tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17269924137509451172024-03-19T05:35:32.710-07:00Blogs and BadgesA collection of news stories and personal opinions related to the future of learning.Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.comBlogger382125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-58226316500680474702021-12-22T05:53:00.004-08:002021-12-22T11:00:13.194-08:00It matters who they know, not just what they know.<p> </p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6e430072-7fff-6c15-d03d-a795580e6337"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtpKAhBypeHE_X32Qj25ry5GzOWYiWWt8t2k_I7TktEdwPmTZJyd8XxBpmuoACBrBGLpB5p8l0jmcyr9LwnKyVbgYmMsqCLAd3NNqPw0vtpeABYkptQqmezhct02jjUg0mWDawNHpcpZo/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="532" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtpKAhBypeHE_X32Qj25ry5GzOWYiWWt8t2k_I7TktEdwPmTZJyd8XxBpmuoACBrBGLpB5p8l0jmcyr9LwnKyVbgYmMsqCLAd3NNqPw0vtpeABYkptQqmezhct02jjUg0mWDawNHpcpZo/w463-h221/image.png" width="463" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/how-an-asset-based-approach-to-building-students-networks-can-expand-their-opportunities/?utm_source=Ed%20Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12%2F17%2F21" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 170px; overflow: hidden; width: 554px;"><img height="315.3843543186831" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/xm1oSyD6eIuIoUILa7XLx2ccFOMWMK5rVnP-I3ptPy9BlNlSkQqFFjw2k8x8n9t6ovtHnnCl7r63p8qjD7vqgNiOVp473MMJAh0hvPSX6ZXbhK5ESGA0dbaPgbwHzIXvSiMwSxgK" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 3.70403e-14px;" width="554" /></span></span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/how-an-asset-based-approach-to-building-students-networks-can-expand-their-opportunities/?utm_source=Ed%20Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12%2F17%2F21" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 2.25pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/how-an-asset-based-approach-to-building-students-networks-can-expand-their-opportunities/?utm_source=Ed%20Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12%2F17%2F21</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In recent years, the term “asset-based” has become increasingly popular in youth development and education lexicons. It marks an important, and arguably </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: #d9ead3; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">long overdue shift toward understanding and intentionally building on students’ strengths and talents, rather than focusing exclusively on their deficiencies</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">More often than not, however, calls to take a more asset-based approach in schools situate individual students as the locus of control and change. Individual strengths, experiences, and perspectives are celebrated and built upon. </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> But our research on social capital suggests that the concept of assets is accurate yet incomplete. </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The reality is that students’ assets reside not just within, but around them in their networks.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 296px; overflow: hidden; width: 720px;"><img height="296" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/WkbCbFvzHkSPRDH-e2OA94saRlpKI48Oal3NXfmA9m1h1Bpe8bAueWg1OjMYEVKebN3vOeldKOPAmeA8Pn4xPuVOg_lLaHUTxBS_EklSmbWYXKLNlqFPJkVQ7gGS7OiKK5XieMdy" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="720" /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://whoyouknow.org/playbook/take-stock/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 8pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://whoyouknow.org/playbook/take-stock/</span></a></p><br /><ol style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://whoyouknow.org/playbook/take-stock/#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you want to understand broader networks that students have access to outside of your school or program → Try social network mapping: </span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For decades, social workers have used asset mapping, a close cousin to relationship mapping, in order to assess the support networks of their clients. One example is the Social Network Map, developed by researchers Elizabeth Tracy of Case Western Reserve University and James Whittaker of the University of Washington. Their tool helps case managers identify and sort the structure and quality of a client’s support system by mapping relationships into several categories, including family, peers, friends, and co-workers. Researchers recommend doing multiple rounds of relationship or social network mapping because students may forget to include certain connections that make a difference in their lives. You can gain a more complete picture of who your students know and depend on by revisiting relationship and social network maps. Read more about this approach in the article </span><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232542443_The_Social_Network_Map_Assessing_Social_Support_in_Clinical_Practice" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The Social Network Map”</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p></li></ol><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 279px; overflow: hidden; width: 424px;"><img height="279" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/rTCwBJhwK1Pe8VeOxGNQRalUyeRU5IRRkO5-1ERoOTW4B7F7xJ1xGC2Kxl13MKKLPCzI90YUDhdYOap7whISVPtwolUCb1wm0XdvvIMcu9suY1JdFpfz55h8jqiwgW0nq66gypm3" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="424" /></span></span></p><br /><ol start="2" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://whoyouknow.org/playbook/take-stock/#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’re trying to better understand relationships inside your school or department → Try relationship mapping protocols with your team and students:</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Relationship mapping is a strategy that can help schools adjust their practices to effectively forge trusting relationships between students and adults. All it takes is a roster of student names and two sets of different colored stickers for staff to visualize patterns among whom they feel they have a strong relationship with and whom they believe may be at risk for academic, personal, or other reasons. Larger schools and institutions may prefer to move through the process one grade level or department at a time. You can also perform mapping exercises across both staff and students to compare the results. From there, schools that identify students who lack trusting relationships with adults or faculty can direct additional connections and resources accordingly. For example, watch Ted Dintersmith’s Innovation Playlist to see relationship mapping </span><a href="https://teddintersmith.com/innovation-playlist/relationship-mapping/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in action at Jamestown Public Schools</span></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></p></li></ol><br /><ol start="3" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://whoyouknow.org/playbook/take-stock/#" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’re working in a resource-scarce, human capital-scarce environment → Use relationship and networking mapping as a student project to identify latent resources: </span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not only does relationship mapping provide more detailed information regarding whom your students know and turn to—it can also surface relationships that you could enlist more deliberately to expand supports or opportunities at your institution. Make sure you have a shared contact database where you can store these con</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nections so that they remain within reach for your community to tap into in the future.</span></p></li></ol><br /></span>Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-10291769411485526882021-04-19T08:30:00.000-07:002021-04-19T08:30:25.072-07:00Michael Horn on the Purpose of Schooling<div class="container-post" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: freight-text-pro; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 700px; outline: none;"><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;">Through much of the 1800s, a kind reading of history would say that the central role of public schools was to preserve American democracy and inculcate democratic values.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;">In the 1890s and early 1900s, competition with a fast-rising industrial Germany constituted a mini-crisis. The country shifted by creating a new role for public schools: to prepare everyone for vocations. That meant providing something for everyone, with a flourishing of tracks and courses and enrollment in high school.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;">Another purpose was added to America’s schools in the late 1970s and early 1980s: keeping the country competitive. Although this one had echoes of the prior purpose, it was quite different, as the nation became consumed by how students were doing in school as measured through average test scores.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;">The vast choices that students had in a “cafeteria-style curriculum,” the landmark report “<a href="https://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #27bbdd; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">A Nation at Risk</a>” noted, was one “in which the appetizers and desserts can easily be mistaken for the main courses.” Having something for everyone, in other words, was no longer a virtue. It was a vice.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;">Just 20 years later, the primary purpose shifted again to asking schools to eliminate poverty by not just focusing on schools’ average test scores, but instead to make sure that children in every demographic, on average, reach a basic measure of proficiency in core subjects. The theory of action, in essence, was that academic achievement would unlock opportunity.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;">As much of that consensus has eroded in recent years, there has been some drift in the primary purpose of schooling from a political perspective, but what it is at the level of an individual school is a vital conversation to build a coherent model.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;">Schools tackle this in different ways. A common exercise for a school is to construct a portrait of a graduate to try and understand what an individual entering the world in some number of years would need to be prepared to lead a choice-filled and civically engaged life.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;">For my part, I’d argue that the goal at a high level is producing students who are prepared to maximize their human potential, build their passions and lead choice-filled lives, participate civically in a vibrant democracy, contribute meaningfully to the world and the economy, and understand that people can see things differently—and that those differences merit respect rather than persecution. As such, I’d encourage schools to think through five domains as they build specifics around their central purpose and priorities:</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;"></p><div class="tm-tweet-clear" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; zoom: 1;"></div><div class="tm-click-to-tweet" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-radius: 4px; border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px; outline: none; padding: 15px 30px; position: relative; zoom: 1;"><div class="tm-ctt-text" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: none; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><a href="https://twitter.com/share?text=The+goal+of+school+should+be+to+produce+students+who+can+maximize+their+potential%2C+build+their+passions%2C+participate+civically+in+a+democracy%2C+contribute+meaningfully+to+the+world%2C+and+understand+that+people+can+see+things+differently.&via=ChristensenInst&related=ChristensenInst&url=https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/whats-the-purpose-of-schooling/?utm_source=Ed+Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4/16/21" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #27bbdd; font-size: 24px; letter-spacing: 0.05em; line-height: 33.6px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">The goal of school should be to produce students who can maximize their potential, build their passions, participate civically in a democracy, contribute meaningfully to the world, and understand that people can see things differently.</a></div><a class="tm-ctt-btn" href="https://twitter.com/share?text=The+goal+of+school+should+be+to+produce+students+who+can+maximize+their+potential%2C+build+their+passions%2C+participate+civically+in+a+democracy%2C+contribute+meaningfully+to+the+world%2C+and+understand+that+people+can+see+things+differently.&via=ChristensenInst&related=ChristensenInst&url=https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/whats-the-purpose-of-schooling/?utm_source=Ed+Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4/16/21" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: url("../img/twitter-little-bird.png") right top no-repeat transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #27bbdd; display: block; float: right; font-family: "helvetica neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px 24px 0px 0px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: uppercase;" target="_blank">CLICK TO TWEET</a><div class="tm-ctt-tip" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none;"></div></div><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;"></p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; outline: none;">1. Content knowledge.</span> There’s a mountain of research on the importance of academic achievement and content knowledge across a range of disciplines. After students learn how to read, for example, evidence suggests that the ability to distill the meaning of new passages we confront isn’t so much a skill as something that is derivative of our knowledge base about the topic we’re reading. Building academic achievement to at least a baseline is <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-false-promise-of-quick-fix-psychology-11617981093" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #27bbdd; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">important for future life success</a>.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; outline: none;">2. Skills. </span>The purpose of knowledge isn’t necessarily for its own sake, but so that an individual can do useful things with that knowledge and apply it in ways that make a meaningful contribution. Critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and creativity are vital skills that employers report consistently as being more and more important for their employees. The ability to use these skills, of course, is dependent on having some domain knowledge. As in, I can think critically and communicate well about the future of education (some would agree with that statement anyway!), but if you dropped me in a coding job, for example, I would be lost and unable to apply any of these skills. At the same time, as the example of the Minerva Institute shows—and as is described in <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/building-intentional-university" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #27bbdd; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none;">Building the Intentional University</em></a> by Ben Nelson and Stephen Kosslyn, as well as in books like<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none;"> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Thinking-Press-Essential-Knowledge/dp/0262538288" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #27bbdd; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Critical Thinking</a> </em>by Jonathan Haber—these skills can be defined and individuals can learn how to do them in a repeatable and intentional process. As an individual masters these skills in a variety of domains with intentionality—not something the vast majority of schools focus on today—individuals can then more rapidly apply them in new domains as they master its knowledge and lexicon.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; outline: none;">3. Habits of success</span>. Also called character skills, social-emotional skills, and noncognitive skills (my least favorite), <a href="https://preparedparents.org/editorial/focus-on-16-habits-of-success-not-test-scores/" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #27bbdd; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">habits of success</a> revolve around things like self-regulation, executive function skills, growth mindset, self-efficacy, agency, self-direction, and more. Education psychologist Brooke Stafford-Brizard developed a framework around 16 of these habits for Turnaround for Children, which Summit Public Schools has most notably put into action in its schools. These are the sorts of habits that help turn individuals into lifelong learners capable of navigating life’s twists and turns—arguably more important than ever as the half-life of knowledge and skills continues to shrink in the digital age of the knowledge economy. And they can best be modeled, taught, and learned in the context of students’ academic journeys—not as a set of add-on modules.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; outline: none;">4. Real-world experiences and social capital. </span>Connecting school to the real world—through projects, extracurricular activities, externships, internships, and more—is important so that students can build a deeper sense for the different ways in which they can contribute to the world, why what they are learning matters, why certain goals are worth attaining, and what resonates with them, among other meaningful opportunities. If the goal of school is not just to ensure students are prepared academically but also that they have access to good life opportunities and careers, then relationships will also be critical. As Julia Freeland Fisher argues in her book,<em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none;"> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Who-You-Know-Unlocking-Innovations/dp/1119452929/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1535376185&sr=8-1&keywords=who+you+know" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #27bbdd; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Who You Know</a></em>, in today’s world, schools need to engage in this activity. After building a baseline of academic knowledge and skills, who you know often trumps what you know in life. And teaching content knowledge, skills, and habits of success in the context of real-world experiences and the cultivation of social capital can be a critical way to ensure success for all students across all these domains.