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It took all of 5 minutes searching the web to debunk that the average IQ is increasing (it is, apparently, decreaseing after an increase due to the Flynn effect). In part, the decrease is due to reasons I noted. For one, the higher the mother's IQ, the fewer children she tends to have. IQ is, somewhat, genetic.
I looked up the Flynn effect. It is thought to be due to increased nutrition, educational enrichment and the teaching of test taking skills (so it's questionable how much of the past increase actually is an increase). These types of increases would be seen once. Once good nutrition and educational enrichment were in place, one would not, logically, expect to see a jump in the next generation. You need to do a little research in the causes of the Flynn effect. It's not a continual increase generation over generation. It's an increase with cause that ocucrs when changes are made between generations. It continues because there are still segments of the population where these changes have not yet been made!! (Remember we're talking about averages here).
My kids had better nutrition than I did and a more enriched environment than I did so it makes sense they'd score higher than I did on IQ tests, however, their kids will likely have similar nutrition and similar enrichment so it makes sense their kids would not see an increase. You need to look at the causes of the Flynn effect. Unless you have changes generation over generation, you're not likely to see increases in IQ generation over generation.
Where one would expect to see the Flynn effect would be in children whose environements are, significantly, better than their parents environments were. That is still happening in segments of the population but it has already happened to other segments of the population and they are leveling off and it is not happening in other segments of the population. Unfortunately, here is where you tend to see most of the births to young mothers who lack the resources to provide well for their children.
Your mistake is thinking the increase just continues generation after generation. It doesn't. It's a causal increase. Once the cause is in place, there is a leveling.
I don't normally like wiki but this "answer" holds that the average IQ was still 98 in 2010. Title
Looks like IQ in the US didn't move at all from 1998 - 2010. Now, that is NOT to say that the Flynn effect was not impacting segments of the population. I am arguing that the Flynn effect has not created a bunch of genius kids because it hasn't. It's a slight increase in IQ from one generation to the next, believed to be due to factors like increased nutrition, increased educational enrichment and increased test taking skills. It's not something that just keeps on going. As a matter of fact, all things held equal, from a genetic point of view, we can expect our children to be closer to average IQ than we are.
I linked to the articles on the decreasing world IQ because the united states has a considerable immigrant population that would be expected to have a lowering effect on the average IQ...BUT...their children would see the impact of the Flynn effect as their environement could be more enriched than their parent's environments were.
The point, however, is that the Flynn effect is NOT responsible for the fact that, something rediculous like, 94% of mothers of 4 year olds consider their child gifted. That one can be chalked up to mothers wearing rose colored glasses when it comes to their kids.
The genetic component to IQ has been discussed in many pieces of research. However, it doesn't work like eye color or height. If it did, Einstein would have had, at least one genius child. With IQ, there is a tendency for our kids to be more average than we are. Which is more reason to think that there is no generation over generation increase in IQ that just keeps on going like the everready bunny.
You have zero idea what you are talking about. IQ is renormalized every time the test is taken.
Second, nutrition is not a one time increase, beyond stupid to claim so. Otherwise people would not be getting taller, STILL. Which is attributed to....wait for it....nutritional enhancement.
You should really quit pretending you know anything about science. Your source included a guy whose "expertise" in IQ is because he invented AutoCAD. Yes, that makes him an IQ expert. Or the one from VanSloan@yahoo, REALLY? He totally misrepresented the actual date and ignored it was normalized to the world for 2002, that means nothing with regard to change over time. Do you even understand where the scores come from? If you are normalizing the scores to the world, that means nothing with regards to over time.
Please don't attempt statistics when you apparently do not understand them in the slightest.
I do have all 150 every day. This would require individualized lessons for all 150 of my students. THAT would be an issue unless we're sitting them in front of a computer that will pace the way they want to pace. The problem with this is kids need to be self motivated.
I do not know how I could track mastery of 143 CCE's for 150 students. There would have to be some kind of automatic accounting. I'd need a computer program for generating and evaluating tests (which means multiple choice testing) which carried over any material a particular student had not yet mastered. I really can't think of how I would do this otherwise.
Do keep us posted on how this is working and any tricks you find to making it work. I can't envision it working for us. I have too many students and too many standards. You're correct I don't see my students all at once, but I do see them every day and when I see them, I see them in 50 minute blocks. I have less than 2 minutes per student by the time you let me take attendance. I think it is going to be very difficult to individualize education and give feedback on 143 CCE's for all of these students without much of the process being automated.
