Category: General

Quality of your summer reads

The summer is a great time to do some reading. Various folks, including me, have offered educators some suggestions for what they might read. I think putting some time into the “long form” is a great form of professional development. However, there is still reason to be critical when making selections on which you are willing to spend time.

I recently encountered an extended blog post that emphasized this point. The post references Drezner’s book The Ideas Industry which expresses the concern that many now encounter “thought leaders” promoting one cause or another. I suppose many such books are encouraged by what I think is a much more intense interest in “political issues”, but books for educators focused on leadership, how students learn, or how to teach some new skill or knowledge areas should be included.

The blog post author offers what seems a familiar list of critical thinking skills to be applied to pretty much any form of content (quoted below) but were focused in the post on books for professionals.

  1. Do they have an advanced degree in the field they’re discussing? If not, do their cited sources?

  2. What’s their methodology? Does their case rest on anecdotal evidence or scientific studies? Do they cherry-pick certain studies and ignore those that don’t support their view?

  3. What’s their motive? Who funded their research? Are they transparent about funding and other organizational ties?

Many of the books for educators I would place in this “thought leader” category offer few references of any type, but do tend to throw in a number of anecdotes to support their advocacy.

The blog post uses Gladwell’s book Outliers as an example. I happen to like Outliers and would still recommend the book even recognizing the validity of the complaint. The blog criticized the 10,000 hour rule Gladwell highlights in the book. I have also read accounts carefully demonstrating that the 10,000 standard need not be met and I suppose arguing that those who use this value are discouraging educators from taking on instructional challenges that cannot commit this amount of time could be an issue.

In fairness to Gladwell, I would describe the intent of Outliers a little more broadly. I interpret the book as an argument against “extreme genius” being responsible for the accomplishments of certain individuals (e.g., Bill Gates, the Beatles). It has been some time since I read the book, but I remember the explanation suggesting that “outliers” tend to be talented individuals who have the luck to fall into an endeavor or area before others and to work very hard. So major accomplishments are a matter of talent, luck and hard work. So, from Gladwell’s anecdotal analysis, such achievements result from more than talent.

Gladwell did not make up the 10,000 standard. If I remember from cognitive psychology textbooks, the 10,000 value comes from studies of the development of expertise. So, Gladwell did have some basis for using this value and it was probably appropriate to the examples he used (self-taught programming, musical creativity, etc.).

I do agree with the blog authors concern regarding the glut of “thought leader” books and critical analysis is certainly warranted.

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Why not do something obvious, but innovative?

So many education leaders and politicians interested in education are urging that educators innovate. My reaction typically is to question just what such exhortations are supposed to accomplish. When in a pessimistic mood, I am likely to note that this is what politicians say when they do not want to provide resources and want to appear to be doing something. For education leaders, urging innovation can be a way to encourage without offering a direction. When I feel more positive, the “it is time to innovate” message could be a willingness to admit you don’t know what should be done, but want to encourage practitioners to take risks with the reassurance that failures will be tolerated.

Let me propose something a little different. I think I can begin with an obvious, but neglected issue and suggest a remedy. The remedy may require some resources because I am not a believer in magic.

I would argue that the most ignored variable in education practice is time. In fact, actions taken often seem to work in contradiction to the reality that learning takes time. For example, a current recommendation is that we abandon home work. Without home work, students could have more time for themselves and teachers would have less content to review. Without getting into the issue of what is assigned as  home work, note that getting rid of out of school assigned activities reduces the time devoted to learning. Adding new topics to be learned is another way to reduce the time available for existing expectations. Coding, information literacy, money management and other worthwhile recommendations abound. Additions are often made without precise recommendations for what should be deleted. Deletions are the hard part because there are always folks who promote the arts, physical education, etc. as essential to a well-rounded education. Watering everything down is a solution when deletions are difficult.

A well-documented education issue is the summer slide. This term describes the decline in previously learned knowledge and skills that occurs while students are out of school over the summer. In addition, it is established that the magnitude of the slide is not a constant across certain groups; e.g., those students from lower income homes lose more. This makes sense as wealthier families can provide more opportunities for their children when the children are out of school. Some solutions are fairly obvious. For example, reading is a great way to develop knowledge and maintain or improve reading skills. Take your kids to the library.