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; outline: none;">5. Health and wellness. </span>As schools come back from a challenging time thanks to the pandemic, students will have a variety of different challenges around their social and emotional wellbeing, as well as their more basic health and wellness. Although there’s an argument around whether schools should be involved in these areas, for students to learn effectively, if they aren’t in a sound state in their wellbeing or health, learning will be challenging at best—which means it will land in the domain of schools. On top of that, schools have always played some role in health and wellness—witness the long history of physical and health education in schools. But I’d argue that we’ve often distorted the purpose of these sorts of experiences and that we ought to return to a more foundational one around preparing students to live healthy lives—and being sure to see these domains as not separate from academic learning, but as critically integrated.</p><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: none;">If one accepts these baseline ideas, the nuance of how they land in any given schooling community will differ—and the approach to implementing them should likely be personalized based on each student’s distinct needs and background. But as a starting point, taking these domains and building SMART goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound around each would be where I’d advocate starting.</p></div><div class="container-author" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(216, 216, 216); box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "lato regular"; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 700px; outline: none; padding: 30px 0px;"><div class="head-author" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; min-height: 44px; outline: none; position: relative;"><img class="author-photo" src="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/CC-Institute-Gala-9-of-321-150x150.jpg" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-radius: 50%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; left: 0px; max-width: 44px; outline: none; position: absolute; top: 0px;" /><p class="author-name" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #093f52; font-family: freight-text-pro; font-size: 20px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 5px 14px 3px 58px;"><a href="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/results/?authors=michael-b-horn" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #093f52; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Michael B. Horn</a></p></div></div><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: freight-text-pro; font-size: 14px;">Michael is a co-founder and distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute. He currently serves as Chairman of the Clayton Christensen Institute and works as a senior strategist at Guild Education.</span> </p>Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-89077800286087194232021-03-30T08:21:00.003-07:002021-03-30T08:21:44.104-07:00Expanded Learning Time<span id="docs-internal-guid-ce374c41-7fff-ceaa-7ba0-f02431a5d8d4"><h1 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-top: 20pt;"><br /></h1><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 300px; overflow: hidden; width: 232px;"><img height="300" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/9Hpbm26oZL9xlP2oi5253QRT9L8VJcLpxkuZ3ush02e3jXJ9fTft50mSbk8mW4gwEGUMGltpsw_Xtt3rvSaYK64pBarCLH_W8BCoW51BkMckkszfq0jyZPJ0Oh5bdPJI7d5q-h6f" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="232" /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Expanded-Learning-Time-as-a-Strategy-to-Solve-Unfinished-Learning-March-2021.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Download the Brief</span></a></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 15pt 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mar 17, 2021 by Ed Trust and MDRC</span></p><h3 dir="ltr" style="border-bottom: solid #e1e1e1 0.75pt; line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 7.5pt 0pt 7.5pt 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Strategy to Solve Unfinished Learning</span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As the nation continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic and at-home learning continues, there will be a need to help students, especially the nation’s most vulnerable students, complete unfinished learning for weeks, months, and even years to come. Research shows expanded learning time (ELT) is one approach to helping historically underserved students catch up to meet high standards. ELT encompasses programs or strategies implemented to increase the amount of instruction and learning students experience. ELT strategies include afterschool, summer, and in-school programs.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">District leaders considering ELT should follow the research and invest in evidence-based methods to support students to get back on track, while also fostering trusting relationships and providing an opportunity for a well-rounded education. Additional time can be beneficial to students, but only if that time is spent in ways that maximize teaching and learning. Overall, leaders will need to ensure that all school time is used especially well after months of unfinished instruction. ELT can only be effective if time during the school day is also used to efficiently and effectively accelerate learning.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Expanded-Learning-Time-as-a-Strategy-to-Solve-Unfinished-Learning-March-2021.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #f05c22; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this brief</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, we focus on ELT programs that significantly increase the amount of new math and/or English language arts instruction delivered to students.</span></p><h3 dir="ltr" style="border-bottom: solid #e1e1e1 0.75pt; line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 7.5pt 0pt 7.5pt 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What Do We Know About What Works?</span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">District and school leaders considering different ways to accelerate learning will have to make a number of challenging decisions to meet the needs of students experiencing unfinished learning. District leaders will need to make important policy decisions; school leaders will need to make decisions around staffing, partnering with community organizations or providers, scheduling, and curriculum. With each of these decisions, district and school leaders will have to balance what the evidence says is most effective with what is most feasible given their resource constraints and local context.</span></p><br /><h3 dir="ltr" style="border-bottom: solid #e1e1e1 0.75pt; line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 7.5pt 0pt 7.5pt 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How Effective is Expanded Learning Time?</span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We looked at the research to help leaders navigate complicated decisions. The chart below shows how implementing different features of expanded learning impacts its effectiveness.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 488px; overflow: hidden; width: 624px;"><img height="488" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/ocWd8ffWrA99L3W1a6gCEd3wCRnBlZ4DumsSVQI6dQM3VdZ-qgc3sCOGdQpxBV1FS59adC3Go4cOY0CqIRMhK5EirEO543FmlcgmDfT7JVooHH8SFqd2pVJopYRq8EQFZUd8qRjM" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="624" /></span></span></p><h3 dir="ltr" style="border-bottom: solid #e1e1e1 0.75pt; line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 7.5pt 0pt 7.5pt 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Critical Questions for Leaders</span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which students benefit most?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Research shows that increasing the number of hours of instruction students receive during the school day (either during nonacademic class periods or by extending the official school day) can be effective for all age groups, types of students, and subject matter.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Below are critical questions to ask, based on available research, as schools and districts are building plans to completed unfinished learning.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Expanded-Learning-Time-as-a-Strategy-to-Solve-Unfinished-Learning-March-2021.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">DOWNLOAD THE FULL BRIEF FOR EVIDENCE SUPPORTING EACH QUESTION.</span></a></p><h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #faaf40; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How many students should be placed with an instructor during ELT?</span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Smaller classes are better for extended learning time. They give teachers the opportunity to provide individualized instruction, which can be particularly helpful for students experiencing unfinished learning.</span></p><h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #faaf40; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What kind of training and support should schools provide for ELT instructors?</span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most effective ELT programs provide all instructors with pre-service training, on-going training, and 1-to-1 coaching.</span></p><h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #faaf40; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How should schools extend learning time?</span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Extra instruction can take place after school, during breaks, or during the summer. Instruction during any of these periods can be effective if the instruction is carried out by certified teachers and if the curriculum is both individualized and aligned with the content in the regular school day. Scheduling decisions should be made equitably to ensure students and families who already face the most injustices do not face additional barriers.</span></p><h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #faaf40; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How much additional learning time should students receive?</span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Research indicates programs that offer 44 to 100 hours of additional instruction have an impact on student learning. Programs that provide more or less extended learning time are less effective in some cases; however, the effectiveness depends on the subject area.</span></p><h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #faaf40; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What curricula should schools follow during ELT?</span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most effective ELT curricula has content that is aligned with content from the regular school day, and lesson plans that include options for individualized instruction, allowing teachers to tailor instruction to both struggling and high-achieving students.</span></p><h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #faaf40; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is the most effective way to ensure students attend ELT?</span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unsurprisingly, ELT’s effectiveness is directly tied to student attendance. Schools can expect the highest rates of attendance if instruction is provided during the school day, since the extra instruction is part of the regular school schedule.</span></p><h3 dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #faaf40; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How should schools staff ELT?</span></h3><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-right: -12pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5c666b; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students have greater increases in learning in ELT classrooms staffed by certified teachers because of these teachers’ classroom experience, knowledge of the school day curriculum, and familiarity with state standards.</span></p></span><p> </p>Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-13017071976087323962019-10-11T10:24:00.000-07:002019-10-11T10:24:21.437-07:00Don’t just flip the classroom, flip the school dayDon’t just flip the classroom, flip the school day<br />
By: Michael B. Horn<br />
<br />
Oct 10, 2019<br />
Flipping the classroom—in which students independently consume online lessons or lectures and then spend their time in the classroom focused on what we used to call homework—crashed on the scene eight years ago. But if Bob Harris, president of Edudexterity and currently working as the head of human resources for Pittsburgh’s school district, is to be believed, it isn’t enough.<br />
<br />
It’s time to flip the high school day, he says, and he has plans for how to do it.<br />
<br />
The basic idea is that almost all students would benefit from gaining a variety of real work experiences while in high school because they would gain a deeper appreciation for their potential directions in life; an understanding of their strengths, passions and purpose—a glaring gap in high schools that emerged in research for our new book Choosing College—and social capital in the form of mentors and potential professional connections outside of school and the circles of their family and friends, about which my colleague Julia Freeland Fisher has written extensively.<br />
<br />
In Harris’s conception of the flipped school day, students would start their day at 9 a.m.—more in line with the research around when teenagers should wake up and start their days—by reporting to a workplace that could rotate every semester or year.<br />
<br />
After working half a day, the students would then break for lunch and head to school to do their extracurricular activities and work on projects with their fellow students.<br />
<br />
Finally, in the evenings, students would take their classes online from home when their parents are more likely to be at home—also more in line with research that suggests students tend to perform better in courses that meet later in the day. They wouldn’t have homework per se, as work would simply be woven into their online learning experiences.<br />
<br />
One of Harris’s insights is that a big reason school exists as it does is that it plays an important custodial function in the lives of many families. For years, the only way to learn from a teacher was in a classroom.<br />
<br />
But with the advent of online learning, students can theoretically learn anywhere, which means that you can change what you do during the times when it’s important to provide custodial care for students. All too often, students are already doing most of their learning late in the evening anyway. Rather than fight it, why not embrace it?<br />
<br />
All too often, students are already doing most of their learning late in the evening anyway. Rather than fight it, why not embrace it?<br />
CLICK TO TWEET<br />
Plus, far fewer teenagers—roughly 20%—hold a job today compared to a generation ago when 40% did. Flipping the school day would rectify that challenge and fill the morning time in a productive fashion.<br />
<br />
Doing so would also equip students with an understanding of how their learning connected to their potential careers after school, which, in the ideal, would help them build motivation for when and what they learn online—which itself could be far more tailored for their learning needs, both in terms of the choice of courses and in terms of the learning pace and path within the courses.<br />
<br />
It would also seem to present an interesting solution to the return of people’s nostalgia for career and technical education. And by flipping the school day for all students, it could potentially avoid the historical perils of tracking students into academic versus career pathways in high school.<br />
<br />
Flipping the school day for all students could potentially avoid the historical perils of tracking students into academic versus career pathways in high school.<br />
<br />
Finally, flipping the school day could also greatly bolster the counseling function in high schools. Today counselors operate at a 491-to-1 student-to-counselor ratio in high schools, which means there is little time for meaningful advice for students. But by placing students into jobs in the community, schools could potentially leverage a far wider swath of their community’s resources to help counsel and guide students into the choices they make in their lives.<br />
<br />
If no high school wants to go all-in on the experiment, then they could try it as a pilot for a segment of their students. In so doing, they could also use it to create more capacity in their school by changing when and how the building is utilized and providing more shifts for students so that the schools would be open for far longer, act more as community centers, and students could experience smaller class sizes with teachers.<br />
<br />
Given all we know, flipping the school day seems like a worthwhile experiment to me.<br />
<br />
<br />
Michael B. Horn<br />
<br />
Michael is a co-founder and distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute. He currently works as a principal consultant for Entangled Solutions.Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-90811895346983750282019-10-09T05:40:00.002-07:002019-10-09T05:40:56.582-07:00Google for Education Report on 8 Trends in Learning<a href="http://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/future_of_the_classroom_emerging_trends_in_k12_education.pdf?utm_source=web&utm_campaign=FY19-Q2-global-demandgen-website-other-futureoftheclassroom">Google for Education Report on 8 Trends in Learning</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in;">
<span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">A new </span><a href="http://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/future_of_the_classroom_emerging_trends_in_k12_education.pdf?utm_source=web&utm_campaign=FY19-Q2-global-demandgen-website-other-futureoftheclassroom"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 10.0pt;">report </span></a><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">from Google for Education concludes
“You cannot introduce tech successfully by disrupting the relationship between
the teacher and the student. The introduction of tech will have to take place
in the context of the fundamental human interaction in the classroom.”
