Welcome to the EXPLORING THE CORE PODCAST, where we delve into the elements that make up our education system and learn more about how that system can improve for the benefit of all students in schools today. I'm Greg Mullen, and in this episode, I address the need to understand academic standards and their role in the education system. With the incredible effort teachers are making every day, as they strive to motivate students to learn and prepare for each passing school year, I hope to impress the importance of standards as tools that celebrate student learning as much as they’re designed to identify gaps in skill development, as well as communicate academic growth to colleagues and families. I'll also be speaking with Ken O’Connor out of Toronto, Canada, a leader in Standards-Based Learning, about his thoughts on education and the challenges we face moving forward.
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Episode transcripts available at www.ExploringTheCore.com
Episode Release Date: December 10, 2019
"Standards are tools, and like any other tool, they must be used with intention." - Greg Mullen
"It's not that standards don't belong in classrooms. It's that the skills and knowledge included in academic standards likely already exist in those teachers’ classrooms." - Greg Mullen
"Let me be clear: As I describe the value and importance of standards, it is imperative to note that without a solid understanding of how standards develop skills in and across grade levels, teachers will struggle to assist their colleagues in identifying ways to help students with particular gaps in learning." - Greg Mullen
Interview: Ken O'Connor, https://www.oconnorgrading.com/
"You can't do competency-based without doing standards-based, but you can be standards-based without being competency-based." - Ken O'Connor
"I think, yes, often [grades] have, in a sense, a greater impact on the way students behave than the way they learn..." - Ken O'Connor
"...what we really want to develop in students is responsibility, and responsibility is doing what you should be doing when you have a choice; compliance in a sense is doing what you should do, or what you must do, when you don't really have a choice." - Ken O'Connor