Ihsha’ al-‘Ulum adalah buku filsafat dan logika karya Abu Nasr Muhammad bin Muhammad al-Farabi, atau yang tersohor dengan nama al-Farabi. Al-Farabi adalah filsuf muslim kelahiran Turmekistan pada tahun 257 H/870 M. Di antara 100 lebih karyanya, kitab Ihsha’ al-‘Ulum merupakan maha karyanya yang paling monumental. Berisi tentang risalah-risalah pembagian ilmu.

Buku ini dipuji ilmuwan sebagai ‘risalah tak tertandingi’ dan risalah-risalah yang sama mengagumkan tentang metafisika, logika, dan  teologi. Menurut catatan Hossein Nasr, buku ini diakui sebagai buku pertama dalam dunia Islam yang mengklasifikasi ilmu yang dikenal secara luas. Ihsha’ al-‘Ulum juga dicatat sebagai buku paling berpengaruh dalam sejarah Islam periode awal.

Dalam buku itu, al-Farabi mengklasifikasi berbagai cabang keilmuan menjadi delapan ilmu pokok. Yaitu; ilmu linguistik, logika, matematika, fisika, metafisika, politik, hukum dan teologi. Kedelapan ilmu tersebut dikategorikan sebagai ilmu filsafat. Pada masa itu memang, ilmu-ilmu sians alam termasuk bagian dari ilmu filsafat, yang biasanya disebut filsafat kealaman.

Sejarawan asal Andalusia, Sa’id bin Ahmad, memuji karya al-Farabi tersebut. Buku itu memiliki kekuatan dalam bidang logika. Menurutnya, al-Farabi berhasil menjelaskan kekaburan-kekaburan dan menyingkap misteri ilmu. Istilah-istilah yang digunakan dalam menguraikan lima prinsip utama logika cukup sederhana. Di dalamnya diperlihatkan cara mudah memanfaatkan logika berikut penerapan bentuk-bentuk silogistk.

Pengaruh buku Ihsha’ al-‘Ulum tidak hanya mewarnai dunia Islam. Bahkan meluas hingga ke Barat. Buku ini dipelajari dan diterjemahkan oleh sarjana Barat. Edisi bahasa latinnya berjudul De Scientiis diterjemahkan oleh dua sarjana, Gundisallimus dan Girrardo Geremona pada abad ke-12. Ibrahim Madkur dalam Fi al-Fasalah al-Islamiyah menulis bahwa buku al-Farabi itu pada abad ke-12 menjadi dasar pengklasifikasian ilmu pengetahuan di Barat.

Karena kemampuan buku ini mengklasifikasi ilmu pengetahuan secara sistematis, al-Farabi dijuluki “al-Mu’allim al-Tsani” (Guru kedua) oleh para filsuf. Ilmu logikanya hampir disejajarkan dengan Aristoteles yang mendapat gelar Guru Pertama.

2. ‘Uyun al-Hikmah

Kitab ‘Uyun al-Hikmah juga dikenal dengan nama al-Mujaz. Ditulis oleh Ibn Sina (370 H/980 M-428 H/1037 M). Kitab ini dibagi menjadi tiga tema besar; tentang logika, fisika, metafisika dan ketuhanan. Metafisika dan fisika merupakan tema besar dalam buku ini, yakni dibahas dalam enambelas pasal. Di antaranya membicarakan tentang konsep hikmah, sumber-sumber ilmu pengetahuan, atom, konsep waktu, tumbuh-tumbuhan, indera batin, konsep jiwa dan lain-lain.

Konsep ketuhanan dibahas dalam lima pasal. Di antaranya dibahas tentang teori ketuhanan, materi (hayula), bentuk (shurah), penciptaan (ibda’), dan konsep wujud. Dalam buku ini Ibn Sina menulis, bahwa Tuhan memiliki wujud tunggal secara mutlak, sedangkan segala sesuatu selain Tuhan memiliki kodrat yang mendua. Tuhan bukanlah unsur dalam satu wujud tetapi satu unsur atomik dalam wujud yang tunggal.

Beberapa pandangannya dalam ‘Uyun al-Hikmah dikritik oleh Imam al-Ghazali. Misalnya tentang menafikan sifat Tuhan dan keazalian alam. Meskipun begitu, kajian tentang ilmu logika dan filsafat kealaman dalam  kitab ‘Uyun al-Hikmah memberi kontribusi untuk ilmu pengetahuan modern.

Ibnu Sina berhasil menyusun sistem filsafat Islam yang terkoordinasi dengan rapi. Pekerjaan besar yang dilakukan Ibnu Sina adalah menjawab berbagai persoalan filsafat dan logika yang belum terjawab sebelumnya.

Metafisika memang mendominasi karya-karya Ibnu Sina, termasuk dalam ‘Uyun al-Hikmah. Menurutnya, metafisika adalah ilmu yang memberitkan pengetahuan tentang prinsip-prinsip filsafat teoritik tentang teori-teori kebenaran.