This approach was emphasized by Karl Nelson of Illustrative Math, who I spent
an hour with yesterday learning about their experience selling core and
supplemental math instructional materials.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-21581078838991359082019-04-25T07:57:00.000-07:002019-04-25T07:57:00.605-07:00The challenges of changing to competency-based learning<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">As Michael Horn, recently wrote, "Fundamentally
the question comes down to this: Do we want our education system to be a
sorting system or a learning system?"</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br /><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="https://hechingerreport.org/inside-maines-disastrous-roll-out-of-proficiency-based-learning/">Inside Maine’sdisastrous rollout of proficiency-based learning</a><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How well-intentioned education and business leaders, backed
by wealthy foundations and a success story from faraway Alaska, sold state
lawmakers on a largely untested theory of change<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
by KELLY FIELD April 19, 2019<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ragan Toppan, a junior at Deering High School, took part in
a walkout last fall to protest a change in the school’s grading policy. Kelly
Field, for The Hechinger Report<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This past fall, Ragan Toppan, 16, walked out of her Algebra
II class at Deering High School to protest her school’s recent switch to
standards-based grading.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Toppan, a junior at the high school, was angry that the
administration hadn’t sought student input about the change, and worried that a
switch to a 1-4 grading system, with a 3 the highest possible grade on some
assignments, would hurt her chances of getting into a good college. On her
transcript, those 3s, which signify proficiency in a standard, would appear as
85s, or B’s.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I shoot for A’s on all my work, but a lot of teachers don’t
give you an option to go ‘above and beyond’ ” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her mother, a longtime English teacher at Deering, sees
things a little differently. Kathryn Toppan switched to a 1-4 scale even before
the administration required it, finding it “less arbitrary” than the
traditional 1-100. “It’s easier to communicate to students where they’re at and
what they need to do to improve,” she said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She sympathizes with students, like her daughter, who have
seen their high school careers disrupted by change. But she believes there is
no other way. “Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair, but there’s sort of a greater
good,” she said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Seven years after the state passed a law that required
Maine’s high schools to award diplomas on the basis of demonstrated
“proficiency” in eight key areas, and nine months after the legislature
repealed that mandate, the debate over proficiency-based diplomas continues to
divide districts, teachers and families here, even as the concept spreads to
other schools and states.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a recent survey of the state’s superintendents conducted
by the University of Southern Maine, roughly a quarter of respondents said they
planned to stick with a proficiency-based diploma, even though the law no
longer requires it. Thirty-eight percent said they would likely return to
awarding diplomas based on the accumulation of credit hours. Another quarter
preferred “hybrid” approaches, and 11 percent said it was too soon to
speculate.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No other state has embraced this model for all their school
systems. We’re not ready for this.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Earle McCormick, a former teacher and state senator<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The only thing most everyone agrees on is this: The rollout
of the 2012 law, LD 1422, was a disaster, plagued by insufficient funding and
inadequate guidance from the top. While the state’s Department of Education
cycled through commissioners (six in six years) superintendents struggled to
figure out the law, largely on their own.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The result today is a patchwork of local policies, with
pockets of proficiency-based grading surrounded by schools that have stuck with
traditional methods of evaluating students — or reverted to them recently.
Districts have spent thousands of dollars on consultants and software upgrades,
and the racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps that the law was supposed to
help eliminate remain largely unchanged.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Related: Documenting Maine’s failure to implement
proficiency-based education<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, as a new governor and legislature grapple with these
gaps, many parents and educators are left asking: How did Maine get into this
mess?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To answer that question, The Hechinger Report combed through
grant databases, legislative records and lobbying disclosures, looking for the
forces and funding behind LD 1422. We spoke with more than two dozen lawmakers,
foundation heads, business leaders and educators about the bill.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The story that emerged is a complicated one, spanning more
than two decades and reaching across the country to a remote district in Alaska
that became a model for Maine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At its heart, though, it’s a familiar tale in American
school reform — the story of how a small band of well-intentioned education and
business leaders, backed by wealthy foundations and armed with optimism and a
few early success stories, sold state lawmakers on a largely untested theory of
change.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Imported from Alaska<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Proficiency-based education is a wonky term, but in essence
it means that students master certain skills before they move up a grade or
graduate. The amount of time they’ve spent in the classroom (“seat time”)
doesn’t matter, nor does the number of credits they’ve accumulated.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
proficiency based learning<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Deering High School, one of the largest in the state of
Maine, is in the midst of a controversial transition to proficiency-based
diplomas. Kelly Field, for The Hechinger Report<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In theory, proficiency-based models let students learn at
their own pace, speeding up if they grasp a concept quickly, and getting extra
help if they struggle. In practice, though, it can take many different forms,
including independent study, learning communities and online programs. It
doesn’t always include changes to grading — and indeed, Maine’s law didn’t
require any.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To supporters like former state senator Brian Langley, a
longtime culinary arts instructor and the sponsor of the now-repealed LD 1422,
proficiency-based diplomas are a way to ensure that all kids graduate with the
skills they’ll need to succeed in a changing economy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“It’s about equity,” he said. The law “was bringing a voice
to the kids who don’t have helicopter parents, so when they left high school,
their diplomas would mean something.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maine’s march toward a proficiency-law began in 1997, with
the adoption of the Maine Learning Results, which set statewide standards in
eight content areas. It accelerated a couple of years later, when the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation began pouring millions of dollars into high
school reform and the creation of small schools. (The Gates Foundation is among
the many funders of The Hechinger Report.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 2000, Tom Vander Ark, the first executive director of
Gates’ education program, heard about Chugach, a district in Alaska that had
seen dramatic gains in test scores after switching to a proficiency-based
model, and he decided to visit.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There, in tiny schools reachable only by plane, Vander Ark
spoke with students who “could tell you exactly what they were learning, why it
was important, and what they had to do to move to the next level in each
subject,” he said in an interview. Each student had a little bar chart on their
desk that tracked their progress toward mastery in each standard.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I was fascinated by it,” he said. “I had never seen kids so
in charge of their learning.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Related: What if personalized learning was less about me and
more about us?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When he returned to Seattle, Vander Ark gave the Alaska
Council of School Administrators $5 million to bring the Chugach district’s
model to six other Alaska districts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The next year, Chugach, with its 214 students spread across
22,000 square miles of glaciers, mountains, islands and wilderness, won the
prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award. The federal award brought
national attention to the district, which created a nonprofit, the Re-Inventing
Schools Coalition, to take its approach nationwide. The group’s acronym, RISC,
was deliberate, according to a book by its creators, “Delivering on the
Promise.” Schools and districts that adopted the model “would take risks in
transitioning to a system fundamentally distinct from the one that was deeply
ingrained in U.S. culture.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 2003, the Gates Foundation gave RISC $5.8 million to train
additional Alaska school districts and to create a research and development
program.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The mission was to hit the tipping point to transform the
education system,” said Richard DeLorenzo, the former superintendent who
created RISC. “That was my vision.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
$13 million in outside philanthropic funding supported two
Maine districts’ efforts to implement proficiency-based education<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first converts were Adams County School District 50, in
the Denver suburbs, and the Lindsay Unified School District, in California, he
recalls. Like the Chugach district, they had high percentages of low-income
students, though they were much larger districts than Chugach, with more than
10,000 and 4,000 students, respectively.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, in Maine, a handful of districts were
experimenting with similar methods. Among them were RSU 2, a far-flung district
in central Maine which includes the towns of Hallowell and Monmouth; MSAD 15, a
district midway between Portland and Lewiston; and RSU 20, which includes the
small coastal community of Searsport. Searsport had started transitioning to a
standards-based diploma in 2002, after receiving a share of a $10-million
school reform grant that Gates had made to the Sen. George J. Mitchell
Scholarship Research Institute, an organization that gives out scholarships to
Maine students.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 2007, Maine’s then-commissioner, Susan Gendron, invited
DeLorenzo to speak at a summer conference for superintendents in Bar Harbor. At
the end of the conference, she took a survey: 80 percent of attendees said they
supported the RISC philosophy, but only a quarter said they were ready to make
the leap, she said in an interview.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To encourage them along, the state offered schools $50,000
grants to subsidize RISC training, Gendron recalled. DeLorenzo screened the
candidates, assessing their capacity for change, and six districts were
approved, among them the three districts mentioned above that had already begun
experimenting with the model.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the state withdrew its financial support for the
training a year and a half in, citing budget shortfalls, the districts formed a
consortium to pool their resources: The Maine Cohort for Customized Learning.
One of the first things the new nonprofit did was hire Beatrice McGarvey, from
Marzano Research, a consulting organization that offers professional
development to schools across the country, to craft a common curriculum, said
Linda Laughlin, now the Maine group’s executive director.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At least one of the early pioneers, RSU 18, which includes
the small town of Oakland, has since backed away from a standards-based
diploma. But one district has been steadfast in its commitment, staying the course
through three superintendents: RSU 2.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A local success story<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a math classroom inside Monmouth Academy in the RSU 2
district, 20 students, ranging from freshmen to seniors, sat in clusters of
four, working independently on small dry erase boards. Some were still studying
geometry, others had advanced to Algebra II. One group was just starting on
probability.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
proficiency based learning<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Elizabeth Ross, a math teacher at Monmouth Academy, explains
a chart that shows which standards students have met. Kelly Field, for The
Hechinger Report<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Elizabeth Ross, a ninth-year teacher in the district, buzzed
between them, stopping to show two juniors, Violette Beaulieu and Hannah
Levesque, how a parabola can dip from positive to negative.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When they understood the concept, Ross moved on, giving
another group a lesson in operations with square roots. Then she moved on
again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After an hour of shuttling between students, Ross was sweaty
and flushed, the carton of yogurt on her desk only half eaten. It’s hard work differentiating
curriculum for so many students, but Ross believes it’s worth it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I feel like they learn more,” she said. “When I give them a
test, they have to know all of it” to earn a 3 and be deemed proficient. “Not
just 70 percent.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the wall, there was a chart with stickers showing which
standards students had met. Shading in the boxes indicated a higher level of
competence — half-shaded was a 3.5 and fully shaded was a 4. The students had
requested the shading, to show more nuance in the scores, Ross said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Levesque, who wants to go to either St. Joseph’s or Thomas
College and become a realtor, strives for all 4s, often requesting extra work
to get to that level. But Beaulieu, who hopes to attend the University of Maine
Farmington and become a preschool teacher, said she’s content with a “solid 3.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Both said they like the individualized instruction that they
get from teachers like Ross, and appreciate the opportunity to retake exams if
they have a bad day. They worry, though, how they’ll fare in college, where
professors are less forgiving, and there’s thousands of dollars in tuition at
stake.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Here, if I get something wrong, I’ll be able to go back and
fix it. In college, you can’t,” said Beaulieu. “That kind of freaks me out.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
RSU 2 is often held up as a standards-based success story.
