The best way to learn something is to teach it

An interesting twist on the Khan Academy approach. Why not have students create their own video uploads teaching core content? Check out Lincoln MS, in Santa Monica, where kids are creating their own math teaching videos.

As teacher Eric Marcos puts it, "the best way to learn something is to teach it. I’ve heard kids say that when they were trying to explain how to divide fractions, they knew to flip the number over but they didn’t know why.” Because they were creating a tutorial video, “They found out that they didn’t know why” – and then, naturally, they found out why."

Awesome.

Customized schooling-- only something for the super rich and the very poor?

I came across this NYT article a month ago, and have been meaning to post about it since then.The community of Millburn, NJ is is a twist right now over the issue of charter schools due to the opening of a new mandarin-immersion school that will draw students from a number of surrounding districts. There's vocal opposition, the sentiment of which is summed by this quote from Matthew Stewart, a resident who thinks charter schools should only be allowed to operate in underperforming systems:

“Public education is basically a social contract — we all pool our money, so I don’t think I should be able to custom-design it to my needs,” he said, noting that he pays $15,000** a year in property taxes. “With these charter schools, people are trying to say, ‘I want a custom-tailored education for my children, and I want you, as my neighbor, to pay for it.’ ”

The assumption I struggle with in this statement is that entering into a social contract means being willing to ignore public inefficiency and problems. The point here is that the district wasn't meeting parent needs, and wasn't flexible enough to change on its own.  Even if not underperfoming on the most normative measures, the district was underperforming as a public service in other ways. So the public utilized a PUBLIC OPTION (charter creation) to provide an option to a group of kids and parents who needed it.

What's so wrong with customized education? And why should we only offer it to kids in blatantly failing systems or to those who can afford to opt out of the public option entirely?

**Certain folks like to throw around tax figures to show how much they're paying for other people's kids... $15,000 goes to support many municipal services, of which schooling is one. I wonder how many kids Mr. Stewart sends to the schools?

Linking it together- Blog piece on Policy by Algorithm

Interesting blog post by Jeff Henig on the Straight Up blog today about how algorithms play into decision-making in education (with comparisons to Google and healthcare).

"A signature element of many examples of contemporary policy by algorithm, moreover, is their relative indifference to the specific processes that link interventions to outcomes; there is much we do not know about how and how much individual teachers contribute to their students' long-term development, but legislators convince themselves that ignorance does not matter."

The one thing I do find a little odd about this post is that Henig aptly describes/makes the case for the problem, chides legislators for falling into the trap of clean solutions, but then doesn't really give us a then what. It's pretty easy to lay out the dilemma here, and then to spout a few words about the need for teamwork and professionalism. But how do we do it?

SERI scores are out. Not surprisingly, the gap between different states is huge...

I posted yesterday about my takeaways regarding the gender of the three Google global science fair winners, but didn't note the surprising fact that the three winners were all from the US. Sure, there are a lot of reasons other than sheer brilliance or rigor of the entries for this being the case (*very* small sample size, language barriers, cultural differences in style, resources for dazzling the judges, etc.), but it's worth noting that this news comes following the release of the national SERI—Science and Engineering Readiness Index-- results, which measure how high school students are performing in physics and calculus.

Source: SERI data compiled by Statistical Research Center at AIP

The news isn’t spectacular. There’s huge variability amongst states. As the press release noted “Massachusetts easily bested all other states with a score of 4.82, while Mississippi came in at 1.11. Twenty-one states in total, including California, earned below or far below average scores, while only 10 states earned scores above the national average.” (Essentially, the relatively higher performance of a few states drags up the average to the point that most states don’t even meet it. The distribution curve is positively skewed.)

In a time where many are wringing their hands about our country’s future global competitiveness, it’s clear we’ve got a lot of work to do. SERI sets a pretty high bar given where we are as a nation; it’s focused on the so-called “hard” and physical sciences rather than biological or health-related ones, and is compiled based on Advanced Placement scores, NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) reports, enrollment data, and teacher certification/qualification requirements. Yet, the picture painted with SERI isn’t as bad as the one we’d see if we did an international comparison against tests like the PISA (where the US ranks 30^th on “Maths” and 23^rd in the sciences), or the TIMSS (11^th).

The bright point on all of this is that we've got some statewide comparisons that account for more than just test scores. Hopefully we can use these results to push the national conversation towards a higher bar for everyone.

Google science fair: Girl power? Or the typical science-gender divide replicated?

