Learning Aloud

When I am out of town at a conference, I tend to eat a little (actually a lot) more than normal. This, in combination with a lack of exercise, means I can put on about a pound a day. This is not a good thing.

It turns out that the Government has just the thing to help me out – the new Food Pyramid. It appears the new pyramid takes into account some changes in thinking about nutrition and the reality that nutritional needs vary with age, sex, and activity level. The only way to provide everyone their own chart is provide access to a dynamic web site that will generate the chart for you (see following – this will also work for you if you happen to be 56, a male, and exercise regularly under normal cirumstances).

There is no coffee group! I will also have to figure out how much milk is contained in my cafe au lait.

I think there are advantages in looking at the work of content experts as an outsider. It can be advantageous to distance oneself and use observations from other disciplines to see opportunities and pitfalls. Providing K-12 students to function as historians and use primary sources is a common theme at the history conference I am attending. My science education background encourages me to interpret this charge as a way for history educators to engage students in a ???history lab.??? I asked a presenter about this comparison and my question generated a kind of blank look. I guess thinking in this way assumes others also look at such issues as outsiders.

While I am convinced that primary sources and labs represent a useful way to identify commonalities among certain disciplines, I would not attempt to convince history educators to spend class time having their students working with primary sources based on the success of science labs. Evidence from research on the value of science labs is not impressive. What goes wrong and what are the opportunities for a discipline (history)? I think the problem with science labs is that these experiences are too scripted? The labs become a type of recipe-guided, worksheet-completing, task. There is not enough cognitive engagement. Perhaps there are reasons this happens in science labs that may not apply to history investigations. There can be danger in science labs. There is typically an expected outcome that should be achieved. There can be expense and a desire to contain the cost of repeating failed experiments.

The presenter talked about the value of maintaining the adventure in working with primary sources. This may be a way of differentiating the level of structuring that provides guidance from that which restricts thinking.

Image from Virginia Center for Digital History, University of Virginia collection. “Drumming out a soldier”

I seem to be on a NCLB jag lately. USA Today had a front page story describing the NEA suit. The suit focuses on the contention that the government has not followed what was promised in legislation –

“Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize an officer or employee of the Federal Government to mandate, direct, or control a State, local education agency, or school’s curriculum, program of instruction, or allocation of State or local resources, or mandate a State or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this Act.” The NEA position contends “there has been a $27 billion funding shortfall in what Congress was supposed to provide schools to meet the law’s regulations and what has been funded” since 2002.

NEA position statement

The Department of Education web site provides a reply to the NEA position. The ed department claims that funding for education has been increased and urges NEA to quit wasting money and focus on educating children. The Dept of Ed position claims “…studies assert the law is appropriately funded and not a mandate.” The “not a mandate” part confuses me. The Feds say – here is your money spend it how you want, but if you do not do this and this and this, students will be able to go elsewhere, tutoring will be provided, etc. The part about “spend it how you want” is clearly not a mandate, but the part about consequences sounds punitive and thus does imply that the money should be spent in some ways and not others.

This seems to be the kind of argument in which the participants keep repeating the same thing over and over – only louder. On the surface, claims that are being made (increased funding, billions in shortfall) seem to be contradictory and no one wants to put the issues into a frameword that allows a clear picture of whether this is an unfunded mandate or not. Our kids do deserve better than this.

EdWeek Summary

Technology and the teaching of history are not always perceived to go together. SRI presented some data at the Teaching American History grant meeting that ranked what history teachers felt that had learned from associated with a TAH grant. Learning about the classroom use of technology ranked low (infrequently mentioned as a benefit). Someone from the audience responded to this by raising his hand and stating that it was good educators were getting past their focus on technology. I am not certain I would interpret the data in the same way. Technology was not a focus of most TAH grants. Why would those participating in such grants claim they have learned about the classroom use of technology? Such a claim would not be true and not a function of the grants in which they were involved.

I did encounter some cites that promote the use of technology in the study of history:
Center for History and the New Media at George Mason University
Digital History

Cindy works on the Grand Forks Schools History Site.