Nearly a decade in, the culture of competence is deeply ingrained in the
district; most of today’s high schoolers have never experienced anything
different.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Getting to this point wasn’t easy, though. When Hallowell
tried to extend proficiency-based education to its high school in 2008, parents
put up a fight, saying the change would make it harder for their children to
compete for scholarships and admission to selective schools, according to a
case study published by the state Department of Education.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The state ramps up<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, the momentum — and the spending — for reform was
continuing to build. In 2009, Gates gave half a million to the Nellie Mae
Education Foundation, which describes itself as New England’s largest
education-focused philanthropy, to lead a four-state effort to remake the
region’s schools. (Nellie Mae is among the many funders of The Hechinger
Report.) Nellie Mae passed on the money to the Portland-based Great Schools
Partnership, which used it to coordinate The New England Secondary School
Consortium, a coalition advocating for proficiency-based diplomas, among other
things.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The following year, Gates gave Nellie Mae an additional
$1.75 million to identify and fund “proficiency-based pathways.” Some of that
money trickled down to MSAD 15 and the Casco Bay High School for Expeditionary
Learning, in Portland, which had been created five years earlier using a grant
from The Gates Foundation. At Casco Bay, the money would be used to create a
“roadmap” for other districts and Portland’s two other high schools to follow,
according to a 2012 report on the initiative.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nellie Mae, which had $430 million in assets at the end of
2009, began investing its own money in Maine, too. In 2010, it gave $200,000
each to Portland and two other districts to develop plans for “district level
system change” focused on “student-centered approaches,” including
proficiency-based education.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the end of the following year, it awarded organizations
in Portland and Sanford nearly $9 million to implement their plans. To build
public support for the changes, the foundation also gave smaller grants to
youth and immigrant advocacy groups in the districts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The foundation ultimately gave a combined $13 million to the
two districts, with roughly two-thirds of it going to Portland, according to a
Nellie Mae spokesperson.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In its application for its 2011 grant, Portland pledged to
move the entire district to a proficiency-based diploma. When the grants were
announced, Nicholas Donohue, the foundation’s president, said the districts
were chosen because they were already “most aligned with our theory of change.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But some Portland parents were wary of the award. Anna Collins,
a Portland mother and attorney, said she saw the grants as an attempt to build
support for LD 1422, which had just been approved by the state legislature’s
education committee and would soon be debated by the whole legislature.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“They can say ‘We’ve got some of the biggest districts in
the state on board, you have to pass this,’” she told the Bangor Daily News at
the time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nellie Mae was supporting the proposed law. A few months
before it made the grants to Portland and Sanford, the foundation gave the
first of three grants to the Maine Department of Education to create an online
Center for Best Practice, with case studies of districts that had embraced
proficiency-based learning.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That same month, it awarded $50,000 to the Maine Coalition
for Excellence in Education, a business group now part of Educate Maine, to
support its “political/legislative work.” The coalition, which had drafted an
omnibus education reform bill that was ultimately whittled down to LD 1422,
used the funds to host a retreat for members of the education committee shortly
before the legislature voted on the bill. The lawmakers visited a
proficiency-based school in Oakland and attended a policy forum in Freeport.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just before the vote on LD 1422 in early April 2012, Educate
Maine and Great Schools Partnership circulated a letter to committee members
with the signatures of nearly 50 principals and superintendents who supported
the bill.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ed Cervone, the executive director of Educate Maine, said LD
1422 was an attempt to bring accountability to the Maine Learning Results,
which the state had passed 15 years earlier, but never adequately enforced.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“This wasn’t some radical new pathway,” he said. “We were
looking at finishing the pathway put off by governors prior.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Guinea Pigs<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the legislature debated the bill, lawmakers who
represented communities in RSU 2 spoke against it, citing complaints they’d
received from parents and students in their district. They urged lawmakers to
slow down and let districts decide whether to implement proficiency-based
diplomas on their own.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No other state has embraced this model for all their school
systems,” warned Sen. Earle McCormick, a former teacher who represented part of
RSU 2. “We’re not ready for this.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The heavy involvement of unelected, out-of-state foundations
in advancing proficiency-based diplomas stoked suspicion and resentment among
some Maine parents and teachers. They created a Facebook Group called “Mainers
Concerned About Proficiency Based Learning,” where they shared lobbying
reports, grant details and consulting contracts, and swapped horror stories and
conspiracy theories. The group remains active today, with 1,500 members.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Have you found a grassroots movement pushing for this?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ericka Lee-Winship, a teacher at Portland High School<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“We are guinea pigs for a new, experimental method of
teaching and learning that has been designed to benefit content providers
rather than students,” wrote Emily Talmage, a fourth-grade teacher in Lewiston
in a 2015 post detailing spending by Nellie Mae.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That view is shared by policymakers like Rep. Heidi Sampson,
who led the push to overturn the law. In an interview, she said the law was
created to “pad the wallets” of consultants like Great Schools Partnership,
which offers coaching to districts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Great Schools Partnership, which charges schools and
districts between $24,000 and $84,000 for its services (depending on the number
of coaching days), did see an uptick in contracts after the mandate passed,
from 18 to 25, and a decline back to 18 after the law was repealed, according
to data provide by Ian Bassingthwaighte, a spokesman. It also won a $200,000
contract from the state to create free standards-based tools for schools. But
the law was hardly a bonanza for the nonprofit, and Bassingthwaighte said it’s
not in it for the money.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“We are former teachers, principals and superintendents who
are dedicated to our mission of ensuring high quality learning for each
student,” he said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(Great Schools has received continued support from Nellie
Mae; the foundation gave it several million dollars to administer the New
England Secondary School Consortium and to run a program aimed at building
“public understanding and demand” for reform across the region, including in
three Maine communities.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Charlie Toulmin, Nellie Mae’s policy director, insists his
foundation wasn’t the driving force behind the law.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“They were already walking down this path, and they and us
sort of found a match in our interests,” he said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Staying the course in Portland<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Portland’s district leadership has said it plans “to stay
the course with its transition to a proficiency-based diploma,” regardless of
changes in the law.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
proficiency based learning<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The entrance to Portland’s Deering High School, the most
diverse high school north of Boston. Nearly half the enrollees are students of
color. Kelly Field, for The Hechinger Report<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the city’s two traditional high schools — Deering and
Portland High School — classes look, and sound, much as they did prior to
2012.. The only signs that things have changed are posters that hang in some
classrooms, enumerating the standards and proficiency levels.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most of the ongoing change is happening behind the scenes,
in departmental meetings where teachers hash out graduation requirements, and
in online gradebooks, where teachers spend hours assigning standards to
assignments, and rating students on levels of proficiency. It’s a ton of data
entry, but none of it has appeared on students’ report cards, which still
include traditional numerical grades.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That frustrates teachers like Ericka Lee-Winship, who would
“much rather spend time planning exciting lessons than sitting at my computer
clicking buttons.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lee-Winship, who has taught social studies at Portland High
School for 21 years, thinks the Great Schools Partnership coaches her school
has hired are smart and mean well, but are out of touch with the realities of
the profession.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“They want teachers to think big picture, but every day I’m
expected to manage the details,” she said. “When I go home, I have a huge bag
of homework to grade. I’m not sitting around pondering the big picture
questions.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She believes the state’s shift to proficiency-based diplomas
was driven “100 percent” by foundations and interest groups.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Have you found a grassroots movement pushing for this?” she
asked.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Beth Arsenault, who has taught in Portland High School since
1996, has practiced many of the habits of proficiency-based learning for years
— letting students retake tests and keeping her grade book open, for example.
In her alternative education classes for at-risk students, the mantra is
“you’re not passing yet.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So she’s not philosophically opposed to proficiency-based
education; she just doesn’t like it being imposed on teachers by outsiders.
And, like Lee-Winship, she finds the data entry meaningless.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Trust me, professionally, that I’m teaching to the
standard,” she said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With neighboring districts backing away from
proficiency-based diplomas — including those centered in Scarborough and South
Portland — many teachers here hope theirs will be the next to fall.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ragan Toppan, now 17, is among the students who do, too. She
was pleased in January when Deering took a small step backward, giving teachers
the option of grading using either a 1-4 or 60-100 scale. But the compromise
has the potential to complicate transcripts, and thus the college application
process, for students like her: “We can’t forget that kids are planning for
their futures. This may be a test run for the administration, but these are
real lives, real students.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I shoot for A’s on all my work, but a lot of teachers don’t
give you an option to go ‘above and beyond.’ An 85 is not going to cut it for
college.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ragan Toppan, a junior at Deering High School<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her mom, Kathryn, remains committed to the 1-4 grading
system. But even she says it would be “premature” to switch to a
proficiency-based diploma before ironing out the kinks around remediation and
grading.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the meantime, Deering’s teachers have agreed to award up
to a 4 on all assignments that use the 1-4 scale, according to Principal Gregg
Palmer. He said he didn’t think many teachers limited students to 3s before,
but “I can’t say it never happened.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And what about the Alaska-based group that brought its model
to Maine? DeLorenzo, who created RISC, lost his passion for the business, and
was running a fly-fishing business when he got a call from a Russian friend who
asked him to come create schools there. They’re up to five now. He believes the
“hierarchal, compliance-driven culture” of Russia is more conducive to system
change than the U.S.’s locally controlled one. “I never had the leverage to
flip American schools, to get CEOs behind me. That’s why I’m in Russia,” he
said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
RISC, meantime, was acquired by Marzano Research and is no
longer offering trainings. Marzano, which helped Maine’s pioneers in
proficiency develop their curriculum, is creating a series of proficiency-based
student “academies” with help from RSU 2 superintendent Bill Zima, who is
leaving at the end of the school year to join the company. So far, none of the
academies are in Maine.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Chugach has stuck with its proficiency-based diploma, but
test scores have dropped, from the top quartile of the state to roughly the
middle, according to current superintendent Mike Hanley. Nearly all of the
schools in Alaska that copied its model have since abandoned it. Bob Crumley,
the superintendent who put it in place, thinks they got complacent.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Over time, it didn’t seem as urgent,” he said. “The initial
adrenalin and drive kind of waned.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nellie Mae, meanwhile, is re-thinking its grant-making
strategy, acknowledging that some of its investments in “student-centered
learning” haven’t had as big an impact on low-income students and communities
of color as the foundation had hoped. Going forward, the foundation will “put
much more attention on racial equity” and be more open to grant proposals that
don’t involve student-centered practices, Nellie Mae’s Toulmin said.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In RSU 2, there’s less pushback to proficiency than their
used to be. But some parents and teachers still worry about the lack of
consequences for slacking. Deadlines here are flexible, and students know they
can retake tests if they don’t feel like studying one night.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“There’s no motivation because there’s no deadlines,” said
Jennifer Heidrich, the mother of a Monmouth middle schooler who teaches in
another district. “His attitude is he shouldn’t have to do work outside school.
Coming from a teacher’s kid — you can imagine the fights we get into.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
School leaders acknowledge this challenge, and have begun
requiring students to rate their “habits of work,” each Friday. Teachers review
the scores and can change them if they disagree. If a student’s “habits of
work” are poor, they can lose junior or senior privileges. But there are still
no consequences for underclassmen, and the score doesn’t affect a student’s
grade.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“It doesn’t have teeth,” said Christine Arsenault, a
longtime English teacher and supporter of proficiency-based learning. “That’s
the biggest downfall.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-45051406877806899432019-04-14T09:28:00.002-07:002019-04-14T09:28:26.504-07:00Interesting proof point from control group study of Democracy Prep<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.educationnext.org/life-lesson-civics-how-democracy-prep-charter-schools-boost-student-voting/">https://www.educationnext.org/life-lesson-civics-how-democracy-prep-charter-schools-boost-student-voting/</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-48751304796751175922019-04-14T09:17:00.000-07:002019-04-14T09:17:26.929-07:00What does the data tell us?(1) While racial gaps subsided from 1950s-80s, the overall socio-economic gap is mostly unchanged over the past half-century. National programs to improve the education of disadvantaged students, while perhaps offsetting a decline in the quality of teachers serving such students, have done little to close achievement gaps.<br />
<img height="450" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/QkyhuEUMK44ASMoqR5uVLQx5MSWYH3Qoa-N6h_O_g63uDwAu5KXWT6ZG_IXST7ko-o2R4fyQ4nOSrW2D3uIn-NhJ3mIwOI5LHD5C2Fa07E8r4xxDBA_LbRIg3-Qk3vN7VP0o5pbC" style="border: none; font-size: 11pt; transform: rotate(0rad); white-space: pre-wrap;" width="520" /><br /><br /><div>
(2) The overall achievement gains realized by students at age 14 fade away by age 17, yet policymakers have left high schools—like the achievement gap itself—in many ways untouched.<br /><ol style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><div dir="ltr" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre;">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-49efaef9-7fff-223d-8d09-914857d051ea"></span></div>
</ol>
<img height="538" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/1pLzA1Oi1-_Yfbyw4oOoDBSAt4RRTDHGYwUsi3v8zxBM5n7EA2MNQL7TQEUIKU9M1vIL2UpCUBHX7bwVW882VS2_XVJ8GMZ9brtuf9kr2TziNocwVNcF95gvr4Mzj7qPunS2bhMC" style="border: none; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; transform: rotate(0rad); white-space: pre-wrap;" width="504" /><br /></div>
<div>
