Feb 25 2007
Accessing Learning Opportunities
The Center for Leadership in Education facilitates a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Consortium of educator teams from schools in Northeast Ohio. UDL has become even more relevant to today’s students and the future of public education as we realize the importance of offering student’s multiple representation of content to increase their awareness of the wealth of resources available outside the classroom. UDL helps teachers recognize their emerging role as “guides” as students travel through the learning process. We no longer can teach student’s all they need to know to succeed. We must accept the responsibility of helping them learn to access information when they need it, then discern the validity and merit of the resource and apply it to their lives. This critical thinking skill will determine their success within the educational system and in their futures.
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I recommend the following article to all teachers and administrators in Lorain County. The article as well as embedded references are a topic for many conversations. The article is found at Innovate
The April/May issue of Innovate focuses on the Net Generation, a generation
that grew up with video games, computers, and the Internet. The
expectations, attitudes, and fluency with technology of this new generation
present both a challenge and an opportunity for educators. In this special
issue of Innovate, guest edited by Chris Davis, we examine how educators
and educational systems can respond to the challenge and leverage the
opportunity.
Kassandra Barnes, Raymond Marateo, and S. Pixy Ferris introduce the issue
by describing the learning styles and preference of Net Generation learners
and the implications of these attributes for educators. (See this page)
The technology that shapes these students’ lives can seem dangerous to
adults. Mark van ‘t Hooft explores the issue related to online social
networking and online communication tools by teenagers. While the first
reaction of many parents and schools is to limit access to these tools to
protect children, van ‘t Hooft argues that children can show adults
the use and benefits of the technology, while adults can develop
children’s understanding of the responsible use of technology. (See this page)
Because many higher education classrooms are a mix of students from
multiple generations, understanding the needs of all generations is key to
being effective, especially when using technology to support learning. To
meet this need, Paula Garcia and Jingjing Qin describe a research project
that analyzed the differences and similarities between traditional and
non-traditional students in regards to comfort with technology and
attitudes about learning. (See this page)
To understand the consequences of Web 2.0, Dana Wilber discusses her
ethnographic study of a Net Generation college student illustrating some of
the ways that online journals and social networking sites are used by
students and providing a window for educators to consider how these tools
can be used to support learning. (See this page)
Of course, technology continues to evolve in ways that shape education.
John Thompson describes the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 and how this
affects learning and teaching. Where Web 1.0 provided access to massive
volumes of information, Web 2.0 provides users with the ability to become
producers as well as consumers of this information. This technology
transition puts pressure on education to also become more interactive and
enable learners to be producers as well as consumers. (See this page
The impact of the Net Generation reaches beyond the classroom. Holly
Peterson discusses how to engage alumni from this generation, using a case
study of one organization’s effort to establish an online alumni
community. This experience can guide anyone attempting to create an online
community; the lessons learned may apply to attempts to reach current
students as well as alumni. (See this page)
Finally, in his Places to Go feature, Stephen Downes discusses Google as
the site that most reflects the spirit and characteristics of the Net
Generation. Using the Google search results for “Net Generation,” Downes
reflects on how the Net Generation accesses, creates, and uses information.
Just as Google represents a dramatic change in managing information
compared to traditional forms of media, the Net Generation represents a
changing approach to media. (See this page.)
We hope that you enjoy this special issue of Innovate. Please explore our
discussion boards, live webcasts, and other features as well. And please
forward this announcement to colleagues who are interested in using
information technology in creative ways.
Verizon unveiled its new online portal for educators to access curriculum. Thinkinfinity.org is just one site that teachers and school administrators should check out as an example of how online curricular resources will become increasingly available in years to come. How will these tools be integrated with quality teaching by excellent teachers?
http://www.marcopolo-education.org/about/press_release_2007_03_27.aspx
Perhaps I am wrong, but I do not think that colleges and universities are dwelling on remedial courses on research. I think the problem is more basic: they find that they must offer remedial courses on reading, writing, and mathematics. They also frequently demand that new students must take them.