My previous comments on NCLB have not always been positive, but I am an empiricist and would be convinced otherwise given logical argument or persuasive data.

I am presently attending the “Teaching American History Grant” meeting and an unofficial theme at the conference has been that history is being squeezed out of the curriculum by a preoccupation with “tested” subjects. The problem appears to be especially prominent at the elementary level because individual teachers feel pressure to “encourage” students to perform in some, but not all content areas, and these same teachers make decisions about how the day’s time will be spent. Translated – teacher performance is evaluated based on student language arts and math test performance and teachers focus on these areas. Elementary students tend not to be tested in other areas (e.g., HISTORY). A reactive theme at the conference seems to be – hey, history content can be used to develop reading and writing skills.

This perspective must be widely held and is in need of remedy. A representative from the Department of Education (Department of Education Acting Secretary for Innovation and Improvement Michael Petrilli) addressed the group and reacted to the “squeezing” issue. He did not comment on whether or not the issue was real. Rather, he argued that the teaching of history did not have to be a casualty of NCLB and this was certainly not the intention of those who supported the legislation. He suggested that we need a more positive vision of what schools can look like under NCLB and the problems (e.g., achievement gaps) were certainly real.

He encouraged the audience to differentiate proximal from distal causes. He rejected that distal cause of resources arguing that NCLB has added resources. He focused on the distal cause of political problems (I assume he did not mean Republican vs. Democratic) which appear to be an attack on special interests groups. For example, many object to scripted methods for early reading instruction, but it may be the way to go. More experienced teachers move away from struggling schools resulting in higher average salaries in affluent schools. It would not be popular to move experienced teachers where they are most needed.

The solution NCLB provides “political cover to drive school reform.” I interpret this to mean allow the feds to serve as the heavies for doing what has to be done (popular or not). Mandate certain methods of teaching reading and put the best teachers were they are needed – and blame the decision on NCLB.

What about history? It is tot likely that an emphasis on history will be created by mandated testing. The pressure is not moving in that direction. However, the freedom is there to set such expectations at a state or local level. Why not use the content of history to develop math and literacy skills? Students need to read something – why not history?

I hope I have summarized this accurately. I have tried.

What I am trying to evaluate at this point is whether this is a reasonable position to take. Has the actual distal cause been identified? Will “encouraging” necessary steps (scripted reading, moving qualified teachers) result in long term gains?

Why do “interest groups” encourage practices that have been defined as not ideal in the first place? Wouldn’t the answer to this question be the true distal cause? Perhaps interests groups have not come to the same conclusion regarding what are the most effective practices. Perhaps what are the most effective practices for struggling students are not what represents the best practices for entire groups. Since the presenter encouraged the audience to consider incentives to change, how about a broader consideration of incentives. The opportunity to use expertise to move out of unpleasant work circumstances seems to be allowed in most professions. Skill and cumulative service typically are motivated by incentives such as the opportunity to move up in most organizations, to gain more authority or independence, to take on tasks personally defined as more meaningful, increased salary, etc.

I am not a behavioral psychologists, but I have had arguments with some and I find it very difficult to deal with the position that whether or not a consequence is a punishment or a reinforcer is defined by whether the behavior increases or decreases in frequency. Perhaps we should be attempting to understand why the frequency of more experienced teachers working in struggling schools is decreasing rather than seeing if a more powerful external consequence can be applied to change the existing contingency.

The Christian Science Monitor has an article discussing iPods on campus. I have been seriously considering using my iPod to record and then “post” my Intro Psych lectures in the Fall so I read the article. The article raised some issues that I would never have considered.

For example and simply as a hypothetical possibility, should I be concerned that someone will record my lecture and then share my intellecual property with others?

The Washington Post reports that Adobe will acquire Macromedia. For those of us who have had to deal with the “GoLive or Dreamweaver” authoring tool decision, this is an interesting development. However, as always, I do worry about the shrinking number of companies offering products in several sectors of the business world.