(3)Teacher effectiveness is a predominant factor affecting school quality. Teacher salaries have declined relative to those earned by other four-year college-degree holders and are currently low relative to comparable workers in other occupations. Collective-bargaining agreements and state laws have granted more-experienced teachers seniority rights, leaving disadvantaged students to be taught by less-effective novices. A growing disparity in teacher quality across the social divide may have offset the impacts of policies designed to work in the opposite direction.<br /><br /><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Achievement Gap Fails to Close </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Half century of testing shows persistent divide between haves and have-nots</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eric Hanushek, Paul Peterson, Laura Talpey and Ludger Woessmann</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://www.educationnext.org/achievement-gap-fails-close-half-century-testing-shows-persistent-divide/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="-webkit-text-decoration-skip: none; background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Full article</span></a></div>
</div>
Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-45982158463174274242018-10-30T08:15:00.004-07:002018-10-30T08:15:55.617-07:00Digital life on campus scrolling animation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" data-original-height="616" data-original-width="1064" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7_mw-iVjA5mhyGzwLHiwNEHh5TA-y9-1LEaaHkqaUlTRndI4ICXmz2RwkMrQfXep9Fk08tLPtLTejvHRA9oGJUarBfzlr5cH5u_Ztr-O8nk573wLnR50VBxsV4tTWYs7nKmTGV22hTzg/s400/Digital+Life.PNG" width="400" /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Click <a href="https://www.pearson.com/campus-digital-tour/?utm_source=edDive&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=2018_Broad_Market&utm_content=AnalogEdTopSponsor2&cmpid=7010N000000Cm2y">here </a>to follow the scrolling animation.</div>
<br />Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-30648363658247352222018-09-03T17:36:00.002-07:002018-09-03T17:36:39.400-07:00Most Likely to Succeed Trailer HD<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JE5XRrfetu4" width="480"></iframe>Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-62293103953971944162018-09-03T17:36:00.001-07:002018-09-03T17:36:29.818-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">From <a href="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/why-collective-action-is-the-wrong-approach-for-developing-personalized-learning-teachers/?utm_source=Ed%20Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4%2F20%2F18">Christensen Institute</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Apr 19, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">There’s growing recognition today of a huge problem slowing innovation in personalized learning: we don’t have a clear pipeline for preparing and developing personalized learning teachers. Although many aspects of teaching translate across personalized and traditional settings, the schools driving personalized learning forward often find that their teachers need some additional skills and mindset shifts that they just don’t pick up in traditional teacher preparation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The solution, as many funders, experts, and school leaders see it, is collective action. They talk of bringing together a diverse array of stakeholders to define a common set of educator competencies and then working with established teacher education programs to create new pathways for developing next-generation educators.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">On the surface this approach makes sense; no single organization today has the scale to impact all of K–12 education. But if we look to how innovation problems have played out in other sectors, it’s clear that the “collective action” approach will likely flounder at creating the pipeline of excellent personalized learning teachers that the field needs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;"><span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The collaborative approach. </span></strong><span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A close analogy is the problem that the computer industry wrestled with when trying to launch touch-screen devices. Today everyone knows the story of how Apple created an entirely new product category with the iPad. What’s less known, however, is that PC makers tried for roughly a decade ahead of Apple to launch mobile tablets. So why did the PC makers flounder and Apple succeed? The answer is multifaceted, but innovation theory makes clear that “collaboration” was a major hindrance to success.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">PC makers, like many education thought leaders today, tried developing something new with an ecosystem of partner organizations. No one company had enough scale across PC components to make a complete touch screen device, so companies like HP and Lenovo worked on the overall hardware architecture; Microsoft made the operating system; and a host of other companies supplied the central processors, hard drives, etc. These companies thought they had everything they needed to make a successful mobile tablet: the core components and specifications were basically the same as the desktop and laptop machines they had built together in the past; the new devices just needed to be compact and touch compatible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;"><span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A restricted design. </span></strong><span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">But the devil was in the details. No one really knew how to design a great mobile tablet because it had never been done before. Getting the form factor just right in order to nail what customers needed meant making important tradeoffs between interdependent components—things like processing speed, weight, software compatibility, and cost. However, with all the companies relying on predetermined standards and specifications to define how the interdependent components would work together, no one had the design freedom to experiment with all the important feature tradeoffs to get the user experience just right. In other words, the ability to continue innovating on the overall design of the devices was ultimately sacrificed for the common set of group-determined design goals. Yet this freedom to test and experiment with new designs was critical for early innovation, since no one had yet proven how to design a great tablet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The result: devices born of these partnerships came to market, but they never gained much traction beyond tech enthusiasts. They were too heavy to carry comfortably in one hand, their screen buttons and menus didn’t work very well with fingers, and their battery life didn’t last very long when they were untethered from a power cord. As can be seen in this example, the supplier partnerships that worked well for building laptops actually held back efforts to create great tablets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;"><span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">An explanation in Modularity Theory. </span></strong><span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Clayton Christensen’s <a href="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/interdependence-modularity/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #27bbdd;">Modularity Theory</span></a> illustrates one important reason why the PC makers’ approach proved less effective. According to the theory, when new innovations are still stretching to meet our expectations, the best strategy for pushing a product’s performance forward is for a single entity to control all the interdependent pieces of the solution (e.g. the processor, screen, memory, and operating system) that affect performance. Only by doing this, can innovators gain the degrees of freedom they need to tinker with the interdependent components of a solution to meet customers’ expectations. If a single PC component supplier had integrated its business across all the interdependent parts of a mobile tablet it would have been better able to meet customers’ needs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Hopefully, those working to develop teacher pipelines for personalized learning don’t make the same mistake. Although we have a rough idea of the instructional models, teaching practices, and educator mindsets and skills (i.e. interdependent components) we want teachers of the future to have, we’re still a ways off from having clear and reliable blueprints for effective personalized teaching and learning. Given this current reality, there’s little chance any collaborative group of stakeholders is going to collectively develop clear and common standards for defining the teacher of the future at this stage in the field’s development.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<strong style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;"><span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Potential solutions. </span></strong><span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">So, what should personalized-learning proponents do instead? Given where education is at as a field, the best solutions are going to come from integration. Rather than working to build consensus on common educator competencies and form partnerships with established teacher education programs, the field should focus on supporting leading innovators, like <a href="http://www.summitps.org/whoweare/teacher-residency" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #27bbdd;">Summit</span></a> or <a href="http://www.lindsay.k12.ca.us/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #27bbdd;">Lindsay Unified</span></a>, in developing their own integrated talent pipelines to meet the needs of their particular contexts and instructional models.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">This integrated approach is not without <a href="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/publications/startup-teacher-education/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #27bbdd;">precedent</span></a> in the education space. A decade ago, when a few equity-focused charter school networks in New York City found that traditional teacher preparation programs weren’t preparing teachers in line with their instructional philosophies and approaches, they launched their own teacher preparation program, which went on to become the Relay Graduate School of Education. Now with sites in 14 different metropolitan areas, Relay provides a unique, practice-oriented approach to teacher preparation, and its graduates go on to work across the district and charter landscape. In a parallel fashion, I can imagine <a href="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/make-sense-k-12-schools-certify-teachers/?_sf_s=summit+residency" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #27bbdd;">Summit’s teacher residency</span></a>, or something like it, becoming for personalized learning schools what Relay is for equity-focused schools.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The tale of touch-screen tablets also bears testament to the wisdom of an integrated approach. By engineering the iPad from end to end, Apple could be more strategic about tradeoffs between various design decisions in order to make sure it could deliver the optimal user experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Lastly, for those worried about the need for partnerships in order to reach scale, Modularity Theory also offers hope. The theory predicts that modular, partnership-based solutions can eventually work—and may well dominate—once the integrated innovators pave the way. For example, Android and Windows tablets—whose components come from multiple suppliers—have gained substantial shares of the mobile device market today; they just needed Apple to first show the world how a good tablet should be made.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<span style="color: #4e4e4e; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">When it comes to training personalized learning teachers, modular “partnership” options will have only mediocre success until a single organization with an integrated solution proves how to do personalized learning and teacher development really well. Thus the better strategy, at least for now, is to put our bets on integrated solutions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="author-name" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: #093f52; font-family: "calibri light" , sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><a href="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/results/?authors=toma" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;"><span style="color: #093f52;">Thomas Arnett</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-53271150726953979012018-09-03T17:36:00.000-07:002018-09-03T17:36:22.354-07:00<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting <b>Champlain Valley Union (CVU) High School </b>in Hinesburg, Vermont, just outside of Burlington. CVU serves five feeder districts, each with their own middle school. It's a big school for Vermont with 1200+ kids, but midsize for other states. The student population is economically mixed and racially homogeneous. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nothing in the outside architecture appears remarkable when entering the school. Inside, like other schools, there are adults who great guests and check on kids and a normal front office that issued guest stickers to each of us and sent us to meet our student guides who took us around the school and helped connect us with teachers and other students. What I saw was a school that has made the transition from old learning models to the new. I saw <b>personalized, competency-based learning</b> and <b>deeper, applied learning</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While I have met many teachers who generate those two principles into their teaching, those that teacher in district public schools are often held captive by two systems relics from the industrial past which hold most good teachers back from real reform: (1) Antiquated daily school <b>schedule </b>and (2) Antiquated <b>assessments </b>and report cards. CVU is the first high school I have visited that appears to have evolved those two relics into new systems that better support all kids and better prepare kids for their futures.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>#1 System Improvement -- Schedule</b>. How kids and teachers spend time is a primary measure of the school’s values. The CVU schedule splits 8 blocks over two alternating days. As a result, kids get more choices and longer class blocks. The school has a relaxed, not frenetic feel. The kids voted a gentle gong as their school bell to mark changes in classes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600"
o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f"
stroked="f">
<v:stroke joinstyle="miter"/>
<v:formulas>
<v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"/>
<v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"/>
<v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"/>
<v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"/>
<v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"/>
<v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"/>
<v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"/>
</v:formulas>
<v:path o:extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect"/>
<o:lock v:ext="edit" aspectratio="t"/>
</v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_2" o:spid="_x0000_i1026" type="#_x0000_t75"
alt="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/rFvzKtocSJkdjwun-ldBqi8VmakF6AYRuxQVX_003GIG-y-jlaOKJDSfDwZXo8jQuh3qglwZj3DOZIMjB4glS-G6QVpJaoLpWmWJI1vRt7_W6n9vvl6edoAU0Cjy2_XLwQexY-Q2"
style='width:468pt;height:320.25pt;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square'>
<v:imagedata src="file:///C:/Users/gnadeau2/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.png"
o:title="rFvzKtocSJkdjwun-ldBqi8VmakF6AYRuxQVX_003GIG-y-jlaOKJDSfDwZXo8jQuh3qglwZj3DOZIMjB4glS-G6QVpJaoLpWmWJI1vRt7_W6n9vvl6edoAU0Cjy2_XLwQexY-Q2"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
9th graders are split into four even, heterogeneous groups of two classes each, paired with two humanities and two STEM teachers to work with each group. Teachers work collaboratively in teams, at times starting with two combined classes and then one teacher working more intensely with small pull-out groups.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Each student can select two electives which included:<o:p></o:p></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">Extensive STEM and design labs<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">Strong school support for internships and co-ops<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">A personalized learning class called Nexus where students are supervised while they pursue independent and small-group projects<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">A class called Think Tank in which kids actively studied education reform and participated directly in the school design<o:p></o:p></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of the kid's stories:<o:p></o:p></div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">I talked to one girl in 10th grade, real working class, who got an internship in 9th grade to explore auto mechanics. She tried it and did not like it. That year she began to pursue animal husbandry and worked to lead a team of older students to build a movable goat house and fencing system to let goats graze the landscape.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">Another bookish girl talked about how she used Nexus to pursue independent study of the psychology that made some Germans support Nazis and some resist instead of taking 9th-grade social studies.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">A confident boy in 12th grade talked about the video production business he started that year with two friends. The school supported them with community mentors. While the other two go off to college next year, he is going to work full time on growing the business while his friends find new clients in the cities where they will attend college. He plans to join them one year later.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">A quiet girl in 12th grade who said she was always good in science but did not know she wanted to be a scientist until the school arranged for her to do a project with a local university professor. She said that she saw the professor as much more knowledgeable and experienced, but not fundamentally different from her and she now is ready to pursue science vigorously in college.<o:p></o:p></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">A brainy boy shared that he had completed his 3rd year of calculus and had built his first self-learning software in the Nexus class. A testified in the Vermont legislature on legislation that is putting in place a commission to explore the ethical issues that will come from AI.<o:p></o:p></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>#2 System Improvement -- Assessment</b>. The second most important system improvement I saw at CVU was teachers’ use of assessment. The school has clear, common learning targets which explicit, commonly understood and practiced expectations for what 1) begins; 2) approaches, 3) meets; 4) exceeds the target. Teacher feedback to the student in writing and in person was personalized and constructive. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Teachers use the software JumpRope to maintain progress towards learning targets. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Growth mindset. </b> Amazingly, everyone in the school, teacher, and student spoke of “formatives” and “summatives” and understood that low performance in summative assessments would be “replaced” in the gradebook by better summative results.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>While child. </b> I heard the term “check-in” from both students and teachers for the process in which a student and a teacher would talk about their work and get guidance. “Check-ins’ appears to have an important role in the familiarity the teachers showed for whole child development.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Quality human interactions</b>. Most importantly, the school had a culture of human interaction that seemed familial, not bureaucratic or institutional. The students in the school seemed to be genuinely known by the educators and demonstrated a mature understanding of their immediate, post-HS plans. The combination of skills, applied skills, and experiences they were getting at school is preparing them for the dynamic world they will find.</div>