Karya ini cukup berpengaruh di Barat. Sebelum sarjana-sarjana Barat belum memiliki kemampuan membaca pemikiran filsafat Yunani, Ibn Sina telah jauh mendahului. Melalui karya ini, seorang sarjana Barat asal Jerman, Albertos Magnus, mengenal pemikiran Aristoteles dan filsafat Yunani. Uyun al-Hikmah telah dikenal dan mewarnai dunia pemikiran Timur dan Barat. Meskipun ada yang berpendapat kitab ini telah hilang, seperti dicatat Ensiklopedi Britanica, akan tetapi sesungguhnya sebagian besar isinya telah diselamatkan dan dicetak.

3. Tahafut al-Falasifah

Tahafut al-Falasifah ditulis oleh Abu Hamid Muhammad bin Muhammad al-Ghazali, seorang ulama’ ensiklopedis yang terlahir di kota Thus, Khurasan pada 450 H/1058 M. Menurut catatan sejarah, kitab Tahafut al-Falasifah ditulis al-Ghazali pada tahun 488 H di Madrasah Nizamiyah Baghdad, saat Imam al-Ghazali berusia 38 tahun.

Sebelum menulis Tahafut al-Falsifah, Imam al-Ghazali terlebih dahulu menulis Maqashid al-Falasifah berisi  prinsip-prinsip filsafat; ilmu mantiq, alam, dan ke-Tuhan-an. Tampaknya buku Maqashid al-Falasifah sengaja ditulis untuk memantapkan kajian pada Tahafut al-Falasifah. Buku Maqashid boleh dibilang mukaddimah Tahafut.

Buku ini memuat kritik terhadap filsafat paripatetik (filsafat yang mengadopsi filsafat Yunani). Ada dua puluh persoalan filsafat yang dibahas Imam al-Ghazali dalam bukunya tersebut. Banyak orang ragu bahwa Imam al-Ghazali adalah seorang filsuf. Akan tetapi, kritik dalam Tahafut al-Falasifah ini menjadi bukti, tidak mungkin Imam al-Ghazali buta terhadap filsafat sedangkan ia dengan tangkas mematahkan logika-logika filsuf paripatetik.

Dua persoalan itu dibagi menjadi dua. Bagian pertama, persoalan yang menyebabkan kekafiran. Dan yang kedua, persoalan-persoalan yang  termasuk bid’ah. Tiga persoalan yang disebut menyebabkan kekafiran adalah; Pertama, pendapat para filsuf tentang keazalian (eternitas) alam, Kedua, Tuhan mengetahui yang partikular (juz’iyyat) dengan cara yang universal (kulliyat), Ketiga, tidak ada kebangkitan jasmani di akhirat. Sedangkan 17 persoalan lagi, al-Ghazali menganggapnya sebagai bid’ah.

Persoalan keazalian alam merupakan persoalan yang menyedot seperlima dari keseluruhan persoalan dalam Tahafut al-Falasifah. Disini al-Ghazali menyanggah teori emanasi (nadzariyat al-faidh) para filsuf. Bagi al-Ghazali alam adalah sesuatu yang baru (hudust) dan bermula dan yang qodim hanyalah satu yaitu Allah. Al-Ghazali membantah pendapat filsuf bahwa alam itu kekal. Bagi al-Ghazali, jika Allah berkehendak untuk menghancurkan alam dan meniadakannya (i’dam) maka hancurlah Alam ini dan tiada pulalah ia.

Kritikan al-Ghazali dalam buku tersebut merupakan pukulan telak bagi filsafat paripatetik. Yang dilakukan al-Ghazali bukan ‘membunuh’ filsafat, akan tetapi ia ingin ketengahkan dalam Tahafut al-Falasifah adalah filsafat yang Islami. Buktinya, paska al-Ghazali, lahir filsuf Fakhruddin al-Razi, dan para pengagumnya juga mempelajari filsafat. Pada abad ke-12 memang ada arus utama menyerang filsafat Platonisme dan Aristotelialisme. Akan tetapi kajian dan pemikiran filasafat, sesungguhnya tidak benar-‎benar hilang oleh serangan al-Ghazali, filsafat Islam tetap berkembang.

4. Al-Matalib al-‘Aliyah

Fakhruddin al-Razi dikenal sebagai mufassir, teolog, saintis sekaligus filsuf. Bukti bahwa al-Razi seorang filsuf kenamaan adalah karya agungnya, al-Matalib al-‘Aliyah. Ada sekitar dua belas karya filsafat al-Razi, akan tetapi yang paling monumental dan besar adalah al-Matalib al-‘Aliyah yang ditulis sampai sembilan jilid.

Dalam kitab ini, Fakhruddin al-Razi banyak membahas konsep waktu dan logika. Menurut catatan Adnin Armas, yang menulis tesis konsep waktu Fakhruddin al-Razi di ISTAC Malaysia,  pemikiran filosofis Fakhruddin al-Razi sangat maju pada zamannya. Konsep waktu dibahas panjang lebar, mendahului ilmu pengetahuan modern. Kajiannya menghabiskan sebanyak 100 halaman lebih.