The variable of time in education can have other meanings. Across my career I have been interested in the challenge of individual differences in time required to learn. Those learners with less aptitude and poorer backgrounds for specific skills require more time to acquire those skills. These differences in time required are difficult to address in group-based instruction, but failures to adjust to the needs of individuals increases time required for those who cannot keep up and bores the learners who must mark time while waiting for peers. Variability within a group increases continually increasing the instructional challenge. Practices such as ability grouping seem an adaptation on the surface but we know that such practices are far from ideal with known issues such as labeling impacts learners in ways that reduce motivation. Individualizing time to learn is one of those things we largely conveniently ignore.

I think real innovation begins with the precise identification of major challenges. My suggestion for the precise identification of a major challenge would be finding a way to increase the time available for learning.

So, here is something innovative to consider. Why not consider how to use the time available over the summer in a productive way? Visits to the library are great, but why not also take advantage of technology? If your school provides laptops, chromebooks, or ipads, are students allowed to take these devices home over the summer? If so and even if students must UYOD (use your own device), do educators take the time to offer suggestions or formally engage learners in the productive use of these devices? There is a lot of talk regarding the value of student-guided learning and passion projects. Why not create some curriculum units, donate a couple of hours a week, and find ways to engage parents with their kids in productive summer projects? The summer is a perfect time for technology-facilitated innovation. Why not increase the time committed to learning?

 

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Grade grubbing valedictorians??

Karen Arnold has authored a study based on the longitudinal study of high school valedictorians that has generated a lot of online media attention among educators. Arnold followed the careers of 80 or so high school valedictorians and found that while most did quite well, they are prone not to accomplish major things. I have not read her book, but the following two summaries from which I have selected specific quotes:

From Time:

So why are the number ones in high school so rarely the number ones in real life? There are two reasons. First, schools reward students who consistently do what they are told. Academic grades correlate only loosely with intelligence (standardized tests are better at measuring IQ). Grades are, however, an excellent predictor of self-discipline, conscientiousness, and the ability to comply with rules.

From the Daily Beast (Grade grubbing valedictorians)

There was little debate that high school success predicted college success. Nearly 90 percent are now in professional careers with 40 percent in the highest tier jobs. They are reliable, consistent, and well-adjusted, and by all measures the majority have good lives.

But how many of your number-one high school performer peers go on to change the world, run the world, or impress the world? The answer seems to be clear: zero.

…..

Valedictorians aren’t likely to be the future’s visionaries … they typically settle into the system instead of shaking it up.

I encourage you to read the complete articles.

My comments here respond not so much to these articles as to the spin put on these articles I have observed on social media. The spin I question is close to what seems to be the sentiment of the Daily Beast title (Grade grubbing valedictorians). The existing research seems to be spun to suggest that K-12 and I suppose college education needs to somehow change to encourage those likely to have more impactful careers.

You might understand the core of my position from a reply I made to a Tweet suggesting that this research suggests that educational practice must somehow change. My comment was – Here is my proposal – I will take the valedictorian and you take a student selected at random. Let’s bet on which individual has the highest income at age 35.

I have both methodological and practical concerns related to what I have seen as suggestions related to this research. What I see as lacking methodologically and practically in the work is the identification of which students should be compared with the valedictorian.

Consider that in a class of 100 students there could be 1 valedictorian and 99 other students. Is it really surprising that one of these 99 might eventually be regarded as more successful than the valedictorian? Life has enough uncertainties that this comparison is hardly a reasonable way to evaluate whether those who are successful in schools as they exist somehow provide evidence that schools should be changed.

It appears that argument is that the problem is somehow conformity and a desire to please. It does make some sense that nonconformists will take paths in life that explore new areas and look at things differently. I can understand this advantage or more accurately put – difference. One question related to this group might be how many of the individuals who fall within this group are extremely successful. Just for sake of argument let’s say that 10% achieve at a higher level than the valedictorian but most of the rest accomplish little and most have difficulty fitting into the expectations of most careers. Should the process of education somehow be modified (you would have to explain just what changes would be required) to encourage and prioritize this group?

For the record, I support programs allowing personal exploration such as 20% or passion projects. Even if what should be done to encourage optimal success for each group, I do not assume that institutions must take one approach or the other. 

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Time for a new online financial model

I have written several posts arguing that online content is not free and the present approach is not sustainable. The argument regarding the false perception of free is that even if you are not paying for online content with cash the online sites are harvesting your information to be sold to interested parties. Information about you is used to manipulate you in one way or another. Someone will pay. The most recent example of someone will pay might be the use of information about users to tailor the political information they received during the 2016 election.