<br />Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-42699154995429113942018-08-19T07:53:00.003-07:002018-08-19T07:53:38.937-07:00When Learning is Paramount, New Models EmergeMedical students are skipping class in droves — and making lectures increasingly obsolete<br />
Future doctors are skipping class in droves and making lectures increasingly obsolete<br />
<br />
Harvard Medical School’s curriculum changed to meet new demands in 2015.<br />
<br />
By Orly Nadell Farber, STAT<br />
The future doctors of America cut class. Not to gossip in the bathroom or flirt behind the bleachers. They skip to learn — at twice the speed.<br />
<br />
Some medical students follow along with class remotely, watching sped-up recordings of their professors at home, in their pajamas. Others rarely tune in. At one school, attendance is so bad that a Nobel laureate recently lectured to mostly empty seats.<br />
<br />
Nationally, nearly one-quarter of second-year medical students reported last year that they “almost never’’ attended class during their first two, preclinical years, a 5 percent increase from 2015.<br />
<br />
The AWOL students highlight increasing dissatisfaction and anxiety that there’s a mismatch between what they’re taught in class during those years and what they’re expected to know — or how they’re tested — on national licensing exams. Despite paying nearly $60,000 a year in tuition, medical students are turning to unsanctioned online resources to prepare for Step 1, the make-or-break test typically taken at the end of the preclinical years.<br />
<br />
These self-guided med students are akin to a group of American tourists wandering through Tokyo without a map. Like a tour guide hired on the street, the online learning tools — including memory aids, videos, and online quizzes — can enhance the educational journey, or send the students down a dead end.<br />
<br />
Lawrence Wang, a third-year M.D.-Ph.D. student at the University of California, San Diego, and the National Institutes of Health, said he relied heavily on these resources during his first two years of medical school.<br />
<br />
“There were times that I didn’t go to a single class, and then I’d get to the actual exam and it would be my first time seeing the professor,’’ he said. “Especially, when Step was coming up, I pretty much completely focused on studying outside materials.’’<br />
<br />
Wang isn’t alone. According to 2017 data from the Association for American Medical Colleges, 1 in 4 preclinical students watches educational videos — like those on YouTube — on a daily basis. And according to two video developers, tens of thousands of medical students subscribe to their products — one of which costs $250 for two years, the other $370 for one year.<br />
<br />
Leaders in medical education have begun to scramble. Some medical schools, like Harvard, have done away with lectures for the most part. Instead of spending hours in an auditorium, Harvard students learn the course content at home and then apply the knowledge in mandatory small group sessions.<br />
<br />
Other institutions, like Johns Hopkins, are moving in the same direction, but have yet to make a full switch. Hopkins cut down on lectures and boosted sessions that require active student participation. Preclinical lecture attendance hovers around 30 to 40 percent, according to Dr. Nancy Hueppchen, associate dean for curriculum.<br />
<br />
For many students, she said, licensing exam prep begins on day one of medical school: “They have this parallel curriculum going along with what we’re teaching them.’’<br />
<br />
Step 1, an eight-hour multiple choice test, is a big deal. Performance on the exam, though it’s taken before most students even begin training in a hospital, heavily influences which medical specialties they can eventually pursue after school and at what hospitals they can pursue them.<br />
<br />
With medical schools grading pass-fail, the Step 1 score is an increasingly significant piece of information that’s used to sort through residency applications, Hueppchen said. When she took the exam, it was only used as a pass-fail test. Today, residency programs rely on the score more heavily; students and faculty suspect that it’s used as a cutoff for making admissions decisions.<br />
<br />
Ryan Carlson, a third-year M.D.-Ph.D. student at the University of Washington, said that his school focused on teaching “what they thought was important for a physician to know.’’ But medical students have to know more than what is relevant to a practicing clinician to succeed on Step. The exam focuses on rare diseases and other minutiae, said Carlson, who now tutors for the test.<br />
<br />
Hueppchen acknowledged that students at Hopkins and elsewhere “express some distrust that they’re getting everything they need — or that we’re being meticulous in pointing out what they need — to study for and excel on the Step 1 exam.’’<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
That distrust has spawned a cottage industry of online study aids. Most are a far cry from your high school SAT prep course.<br />
<br />
SketchyMedical is one of the most popular guides. The company, built in 2013 by three then-medical students at the University of California, Irvine, produces visual memory aids with elaborate illustrations to help students learn and retain the voluminous material they’re expected to know.<br />
<br />
Dr. Andrew Berg and his co-founders, Drs. Saud Siddiqui and Bryan Lemieux, started sketching pictures and pairing them with stories while taking microbiology in their second year of medical school.<br />
<br />
“We were just bombarded with different names of bacteria, viruses, and fungi, and we were having a tough time keeping them all straight,’’ he said.<br />
<br />
The sketches helped them, and now other students are using them, too.<br />
<br />
Imagine it’s test day and a med student is asked which drug she would use to treat a patient’s postoperative gastrointestinal blockage. The student closes her eyes and mentally enters the world of “Acetyl-Cola,’’ a bustling port town that’s depicted in one of SketchyMedical’s cartoons. Outside a storefront, the student finds construction workers, motorcyclists wearing brain-shaped helmets, piles of dripping-wet fish, and a man sporting an adrenal gland-shaped beanie.<br />
<br />
A colon-shaped mixing truck pouring out cement is an unfortunate, but effective, symbol for defecation, and a worker wearing a name tag reading “Beth’’ and drinking a cola reminds the student of the drug bethanechol, given to treat intestinal obstructions.<br />
<br />
The illustrations are turned into narrated videos, which teach drug names and their mechanisms and side effects. SketchyMedical has also produced videos on microbiology and pathology.<br />
<br />
Berg compares the work of Sketchy to hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt. But for many, Sketchy evokes a different technique used a thousand years later in ancient Greece: method of loci, also called a memory palace or journey.<br />
<br />
Memory palaces are typically imagined spaces in which a person can store information like a string of numbers or a series of words. Each piece of information is placed somewhere inside the palace. When the palace builder wants to recall an item, she can take a mental stroll through the space to retrieve it. This technique famously enabled Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher, to commit his speeches to memory.<br />
<br />
“We accidentally stumbled upon these visual learning techniques, but now looking back we see there’s a lot of evidence supporting visual learning,’’ Berg said.<br />
<br />
SketchyMedical is not the only extracurricular resource students rely on. An entire industry cropped up in the last few years, marketing videos and self-quizzing features to preclinical students. Dr. Jason Ryan, the creator of Boards and Beyond, is a name (and voice) familiar to medical students across the country.<br />
<br />
Ryan, a faculty member at University of Connecticut School of Medicine, creates explanatory videos that track along with the content in First Aid, a Step preparatory book that Ryan said is more like “an encyclopedia of terms’’ than a real study aid. Ask any medical student if they use First Aid, and they’ll point you to their heavily annotated, tattered copy.<br />
<br />
While both Ryan and Berg consider their products supplements to regular medical education, many students view them as necessary investments for success. Choosing which ones to use can be a challenge, however.<br />
<br />
“That was the biggest learning curve of med school — it wasn’t so much how do I do well in it, it was, how do I use all these crazy resources that are being marketed to me to best meet my goal of passing Step,’’ Carlson said.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
This expanding corner of the medical education industry is both a product of a new attitude among students — born from anxiety surrounding exam prep — and a disrupter of the traditional classroom education. Med schools now have to think more creatively about how they train their future doctors, Berg said.<br />
<br />
In 2015, Harvard Medical School revamped its curriculum for the first two years to enable clinical exposure and boost class attendance with a flipped-classroom model: Students learn the content at home, and then apply it during in-class exercises. Dr. Richard Schwartzstein, director of education scholarship, said the program now emphasizes problem-solving and critical thinking — skills seen as essential to practicing medicine — instead of factual recall.<br />
<br />
But while medical schools are de-emphasizing pure memorization, the national licensing exams have yet to reconsider, he acknowledged. Still, Schwartzstein is not a huge fan of external resources, citing their focus on memorization and pattern recognition as major weaknesses.<br />
<br />
“You don’t have to actually teach pattern recognition,’’ he said. “We all are born with the capability of recognizing pattern.’’ He advises students to stick to Harvard-developed videos and their recommended readings. Like many medical schools, Harvard gives students a dedicated study period — six to eight weeks without coursework — to “prepare in whatever way they deem most appropriate to take the boards,’’ he said.<br />
<br />
Hueppchen said that the outside resources “may have value in day-to-day studying, they may have value in studying for Step 1,’’ but Hopkins has not vetted them so it doesn’t recommend them to students either.<br />
<br />
The National Board of Medical Examiners, which works with state medical boards to set the minimum standards for medical licensing and administers the Step exam, also doesn’t endorse these products — or their use as hard lines for residency admissions, said Dr. Michael Barone, vice president of licensure programs. The group “is aware of some secondary uses of scores,’’ he said, but the test’s primary purpose is to report licensure alone.<br />
<br />
So long as Step still requires intensive rote memorization, companies like SketchyMedical and Boards and Beyond will likely remain in business.<br />
<br />
Both Berg and Ryan agree that physicians no longer need to memorize as much as they did in the past. Ryan’s grandmother was one of the first female physicians to graduate from her medical school in the 1940s. Back then, he said, she had to remember everything. “If she had to go to a book every time she saw a patient, she’d never be able to work through the day.’’<br />
<br />
Today, there’s much more to know, and medicine is evolving so rapidly that physicians can’t possibly remember it all. Instead, they look information up on their cellphones, using a variety of apps on the clinic floors. But preclinical students still need to commit board-tested material to memory, a task often compared to drinking from a firehose.<br />
<br />
Needing to memorize for boards and learn in parallel for their institutions is the breeding ground for anxiety that Hueppchen said “has truly detracted from the joy of learning.’’ It has even detracted from the joy of teaching, she added.<br />
<br />
Berg said he tries to bring joy to memorization: “I think that what I hope to contribute the most is making studying more fun.’’<br />
<br />
Orly Nadell Farber is a reporting intern at STAT, where a version of this article first appeared.Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-18699362566440766202018-08-10T10:21:00.001-07:002018-08-10T10:21:39.310-07:00Michael Horn on G+L vs CBE<div class="head-post type-post" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: #9e5cf2; background-image: url(""); box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "lato light"; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 85px 140px; position: relative; text-align: center;">
<h1 style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #093f52; font-family: freight-text-pro; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding-bottom: 32px; position: relative; z-index: 1;">
<a href="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/lets-retire-the-gifted-and-talented-label/?utm_source=Ed+Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8/10/18" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: white; font-family: "lato bold"; font-size: 33px; letter-spacing: 5.91px; line-height: 40px; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Let’s retire the ‘gifted-and-talented’ label">Let’s retire the ‘gifted-and-talented’ label</a></h1>
<div class="author" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: white; font-family: freight-text-pro; font-size: 20px; line-height: 25px; outline: 0px; position: relative; z-index: 1;">
By: <a class="author url fn" href="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/author/michael-b-horn/" rel="author" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: white; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; z-index: 1;" title="Posts by Michael B. Horn">Michael B. Horn</a></div>
</div>
<div class="content-post" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-bottom-color: rgb(205, 205, 205); border-bottom-style: solid; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(205, 205, 205); border-left-style: solid; border-right-color: rgb(205, 205, 205); border-right-style: solid; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: initial; border-width: 0px 0.5px 0.5px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "lato light"; outline: 0px; padding: 40px;">
<div class="container-post" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: freight-text-pro; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 700px; outline: 0px;">
<div class="date" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px;">
Aug 9, 2018</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
Earlier this year the Fordham Institute wrote about the challenge of the <a href="https://edexcellence.net/publications/is-there-a-gifted-gap" rel="noopener" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #27bbdd; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">gifted gap</a> in our nation’s schools. Put simply, gifted students from disadvantaged backgrounds too often are not identified as gifted, which causes them to lose out on access to a variety of gifted-and-talented programs at their local schools that could accelerate their development and social and economic opportunities.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
The report’s authors offer seemingly three solid recommendations toward this end—universal screening for gifted students; identification of gifted students within each school, not just district-wide; and active efforts to counter bias.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
Those make sense if we assume gifted programs are a good idea. But in a day and age where we can move past our factory-model schools and personalize learning for all students, such that students can move at their own pace and not grow bored or disengaged and can dive deep into areas of passion, should schools be in the business of placing labels on students designed to sort them?</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
Count me as unconvinced.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
In 2010, a fifth-grade student named Jack (his name is disguised) started the year at the bottom of his class in math at Santa Rita Elementary School in the Los Altos School District in California. I visited the class several times during the year. Jack had struggled to keep up in math and grew to consider himself one of those kids who would just never quite ‘‘get it.’’ In a typical school, he would have been tracked and placed in the bottom math group—and he certainly would not have been considered a “gifted” student. That would have meant that he would not have taken Algebra until high school, which would have negatively impacted his college and career choices.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
But Jack’s story took a less familiar turn. His school transformed his class into a “blended-learning” environment to personalize the learning. After 70 days of using Khan Academy’s online math tutorials and exercises for a portion of his math three to four days a week, rather than remaining tracked in the bottom math group, Jack rose to become one of the top four students in his class. He was working on material well above grade level.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