Konsep waktu dapat dimasukkan ke dalam kajian filsafat teoritik. Fakhruddin al-Razi jauh mendahului pemikiran Newton. Buku al-Matalib al-‘Aliyah menjelaskan bahwa pada dasarnya waktu adalah substansi eternal, tanpa terkait dengan sesuatu yang eksternal dan coraknya sama.

Dijelaskan dalam buku itu, eksistensi waktu tidak tergantung kepada akal manusia dan esensinya tidak tergantung kepada gerak. Ia bisa dipersepsikan sekalipun gerak tidak ada bersamanya. Akal manusia dalam hal ini memiliki keterbatasan memahami rahasia esensi waktu.

Pandangan-pandangan tersebut, diadopsi oleh Isac Newton empat abad setelah Fakhruddin al-Razi wafat. Tulisan Newton yang berjudul The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy pada tahun 1685 merupakan adopsi dari kandungan-kandungan al-Matilib al-‘Aliyah tentang waktu.

We report on an action research study undertaken to explore how integrating the Arts in social studies education can increase student participation and motivation, and impact student achievement through that increased motivation and participation. Initial lesson plans addressed multiple intelligences while integrating Arts activities and were adjusted based on the teacher’s reflective notes and student feedback. Although not anticipated, we found that giving students‘ choice in what type of activities to complete had the greatest perceived impact on their motivation and participation. Many students‘ social studies grades increased in response to the integration of Arts activities and student choice. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Introduction

With national literacy and math standards becoming stricter and more time consuming, subjects such as social studies are being squeezed into smaller time allotments (e.g., Burstein, Hutton, & Curtis, 2006). Sixth grade students do not always see the importance of social studies because teachers are focusing primarily on math and literacy. Social studies content is important because it is many students‘ only link to the world outside of their community in every aspect from language and culture to landscape and climate. How does one plan to teach a unit about World War II if the students have no spatial concept of where Europe is? Diversity is becoming such a big issue in school curricula, yet helping students understand diversity through the study of other cultures, “Social Studies”, is overshadowed by a focus on subjects for which standardized testing is required.

We integrated the Arts into a sixth grade Social Studies classroom in hopes of boosting student participation and motivation, thereby impacting student achievement. Our guiding questions were, “Does integrating the Arts into a social studies classroom increase student participation and motivation?” and, “Does increased participation and motivation lead to greater academic achievement?” Along the way, as this action research exploration unfolded, we found that providing students‘ choice about what they did in the classroom had an important effect on their motivation and participation.

Arts integration in the classroom has been spreading through the United States for many years. For example, in a study of 2000 fourth through eighth grade public school children, Burton, Horowitz, and Abeles (2000) found significant relationships between rich in-school Arts programs and creative, cognitive, and personal competencies needed for academic success. Oddleifson (1995) reported that high school students at an integrative Arts-based school in Montreal achieved at a rate 20 - 25 percent higher on average than their counterparts in other Montreal high schools, even though students enrolled in that school because they were at risk academically. Oddleifson also described an Arts-based school in South Carolina that rated second in academic achievement statewide, exceeded only by a school for the academically gifted. That school’s test scores were 30 to 40 percent higher than county and state averages even though the school served a low SES community and a third of the students had learning disabilities.

“The research shows Arts integrated learning goes well beyond the basics and test scores. Students become better thinkers, develop higher order skills, and deepen their inclination to learn,” (Rabkin & Redmond, as cited in Cornett, 2003, p.41). In an interview with EducationWorld.com, Redmond stated that “students invest emotionally in Arts integrated classrooms because the curriculum often connects the lessons to their own experiences, raising their emotional connection to what they learn and build a community of learners in classrooms where students used to learn alone.” (Delisio, 2005, p.6). Students need to have the opportunity to be actively involved in what and how they learn. Social Studies for the Elementary and Middle School Grades: A Constructivist Approach emphasized using art and artifacts as well as role play and simulations to enhance history lessons (Haas & Sunal, 2005, p. 154, 306). With Arts integration, students have the chance to play a more active role in their learning, which sets up me classroom to be a more positive learning experience.

In the 1990’s, the Chicago Arts Partnership in Education (CAPE) program was put into place in low achieving schools that were below other schools in every aspect from academics and professional development to classroom environment and parent involvement (DeMoss, 2002). The students involved in CAPE improved greatly when Arts integration was introduced into subjects such as reading and math. Students also developed more independence in thenwork, and were actually learning content more deeply, not just memorizing facts. By the time students reached ninth grade, they were reading above grade level and scores on the ITBS and the Illinois State IGAP test rose significantly.

In a study involving teachers from 75 third, fourth, and fifth grade classrooms in Pennsylvania, Purnell and Gray (2004) found that 100% of the participants reported that integrating the Arts in other core subjects improved or greatly improved the teacher’s ability to meet their students‘ multiple learning styles and 96% believed that Arts integration improved or greatly improved the teacher’s ability to work with special needs or at risk students. Maintaining student motivation and engagement can be a challenge with sixth grade students. “Active engagement is a key to academic success. The participative nature of the Arts counters the passive habits that television and computers have developed in Americans” (Cornett, 2003, p. 9). Introducing the Arts into everyday classroom work may provide the extra push students need to gain or maintain a desire to learn.