In a true mastery model, the material isn't age appropriate. It's level appropriate. You should end up with kids of different ages in each level. Kids who would have normally gotten A's or B's, will reach mastery the first time through. Those who would have gotten C's or D's will need multiple teaching of the material. Those who would have failed, will need major remeidation (possibly those in the D range too). I see the kids separarting before the first unit is taught. I would expect more kids to be held back in a mastery model as we are passing kids who are not achieving mastery now. If you use a 3 or 4 as mastery, MAYBE half of the kids I passed last year would have passed. The others would still be in my class this year trying again.
I've been kind of moving this direction in that I give my students remediation packets that are required of any student who does not score a C on a test but I can't get them to do them. Half of them just don't bother so it becomes another failing grade. I was allowing retakes on tests but I have found that more I offered them (this didn't happen the first time), the less they study for the original test. I was heartsick with the last test I gave last year. Before they even saw it, I had over a dozen kids ask/state "There's going to be a retake on this, right??". All the retakes did, in most cases, was tank the first grade and I find most kids don't do better on the retake because they don't study for the retake.
I'm thinking that this year I'll give my students one retake pass to use when they think they really need it. Retake grades will be capped at 80% as they are now.
If we want mastery learning, we need to bring back tracking.
I understand. I will have 28 students for a social studies block that is about 50 minutes long. I have the same group for an 1.5 hour language arts block. Then another 28 for their social studies and language arts blocks. It's not individualized lessons for each child, but we're not that far from it. For one half hour enrichment/remediation block, I have plans daily for 4 or 5 different groups. I have to base what each child does on some type of formative assessment. I have to keep track of what each works on and the outcome. Rinse and repeat. The same is done for math, reading, writing... I don't have them for math or science.
I don't know how many indicators we have, but there are a ton. They will all fit under certain sections on the report. I'm not sure how I will keep up with all of it. This is in addition to completing assessments like the DRA (are you familiar with it?). Try completing 56 of those in the fall and spring! Ugh.
When I said the material is "age appropriate", I meant that it may be basic compared to what is being taught in high school chemistry, but it's not so basic when applied to the age of the students in the classroom. It isn't any easier just because the material is easier for adults. Yes, some will understand the first time through, others will need more instruction, and others will need remediation. It's a lot for one teacher in the classroom.
You have zero idea what you are talking about. IQ is renormalized every time the test is taken.
Second, nutrition is not a one time increase, beyond stupid to claim so. Otherwise people would not be getting taller, STILL. Which is attributed to....wait for it....nutritional enhancement.
You should really quit pretending you know anything about science. Your source included a guy whose "expertise" in IQ is because he invented AutoCAD. Yes, that makes him an IQ expert. Or the one from VanSloan@yahoo, REALLY? He totally misrepresented the actual date and ignored it was normalized to the world for 2002, that means nothing with regard to change over time. Do you even understand where the scores come from? If you are normalizing the scores to the world, that means nothing with regards to over time.
Please don't attempt statistics when you apparently do not understand them in the slightest.
On the contrary, I have a very good grasp of statistics. I can also look at data and see that IQ's have been flat (they are normalized for comparison). Yes, we did see an increase because of things like increased nutrition, enriched learning environments and the teaching of test taking skills but it's not like that soaks into your genes and you pass it on to the next generation. Yes, increases in nutrition will be a one time boost if they are repeated during the next generation. If they aren't, then you'd see a drop. Ditto for enriched environments. Me feeding my child well does nothing for her genetic contribution to her children IQ wise. How she feeds and educates her children will have more of an impact.
The flynn effect is pretty straight forward. Yes, there has been an increase but it appears to be leveling as one would expect. Worldwide, IQ's are dropping. I suspect with the current economy, we may see a drop in the US as well as more and more parents struggle to provide for their children well and swelling schools deal with more and more children in each class (one part of the flynn effect is training to take tests). We'll see.
Regardless, all one has to do is look at IQ scores through the year to see that we don't have a bunch of genius children running around because of the Flynn effect. Far from it. I don't need to be an expert to see what is common sense. I find no data to support that IQ's are going up and up and up generation after generation after generation. In fact, just the opposite. There is plenty of data out there to show that worldwide, IQ's are dropping. Given our current economy, it won't suprise me if we see a drop in the US too. We'll have to wait until the data is in on that one.
" Recent research suggests that the Flynn effect may have ended in at least a few developed nations, possibly allowing national differences in IQ scores[4] to diminish if the Flynn effect continues in nations with lower average national IQs.[5"
Yes, I do understand how statistics and IQ scores work and given the believed causes of the Flynn effect, I can, logically, conclude that it can only go so far but that's not the point. The point is, this is NOT the reason so many parents think their child is a genius because it's not creating geniuses. It's a shifting of the AVERAGE IQ that occurs because of better nutrition, enriched education and teaching of test taking skills. There's only so much you can do with that.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-13-2012 at 06:32 PM..