The reality was that Jack had just missed some mathematical concepts in much earlier grades that continued to haunt him. When he had the opportunity to revisit those concepts and master them, several of his misunderstandings disappeared. Jack started to soar.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
The traditional system would never have been able to reach Jack. Its treatment of students like him amount to educational malpractice, even though we do not call it so. Labeling other kids as gifted would have damaged Jack’s ability to make progress, both because of his self-perception as well as others’ perception of him.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
As Jack’s performance changed, Jack’s self-perception changed as well. I am also fairly certain that Jack’s performance, as well as that of his classmates, will remain uneven, with bursts of accelerated progress and periods of struggle.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
Closer to home in Lexington, Mass., where I live, over coffee a parent told me that his daughter in the eighth grade was anguishing over whether to take regular or honors math next year in high school. The stress over the decision was intense, he said. As stress like this builds, he told me that many parents were considering taking their students out of the public school system. I couldn’t believe this was all just over what math class a 14-year-old should take. Why did she have to choose, label herself, and place herself on a track with no flexibility?</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
If Lexington Public Schools moved to a mastery-based system, one in which students progress as they master material, not based on an arbitrary measure of time, and utilized blended learning to personalize for each student, she could just take “math.” Lexington High School could maintain a minimum pace at which she had to move and then she and the school could see how far and deep she could move in mathematics. In the course of taking it, she might surprise herself—and avoid closing off a door too early. If colleges really needed a label later to evaluate her, the school could retroactively provide one based on her actual progress.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
To be clear, I’m not advocating for saying everyone is above average and giving medals for participation. A mastery-based system is more rigorous than our current one because students would only make progress by demonstrating mastery of learning. Rewards would only follow true mastery. But I’m also unconvinced applying labels makes sense when, in a personalized system, those same labels could be wrong and outdated on any given day. Labeling risks shortchanging a lot of students. And society loses, as we miss out on fully developing future human capital.</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
If we give students like Jack the stretch opportunities they need to soar without labeling them gifted—or avoid incorrectly labeling them and taking away those same opportunities—don’t we create a better system?</div>
<div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; line-height: 30px; outline: 0px;">
The more important principle is to make sure we do not shortchange students based on their race, income, or gender. And if we start judging everyone based on mastery, I think our chances are a lot higher of fixing that problem than if we continue to obsess about labels.</div>
</div>
<div class="container-author" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(216, 216, 216); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 700px; outline: 0px; padding: 30px 0px;">
<div class="head-author" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; min-height: 44px; outline: 0px; position: relative;">
<img class="author-photo" src="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/CC-Institute-Gala-9-of-321-150x150.jpg" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-radius: 50%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; left: 0px; max-width: 44px; outline: 0px; position: absolute; top: 0px;" /><div class="author-name" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #093f52; font-family: freight-text-pro; font-size: 20px; line-height: 18px; outline: 0px; padding: 5px 14px 3px 58px;">
<a href="https://www.christenseninstitute.org/results/?authors=michael-b-horn" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #093f52; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">Michael B. Horn</a></div>
</div>
<div class="author-bio" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; outline: 0px;">
<div class="small" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4e4e4e; font-family: freight-text-pro; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 14px 0px;">
Michael is a co-founder and distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute. He currently works as a principal consultant for Entangled Solutions.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-54134549659375420752018-03-22T12:35:00.000-07:002018-03-22T12:35:43.854-07:00The Future of Work: Will Our Children Be Prepared?<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HF-a-UmoRt4" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JE5XRrfetu4" width="480"></iframe>Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-31712539760762334912018-03-03T12:27:00.002-08:002018-03-03T12:27:52.203-08:00House PROSPER Act eliminates the concept of distance education from the law. By: Alana Dunagan<br />
<br />
Feb 27, 2018<br />
<br />
Distance vs. correspondence? Where federal policy stands today<br />
<br />
Distance education was first defined by the Higher Education Act in 1992. At the time, the primary aim of lawmakers was to address waste, fraud and abuse by “correspondence programs”, which sent course materials mainly through the mail. In the 1980s, these had been responsible for an outsized share of student loan defaults. The language developed in 1992—which permissively noted that transmission by microwave was acceptable—excluded correspondence programs from receiving federal funds, but did not anticipate how online learning would develop, and therefore have proved wholly inadequate to regulate online education.<br />
<br />
The key variable separating distance education from correspondence programs was the concept of “regular and substantive interaction” between students and instructors. This has led to a series of Department of Education regulations on what is “regular”, what is “substantive”, and who is an “instructor”. These regulations constrain the ability of online programs to innovate around the instructional model, but they do nothing to ensure strong outcomes for students.<br />
<br />
In 1992, online programs were just emerging, but today over 30% of students are learning online. Regulations which encourage innovation—while protecting students—have never been more important for online programs.<br />
<br />
[Tweet “Regulations which encourage innovation—while protecting students—have never been more important for online programs.” @alanadunagan @christenseninst]<br />
<br />
The normalization of online learning?<br />
<br />
The two houses of Congress are taking different approaches to drafting legislation to reauthorize the HEA. The Senate is taking a slower approach and is leaving the door open to drafting a bill with bipartisan support by holding committee hearings every few weeks that focus on affordability and federal financial aid programs. In contrast, with little public debate, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce approved the PROSPER Act on a party line vote in December.<br />
<br />
PROSPER eliminates the concept of distance education (and microwaves) from the law. Online learning is addressed throughout the law as a normal means of conducting education. PROSPER doesn’t create any new or different requirements for online programs. The law also eliminates Department of Education regulations that schools seek authorization in every state in which they serve students, and instead proposes that schools only be authorized in the state in which they are physically located. States had largely resolved this issue themselves through SARA, the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement, but this workaround would no longer be necessary if PROSPER became law.<br />
<br />
Innovation is guided by incentives<br />
<br />
PROSPER removes a complex and burdensome layer of regulation from online programs and allows schools the freedom to design instructional models that take advantage of advances in technology. But for innovation to thrive in ways that benefit students, the workforce, and society, all colleges need to be incentivized to provide affordable, high quality programs that are aligned to workforce needs.<br />
<br />
No one, on either side of the aisle, wants to see the federal government dump cash into low-quality programs that are more focused on revenues than on providing an education that helps students succeed. PROSPER’s authors aim to unleash innovation in higher education, but the guardrails the bill places on the industry are simply too weak. Measures in the bill touted as “risk-sharing” are likely to have adverse consequences, but are unlikely to change institutional behavior in ways that protect students. The bill also requires programs to demonstrate that their graduates maintain a 45% student loan repayment rate, or else be ineligible to continue receiving funds. This is an improvement on prior metrics, but is still a laughably low bar, and fails to take into account the outcomes of students who don’t graduate.<br />
<br />
Incentives for student success<br />
<br />
Organizations design their business models around incentives. In higher education, institutions are paid to enroll students—they have incentives to expand access, but not to achieve outcomes like completion or career success. As a result, money has flowed relatively freely, quality assurance has been a thorny problem, and affordability is an increasingly pressing issue.<br />
<br />
Instead, Congress should adopt regulatory mechanisms that focus on outcomes. Changing the way colleges are funded by creating meaningful alignment with student outcomes could improve quality for the entire industry, not just online programs. This could take the form of meaningful risk-sharing, whereby colleges have to repay some financial aid dollars if students default. It could also include increasing the role of income-sharing agreements, whereby some revenues become contingent on a student’s future earnings. These funding models would incentivize colleges to ensure that their programs are adequately preparing students to succeed in today’s labor market.<br />
<br />
Using outcomes to create guardrails against waste, fraud, and abuse is preferable to complex, clunky federal definitions of what is meant by online education. Higher education providers will continue to innovate; the authors of the next HEA reauthorization can’t reasonably be expected to create definitions that will remain relevant through the next decade of technological change and business model evolution. Relying on outcomes gives institutions the flexibility to innovate, while still protecting students and taxpayers.<br />
<br />
The House bill drops the outdated distance education definition, but doesn’t sufficiently improve risk-sharing or other mechanisms to align institutional incentives with student outcomes. We hope the Senate bill truly modernizes higher education regulation, not just for online education, but for all programs.<br />
<br />
<br />
Alana Dunagan<br />
<br />
Alana leads the Institute’s higher education research and works to find solutions for a more affordable system that better serves both students and employers. In this role, Alana analyzes disruptive forces changing the higher education landscapeGreg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-59099668620597881162018-03-01T08:42:00.000-08:002018-03-01T08:42:47.756-08:00 Why Is Accountability Always About Teachers?<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #555555; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">By <a href="http://educationnext.org/author/mdynarski/" title="Posts by Mark Dynarski"><span style="color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Mark Dynarski</span></a></span></i><span style="color: #504945; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #555555; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">02/21/2018 - Ed</span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #555555; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; padding: 0in;">ucation Next</span><span style="color: #504945; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Most education reform efforts focus on what teachers are doing — professional development, new curricula, bonuses and incentives to raise scores, and so on. All are based on the belief that teachers can teach more effectively if their skills can be improved, their tools can be better, and their efforts can be more energetic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Teachers are the largest group of staff within the K-12 system, and their skills matter for its performance. But they do not manage or direct the system. Do organizations wanting to improve expect that they can get it done by upskilling only their line-level staff? If Walmart were losing money, would it conclude that management was doing a great job but the floor staff needed professional development? The more natural focus would be on decisions and actions of executives, managers, and senior administrators.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt; padding: 0in;">An average teacher is highly experienced</span></b><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">du jour</span></i> focus in education reform (currently personalized learning, differentiation, and hybrid learning are topical) typically presumes teachers have an appetite and willingness to change their classroom practices. But teachers are both highly experienced and work in highly constrained settings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">An average K-12 teacher has been teaching for about 14 years. <a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn1"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[1]</span></a> A typical school year is 180 days, a typical school day is 6.5 hours—so <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">average</span></i> teachers have taught more than 16,000 hours. During those hours they have worked with hundreds of children. If they teach in middle schools or high schools, it may be thousands of children. From those many hours, teachers have amassed pedagogical practices they believe work for their students. These practices may be effective or flawed or plain wrong, but the point is that teachers might not be easily separated from their practices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">And these teachers face a lot of constraints in classrooms. Teachers are assigned to grade levels, their students are assigned to classrooms, their textbooks and supplies, including software and computers, are chosen for them, and the entire school or district is lockstep in a schedule that dictates how much time is spent on each subject. Teachers control how much time they invest outside the classroom in exploring new teaching approaches or learning about what others are doing that might work for them too. But any ideas they find in this kind of self-study still need to fit within the constraints. A teacher who reads about an interesting approach for, say, teaching fractions, has to contend with a textbook and test materials that might focus on a different approach to teaching fractions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt; padding: 0in;">Evidence is lacking on how teachers can be more effective</span></b><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">A group as large as teachers (there are about 3.1 million public school teachers) will include some who are more effective and some who are less effective, and ample evidence exists that teachers differ in their effectiveness. <a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn2"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[2]</span></a>With the exception of how many years a teacher has taught, however, what separates highly effective teachers from less effective teachers has proven to be a tough nut to crack, and, relatedly, far less evidence exists about how to move teachers from the lower side of the effectiveness curve to the higher side.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The New Teacher Project (TNTP) recently looked at professional development in large school districts and a charter school network and concluded that “We found no evidence that any particular kind or amount of professional development consistently helps teachers improve.” <a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn3"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[3]</span></a> It’s not for lack of spending to help teachers improve—TNTP estimated that large districts were spending more about $18,000 a year per teacher on professional development. TNTP also reviewed the broader research literature and commented on findings from the most rigorous studies that had been done by the Institute of Education Sciences: “teachers who received the best of the best [professional development] were no more likely to see large, lasting improvements in their practice, knowledge, or student learning. </span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">In fact, many did not use the techniques they’d been trained to employ—even when researchers were in the room to observe them.” </span><a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn4" style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[4]</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"> This last point may relate to teacher experience noted above—a teacher who has been teaching a subject for years might not be easily convinced to teach it some other way based on a presentation at a workshop.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">These ‘top down’ approaches to improve teaching have been complemented by ‘bottom up’ approaches that offer financial incentives for teachers to improve. The idea of financial incentives is based on logic that economists find eminently sensible—workers work harder when money is at stake, so giving teachers higher pay for higher test scores should cause test scores to go up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">An attractive feature of financial incentives is that teachers can plot their own paths to improvement. This is the ‘bottom up’ aspect. It’s an idea worth testing, and two recent studies have. Both were large and designed to the highest research standards. They are worth discussing at some length because both studies reveal insights about teachers and districts that add to the picture of how accountability might be better focused.