The Action Research Context

This action research study was undertaken in a sixth grade classroom in a professional development school associated with the Benedum Five Year Teacher Education Program. This teacher education program immerses students in over 1000 hours of clinical practice within the Benedum Collaborative. Established in 1990, the Collaborative is one of the oldest and most successful schooluniversity partnerships in the United States. With a strong commitment to the tenets of simultaneous renewal, it is a collaborative effort between 28 public schools, five school districts, and West Virginia University’s College of Human Resources and Education and the Eberly College of Arts and Science. The first author of this article was an intern conducting her student teaching while completing this study collaboratively with her host teacher and the second author, who served as her university mentor.

The school where our teaching and action research took place served about 650 students, grades six through eight, with 40 full time faculty and staff. The student population was approximately 95% White, and about 22% of the students received a free or reduced lunch. The school was meeting all Academic Yearly Progress (AYP) regulations with standardized test scores. The school building was fairly new and provided each grade level a dedicated computer lab, which was used regularly in delivering instruction during this action research project. The first author taught four periods of social studies and implemented Arts integrative lessons and action research with all four classes. One period in the schedule served as an inclusion classroom, which contained seven special needs students. Each class was taught the same lesson, with appropriate modifications based on the special needs of each specific classroom.

Our main goal for this project was to get students more actively involved in their learning. We used a variety of methods mat incorporated Multiple Intelligence theory (e.g., Gardner & Moran, 2006). For example, when learning about ancient civilization, the students worked with their visual intelligence to create maps, kinesthetic intelligence to act out a Mayan fable, verbal intelligence to tell stories, read and write using glyphs, and logical intelligence to solve problems that ancient peoples may have faced as they settled. The main focus was to get students involved using the Arts, but every concept was covered in ways informed by Multiple Intelligence theory.

Because the student teacher’s teaching style was different from that of her host teacher, it took the students about a week to get used to new expectations. Students were forced to think for themselves, encouraged to ask questions, and encouraged to participate fully in class discussions. The student teacher wanted to hear how they related what they were studying to themselves or prior experiences. Students quickly learned that once they got through background information on a new topic, they would get into truly engaging activities, which led to their being more focused and motivated to learn throughout.

A typical lesson consisted of students copying vocabulary terms into their notebooks, a classroom read of background information, and a follow-up Arts integrative activity corresponding to the new information. Because the student teacher was obligated to finish workbook pages as assigned by the host teacher, these were often assigned as homework. The student teacher felt that the activities and classroom discussions were more meaningful to the students than were completing workbook pages. Once students recognized the trade-off and found that they enjoyed the new teaching style, they stopped complaining about homework assignments.

Data Sources and Analysis

Various sources of data were used throughout this project. The student teacher spoke daily with students regarding how they felt about the lessons and what changes were going on in the classroom. She kept a reflective teaching journal to record these conversations, including daily notes on how each activity went and if any modifications should be made for future lessons. This journal also served to note student participation levels for each lesson and activity. An informal online Multiple Intelligence evaluation was given to students at the start of the study in order to understand students‘ interests and current areas of strength. Results from the Multiple Intelligence evaluations were used as a guide to create diverse and engaging lesson plans. Students completed attitude surveys at the beginning and end of the Action Research project. These surveys gave us insight into how students felt about social studies before and after Arts integration was implemented. At the end of each lesson, students would complete a “Rate this Lesson” card using al10 scale and including written feedback regarding their least and most favorite aspects of that lesson or activity. The students‘ ratings and feedback were incorporated into subsequent lessons.

Students‘ term grades were based on a wide variety of assessment types. Three big projects (where students had choice as to how to represent their learning) were graded using rubrics specific to the type of project turned in. Tests, quizzes, workbook pages, and graphic organizers allowed students to earn points, as did participation in classroom activities and discussion.

Data analysis was an ongoing process throughout the study. The student teacher reflected daily on lessons taught and data collected, using those reflections to plan subsequent lessons. Student input was highly valued as a guide to develop lessons that would be both engaging and meaningful to the students. Based on “Rate this Lesson” scores and students‘ written comments, lessons that received the highest ratings were grouped to find common threads. If most students did not like a particular activity or assignment and participation was low on that day, that activity was removed from subsequent lesson plans.

Results and Discussion

Multiple Intelligence scores provided an outline of students‘ interests and learning strengths. A majority of the students had strengths in bodily/kinesthetic or verbal/linguistic intelligence. Because of this, the student teacher used open discussion as much as possible in the classroom. She also gave the students many opportunities to handle materials and utilize their kinesthetic intelligence as they were given choice in how they would represent information they were studying. For example, during our study of the Mayan civilization, we read Mayan fables in class. Students were given a long term project to choose a fable, and represent it in one of about twelve different choices that were offered. Students were given a list of activities to choose from, or they could have their own ideas approved by the student teacher. Examples of choices included: (a) draw an illustration, (b) draw a comic strip, (c) write a fable and illustrate it in a book, (d) write a fable as a screenplay or script, (e) create a computer generated picture, (f) prepare a scene from a fable, (g) build a costume for a fable, (h) write a fable as a song or poem, (i) create a PowerPoint about a fable, and (J) create a diorama that depicts a scene from a fable. Whenever activities with student choice were assigned, at least one way of representing the material drawing on each of the Multiple Intelligences was included.