I also believe that free is not sustainable. Quality content (information created to be factually accurate and semi-independent) takes time and skill to develop. How many individuals is it reasonable to assume will provide such content as a hobby? How many of the online services we use could possibly provide such content if the online service had means of support. I suggest both content creators and content hosts must have some means of compensation.

Those with commercial interests are already forcing our expectations of free to be reconsidered. I recently wrote a post describing the soon to be realized plans for upgrades to Chrome (Google) and Safari (Apple). Google promises to block the most onerous ads (pop-ups, video/audio that plays automatically). Apple promises to block all ads AND block cross-site tracking. These companies are taking these steps to protect their own interests. Google makes a high percentage of its income from ads and hopes encouraging higher quality ads will sustain the ad-based content model. Apple has no stake in ads at all and hopes to take advantage of customer annoyance with ads to prioritize their browser and hardware. Whatever the other issues with ads and ad-blockers, companies will take advantage of the situation to limit the value of online ads to content creators and other technology companies. This combination of the long-term value of quality and the willingness of technology companies to find some type of leverage will kill the present funding opportunities.

As an example, check about half-way down in the left-hand column of this blog. You might see the following message:

No ad blocker detected. Thanks for your support.

I run code that detects whether a viewer has an ad blocker installed and returns the message if no blocker is detected. Instead of this message, I could run a short javascript script that sends the viewer to another page that asks the viewer to disable ad blocking. Instead, I just track the data on the percentage of viewers who use ad blocking software (about 18%).

My prediction is that quality information will go the way of streaming music. I would describe this as micro-payments and many of us already accept such a system to listen to music (I pay for Google and Apple music subscriptions). Google music, for example, also allows me to view YouTube content without ads (YouTube Red).

Here is a new approach you will likely learn about soon if you have not already given it a try. Brave is a new project providing a great browser that can be used in three ways – as a traditional browser, as an ad blocking browser, or as a micro-payment browser. As I understand the micro-payment model, users commit a certain amount of money for a month – say $4. Brave will track the sites the user visits for the month and divide up the $4 payment among those sites that have signed up to be paid (described as claiming your share).

I believe there are significant scale-up issues, but here is how this might go. If Brave can get enough individuals to get the system started (pay in a few dollars so that content creators see a return), I predict Brave will offer producers the opportunity to block nonparticipants. It is not difficult to block a given browser or deny access to users employing ad blockers. There will likely continue to be battles between those wanting to block ads and those wanting to block ad blocking. If Brave makes the move I predict, I might decide as a content creator that is it better to have 10 readers paying one cent per view than 100 readers who block my ads or if the revenue from displaying ads seldom results in any income because no viewers click on the ads. There are a lot of ifs in my analysis, but I do think what I describe is possible and I think it makes enough sense that some will give it a try. The micropayment approach ended up winning the music wars because even though some access was free, playing just what you wanted to hear was attractive enough to generate payment.

Whatever you think, take a look at the Brave browser. It is very fast and just an interesting alternative. I am considering throwing in a few bucks a month and possibly enrolling my content as a participant just to see what happens. It appears to be easy to get in and to get out.

I do have one suggestion for Brave. I think more folks would trust your motives if you did not include the “no ads” option. As I understand the argument you make, publishers should be compensated. The argument would be stronger if the options available were limited to a) ads as intended by the publisher and b) the reader-funded mode with no ads.

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Value added evaluations

The expectations of education are constantly changing. While not all parties agree, the purpose of education includes more than the development of vocational skills or at least assumes that the skills required for present employment will not be sufficient to the vocational skills needed in the future.

One popularized approach to describing such expectations is to describe them collectively as 21st-century skills. The skills included are open to opinion, but cognitive skills such as communication effectiveness, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity are typically included. Such goals are not new, but the emphases in moving beyond accumulated knowledge and more task-specific performance skills have increased.

One important characteristic of such skills is that responsibility for development extends beyond a single course or program. I assume this stems in part from the lack of certainty in how such skills will be applied. Flexibility in application seems a natural requirement to meet such uncertainty.

The phrase “value added” is sometimes used to describe growth in a skill over time. Some may be familiar with the concept as applied to teacher evaluation. The notion in that context suggests that instead of comparing student performance at some end point, gain scores would be a better approach to evaluating how successful a teacher has been in working with these students. When used to evaluate the skills of an educator, the method has some intuitive appeal but is not without limitations to clean interpretation. When the concept is applied to the impact of education on any of the 21st-century skills, the approach assumes researchers can measure the level of such skills and one should be able to show improved functioning with educational experiences.

