[etni] Fw: re: levels

----- Original Message ----- From: Linda Kuras Mizrahi - lindaskm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: levels

Just wanted to say that Nira's comments could have been written by me!


Nira wrote:
I'd like to comment on project work. I agree that many teachers don't know 
how to deal with projects. However, even those who took all the NBA courses
offered in the last 4 years (like my colleagues and I), are very skeptical
about the benefits of doing projects.

We began working on projects 4 years ago (grades 10-12). At first, it was 
supposed to be a research question and it took many lessons to explain that,
find a question, work in the computer lab to find sources, teach computer
skills and summarizing, check the drafts, etc. We did it willingly, because
we thought it was worthwhile and interesting. I was lucky enough to begin it
with a 5 points class, which probably made it a bit easier for me.

However, we found that these activities were suitable only for the 
strongest, most motivated students. The rest found the work too difficult,
boring and frustrating. The research requirement had been dropped,
eventually, and we've tried to make the instructions as simple as possible
and give a lot of help, but the results are still the same:

1. Students surf the net in the computer lab to find chats, games and/or 
porn. When you have more than 30 students in the lab and you have to sit
with some and explain, it's impossible to prevent such "fun" activities.
2. Students use "cut and paste" instead of summarizing, no matter how many
times they have been found out.
3. Pair work: there is usually one who works while the other is a "free
rider", doing nothing but adding his/her name to the products.
4. Absence: students don't think the project is as important as exams or
claim they can work on their own at home, so they are often absent from
computer lab lessons.
5. Many find the whole thing above their heads and simply give up, not even
bothering to hand in anything. They get a lower end-of-year grade, but the
grade is raised, inevitably, before they sit for their Bagrut exam. That's
because the pressure on teachers preparing for Bagrut is so great, that none
will dare give a low final grade just because a student hasn't handed in a
project. It might lower the student's Bagrut grade and the teacher will be
accountable to the principal.

After trying for 4 years I've reached the conclusion that project work could
be great in an ideal education system, where the lab groups are very small,
quite homogeneous and controllable, photocopying is not strictly limited,
students can only enter suitable Internet sites and are willing to work hard
to get a good grade without resorting to cheating. Knowing the Israeli
education system, that's realistic (?) in very few schools.

We still devote some time to projects (mainly giving instructions and
working with students individually when they need help), but we've limited
the number of computer lab lessons and we do let students work mostly at
home. Plagiarism is very frequent and whenever I find it, I cancel the
grade. Frankly, the students don't even care...

As for testing grammar - according to the NBA, coordinators are supposed to
monitor exams and allow grammar testing only in quizzes. The exams are
supposed to include only Bagrut type items.


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