I understand. I will have 28 students for a social studies block that is about 50 minutes long. I have the same group for an 1.5 hour language arts block. Then another 28 for their social studies and language arts blocks. It's not individualized lessons for each child, but we're not that far from it. For one half hour enrichment/remediation block, I have plans daily for 4 or 5 different groups. I have to base what each child does on some type of formative assessment. I have to keep track of what each works on and the outcome. Rinse and repeat. The same is done for math, reading, writing... I don't have them for math or science.
I don't know how many indicators we have, but there are a ton. They will all fit under certain sections on the report. I'm not sure how I will keep up with all of it. This is in addition to completing assessments like the DRA (are you familiar with it?). Try completing 56 of those in the fall and spring! Ugh.
When I said the material is "age appropriate", I meant that it may be basic compared to what is being taught in high school chemistry, but it's not so basic when applied to the age of the students in the classroom. It isn't any easier just because the material is easier for adults. Yes, some will understand the first time through, others will need more instruction, and others will need remediation. It's a lot for one teacher in the classroom.
You have my sympathy. I'm not familiar with DRA. Is it a state test? We have our own.
By basic, I meant needed to proceed. Honestly, you could fail high school chemistry and never be the worse for the wear. It depends on where you're headed. Reading and basic math, however, are needed pretty much no matter what you do.
One issue I will deal with (and I suspect you will to a lesser degree (I'm in a high SES area)) is that just about every parent thinks their child is special. They're either special and need special handling to excel or they're geniuses and if they don't excel there must be something wrong with what the teacher is doing. I can see the chit hitting the fan when I (or a program, I hope) decides that Johnny is.....gasp.....best grouped with the AVERAGE kids (I am convinced that the one thing parents think their kids are not is average....yet MOST OF US ARE....go figure). I can see parents fighting this.
I really am interested in how this works out. I'm betting it won't be long before this is pushed up to the high school level. We've had talk of it alread but nothing materialized. I can foresee some students being done with the material while others are still working on first semester material and I do not know how one teacher gives the kind of individualized attention that would require.
I can see the writing on the wall for us. We're already adopting "Power standards". They're picking out the most important standards because they realize we cannot teach all of the standards to all students. This eliminates about two months worth of material for me (For example, thermodynamics contains zero power standards so it no longer needs to be taught). IMO, this is a dummying down of the material in preparation for the day when all students must master the material. I don't think "mastery" will really be mastery. I don't think they will allow the number of students who will fail if you actually required mastery to pass.
It will be interesting to see if this works for the students. I see it serving the middle fairly well but not the top and the bottom. The bottom lacks motivation and the top doesn't want to be puhished with more work for getting the material early and that's really the only thing I could do. Put back in some of the non power standards for the top of the class effectively, creating a different curriculum for them.
I did see a grouping model that worked well at the charter school where my dd attended. The teacher had the kids in groups and she went around the room group to group getting them started on their material for the day. A TA came behind her and made sure each group was on task and getting the material. She did "contracts" where there were assignments in a packet that the students could pick. Some were easier and you had to do more of them to get the required points. Some were harder and you got more points for them so you had to do fewer assignments if you did the hard ones. I liked it but it must have been a massive amount of work to set up and I can't imagine the grading. The packets were about a quarter of an inch thick for each subject. Unfortunately, I don't think this would work for high school because many of my students just copy someone elses work and it shows in their test scores. This is one of the most frustrating things I find about teaching high schoolers (that and texting instead of listening during class). They do not get that they are only hurting themselves.
My dd is taking two AP classes this year and we had to have a talk about not helping her friends out because she's not helping them to give them the answers. I discussed with her, early in the summer, the need for her to do her own work if she wants to pass the AP tests and she has been but now that we're approaching the end of the summer, she has friends who want to "work together" (translation: divide the work up and copy each other's answers). I wish high school students worked together the way elementary students do (or at least my kids did...maybe my kids are just weird). They seemed to really work together when they had group assignments. In high school, one person does most of the work, one helps and two take credit for what the others did.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-13-2012 at 06:37 PM..
You have my sympathy. I'm not familiar with DRA. Is it a state test? We have our own.
By basic, I meant needed to proceed. Honestly, you could fail high school chemistry and never be the worse for the wear. It depends on where you're headed. Reading and basic math, however, are needed pretty much no matter what you do.