I became interested in the topic after reading the book Academically Adrift. This book described a longitudinal study of college students focused on the development of critical thinking. Using an instrument developed to assess critical thinking, the book came to what seemed to be the shocking conclusion that gains in critical thinking were minimal and pretty lacking with a sizeable proportion of college students.

A similar study has now been released assessing the gains in writing skills (prepublication release from Oppenheimer, at al.). Again, this study used a longitudinal approach with repeated measures of carefully evaluated writing samples. The study found that women and those enrolled in humanities and social science majors were better writers, but did not show greater improvement. College students did reliably improve in writing skill (7%). The researchers make no further comment beyond noting that this improvement could be reliably documented.

These studies are important, but difficult to implement. The skills themselves are difficult to assess and the duration of such studies requires a commitment often to appreciated by those evaluating the significance of research. An examination of the effort required should be noted for those assuming value added demonstrations are a simple matter. I encourage a reading of the methodology from the writing study for those wanting to learn more about what effort is required.

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Layering becomes controversial

I have written a lot lately about an instructional tactic I call layering (search this blog for the layer tag). What I mean by layering is the use of a service that allows an educator or designer to add elements such as highlights, questions or annotations on top of an existing website or online video. Just to be clear because this issue bears on the following comments, the way this work is that the designer enters the address of the content to be commented to a different service that requests the content from the original provider, allows the educator/designer or student to make additions on top of the original content, and saves a way to represent this combination. There is no actual change to the original content, the original content is served each time the composite is requested, all content including ads is served, and the composite is only visible to viewers requesting the content through the layering service.

My writing has focused on the educational potential of such services. The idea is that much of the content existing on the Internet was not designed as an instructional product. Educators/designers can add elements that help learners process this content for understanding and retention. In addition, it can be beneficial for learners to make their own additions (much as you might do while reading a book) for personal use or sharing with peers.

It is important to recognize that the developers of these layering services may not have these exact goals in mind or they may see their services in a broader way. I tend to think in terms of educators and students. The developers of these services may have a perspective closer to “annotate the web”. The idea is each of us can markup public documents as a way to provide input or challenge to the positions taken by original authors.

What has surprised me is that there is a growing backlash against these layering services. I can kind of understand the position of those who are concerned because it seems similar to the anger present in those who resent viewers blocking the ads inserted in content. I can understand the position – you do not have to view the content I created so please view it as I intended.

Another way to understand this backlash is to note that many bloggers or YouTube creators may turn off comments. Some may not want to be criticized, but many have experienced attacks or negative comments that go well beyond just disagreeing with positions taken.

I am listing two sources explaining the opposition to group annotation. One from the Chronicle of Higher Education and one from blogger Audrey Watters. I always recommend that my readers use the links I provide in case my summary of the positions taken by others are simplistic or simply wrong.

There is something kind of interesting about the way we write and link in addressing this specific situation. I see the educational value in layering and in a way I am suggesting that layering should be continued. In a way, I am doing something very similar to what layering accomplishes although in a less precise way. I am taking the work of another and arguing that the position taken fails to see another perspective. I would not have been allowed to do this as an annotation or as a comment, but I am doing pretty much the same thing. I also remember in the early days of the web that some objected to others linking to their content.

Watters blog

Chronical of Higher Ed article

I hope there is a solution to this dilemma. It makes no sense to me that the connection of ideas on the web would require the consent of all involved. This is not the way the web has evolved and it is not the way those of us who have worked in academia have always done our work. We cite and connect, but we do not seek permission. Audrey Watters mentions a script she uses to block a specific annotation service (hypothes.is). If this type of thing were widely available, it might be one solution.

I do see public annotation (when connected to the same layering service) and educational layering (offering the composite to specific students) as different. Like so many tools for working online, the same tool can be used in both ways and I guess flexibility can lead to problems.

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Reasonable student privacy

 

I came across this report from the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) claiming that companies with an online presence are “spying” on children. Google was singled out. This caught my attention as I have been a fan of both the EFF and Google so I have been trying to understand just what is going on.

Spying is a strange choice of words, but I assume it was selected because it attracts attention. The accusation concerns the collection of user data without appropriate disclosure. This is a touchy subject for me. I have been upset that the FCC has eliminated expectations that ISPs not collect and sell user data so it was of great concern that Google be accused of doing something similar within its program for K12 schools. This should not be happening.