A lot of news outlets are making a pretty big deal about the fact that the three winners of Google’s first-ever global science fair are girls. As the LA Times reported, Google touted "girl power" in its own press release, and  Fast Company made a point of noting that, “the trio of girl champions narrowly beat out boys of equal mental prowess.” Tori Bosch, of the XX Factor on Slate gushed, "I can’t help feeling a little sisterly glee at the fact that the winners were all girls...They earned their sweet Lego trophies with their thoughtful approach to science, but their gender is getting them more attention today. Someday, perhaps three girls rocking a science fair won’t be news, but for now, it is."

While women have been on par with, if not outpacing, men in many academic areas (getting college and graduate degrees, for one), we’ve yet to come even close to matching the aggregate numbers in math, engineering, and science. This under-representation of women  is a well-covered, and now well-funded, issue, so  it’s not all that surprising that the trio is getting featured in the popular media. 

The fact that three girls took home top awards is great; hopefully these three winners will set the stage for more young girls to see science as a viable, interesting, and worthwhile pursuit. Regardless of gender, the projects the three brilliant young women presented and defended are incredibly impressive. However, I do wish we'd take a more nuanced look at the results of the Google competition as it relates to the gender gap. 

If we pause for a moment and examine the Google results more closely, it's hard to see this news as heralding a major moment for women in science. According to the NSF, as of 2008, women were already holding a majority of degrees in medical and biological sciences; women are similarly well-represented in occupations like dietitians, pharmacists, biologists, etc.  It is in these areas that all of the female winners focused. When we talk about fields that are typically under-represented, we’re generally most concerned with engineering and physical scientists, where women only account for about a quarter of degrees and where females are much less represented in the field. For example, only 10 percent of engineers were women. (You can do your own analysis on the NSF’s wicked cool data site and digest.)

Looking at the Google finalists, the pattern is evident. Of the name’s I could identify as belonging to one gender versus another (12 of the 15-- admittedly, this is not a scientific analysis here…), five out of six girls submitted projects relating to health, biology, or psychology (the sixth investigated sags in power lines… super cool, no?). Of the boys, all of the six I could identify went for computer science, engineering, or math. In other words, the traditional gender divide was as present as ever. The Google results definitely can't be seen as leading indicators of a change in field composition at large.

So should we be cheering? Dubious or vaguely concerned? I’m not sure. But it does seem that we’ve got to become more field-specific here if we want to change the demography of the science fields or laud attempts to do so. My three takeaways are:

• Yeah, Google! Corporations can do pretty awesome things. 
• It’s great to see these three girls kicking some butt and taking some names, let’s hope they stick with it.
• I will avoid soy-based marinades when grilling.

It's not the technology, it's the user. (Duh.)

Edweek published an article on the use of interactive whiteboards in the classroom, and the big takeaway was that the skill of the teacher matters more than the quality of technology used. Um... yeah. Big surprise guys.

It always amazes me that people expect technology to play a role in the classroom that it doesn't in other areas of life. Think about it, when you got email, did the program making you a better communicator? Probably not. Did you naturally understand how to manage it, or did it take work to? You get out of a given technology what you learn to put into it.

But in education, we seem to think that investments in hardware and software will automatically lead to better learning. We've got to find ways to not only create great technologies, but also to teach professionals how to integrate those great technologies into their practice. Further, we've got to start making the effective, innovative use of technology a standard for excellent teaching.

As Patrick Ledesma of Fairfax County notes in the article, “an IWB is just a tool, and if it’s not used correctly, you can’t blame the tool, you have to blame the user. [...] If you’re a teacher who used to lecture at a chalkboard, you’ll do the same with the IWB.”

Bringing back the student voice

Memphis recently approved a new teacher evaluation system that incorporates, among other factors like test scores and principal observations, student ratings of effectiveness. As we move towards systems that put so much weight on student performance, why shouldn't we factor in student feedback on their day-to-day classroom experience?

Emerging research would suggest we should. A NYT article on the Gates Teaching Effectiveness study reported that "teachers whose students described them as skillful at maintaining classroom order, at focusing their instruction and at helping their charges learn from their mistakes are often the same teachers whose students learn the most in the course of a year, as measured by gains on standardized test scores." These findings were based on a survey instrument developed by Ron Ferguson, here at Harvard GSE and indicate that students know more about the quality of their educations than we often give them credit for. See the MET briefing for the full details.

Surely, students shouldn't be the only arbiters of value here. We should measure in-classroom practice and growth through observations and we shouldn't throw out the tests. Student ratings won't always be fair in all cases and work should be done to make sure the way we ask questions links up to what we need to know (there has been some questions raised about independent sites like ratemyteacher.com, where ratings are obtusely broad and superficial... see Ferguson's tripod project here for what the current assessment looks like), but they should be a factor in helping us triangulate performance. If we all think back to our own experiences, we knew when we were being pandered to and we knew when we were being pushed and supported. 

