Learning by Doing : There Is Plenty of Room for Improvement, but New Approach Shows Promise at Sepulveda Middle School

Open the door to Michael Zerwer’s eighth-grade classroom and the noise is deafening. Students sit in groups rolling Slinkys along the desk tops and arguing loudly over earthquake waves.

Welcome to a science class of the ‘90s. It’s a chaotic scene in which teachers don’t lecture in front of chalkboards and students don’t sit passively behind desks.

At Sepulveda Middle School in North Hills, Zerwer and others are trying different ways of teaching. Relying less on textbooks and overhead projectors, they are letting students work together using real objects--like the Slinkys--to figure out answers together.

Teachers in math, English and history all are trying the new approaches to learning, and the school has some reason to think the methods are working.

In results announced this week, Sepulveda scored among the top in the Los Angeles Unified School District on the California Learning Assessment System, a new series of tests given to students in fourth, eighth and 10th grades. But Sepulveda students didn’t make it to the top when measured against tough, new statewide performance standards.

In math, 84% of Sepulveda’s eighth-graders scored in the lowest three levels, showing only limited understanding of math concepts. But in reading, 46% of the tested eighth-graders scored at the top three levels, showing complete understanding of material and demonstrating perception and thoroughness.

Districtwide, in math 94% of the eighth-graders scored at the bottom three levels. In reading, 24% scored at the top three levels.

The scores at Sepulveda include those of the gifted and high ability students who attend a magnet program on the campus. When compared to other schools that have similar programs, Sepulveda still comes out among the top-scoring campuses.

Zerwer’s Slinky-rolling students are examples of the way state education officials envision the modern classroom. They say team-teaching, hands-on learning with a more rigorous curriculum will earn schools higher test scores and produce better students. The new tests are designed to complement more rigorous academics.

Zerwer agrees. “I really feel strongly that students learn much better if they do things rather than just hear about them,” Zerwer said. “I think they retain it longer and they are also having more fun doing it.”

Just ask Zerwer’s students.

“You actually look forward to science class and don’t dread going to it,” said Avital Shavit, an eighth-grader. “We do a lot of fun assignments. It’s interesting so I learn better.”

The higher than average test scores were not surprising to many teachers on the campus, who said they expected the students to do that well. But they said the tests were more difficult than anticipated and that many students were not used to the new format. Instead of multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank exams, students had to support their answers in writing to many of the questions.

“It just wasn’t a normal testing situation,” said Jane Blitz, who teaches English. “It was a difficult test and it was not what the kids expected. But I think we have to have high standards. If we lower them, we’re doing our kids a disservice.”

Brad Margolin, a Sepulveda math teacher, said his eighth-graders were not as prepared for the test as they will be in coming years. He said the students are spending more time on word problems now and are doing more hands-on lessons.

Margolin said the teachers were worried about the results after they gave the test for the first time last spring. “We thought, ‘Boy, when these scores come out, this district is going to look bad,’ ” he said. “I knew the test scores wouldn’t be as high as they were before. I think for the majority of the eighth-graders that test was too hard.”

To Rajan Bhattacharyya, a ninth-grader who remembered taking the test last year, it was “tricky.”

“They worded the problems in such a way that you had to really nit-pick the language to understand it,” he said. “It was hard.”

Peggy Schuster, the math department chairwoman, said the tests challenged the students and that she doesn’t believe that the scores revealed an accurate portrait of her students.

“I think junior high kids are more used to fundamental tests--addition, subtraction, multiplication,” she said. “I know that many of my kids are bright and articulate but sometimes they don’t do that well on a particular kind of test.”

To help teachers prepare their students for next year’s tests, a school leadership committee agreed recently to pay for training given by UCLA professors.

But some teachers are reluctant to alter their techniques, preferring instead to continue working behind a lectern and in front of a chalkboard. They say they have more control of the students who would have trouble focusing on the task at hand.

“You have to gain control and stability in the classroom,” said Chris Hale, a history teacher.

Still, in response to the new tests, teachers in many subject areas are giving students more reading and writing assignments and fewer lectures and textbooks. In Francine Wong-Hauptman’s English class, all the students had a copy of Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist” on their desks as they discussed verbs, adverbs and adjectives.

“We’re making a change for the kids and to strengthen our instructional program,” said Bob Reimann, the school principal. “It’s been a slow process but our teachers are ready to go. We want to bring all the scores up--they are a thermometer of how well we’re doing.”

Gompers Middle School

* Year opened: 1937

* Enrollment: 1,720

* Ethnic breakdown: 52% Latino, 48% black.

* Limited English proficient: 28%

* Bused students: none

* Teachers: 78

CLASS SCORES * Reading: 13% scored at top three levels

* Writing: 7% scored at top three levels

* Math: 0% scored at top three levels