Many students represented the fables with artwork, a few were able to create a song or poem about the fable, and a few students planned, rehearsed, and acted out a scene from their fable. For another example, during our study of the Aztec civilization, another big project required students to create something that would tell about their beliefs, family, culture, architecture, or way of life. Some students created artwork, such as pottery, paintings, soap carvings, portraits, or dioramas; while others wrote songs, poems, or stories.

We kept track of how students rated the lessons, as well as which strategies or intelligences were used for each. Figure 1 shows how student lesson ratings varied across the 20 lessons given during this action research study. The darker columns signify lessons mat integrated the use of the Arts, whereas the lighter columns represent lessons that followed more traditional social studies pedagogy. Notice that all of the lessons that integrated Arts were rated higher than any of the lessons that did not. Lessons or activities that were more traditional (e.g., book work, worksheets, readings, or lectures) were rated lower; with an average at a 5.83 out of a possible 10 compared to 9.29 for those lessons that incorporated the Arts (e.g., pictures, music, or drama). The figure clearly shows that students rated the lessons that integrated the Arts higher than those that did not. (See Figure one at the end of this text)

Student participation was also noted in the student teacher’s reflective journal. She noticed from the start that student participation was very high on days where the Arts were integrated into the content. Student participation was recorded as “low”, “average”, or “high” and later assigned a number value of 1 for low, 2 for average, and 3 for high. Low participation was mentioned if students did not seem motivated or interested in what was going on in class that day (e.g., not volunteering information, asking questions, or offering discussion). An average rating was given when students discussed and answered questions, but were not fully engaged in and excited about the activity for that day. Students were rated as having high participation on days that they were fully involved in the classroom activities. On these days, students were obviously motivated and interested in the content or activity. Students were willing to discuss and ask questions, as well as provide personal connections with the content. The results of student participation can be seen in the lower portion of Figure 2. Students were extremely participative on days that they were assigned the long term projects, as well as when the projects were shared in class. Other lessons that students received a high participation rating during included: lesson two, watching a video; lesson three, examining ancient art and artifacts from the Maya; lesson five, introducing Mayan glyphs and writing; lesson seven, introducing Mayan literature; and lesson eighteen, playing a review game.

The data showed that students were more participative in class and rated lessons higher when lessons included activities mat they were not normally exposed to or that incorporated Multiple Intelligences. In addition to student participation, Figure 2 displays the relation between student lesson ratings and levels of participation. Notice how student participation mirrored their ratings of the lessons: most lessons with high ratings also had high participation and vice versa. The three big projects took place during lessons 8, 14, and 19; with projects being shared with the class during lessons 9, 15, and 20. The figure shows that the highest lesson ratings and highest participation scores were when students worked on and shared big projects where they had a choice in what was to be created. (See Figure two at die end of this text)

It seems reasonable that if students were enjoying what they were doing in the classroom more, they might learn more as well. Our results show that student grades were higher during implementation of mis action research. While the overall student average before and after this study were 90.6% and 89.0%, respectively, tiiat same figure during the study was 92.4%. It is important to point out that this achievement data was not collected in a controlled manner and many other factors should be taken into account (e.g., number and type of assignments, grading by a different instructor). The students had a great time during this project, and the student teacher enjoyed the experience as well. This study had results similar to what was found in Chicago’s CAPE schools in the 1990’s (DeMoss, 2002), however, because this study took place in a middle school and data was collected in only one subject, we are unsure whether integration had any impact on these students‘ performance in other content areas.

Conclusion

Completing action research in this classroom proved to be a great experience for the student teacher. Through her research and teaching practice, she gained a variety of skills and knowledge that she could not have learned in a classroom lecture setting. She found that offering students choice and mobility in classroom activities was a great way to get students involved in the learning process. Why should students have to sit and listen all day? Why not give them the opportunities they deserve to be active participants in their own learning? Students were much more involved in activities that were different from what they saw as “regular classroom activities.” Just because the students were having fun in their learning, did not mean that the activities were not meaningful. More often than not, students actually took more away from hands on activities that got them up out of their seats and where discussion was used as opposed to a lecture format. We feel that an extremely effective learning environment was provided for these students, and they clearly felt very comfortable discussing the lesson content with their peers and teacher. This study allowed the student teacher to try out many creative ideas designed to increase student engagement, ideas that she expects to use in her future classrooms.

We recommend integrating the Arts into every classroom no matter what the content or grade level. When done appropriately, Arts integrative activities are a great way to get students actively involved in their learning. However, the teacher must be able to effectively integrate the Arts into the content and still meet state and national standards and learning objectives. Also, the teacher must be flexible and willing to take risks. The most important aspect of our study was the relationship and communication between teacher and students. Students knew exactly what the student teacher would be doing and what she expected from them. If they did not like a lesson or activity, she expected them to tell her. If the students had any ideas or suggestions about classroom activities or assignments, they knew their teacher would listen and usually find a way to incorporate that input into their classroom activities.