At least that is true at the community colleges. For example, the table below shows some recent data:
Percent of first year students in remedial courses in two year colleges:
Public 2yr College Reading 20; Writing 25; Mathematics 34
Private 2yr College Reading 11; Writing 18; Mathematics 23
Source: Remedial Courses: Estimates of Student Participation and the Volume of Remediation in U.S. Community Colleges, By Hunter R. Boylan and D. Patrick Saxon, National Center for Developmental Education,
http://www.ncde.appstate.edu/reserve_reading/Remedial_Courses.htm
Once again, testing or no testing, the problem in elementary education and secondary education appears that it is much more that the students are not gaining a sufficient level of skills and general knowledge, whether or not they have “learned how to learn.†As for “thinking critically,†perhaps they can… as long as between 10 and 30% of them are not required to read, write or do math as part of their thinking.
Educators should remember that the push for testing that resulted in NCLB legislation was much more a result of the existence of a large percentage of unprepared primary and secondary students than it is a cause.
Hi Joe:
Are you saying that a decline in the teaching of “skills and general knowledge” has resulted in increased need for remediation? After spending twenty years in and around public education, I can attest to the fact that the teaching of facts and general knowledge is alive and well.
I urge you all to check out the blog site of Dr. Michael Kirst, Professor Emeritus of Education and Business Administration at Stanford Univesity.
http://thecollegepuzzle.blogspot.com/
A GREAT review of the issue of remediation and its definition can be found at Crosstalk
http://www.highereducation.org/crosstalk/ct0107/voices0107-kirst.shtml
He addresses the issue of remediation and college preparedness in public schools by saying
College Success Begins in High School
More than 70% of high school graduates now go on to postsecondary education. Yet, a new study of high school student engagement reveals some major concerns about the level of college preparedness of those students.
See “Voices of Students on Engagement: A Report on the 2006 Survey of Student Engagementâ€.
Using a national sample of grades 9-12, the survey found that:
· Fewer than half of the students go to high school because of what happens within the classroom environment
· A great majority of students are bored every day, if not in every class
· 43% spend 0-1 hour doing written homework, 83% spend 5 hours or less
· 55% spend 0 or 1 hour per week reading and studying for class, 90% spend 5 hours or fewer
· Students want more active learning such as peer working groups and presentations
· Girls report being more engaged across all dimensions of high school engagement than boys. (Girls were 58% of 4 year college graduates in 2006).
Engagement within a high school context is about a student’s relationship with the school community (adults, peers, curriculum, facilities, etc). Importantly, however, I believe that this study should raise concerns that many of these high school students will become at-risk college students who will not experience college success for the very reason that they were not sufficiently engaged in high school.
posted by The College Puzzle at 4/01/2007
The report he cites can be found at
http://ceep.indiana.edu/hssse/pdf/HSSSE_2006_Report.pdf
His analysis makes our discussion one that every educator and leader needs to consider as we envision schools that will prepare students to succeed academically and intellectually in college.
First of all, I think that we agree on things perhaps more than you expect.
For example, among other things, I believe the following:
1. College is not for everybody, and probably too many people feel compelled to get some college.
2. Public schools are being asked to play too many roles,
3. Learning how to solve problems is a good thing,
4. Learning how to work in groups successfully is a good and necessary skill, and
5. Children from stable families with rich intellectual environments generally have an advantage over those who are not.
It is not unusual for people to lay school achievement problems at the feet of bad or difficult parenting. No doubt some of that is true. But moving away from the anecdotes into the data we find that the general trend, when American schools are compared with their peers in other countries, shows a different result. According to a study by the U. S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, the longer the average American student is in school, the further behind he or she falls compared to peers in other countries.
In the fourth grade, the averages of American students is equal to or better than 88% of those in the tested other countries in science and 54% of math. As time goes on, so does the comparison. In the eight year of school the Americans outperform 59% of other countries tested in science and 13% in math. In the final year of secondary school, Americans fall to 24% in science and 14% in math. In the advanced category it fell to 6% in math and 6% in science. That means that of the average, American students out performed those of only six percent of the other countries participating. (See: “Highlights from TIMSS,” NCES 1999-081)
When children are in infancy, the family is the dominate influence. As time goes on and as the child enters and progresses in school, the family typically becomes less and less of an influence on the child’s education. The school becomes relatively more significant. This and the test scores cited above, strongly indicate that American families (when compared to those in other countries) are a relatively rich learning environment for their children. Conversely, the schools are a relatively poor environment. Given that the scores fell from an 80% level to a 6% level in eight short years, it appears that the school environment is so lacking that it is alarming.
