the blanks. He asked open-ended questions, and he prompted questions from his followers. I'm not sure whether the analogy holds, but it's an interesting thought.
Incidentally, CrazyMom, CLE does teach all those writing skills. Sentences, paragraphs, friendly letters, thank you notes, business letters, book reports, narratives, essays, news articles, biography, research reports, research papers (what we used to call term papers), all that and speeches too. Just because it comes in a workbook, doesn't mean it's all fill-in-the-blanks.
Which is one of the reasons we love CLE, at least for elementary. Ease of use, but not totally workbook. Plus Workbooks are a tool. I don't think you can just hand a child a book and walk away. I'm getting the sense from my oldest that she needs some variety in some of the "extra" subjects. Planning to stay with CLE for our core. Considering different options for the rest.
Sounds pretty practical and easy to use If the kids like them, get charged up and enjoy learning with them....that's awesome.
Danielle, we "branch out" for science and social studies -- if you call R&S "branching out". Since we'll be at home this year, with the internet and DirecTV at home (which we didn't have at school), we'll be using History Channel, Science Channel, NatGeo/NatGeo Wild, and Animal Planet, maybe some TLC and Discovery channel, as well as some movies (DH loves WWI and WWII movies and documentaries). It doesn't matter if the topics turn up randomly, because he'll be absorbing stuff we'll put in order with textbooks and other books later on. DGS chose to go with R&S English this year because he likes the interactivity with me, whereas I usually give him the CLE workbook and only discuss the lesson after he's done it. (And I have all the English through high school, so I won't have to buy workbooks every year.) We'll be doing R&S spelling because he needs yet more phonics, and Pentime for handwriting. So CLE for Bible, math, reading, and (this year) social studies. R&S with CLASS Nature Readers for science. Oh, and his Cub Scout stuff will become part of what we do, too. We didn't get much done last year, so I want to get more of it done this year, get some of those Arrow Points!
I have full confidence my kids are able to think. I used standardized tests to make sure that they can also operate in "cruise control". LOL Seriously, I look over GED exam practice books to see what they cover for a given topic. I also give yearly standardized tests.