One issue I will deal with (and I suspect you will to a lesser degree (I'm in a high SES area)) is that just about every parent thinks their child is special. They're either special and need special handling to excel or they're geniuses and if they don't excel there must be something wrong with what the teacher is doing. I can see the chit hitting the fan when I (or a program, I hope) decides that Johnny is.....gasp.....best grouped with the AVERAGE kids (I am convinced that the one thing parents think their kids are not is average....yet MOST OF US ARE....go figure). I can see parents fighting this.
I really am interested in how this works out. I'm betting it won't be long before this is pushed up to the high school level. We've had talk of it alread but nothing materialized. I can foresee some students being done with the material while others are still working on first semester material and I do not know how one teacher gives the kind of individualized attention that would require.
I can see the writing on the wall for us. We're already adopting "Power standards". They're picking out the most important standards because they realize we cannot teach all of the standards to all students. This eliminates about two months worth of material for me (For example, thermodynamics contains zero power standards so it no longer needs to be taught). IMO, this is a dummying down of the material in preparation for the day when all students must master the material. I don't think "mastery" will really be mastery. I don't think they will allow the number of students who will fail if you actually required mastery to pass.
It will be interesting to see if this works for the students. I see it serving the middle fairly well but not the top and the bottom. The bottom lacks motivation and the top doesn't want to be puhished with more work for getting the material early and that's really the only thing I could do. Put back in some of the non power standards for the top of the class effectively, creating a different curriculum for them.
I did see a grouping model that worked well at the charter school where my dd attended. The teacher had the kids in groups and she went around the room group to group getting them started on their material for the day. A TA came behind her and made sure each group was on task and getting the material. She did "contracts" where there were assignments in a packet that the students could pick. Some were easier and you had to do more of them to get the required points. Some were harder and you got more points for them so you had to do fewer assignments if you did the hard ones. I liked it but it must have been a massive amount of work to set up and I can't imagine the grading. The packets were about a quarter of an inch thick for each subject. Unfortunately, I don't think this would work for high school because many of my students just copy someone elses work and it shows in their test scores. This is one of the most frustrating things I find about teaching high schoolers (that and texting instead of listening during class). They do not get that they are only hurting themselves.
My dd is taking two AP classes this year and we had to have a talk about not helping her friends out because she's not helping them to give them the answers. I discussed with her, early in the summer, the need for her to do her own work if she wants to pass the AP tests and she has been but now that we're approaching the end of the summer, she has friends who want to "work together" (translation: divide the work up and copy each other's answers). I wish high school students worked together the way elementary students do (or at least my kids did...maybe my kids are just weird). They seemed to really work together when they had group assignments. In high school, one person does most of the work, one helps and two take credit for what the others did.
Ivory,
We are starting school tomorrow. I just finished setting up my gradebook. I wish I could show it to you. It's an Excel spreadsheet and across the top I have (between social studies and language arts) 138 different standards.
We are starting school tomorrow. I just finished setting up my gradebook. I wish I could show it to you. It's an Excel spreadsheet and across the top I have (between social studies and language arts) 138 different standards.
Ok. Here is a little update. This is an example of how I scored a recent social studies assessment. The "test" had 29 questions. It covered four different benchmarks under two different reporting standards. Altogether there are five reporting standards for social studies. We list each benchmark and the corresponding questions. I use this to score the assessment.
The grading rubric is attached to the assessment and each benchmark (this form should read "benchmark" instead of "standard") receives a score. Sometimes we decide to assess to just the standard, and sometimes we drill down a little further to the benchmark.
The gradebook looks like this, with each benchmark listed under the reporting standard. This is one of the five reporting standards for social studies, so there are 4 more tabs like this on my Excel sheet for the first quarter. Language arts has six reporting standards and many more benchmarks, but we don't necessarily assess every reporting standard every quarter.
If a student ends up with a "2" or a "1" for a reporting standard in a quarter, then that standard needs to be reassessed.
Sorgen said it would be extremely difficult to prove that Carlock gave Bethards the C+ in bad faith.
Sorgen added that it was odd Bethards's attorney, Daniel Horowitz, filed the lawsuit in federal court, when the dispute seemed to be a matter of state law.
According to the complaint, the case was filed in federal court because the matter related to a deprivation of civil rights.
"I don’t know of any precedent that says giving a student a grade that he disputes is a violation of civil rights," Sorgen said.
Sorgen said he is unaware of any case where a student sued over a grade, and he doubts Bethards' grade will be changed.
"As far as I know, the school district has no authority to change the grade, even if they wanted to," he said.
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In part, the decrease is due to reasons I noted. For one, the higher the mother's IQ, the fewer children she tends to have. IQ is, somewhat, genetic. 