Educators in public school systems tend to sound alike. The common refrain goes something like this: “We deemphasize the learning of mere facts. Rather, we teach the kids how to think critically, cooperate in group projects, and learn how to learn.” The test scores indicate that the kids had better “learn how to learn.” They have done so little learning in school, perhaps they can do some later.
Knowledge and skills are what is lacking. I see no way that any amount of “learning how to learn” or “critical thinking” is going to make up for this kind of deficit. At these levels, we are talking about ignorance. We’re talking about achievement and knowledge on a par with or worse than third world countries. These are countries where much of the populace still looks out for the “evil eye” and is on guard against “djinn” evil spirits.
My concern here, is not so much for the children in the college preparatory, or advanced academic programs. The schools tend to do reasonably well for these students. In many cases, they are smart enough and motivated enough to make up for institutional deficits on their own.
My concern is for the great middle. It is for those students whose cognitive abilities are at or near (no more than one standard deviation from) the population mean. These are children that during their elementary and secondary schooling, should be able to gain very respectable knowledge of the country, its history, its culture, its language, where it sits in the world and should have the skills necessary in expression to be a least respected in the wider world. I fear that many, if not most, of today’s graduates do not fit this description.
On another post, it has been pointed out that basic skills are not so important to a welder or a machinist. Really? I was a department head on a U.S. Navy destroyer. During my time there, one of my duties was to see to it that the enlisted men in my department developed in their specialties. They were the ship’s electricians, machinists, welders, ship-fitters, boiler tenders, engine operators, plumbers and fire fighters. In short, they kept the ship’s machinery operating. In order to understand their equipment, do their jobs and progress in their careers, they all had to read the manuals, solve the mechanical problems, keep the records and take and pass the written tests. All of this required the basic skills of which I write.
Other anecdotes can be instructive. For example, at a recent gathering, I was introduced to a teacher who had recently left her employment at a troubled public school to take up employment at a charter school (also a public school) oriented around serving those students who had been thrown out every other school they attempted. She went on and on about how happy she was that she made the change, how much more stimulating her new environment was, and how rewarding was the work. I pointed out to her, that socio-economically and achievement-wise, there was no material difference between the old group of students and the new one. She agreed.
One difference between the two schools was that in the first one neither teachers nor students chose to be there. In the second one, they both did. In the first school, there was a fifty percent dropout rate. The second school took students who dropped out or had been thrown out, put them back into school and graduated 90% of them. Those that graduated did so by passing the state’s educational assessment exam. In other words, they graduated because they earned it.
To a large extent, each and every public school must meet the needs of every kind of student, every level of talent, every type of behavior, every type of challenge and every type of attitude. This, together with society’s seemingly permissible attitude about school discipline, seems to me to yield a nearly impossible task. There are no opportunities for schools to differentiate and students or their parents to self organize, finding schools that meet their child’s needs. The only way that it is allowed under current practice is to move to another town. Choose your suburb well. Choose one that has schools that fit your child’s needs and interests.
To me, a better idea is to promote school choice. Let parents choose schools for their children. Let schools choose to admit or not admit students. Let the funds follow the student. Let schools be run by parent groups, school boards, contractors, or any or all of the above. Let them self-organize. Set standards and monitor performance. It will promote some level of specialization and competition within the system. It works nearly every place it’s tried.
Finally, I believe that many young people who continue their studies beyond high school do so because they are nearly unemployable unless they do. They cannot read well enough, write well enough, speak the common language in anything but slang, nor can they employ even simple logic or solve simple arithmetic problems. They are ignorant and they realize it. Happily, they do some critical thinking about the situation they are in and since they have learned how to learn, they, at last, go on to do some of it.
They do it at a school of their own choosing that in turn, chooses to admit them.
As far as volunteering, I think I will pass. I remember being at a meeting in Oberlin not too long ago, where a group proudly discussed the number of fourth graders in their volunteer tutoring program for reading. I did the math in my head (Oberlin schools taught you to do that when I went there). This indicated to me that they were admitting to two things: a) approximately 40% of Oberlin’s fourth graders were in tutoring programs, and b) relatively untrained volunteers could accomplish what self-proclaimed, highly trained professionals using the “latest, research based reading programs” could not: teach a kid how to read.