Memphis is actually one of the partner districts for the Gates project, so I guess it isn't too much of a surprise that they're trying some new approaches. Future iterations of the Memphis model may also find ways to bring in parent ratings too, which would be great.

I'm excited to see other districts try this. Let's bring the voice of the end-user into our assessments of success.

What schooling could learn from airplane development...

I just read the excerpt from Tim Harford's new book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure, in Slate today. The article discussed the development of the Supermarine Spitfire in WWII. The Spitfire was developed well below specification and behind deadline, but, thanks to a RAF Commodore, was commissioned for prototyping and proved to be a world-saving and industry-changing innovation.

Harford talks about the importance of risk-taking and creating safeharbors to protect space for innovation and blue-sky research. The article has a ton of interesting quotes and ideas, so I won't repeat them here and encourage checking it out. But as I was reading, I started thinking about ed. Where are our safeharbors? How can we foster innovation when the risks of investment are so very great? How do we actually come to terms with the fact that maybe we don't have any idea as to "what works"? Can we get over our understanding of what's possible so that we can embrace fantasy enough to push past boundaries? What would it take?

There's hope for me here, because there are some real parallels. As Harford points out, the Spitfire was developed at a time of high-resource constraint as well as "in an atmosphere of almost total uncertainty about what the future of flying might be." Right now, as our ed budgets are getting cut, we face tremendous human resource constraints, and we fall ever further behind in our goal of educating all kids to college-ready levels, we face a similar war-time scenario. If we can harness the catastrophe, maybe we can grow some backbone and will. Further, the RAF had developed an air strategy that was entirely misconceived when seen in the rearview. Yet somehow, the forces of innovation prevailed-- the Spitfire managed to be developed in spite of expectations and preconceptions.

Harford argues that the lesson lies in variation and isolation-- there was sufficient space for developing the new idea an testing it out before it got quashed.  I would argue that he's partially correct; variation is certainly core to transforming education-- we need to develop our own "Galapagos Islands"-- but also think the challenge involves recognizing the innovation amongst the piles of non-innovation, particularly in education where we're so bad at defining success. We need our "skunk-works" in addition to cultivating a culture in which we're open to new ideas and open to saying what is a good idea and what isn't up to snuff.

I actually think the latter will be the real challenge in a sector where we're so fixated on compliance and what best practice is, as well as what other people are doing (cough... Finland... cough... Ontario...). We've got to harden up and be willing to fight for new ideas. Only then will education develop its own elliptical wings.

 
 

Maybe it's how we test, not that fact that we do

Education Week just published a story about the Univision town hall (original story here on AP news) President Obama spoke at this week. In the brief article, it was reported that Obama, while noting the value of standardized assessments for "baseline" purposes, has lost some of his enthusiasm for annual state tests and says testing has made education boring for kids. 

Even if we assume that testing does correlate with student boredom (a premise I feel is a little weak, given I went to quite a few schools that were very boring, even before assessments came into vogue), I take a little bit of issue with the direction Obama's comments (or at least the interpretation of them in the popular media).

Sure, tests can be a drag. But assessment plays an essential role, both for learning as well as accountability purposes, so we shouldn't be so quick to throw them out the window just because they're not universally loved. I'm not going to argue we've reached a perfect solution. 

Why test? Ongoing assessment is an important tool teachers use to understand student progress against goals, and the data it provides gives practitioners ways to change their approach to tailor instruction to student needs. And while annual state tests aren't terribly fun, they help us better understand our educational challenges and the progress schools make in getting kids to base levels of literacy and numeracy. Assessments can also be good learning tools, as they've been shown to actually be an important part of the encoding process (for example, see the NYT Article "To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test").

So here's an idea. What if the problem isn't that we need to use tests to measure student mastery, but rather the fact that we use crappy tests that aren't really rigorous and don't fully engage us with the materials they are designed to assess? What if we came up with better, cooler assessments to gauge learning? Rather than throwing our hands up, why don't we work harder to make assessments interactive, meaningful, and relevant. Rather than pandering to people's fears about testing, we should (as Greg Gunn, co founder of Wireless Generation, reminded a group of us this morning) look with optimism to the possibilities that new forms of testing could bring.

As Anthony Miller said today at Harvard's Advance Leadership Initiative's Ed Tech Think Tank, simple, fill-in the bubble tests won't really do the job. We've got to do better.

Possible? Totally. Next generation assessments are coming, and they're going to be really engaging. New online tools deliver curricular materials in game format, utilizing adaptive technologies to assess during play, collecting data and analyzing student responses to help target remediation. (For example, check out DreamBox Learning). Who's to say our more formal, standardized assessments can't take on this form?

