Written by B.A. Birch

Educators across the US are on red alert as students begin to gain access to sophisticated gadgets that help them cheat. Going as far as to digitally insert answers into soft drink labels, kids are finding new ways to deceive educators and exam boards, writes Greg Toppo at USA Today.

“There’s an epidemic of cheating,” says Robert Bramucci, vice chancellor for technology and learning services at South Orange Community College District. “We’re not catching them. We’re not even sure it’s going on.”

There are companies thriving on providing these kits for students. One, called Spycheatstuff.com, allows students to mail-order a kit that turns a cellphone or iPod into a hands-free personal cheating device featuring tiny wireless earbuds that allow a test-taker to discreetly “phone a friend” during a test and get answers remotely without putting down the pencil, writes Toppo.

A new study by Common Sense Media has found that more than 35% of teens ages 13 to 17 with cellphones have used the devices to cheat.

52% of those polled admitted to some form of cheating involving the Internet.

Earlier this year, Omar Shahid Khan, 21, an Orange County student, pleaded guilty to stealing Advanced Placement tests and altering college transcripts. Khan is said to have hacked into the school’s grading system by installing spyware on school computers.

“This is about the pressures that kids are feeling in school,” says Jill Madenberg, a Great Neck, N.Y., college consultant. “The pressure to do well, the pressure to get into a good college… It’s literally all over the country — it’s an epidemic of sorts.”

Experts have been keen to point out that these technological advances aren’t increasing the number of cheating cases, they’re just making it harder to detect.

“The naïve folk belief is that cheating never used to be a problem,” Bramucci says. “It’s always been a problem.”

As a former high school guidance counselor, Madenberg believes that the recent Long Island SAT scandal will act as a positive catalyst for students to discuss the pressures they feel.

“There’s no question that people are beginning to look at that,” she says.

This article was originally published on Education News.

I have heard a rumour of the impending demise of the Assessment Standards (ASs). Actually, more than rumour …. The Minister of Basic Education announced last year that the curriculum would be reviewed with the aim of simplifying its structure.  This is currently on the go.  Sue Müller of NAPTOSA, who has served as a member of the task team which was set up to review the curriculum, recently told me that one of the problems  which the reviewers of the curriculum have identified is that ‘content knowledge is often obscured by writing it into the Assessment Standards (ASs)’. She continues as follows:

‘This makes it extremely difficult for teachers to “extract” and sequence specific content. And, because the skills and competences are also often not clear, it makes it difficult for teachers to identify WHAT they have to teach. The ASs (wrongly) place the emphasis on the notion of an AS as a discrete “thing” that can be taught, assessed and reported against. Hence provincial officials demanding that teachers record learner performance against the ASs! ‘

Great news! One of the biggest banes of teachers’ lives has been having to pretend that they teach and assess according to the ASs. So you are not meant to say, ‘I’m going to teach this poem’ or ‘I’m going to teach fractions’. Heaven forbid! You are meant to say, ‘What AS shall I teach next?  I think it’s time for AS 12.3 or 2.8.’ Then you are meant to follow this up with a further question: ‘Now that I’ve chosen my AS, what shall I use to teach this AS? Well, I could teach a poem (one from the prescribed list).’ Humbug! You have your list of poems – in the same way you have the content that you need to teach in Maths – and that’s where you start, using – if they are of any value – the ASs to guide you regarding this.

But there’s more! The officious officials from the Department added further demands. Work Schedules and Subject/Learning Programmes (the latter now mercifully abolished – I sincerely hope those same officials have taken note) had to be drafted in terms of these asinine items, instead of starting with what has to be taught and then, once again, if helpful, using the ASs to guide one here.

But there’s even more! The bureaucratic district despots also insisted that lesson plans be littered with ASs – which, if teachers bothered to do (if only for WSE visits) – would be shoved in to no purpose. I have seen many lesson plans which contain these but where the teacher never refers to them. Far better – if the teacher is still inexperienced – would be to jot down what he/she hopes to achieve in a lesson. I recently gave my English Method students at Stellenbosch University the following example when planning to teach a poem:

WHAT LEARNERS ARE MEANT TO LEARN / ACHIEVE FROM THE LESSON

Specific:

1. Understand the poem.
2. Be able to answer questions on the poem – demonstrate understanding.
3. Understand how poetry works, for example, understanding that poetry is not necessarily rhymed or has a set metre – what makes this poem a poem?
4. Understand how to analyse a poem.

General:

1. Understand the effects of apartheid better.
2. Develop critical thinking by asking learners.
3. Develop ability to substantiate answers by reference to a text.
4. Develop ability to use appropriate language for formal contexts.
5. Improve reading ability and language usage generally.
6. Understand the concept of ‘connotation’.

This is far more helpful than a list of ASs. At least the teacher is called upon to adopt a focused approach, to think about what they are hoping to achieve with their learners, rather than merely to go to class simply ‘to teach the poem’. At any rate, as I understand the Curriculum Minute issued by the DoBE, lesson plans are no longer required as formal documents – the list of items to be included in the ‘teacher’s file’ does not mention this.

And then there was also the demand that teachers should record learner assessment against the ASs – a nonsense expectation.