Close reading of the EFF announcement did not provide the detail I needed. The EFF “spying” piece reported data collected from educators, parents, and students establishing according to EFF that there was a lack of awareness or acceptance that limited possible safe guards. For example, if parents were aware of issues and wanted their children not be involved this was difficult because it would make more work for administrators and educators wanting to have all members of a class involved in the same project. These issues make some sense, but the issue is not really Google’s fault.

There were still vague references in the recent EFF statement that seemed to place blame on the companies providing services. I eventually located a better source. Several years ago EFF filed a complaint with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) identifying the ways in which Google had violated the provisions of the Student Privacy Pledge. The privacy pledge is a set of provisions a panel established and offered to online companies as a way to document commitment to the provisions. The EFF claims this commitment establishes a legal commitment.

I have excerpted and included below the three major violations the EFF claims in the complaint to the FTC.

Google is violating the Student Privacy Pledge in three ways.

First, when students are logged in to their Google for Education accounts, student personal information in the form of data about their use of non-educational Google services is collected, maintained, and used by Google for its own benefit, unrelated to authorized educational or school purposes.

Second, the “Chrome Sync” feature of Google’s Chrome browser is turned on by default on all Google Chromebook laptops –including those sold to schools as part of Google for Education –thereby enabling Google to collect and use students’ entire browsing history and other data for its own benefit, unrelated to authorized educational or school purposes.

And third, Google for Education’s Administrative settings, which enable a school administrator to control settings for all program Chromebooks, allow administrators to choose settings that share student personal information with Google and third-party websites in violation of the Student Privacy Pledge.

My interpretation and comments
Google does not differentiate what students do as school work and what they might do for personal reasons while connected to their accounts at school or elsewhere. This means Google collects data on:
  • browsing behavior on every single Google-operated site students use,
  • stores what students have searched for on the Internet and the results they click on, and
  • the videos they search for and watch on YouTube.

Even when Google aggregates and anonymizes the student personal information it collects, as the company does for Google for Education core services, Google still uses the data for its own benefit, unrelated to authorized educational or school purposes.

If chrome-synch is enabled, Google collects a student’s entire browsing history and chrome-synch comes enabled on all chrome books or may be enabled by school personnel.

Students could also use other equipment outside of the school setting to complete course assignments and the settings associated with this equipment may allow student data to be collected.

I have tried to summarize and convey concerns accurately, but I do encourage you to read the legal complaint yourself.

If I understand the concerns I am left wondering:

  • What is reasonable to expect, and
  • What do we expect for free?

I suppose Google could add some type of permission priorities that would allow the system to use parent permissions to trump any priorities set by the school. First, there would be the issue of getting parents to input their wishes. This would not be easy. There is also the what do you expect for free issue. What should users expect of Google to safe guard against educators over-riding parental wishes should there be a purposeful or accidental contradiction in what educators and parents want. I must admit to some sympathy for educators who have a couple students whose parents do not agree with assignments for the rest of the class.

The issue of whether the chrome-synch default is set to off or on for Chromebooks could be something Google could address. I am guessing Google does not control this as devices as chromebooks are mainly now provided by other companies and these companies do not sell only to educational institutions. The chromebook providers assume certain benefits of having synch engaged and do not want to explain the advantages and disadvantages to all users many of whom are looking for a simple device and do not want to mess with settings. This would seem to imply that checking the settings would be pushed to schools and there is then the EFF concern that schools may not make the necessary adjustment  (or may even switch the synch feature on for chrome on other devices).

Finally, there is the issue of what students might do on their own at school or at home. Yes, students might do things they should not or they might fail to take precautions that have been recommended to them and their parents. Mixing work and personal interests is certainly something I do all of the time. Expecting Google to somehow control for such behavior seems unrealistic. The risk could be diminished by using only school provided equipment under school supervision, but this seems both unrealistic and contrary to hoping students will work in multiple settings. If EFF wanted to take a strict position on this issue, they would come out against BYOD programs (bring your own device) which would make the issues described here even more difficult for Google and schools.

I am a fan of the EFF. I think identifying some of these concerns is worth doing. However, expecting Google to remedy these issues is unrealistic for multiple reasons some of which would be very difficult to address issues assuming the lack of cooperation from schools, parents, and students. If EFF had discovered that Google was selling student data to third parties, I would be concerned. Google would then be using its free services in a way that clearly was contrary to what it had promised. If parents and educators are concerned about students viewing ads on sites not controlled by Goggle, I would propose that the solution is to stick with Google apps.

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