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Many teachers are incorporating cooperative learning strategies into their classrooms and using alternative assessments, writing logs, portfolios, and rubrics in addition to traditional means of assessment to determine whether their teaching approaches are effective. Bevevino and Snodgrass describe an informal group of five teachers who worked together to find a comfort level as they considered action research projects in the area of assessment.

On the last day of school, our informal group of five colleagues, who had been trying out collaborative and cooperative activities as part of the block schedule, filtered into the library. We were joined by eight additional teachers who had been recruited because of the collaborative Shakespeare unit we dreamed up in January. We were talking about plans for the break: graduate classes, two painting jobs, traveling, time with family.

Finally, Brent Ortiz, the government teacher, brought the group to order.

“0.K. Let’s recap. At last month’s meeting we agreed we’d talk today about ways to validate what we’re doing in our classes. We’ve all used alternative assessments, had the students evaluate themselves and each other, asked parents for their perceptions of their children’s progress. We have grades, checklists for social skills progress, rubrics for self evaluation. .”

“Right,” added biology teacher Jane Richards. “I have the peer-editing rubrics and my assessment checklists that I used for the Biology 1 learning stations on each unit. I think my students have done better this year as a result of the learning station activities, but can I prove it to colleagues in my department? I know they would listen to my ideas with more enthusiasm if I did more than say, ‘Wow! Did my students get into the environmental chapter when I did the role playing!’ I can see some of them rolling their eyes now. They want to see stronger evidence that student-active strategies work.

Walt Banks, one of the group’s newer members and an Algebra 1 and 2 teacher, observed, “I want that, too. And I’d also like to know if the cooperative learning activities my classes did really increased their performance over that of last year’s students. How can I prove that cooperative learning works?”

“That research course I took at the university last fall opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities to use with my English courses,” said Lew Hernandez. “Our professor kept telling us that teachers do too little research. She gave me a lot of ideas for validating what I do by using information I collect and record anyway. It’s true that many of us adopt new approaches because ‘the research‘ tells us to. But, who knows more about our kids and our teaching than we do? Instead of relying on the research of an outside consultant who might spend a week with us, we should always be reflecting on our work, trying out new ideas, sharing those ideas that have clicked with each other, and then assessing what we’ve done.

“Of course, that’s what this group has been doing anyway. I think it’s time to take another step and use all the rubrics, performance assessments, and other feedback we’ve collected and turn it into information we can really use.”

Overall Class Evaluation

I’d like you to take a look at something,” Brent urged. “When we met about a month ago, somebody said that an end-of the-term evaluation might be a good way to figure out what the students thought overall about a class. I liked the idea of finding out what they thought after the dust settled. Sometimes it’s hard for the teacher to judge what is happening in the middle of a semester or right after returning student position papers that need rewriting. We all have lots of emotional reactions to the people we’re working with as well as the stresses of learning the content.”

“Once, I passed out a card, asking students what they thought of the class and of me so far,” observed Donna Nichola from health and physical education. “I was pretty upset when one of the boys said that the only thing he liked about the course was my eyebrows! Talk about putting no thought into an evaluation. I haven’t done that since.”

“My professor would say that when you use wideopen questions, some students can’t figure out what you’re getting at. You’re more likely to receive useful responses if you ask specific questions or give the students specific points to judge,” Lew pointed out. “How about drawing up a list of statements that they can react to just by checking ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”

Brent commented, “When you and I talked about evaluating the interdisciplinary Shakespeare unit, Lew, you kept stressing: Keep it simple, specific, and as value-free as possible. I put a simple evaluation together and gave it to my period one government class. Take a minute to look it over, and we can talk about it.”

Brent passed around copies of the evaluation sheet (figure 1). He then recapped the highlights, noting that he had particularly wanted feedback on the course content, the textbook, and his own teaching. He had also wanted to know student‘ opinions of the major assignment for the term, especially because he had tried the town meeting simulation game format and Britishstyle debates for the first time and videotaped the students in both activities, also a first for him. His hope for the videotapes was that students would use them to evaluate their presentations and gain direction for future public speaking experiences.

By using three categories-content, teacher, and assignments-and including sixteen items to evaluate, Brent was able to cover a lot of territory on the front side of one page. The evaluation was low-risk because it was voluntary and anonymous. Best of all, it was easy to complete. Students evaluated each item as needs improvement, acceptable, good, or excellent. Brent also avoided leading the students to answers. He didn’t use words such as “the value of the course” or “the expertise of the instructor,” which would predispose the students to evaluate the course as valuable or his teaching as expert.

Also, as Brent exclaimed, “You never know what they’re thinking! ” With that in mind, he included one open-ended response opportunity. By using the words “Comments (Optional),” he gave the students an opportunity to express their thoughts freely.

“I really like this format: short, to the point, and easy to do,” Dan Riley, the chemistry teacher, commented. “But what did you do with it other than read it over for general impressions?”