Another of the most promising innovation areas is virtual simulation, in which students are assessed through simulations. For example, there's some great work being done here at HGSE through the EcoMUVE project with virtual environment assessments, in which students engage in inquiry through active problem solving in a virtual environment. Click on the link here to see demo of one of their assessments. 

Cool, no?

 Source: ecomuve.org

So let's not give up just yet, okay?

Entrepreneurs as a special type...

Slogging through a particularly dense piece for class, I found a terrific nugget about the adaptive nature of entrepreneurship. Too cool...

While in the accustomed channels his own ability and experience suffice for the normal individual, when confronted with innovations he needs guidance. While he swims with the stream in the circular flow which is familiar to him, he swims against the stream if he wishes to change its channel. What was formerly a help becomes a hindrance. What was the familiar datum becomes an unknown. Where the boundaries of routine stop, many people can go no further, and the rest can only do so in a highly variable manner. The assumption that conduct is prompt and rational is in all cases a fiction. [...] The carrying out of new combinations [of means of production] is a special function, and the privilege of a type of people who are much less numerous than all those who have the 'objective' possibility of doing it. Therefore, finally, entrepreneurs are a special type.

-Schumpeter, 1961, Theory of Economic Development

College for all: a costly, unrealistic goal?

Had a very interesting brown bag lunch with Bob Schwartz and Ron Ferguson, primary authors of Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century of HGSE this past week. The report, which you can find here, raises a crucial, but somewhat wince-inducing, question: "in 21st century America, education beyond high school is the passport to the American Dream. But how much and what kind of post-secondary is really needed to prosper in the new American economy?" 

The essential problem highlighted is that there really is only one "acceptable" path to becoming highly-educated that the is recognized by the US job market. High school to college (selective, preferably) to career. And this path is rife with inefficiency and inequality. 

There's a ton of data in the report that brings the inefficiencies and inequities to light. Roughly half of American kids not entering college, and then only about a third of those who enter higher ed get a degree within six years. And it's not even clear that bachelor degrees even prepare kids all that well for jobs in adult life. Many of the skills employers value are not at the core focus of traditional programs and, while BA candidates carry much of the student debt (student debt now accounting for more debt then held by credit card holders in aggregate), in some areas, kids with associate and professional degrees actually out earn their peers with bachelor degrees.

So why such the hard sell? Why does our society puts such an emphasis on the four-year degree? One thing Bob said, which resonated strongly with me, was that the "college for every kid" mantra that drives much of education reform today might just be our industry's version of "don't ask, don't tell." A cynic might wonder if our system is better designed to just insulate adolescents and young adults from the job market in order to avoid competition for jobs and work on industry's part to create meaningful opportunities that would allow kids to gain real skills and become stronger, smarter employees in the long term. Is there just a hidden agenda here?
 

As someone who believes in the power of public education to increase mobility as well as the fact that every kids has the potential to go just about anywhere with the right preparation, I'm not quite so cynical. I don't want to think that we shouldn't focus on college as the goal. Every kid should have the opportunity to choose traditional higher ed and many express the desire to do so. Part of this comes from my own feelings about what I got out of college and the fact that I want everyone to have that experience if they want it. Another part comes from my own fears that if college isn't the goal for all kids, we'll backslide to a state that makes college the goal for only some kids, reinforcing the social inequalities I fight to reduce every day.

But that's the crux of this issue, I guess. We ed reformers have to accept that fact that every kid having the choice to go and skills to succeed in college is different than forcing every kid to do so. In addition to building a educational system that actually gives kids the skills and competencies needed for college and the real world, there's also a broader job here of rethinking pathways to success. This rethinking needs to involve a lot of constituencies, including K-12 and higher ed, industry, parents, and, yes, kids. 

Lighting the match... adding the first tinder...

As a student in the field of education (the Harvard Doctor of Education Leadership-- a brand spanking new program designed to take 25 of us ed reformers and make us into cross-sectorally trained leaders for tomorrow), I'm constantly coming across new ideas that I wish I could share with the larger world. There are so many ideas out there, in the academy but also in pockets of activity nationally, that doesn't make it into the light, doesn't get replicated, doesn't translate to transformation.

This blog is an attempt on my part to push a little more of my learning out into a bigger space for consumption. By setting alight a few ideas, perhaps it will grow into a bigger flame to gather around or navigate by. A balefire.

And perhaps someone will read this and then share that idea with another person who might put that idea into action or even develop something new of their own. Suddenly we have more fires out there to capture our attentions, acting as beacons in the darkness to light our way.