Month: October 2012

We are presently in the final stages of the election season and some of the concepts used to describe political strategies seem helpful in understand other estimates to influence decision makers.

I read a lot of books intended to influence educators and educational practice. My Audible and Kindle accounts now show in excess of 150 books – most focused on education and/or technology. I don’t offer this description to impress anyone. My colleagues probably assume I should devote of my reading time to research journals. I spend time the way I do because I think it is important for me to understand K-12 issues and influencers.

Anyway, the last two books I have read are Salman Kahn’s “One world school house” and Will Richardson’s “Why school?” To many who recognize these authors, the perspectives offered might seem to be about as different as it gets. I do take pride in exploring competing perspectives. However, while Richardson offering is about what I expected, I thought the Kahn book was far different from the stereotype often hung on him. To return to the distinction I raised in the opening paragraph, I would label the Richardson book as “energizing the base” and the Kahn book as “influencing the uncommitted”. By the way, both books are well written.

If you are looking to read one book, my suggestion would be Kahn’s effort. Read this book if you think you understand the Kahn Academy and assume it is about lecturing, more of the same, or in some way “anti-teacher”. The arguments in the book are far different. Chose the Kahn book if you appreciate someone connecting tactics with a research justification. The story of the Kahn Academy is also just interesting.

There were a few things that made me uncomfortable:

• I get nervous when anyone offers a brain based justification for a learning experience
• I understand “short term memory” a little differently. The difference between a few days and a few years does not involve short term memory (the concept of consolidation was mentioned).
• I really like the mastery learning perspective, but the work of Keller would seem a better fit than the group-based Bloom approach or the Winnetka plan. (I should generate a post on the potential of technology and implementing for mastery).

Some of my personal research involves efforts to implement mastery strategies. I can say that the details can be important and I must search for formal research based on what Kahn has done. I know of no such research at this time. I would think the data would be there and I would hope someone would make the effort to submit papers for formal review.

Kindle offers the opportunity to share highlights and notes with other Kindle readers. I have made my annotations of these books public.

 

P.S. – While I encourage educators to read this book, some may prefer a video format. The Kahn Academy offers a video explaining the broader vision of the Academy.

I often have a particular frustration when listening to politicians and pundits. The frustration is basically that pronouncements offer no opportunity for give and take. I cannot tell what the person really meant and I am more concerned with how the remark may be interpreted by others. There is a certain ambiguity in simplicity that can often validate wrong-headed positions. Pundits often over simplify.

I have been reading a new Kindle book by a popular blogger. This writer believes K-12 education should be reformed and technology should play a major role in the new version.

One of the specific concerns in this short book is the focus on fact learning and I think (but I am not certain) on the focus on fact learning in assessment. The authors contends that we should “Stop asking questions on tests that can be answered by a Google search.” This proclamation is followed by a specific example of a question from the New York regents exam that the author found particularly annoying. The question concerned “Which geographic feature impacted the development of the Gupta Empire?” OK, I did not know either, but I have not studied history for some time.

Here is my concern. What specifically should educators conclude from such arguments?
a) Fact learning no longer serves a meaningful purpose and should not be emphasized in instruction?
b) Fact learning may serve a purpose, but skills that build on fact learning should be the focus of evaluation?

I do not know if the author took a clear position. There are too many issues here. There is the role of fact learning. There is the focus of student evaluation. There is the concern that the outcomes of student evaluations are leading to destructive behaviors regarding how students are taught and how teachers are evaluated. Where in this chain off concerns do we see the problem and which are legitimate concerns?

One should not leap to conclusions until the issue at stake is made clear. However, I feel the need to say:
1) Fact knowledge is essential. Clearly there is nothing wrong with searching for information when we lack factual or conceptual knowledge. Knowing how to answer our individual questions is extremely important and searching the Internet is a practical way to acquire information we lack. However, the value of search does not eliminate the value of existing knowledge to learning and understanding. I regard this position as “good science”. If you are interested, I would suggest the recent efforts of Daniel Willingham to dispute popularized claims that fact knowledge is not valuable (his book is great, but here is a quick summary).
2) Tests rely on sampling. It is impractical to evaluate every possible thing a learner might know or be able to do. items should be representative of the skills and knowledge we want students to have. I am not certain that one should read too much into a given item (such as the item regarding Gupta). We did not focus on India much years ago, but would your reaction to understanding the connection between a geological feature and the development of an empire have been different if the question had been “What role did the Cumberland Gap play in the expansion beyond the original colonies”?

Arguing that the focus of tests should extend beyond factual knowledge, that test preparation has received too much emphasis diminishing the time spend on instruction and learning, and that the results of examinations have been used to judge rather than inform instruction are positions I strongly endorse. These are policy issues. The relationship between existing knowledge and learning is not about policy, it is about how human cognition works.

If you want to google something try “existing knowledge and learning”.