Item Response Analysis

Brent explained the simple way he analyzed the data he had collected. Each item on the evaluation lent itself to a simple tabulation of response frequencies. He just added up the number of points given by each student in each of the four categories and divided by the total number of students judging the item, thereby coming up with an average evaluation for each item.

“It wasn’t difficult at all,” he said. “Just like averaging grades. And it would have been really simple if I had used Leis STATPAK. The computer would have given me the average response for each category really fast.

“Overall, I was most surprised about the responses to the two direct items about the textbook-the one on the book itself and the one on the chapter questions. Both had lower ratings than any of the other items. On the other hand, the supplemental-material item averaged a 3.4 overall. I didn’t expect to find that the students saw a difference between the book and the supplemental material. I’m going to go back now and look more closely at the two types of materials to see why the supplements were rated so much higher. I may decide to do the chapters differently. Donna, you said you used the jigsaw to review each of your chapters instead of doing end-of the-chapter questions, didn’t you? I might try that next time.”

Domain Analysis of Verbal Responses

Walt Banks looked at Brent’s evaluation sheet and said, I see the scaled item choices as easy to analyze, and I do think that some of my colleagues in the math department will be open to considering student-active and collaborative strategies when they see the average response rates, but what scares me is the “soft” part of this evaluation: the comments section.”

“Comments do present a challenge for analysis,” agreed Brent. “But let me show you what I’ve done with verbal responses on similar evaluations.”

Lew outlined for the group the process of using a domain analysis. He passed out a handout Brent had prepared with four student responses from the comments section (figure 2). After everyone read over the four samples, Lew explained the process of analyzing the responses. He asked the group to come up with common comments expressed by more than one of the students.

“What you do,” he pointed out, “is look for common responses or thematic threads that run through the students‘ comments. Then you write down a word or phrase that describes the theme you’ve identified.”

One of the recurring themes in these samples seemed to be “individual attention” (one student had thanked Brent for the comments on his papers, another mentioned one-on-one time, and a third talked about Brent’s encouragement as the reason he finally got through the debate). The group coded all comments that referred to that theme with a highlighter.

The group then identified two other themes found in the samples: “teacher’s ability to deal with difficult students” and “positive parent reactions to students‘ work.” Lew pointed out that themes constitute “domains” or categories into which student responses fall. It is easy for people to see the results of the analysis if boxes are created for each category, with a listing of the related comments. Lew roughed out an example (figure 3). The teacher can present information from an evaluation to other department members, to administrators, or to parents so that they can see at a glance what the students valued about a class.

Lew explained that identifying the thematic threads, color coding them, and displaying a summary of comments in a box for each category can have several advantages. In Brent’s case, the analysis showed him the aspects of the course and of his teaching that the students felt were important enough to comment on. Although it is nice for a teacher to have a general notion that students felt they benefited from individual attention, it is better to learn exactly what types of individual attention students appreciated.

Brent added, “Once the highlighting makes the coded themes stand out, other things show up. For example, the student who felt it was important to say how disorganized I was last month really hit the nail on the head. I was disorganized! I knew it and was really frustrated. But my dad was admitted to the hospital at that time, and it was touch-and-go with him for about two weeks. I was running from school to the hospital all the time, and my classes definitely suffered. Even when you think you’re handling things in spite of the pressures, you aren’t. I was glad that the student also noted that things were back to a more organized pattern after that. He really brought out what I had sensed too. That observation wasn’t made by anyone else, so the situation may not have been too bad, but his comment was valuable to me.”

Unit Evaluation

Jane Richards observed, “My problem is proving to myself and to my colleagues that collaborative activities like the learning stations really do promote more learning. The teachers in my department are not interested in changing what they do now if the end result is just for show and all fluff. Any suggestions for that kind of analysis?”

Wayne Ethridge, who teaches general math and algebra, said, “I can help you there. I used cooperative learning activities on the general math unit on interest rates this term. I hadn’t done that before, and everything else I did was the same as last year. So I used the book’s pretest again to see where the students were before I began the unit. I had given the same pretest last year to my three general math classes. Then I taught the unit, incorporating cooperative learning activities, and at the end gave the same unit test I used last year. Since I still have all the grades for the pretests and the unit tests from last year, I picked one of last year’s general math sections to compare with this year’s classes. I looked at each class s pretest scores on the interest rates unit and picked the class from last year and this year that were at approximately the same level on the pretest. I figured that I had a good comparison group to measure the progress of this year’s class by. I compared the unit test scores of last year’s group with the scores of this year’s group.”

Wayne then explained that he added up all the scores from last year’s group and divided by the number of students in the group to arrive at an average score, or mean, for that group on the interest rates unit test. Then he did the same for this year’s group.

“Comparing the mean score from last year’s group to the mean from this year’s class showed me very clearly that this year’s class did score better. Since cooperative learning is the only thing different in the teaching, and since both groups were performing at the same level on the book’s pretest, fm thinking that cooperative learning really can make a positive difference in academic achievement. My departmental colleagues did, too.”