I note that surgeons (even pediatric surgeons) do not call for volunteers to help clear their backlog; nor do other professionals. I don’t think that teachers should either. They should do what they are paid to do and get it right. They should do so even if that means that they have to give up on some charming theories proffered by respected intellectuals, and do what works. (See: http://www.lewrockwell.com/taylor/taylor26.html, or for more depth: http://www.sopriswest.com/pdfs/whole_language_high_jinks.pdf)
Let’s look at some of the fundamentals of the task that (to a very large extent) public education has carved out for itself.
First of all, consider the concept that I have seen in the education literature that hopes that “every child will be taught by an excellent teacher.†I call this the “Lake Woebegone dream.†All children are not above average, and never will all teachers be excellent. There will be some that are excellent, some that are good, and some that are mediocre. How else would we know that the excellent ones are, in fact, excellent?
The real trick is to design a system where the average teacher can be successful and teachers that cannot or will not perform can move on.
There exists a similar issue with students. While I have only anecdotal (and experiential) evidence for the following, I confident that what I am about to describe is true.
A wise and experienced education consultant once told me that again and again, he would see excellent classes, filled with hard working and dedicated students fall into chaos once the population of students with behavior problems reached approximately 15% of the class.
He described what happened when classrooms or complete schools that would receive a relatively small number of students with disciplinary problems. He described how the new students would, in his words, “look around and see everybody else working. The peer pressure would cause most of them to knuckle down and do their best. But once the population of ‘cut-ups’ reached 15% or so, they would get the upper hand. They would feed on each other’s behavior, disrupt the class with near impunity, and the performance of everyone would plummet.†A tipping point had been reached.
Students have wide differences in cognitive ability. I know that Howard Gardner and his followers assert a theory of multiple intelligences, where individuals have varying abilities in various disciplines. Some go so far as to say that every child is gifted in at least one of these “intelligences.†No doubt some have better talents for arts, sports, socialization, politics, or any number of things than some others. Nevertheless, we are concerned here about the ability to absorb, understand and build on communications, problem solving, mathematics, science, history and the like. This is cognitive ability, roughly measured by IQ.
Like it or not, the IQ’s in the population of the United States is distributed in accordance with what is known in mathematics as the Gaussian or “normal†distribution. The mean of this distribution is 100, and it has a standard deviation of about 15.
(See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IQ_curve.svg)
Lewis Terman (1916) developed the original notion of IQ and using very politically incorrect terms, proposed this scale for classifying IQ scores: a) Over 140 – Genius or near genius; b) 120 – 140 – Very superior intelligence; c) 110 – 119 – Superior intelligence; d) 90 – 109 – Normal or average intelligence; e) 80 – 89 – Dullness; f) 70 – 79 – Borderline deficiency; and g) Under 70 – Definite feeble-mindedness.
No doubt the names, perhaps even the classifications have changed, but it still remains that 90% of the population have an IQ of 80 points or above. It also means that if we have a random class of say 100 students, you can be confident that about 5 of them will an IQ of 125 or above and probably 1 will have an IQ of 135 or above. About 15 of them will have an IQ of 85 or below.
An Australian researcher, of whom I have lost track, estimated that typically an individual with an IQ of 85 will have to be introduced to any new concept that he is capable of grasping eight times in order to understand it. A person with an IQ of 135, needs be introduced to the same new concept only once. My life experience tells me that this research is at least close to being correct.
I do not understand how the same class, or perhaps even the same school can deal with this type of diversity in cognitive ability when everyone is grouped together. Either many will be bored or many will be confused. I see no other outcome. But that is what we do.
Suppose we design or educational system so that students with a reasonable level of diligence and motivation can be expected to do the following: a) IQ >85, graduate from high school, b) IQ> 107, capable of college work, c) IQ> 112, can complete college, and d) IQ > 125 capable of graduate degrees. I submit that is approximately what we do now.
Given these assumptions: approximately 15% will not graduate from high school, 23% will graduate from college and 5% will go on to get a graduate degree of some sort
The only way that we can assure that all students will graduate from high school is to make high school such a watered down experience as to make the degree meaningless.
It seems that we could predict that a school that tried to be all things to all students could soon be densely populated with bored students, angry students, confused students, and resentful students longing for a way out.
The only way to keep many of the students in such school is through some sort of societal coercion.
I ask if this does not sound familiar?
This is the world outside of Lake Woebegone, where not all children are above average and some children do get left behind. But all children are important and the education offered should be attuned to their abilities and to their needs.
What do we do about this?