So the ASs are to be shipped off to the abattoir hopefully by 2011. What do we do in the meantime? Well, they remain part of policy, but surely if they have been condemned, it would be foolish to follow them dutifully. Surely teachers as professionals should be allowed to use them as a rough guideline where necessary, but not to have to list them or assess against them. Leave them to plan, teach and assess in a meaningful way which involves deciding what to teach, how to teach it – and with what goals in mind – and then how to assess it in terms of those goals. This is how Sue Müller put it to me when I raised this issue with her:

I take your point about the so-called ‘Assessment Standards’ that, mostly, describe activities and have very little to do with assessing learner performance. Remember that it is NOT national policy to ‘assess the ASs’, nor to report against them. However, the subject or Learning Area content is sometimes embedded in the ASs and without them some subjects / LAs would be devoid of content or knowledge. This varies across subjects / LAs.  Where they are awkward, where they make little sense or where they do not include embedded subject / LA  knowledge, it would make no sense to adhere to them rigidly especially as learner performance cannot be reported against them.

I would advise teachers to check with subject advisors first and not to deviate too much from what they have been doing up till now as the new Curriculum and Assessment Policy does not yet exist. However, they should NOT be assessing individual Assessment Standards nor should they be attempting to report learner performance against individual ASs.

The key point to teachers is: Say NO to bullying by departmental officials on the slavish adherence to the ASs! Let them make asses of themselves if they want to, but don’t join them.

The majority of South Africa’s teachers are dedicated professionals who give of their best at all times and serve the needs of their pupils, acting basic education director-general Bobby Soobrayan said on Thursday.

Reacting to media reports – following a presentation to a parliamentary portfolio committee on Wednesday, at which he tabled a document stating “too many teachers cannot pass tests that their own learners are expected to pass” – Soobrayan said he wanted to clarify what he had told MPs.

At no point in the briefing had he blamed all teachers for the challenges facing basic education.

“[I] did acknowledge that there were some teachers in the system who may not be displaying the requisite competence and do not show commitment to quality teaching, but [wish] to emphasise that the majority of South Africa’s teachers are dedicated professionals who give of their best at all times and who serve the needs of learners, their schools and indeed the country, with pride and commitment.”

Soobrayan criticised “some of the media reports” on his presentation, saying “reckless and distorted reporting” served only to demoralise teachers.

“Reporting of this nature is not in the best interests of improving the education system as a whole,” he said.

At Wednesday’s committee meeting, Soobrayan tabled a briefing document listing, among other things, “key interventions and activities” designed to achieve outputs and targets identified by his department.

These included ensuring “all teachers have required capability, commitment and practice”.

The document states that in this regard there are “serious problems related to commitment and practice”, despite “significant investment” in teacher development.

During the presentation, Soobrayan warned of a crisis in basic education, which covers the period from Grade R to matric.

Sapa

What do you think? Add your comments below.

Teachers go crazy for educational software. I’ve witnessed this first hand. As I sell educational software for EvaluNet, this obviously encourages me.

The crux of the matter however, is that there are too many schools out there who have too many educational software products that they just don’t use – either because they don’t have time, or because they don’t know how, or because the software is no longer relevant. There are many different types of educational software products that fit into completely different categories, namely:

• Revision and consolidation
• Curriculum delivery
• Skill development
• Assessment and testing

So how do you go about selecting software that brings value to your school? The first and most important step is to identify the needs of the school and the goals and limitations of your computer centre. As a teacher, the most important questions you should ask yourself are:

• What are the needs of our learners and teachers?

For learners, needs could include:
- improving literacy and numeracy skills
- improving learning and concentration ability
- improving spatial skills
- improving knowledge and understanding of the curriculum

For teachers, needs could include:
- decreasing the time spent on marking
- increasing the quality of lessons
- streamlining the teaching/learning process
- engaging learners on an interactive level
- diagnosing problem areas
- assisting with behind-the-scenes planning and admin

• How many computers do we have available?

This will help you select suitable software based on your average class sizes and the number of computers you have in your computer room.

• What is my budget?

Knowing this upfront will save you a lot of time in determining what you can and can’t afford. There is no point in spending time evaluating a product that costs tens of thousands of rands when you only have a few thousand available.

And to a lesser extent:

• What types of software have our learners and teachers already enjoyed? (e.g. activity based, adventure based etc.)

Asking yourself these important questions and acquainting yourself with the true needs of your school (both learners and teachers) will go a long way in ensuring that you buy educational software that becomes an investment. When evaluating the suitability of educational software based on your school’s needs, think about the following:

• Does this product fill an educational need? Can you name the need?
• How do you intend using (implementing) the product?
• How many teachers are going to use it?
• Do the teachers possess the necessary competencies to use the product?
• How much training is required, and how will the teachers be trained to use the product? Do they have time to be trained? Are they willing?
• Is it a product or a service that you are buying?

These questions are taken directly from Kobus van Wyk’s post “Does a software package add volume or value?“. The Teacher’s Monthly did a follow-up survey based on this post to enquire whether or not teachers and principals feel that the educational software they are using is adding value to their school. The results can be viewed in our article “Survey shows computers come second best“.

Another important factor to consider (especially in the South African school environment) is:

• How much time does a learner need to spend using the product in order to benefit and see positive results?

The unfortunate reality is that large class sizes, and limited computer resources means that at most schools learners are only exposed to a computer for about 30 minutes (40 at best!) per week. The principle is simple: if you want a child to be a good reader, he needs to spend time reading. If you want a child to grasp a specific concept in Mapwork (Social Science), he needs to spend time practicing that concept.

So, where does “computer time” fit into your school’s timetable? How big a need is ICT integration at your school? What value do you place on computers and educational software?

For me, educational software that is good, is educational software that fulfills the needs of your learners and teachers, and the goals set forth for your school computer centre.

What do you think? Add your comments below.