Lew then added that with the STATPAK Wayne could run a test to see if the difference he noted was statistically significant. “A t-test could compare the two groups’ scores easily. You’d just plug each student’s score into the program and it would calculate the dif ference for you. You might want to do that. But if you’re interested primarily in presenting a practical dif ference, the averages should be enough.”

Donna Nichola commented, “fm really interested in tracking the social skills that I hope my students have gained from the collaborative and cooperative activities I’ve introduced this year. Greg, you said at an earlier meeting that you were upset that your students weren’t listening well during your cooperative learning activities. I remember your decision to use the checklist format to make them accountable during the activity. What, exactly, did you do? I have checklists that I’ve used to evaluate my students‘ behavior toward each other in the same way. In March, when the fourth quarter began, I spent a whole class period talking about cooperation, the benefits of positive interaction, and the expectations I had for their progress during the last nine weeks of school. In general, I think they’ve improved in their polite treatment of each other and in their willingness to give only positive comments on their classmates’ work, but I’d like to have some solid findings to support my hunch.”

Greg leafed through his social studies planning book and pulled out a copy of one of his checklists. “I did use the checklist, Donna. But I stuck to plus and minus, with plus meaning the student did listen attentively and didn’t talk about unrelated issues and the minus indicating that the student didn’t comply with my listening requirements. I know that the Donato checklist uses a check mark, too, to mean that the student listened but only in an average way. I decided to keep it simple and have just a positive or negative evaluation, with a plus giving the student one point and a minus giving the student no point at all. And I do think they showed social skills improvement.”

Lew looked at the checklist. “It’d be easy to validate your impression, Greg. We could total up the number of pluses and minuses for the class each time you used the checklist to evaluate their listening skills. Then we could see if the totals show a progression or regression. Let’s try it with your September and October sheet.”

Greg laughed as he watched Lew total the results on the library’s whiteboard (table 1). “Do you think I had a little trouble with this group! The totals really give a good picture of what was happening. I had the hardest time roping these mavericks in. They wanted to visit. They didn’t listen to each other. They were rude to some of the students.

“As you can see, I made a big change in mid-October. We had had that meeting about the need to teach social skills instead of just expecting students to have them. I went into seventh period determined to do just that. Just as you did, Donna, I took time to talk to them about respect, politeness, positive comments, and the damage that their sarcasm with each other can do. Then I evaluated them constantly. And every day I reminded them of my expectations. Amazingly in two weeks, they started meeting those expectations. Look at the totals.

“At the end of October I still had three students who were not interacting in a positive way One of them continues to show no development at all in social skills. That’s Danny. One of Brent`s students mentioned not liking to work with him on the course evaluation. The other two students showed good progress with their listening skills, but I wasn’t as successful with Danny”

Individual Analysis of Social Skills

Lew Hernandez spoke up: “We’ve all struggled to help him, Greg. I’ve talked to his parents several times, and the counselor has done her part as well. I know it’s discouraging, but I really think he’s doing better. When I checked the peer evaluations of the writing workshop sessions in his class, I found that students were commenting positively on his work. And it did improve. He seems to benefit from peer critiques-but only if students are told how to do them. My students had a list of what they should look for and comment on. I adapted a peer evaluation form so that I could reinforce helpful critiques and stop any negative feedback.”

“I agree with your observtions about Danny,” Jane Richards added. “His recent self evaluations in biology have shown that he isn’t as negative about everything and everyone, including himself, as he used to be. I just tallied his comments as positive or negative, almost as Lew did with Greg’s checklist. From February on, he had more upbeat comments to make. I’m not sure why, but his mother said he started talking about the class at home around that time. When I looked back through his portfolio, that’s also when he was getting positive comments on the peer evaluations of his lab reports. That really does support the need to teach social skills. Since most students don’t want to work with him, my insistence on only positive comments and questions to clarify answers kept the negative comments from coming out. I think that he wouldn’t have shown any progress in working with small groups if I hadn’t kept insisting that everyone address my social skills expectations. I’m going to go through his self evaluations again now that I know how to do a domain analysis. I want to look for themes that appear, especially during the first two months when he was so hostile, and then from February on when he started to show signs of turning the corner.”

“When you do that, let me help,” said Greg. “Maybe I’ll gain some insight into what didn’t happen for Danny in my class. An analysis like this might help everyone else who has him in class next fall.”

“Using all of the assessments that we’ve tried this year can really provide data to help with individuals,” said Jane. “Especially when a student isn’t doing well or is unhappy or is making his classmates unhappy or unable to learn, I might be able to find ways to address the problem by analyzing his or her self evaluation comments. And sharing that analysis with the rest of you gives me a way to reflect on what has happened and what might be a better way to deal with a student.”

As the group was getting ready to leave, Lew commented, “Instead of saying, ‘I really think I did this better this time; we can actually prove that what we’ve done has made a difference. And we can share that information with other people in the district-or beyond-who might be interested in what we’re doing with collaborative and cooperative learning. But for now- rest up this summer, gang. I already have lots of new ideas for student-active planning for the fall!”

Copyright HELDREF PUBLICATIONS May/Jun 2000

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