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The first study was of incentive pay (bonuses) for middle-school math teachers in the Nashville school district. <a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn5"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[5]</span></a>The largest bonus was substantial, $15,000 a year, for teachers whose performance was in the top five percent of teachers based on historical district data. Currently, the district’s salary for a teacher with 14 years of experience (the US average) and a master’s degree is $56,000, so the bonus was about 25 percent of annual salary. Amounts of $5,000 and $10,000 were paid for teachers at the top 20 percent and top 10 percent. The constraints on teachers mentioned above were not relaxed by the incentive-pay program—teachers still were given their grade levels, their students, and their curricula.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">But test scores did not improve. And two other interesting findings emerged suggesting why scores did not improve. One was that teachers reported on surveys that they did not do anything different in response to potential bonuses because they <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">already</span></i> were working as effectively as they could. A second was that teachers did not believe that a teacher who earned a bonus was a better teacher, or that teachers who did not earn bonuses needed to improve. It’s hard to expect bonuses to do much if teachers believed they already were redlined and did not agree with the logic of bonuses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">A second study measured effects of incentive pay (the federal ‘Teacher Incentive Fund’) in 10 districts and reported similar results. <a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn6"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[6]</span></a> Test scores barely moved (they improved by an amount roughly equivalent to one to two-tenths of an IQ point). The study also reported that districts did a terrible job explaining bonuses <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">to their own teachers</span></i>. In the fourth year of the program, forty percent of teachers who were eligible for bonuses did not know they were eligible. <a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn7"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[7]</span></a> Eligibility was by school, but even teachers in the same school differed on whether they thought they were eligible. And when asked to predict how much their bonus for increasing scores would be, their answers were far smaller than what the real program was going to pay them. Teachers reported they were eligible for a maximum bonus of about $3,000. <a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn8"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[8]</span></a> Districts reported paying maximum bonuses averaging about $9,000.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">One of the program’s requirements was that districts create systems for awarding bonuses that differentiated between teachers—the whole idea of bonuses is to reward above-average performance. Yet <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">seventy percent</span></i> of teachers ultimately received bonuses. The bonuses averaged $2,000, about 4-5 percent of average teacher salaries. Knowingly or unknowingly, districts essentially converted their bonus programs into teacher raises.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt; padding: 0in;">Accountability needs to be more equitable</span></b><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The findings suggest top-down and bottom-up approaches to improve teaching are unlikely to do much. Yet the last ten years have seen tremendous growth in teacher and principal evaluation systems that rely on test scores and observations to rate teachers. If sending teachers to professional-development workshops or paying them real money to improve does not yield results, it’s at best unclear why expending significant amounts to measure and observe their performance will yield results.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The systems focus their measurement and analytic machinery on teachers, who have the least ability to improve what they do. Senior leaders make decisions that affect every aspect of life for teachers in schools. Senior leaders hire teachers, using criteria they’ve chosen. They give tenure to teachers using criteria they’ve chosen or agreed to. Senior leaders assign teachers to grade levels, give them textbooks and curricula, buy and set up their technology, lay out their schedules, create disciplinary policies they need to follow, and choose programs for how they will work with students learning English, and students with disabilities, and students with reading difficulties, and students who are homeless. And senior leaders decide to change these –they adopt new curricula, set up new testing programs, roll out new technology, change schedules for subjects, modify discipline policies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Teachers are not making these decisions. They might be asked for input on the decisions, but they do not make them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">A teacher does not declare that next year the school will be using <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">this</span></i> curriculum as their math series.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">An important qualification is that some systems, such as the DC IMPACT system, provide a basis for firing ineffective teachers and rewarding highly effective teachers. <a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn9"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[9]</span></a> Eric Hanushek has written elsewhere about the high costs associated with ineffective teachers. <a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn10"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[10]</span></a> To date, these systems have reported large numbers of effective teachers, and, previously, I noted it is unlikely that 98 percent of teachers really are effective, if the word has any meaning. <a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn11"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[11]</span></a> But being able to identify the lowest-performing teachers at least provides administrators with a basis for removing them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Accountability for administrators is complicated when organizations are not for profit. Private-sector organizations have profit as natural metric, and the market does the work of measuring it. School districts do not have a measure of profit to gauge their success. They need to decide which ‘interventions’ or processes to test, which outcomes to focus on, how outcomes will be measured, and who is responsible for them. For example, Whitehurst previously has written about the promise of selecting more effective textbooks and curricula. <a href="http://educationnext.org/accountability-always-teachers/#_edn12"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">[12]</span></a> Selecting a new math series, for example, should begin an evaluation cycle: Decide on outcomes, how they will be measured, and how much they should be expected to increase. Then assess outcomes and learn whether the series worked. If it seems hampered by implementation factors, adjust them and assess again. If outcomes improve, the improvement will be experienced both by teachers and by administrators who decided on trying the new math series. Equity in accountability is just as desirable in schools as it is in private-sector organizations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Finding what works to improve involves risk—ideas might work out or they might not. Under the current system, administrators create the structures and administrators come up with the ideas about what might work. Teachers are then assessed on the results. We need to think about how to shift risks back to where they belong, which is with those who make the decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">— Mark Dynarski<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt; padding: 0in;">Mark Dynarski is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Economic Studies, Center on Children and Families, at Brookings.</span></i><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt; padding: 0in;">This post originally appeared as part of <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/series/evidence-speaks/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #23238e; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Evidence Speaks</span></a>, a weekly series of reports and notes by a standing panel of researchers under the editorship of Russ Whitehurst.</span></i><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #504945; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <hr align="center" size="2" width="100%" />
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt; padding: 0in;">Notes:</span></b><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn1"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">1. https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/sass1112_2013314_t12n_003.asp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn2"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">2. A recent study by the Institute of Education Sciences and Mathematica Policy Research reported that having a teacher at the 10th percentile of effectiveness compared to having a teacher at the 90th percentile of effectiveness is roughly equivalent to a student achieving 15 percentile points higher on a reading test and 19 percentile points higher on a math test. Differences of this size are rare in education research. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20174008.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn3"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">3. https://tntp.org/publications/view/the-mirage-confronting-the-truth-about-our-quest-for-teacher-development<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn4"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">4. https://tntp.org/blog/post/what-does-the-research-say-on-professional-development-anyway<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn5"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">5. https://my.vanderbilt.edu/performanceincentives/files/2012/09/Executive-Summary-Final-Report-Experimental-Evidence-from-the-Project-on-Incentives-in-Teaching-2012.pdf.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn6"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">6. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20184004/pdf/20184004.pdf<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn7"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">7. See table IV.9 on page 65. https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20184004/pdf/20184004.pdf<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn8"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">8. Figure IV.11, page 67, ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn9"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">9. http://educationnext.org/a-lasting-impact-high-stakes-teacher-evaluations-student-success-washington-dc/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn10"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">10. http://hanushek.stanford.edu/publications/low-performing-teachers-have-high-costs<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn11"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">11. https://www.brookings.edu/research/teacher-observations-have-been-a-waste-of-time-and-money/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_edn12"></a><span style="font-family: inherit, serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">12. https://www.brookings.edu/research/dont-forget-curriculum/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-49062030059187128192018-02-22T06:21:00.000-08:002018-04-09T05:28:18.094-07:00Google Classroom Now Available to All<br />
By Jack Wallen | February 21, 2018<br />
<a href="https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-set-up-a-google-classroom-to-train-students-employees-or-anyone-who-wants-to-learn/">Tech Republic</a><br />
<br />
Google Classroom used to be limited to educational institutions and those with G Suite accounts. That is no longer the case. Back in April, 2017, <a href="https://www.blog.google/topics/education/google-classroom-outside-classroom/">Google announced</a> that Classrooms would be open to anyone with a Google account. Now everyone can take advantage of this remarkable tool that makes education, training, and even outreach possible. So your business, your consultancy, or your department can set up a classroom where clients, friends, family, staff, board of directors, or anyone you wish can join the class and learn.<br />
<br />
Not only is Google Classrooms a very powerful tool, it's also incredibly easy to use.<br />
<br />
I want to walk you through the process of creating a new Google Classroom that you can then use for myriad possibilities.<br />
What you'll need<br />
<br />
Obviously, you need a Google account. You'll also need to have thought out what your class is going to center on. Although you can throw something together for testing purposes, when it comes time to create your actual classroom, you'll need your ideas gathered together such as description of class, beginning assignments, materials, etc. However, in the early stages, it's fine to create a skeleton classroom that you can later retool to perfectly fit your needs.<br />
<br />
You'll eventually need students. Students are invited, from within the classroom. This can be done later when you're ready to start the actual class.<br />
<br />
Finally, you'll want to have a bit of creativity on your side. Teaching a class requires as much creativity as information. You need to keep those students engaged in the learning, even though this isn't a face to face class.<br />
<br />
That's it. With everything in place, let's create a class.<br />
Creating your class<br />
<br />
The first thing to do is sign into your Google account and then head over to the main <a href="https://classroom.google.com/">Google Classroom page</a> (Figure A).<br />
<br />
Figure A<img height="248" src="https://tr3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2018/02/21/dd38cb18-7cc0-4ba7-89fd-c8d8e427fb01/14ef7530d41edad9222e52ba82ee106d/classrooma.jpg" width="640" /><br />
<br />
<br />
The main Google Classroom page showing two classes I've started to set up.<br />
<br />
From that page, click on the + button and then click Create Class from the drop-down. You must click the EULA checkbox and then click CONTINUE. In the resulting popup (Figure B), you must give the class a Name (required), a Section (optional), and a Subject (Optional).<br />
<br />
<br />
<div>
Figure B</div>
<div>
<img src="https://tr4.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2018/02/21/11546cdf-fa8f-4c7f-a9cc-fb318dcfacd2/017dd9ed31501e3dd6badbd725597c31/classroomb.jpg" /><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Naming your new classroom.</b><br />
Once you've filled out the necessary information, click CREATE and your class will be created. When the classroom opens (Figure C), you can then set out to customize the classroom.<br />
<br />
Figure C<img height="443" src="https://tr4.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2018/02/21/ccdb9030-ecdd-45fc-bb35-82ca6c1af3ff/bac33bf0f720384c7ca800580da29584/classroomc.jpg" width="640" /><br />
<br />
<br />
Your classroom awaits you.<br />
<br />
Within the main page of your classroom, you might consider taking care of a few options.<br />
<br />
First you'll want to select a new theme for the classroom. To do this, click either Select them or Upload photo. With the look of the classroom taken care of, you'll want to give the class a description. To add a description, click on the ABOUT tab, and then in the resulting window, click the three vertical dots associated with the class title. Click Edit and then give your classroom a description (Figure D) and a meeting location, if applicable.<br />
<br />
Figure D<img height="331" src="https://tr1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2018/02/21/b1636264-9472-4276-9a01-2ccc3a0a9f6e/c51997b6c16543f29372aa8dadb3f034/classroomd.jpg" width="640" /><br />
<br />
<br />
Creating a description for your class.<br />
<br />
After you fill out this information, click SAVE.<br />
<br />
If you're planning on co-teaching the class, click the INVITE TEACHERS button and send invitations. If you'll be teaching the class by yourself, skip that step.<br />
<br />
At this point, you'll want to manage the Class Drive Folder. This is where any assignment material will be stored. When you create a new assignment, any attachments to the assignment will be uploaded to that folder. If you go to Google Drive, and check out the sharing permissions of that folder, you will see that only teachers of the class will have access to the folder. You cannot (nor would you want to) give students access to the folder. The only way students can access files within the folder is through assignments. This folder is a good place to house resource materials for teachers of the class. I would suggest creating subfolders for that very purpose. To create subfolders, open up Google Drive, navigate into the Classroom folder and then into the folder for the class in question. Create subfolders in the same way you create folders within Google Drive.<br />
Creating assignments, announcements, etc.<br />
<br />
With your classroom ready, go back to the STREAM tab and click the + button at the bottom right corner. From the popup (Figure E), you can start creating announcements, assignments, questions, and reuse previous posts.<br />
<br />
Figure E</div>
<div>
<img height="400" src="https://tr3.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2018/02/21/dba63460-65c7-4ed5-baa4-4a14a81f682c/9ca8a48a0f327b2bbde600a58d67ec57/classroome.jpg" width="278" /><br />
<br />
<br />
Creating your first assignment is easy.</div>
<div>
Sending invites to students<br />
<br />
After you have everything set up, you can then invite students to your class. To do this, click on the STUDENTS tab and then click the INVITE STUDENTS button. You can then invite students by either name (if they are in your Google Contacts) or email address. You can also invite students using a class code. This code will be visible in the STUDENTS tab. You can send an email out to a list of students, giving them the URL for the class and the class code. Once they've joined the class, they can begin working on assignments and even interacting with their fellow students.<br />
Easy online class creation<br />
<br />
You'd be hard-pressed to find an easier way to create an online classroom. Google has done a stellar job of developing a tool that teachers of all kinds can take advantage of. If your business needs a means to teach clients, staff, customers, or just about anyone, you should give Google Classrooms a go. It won't let you down.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/">A ZDNet site</a> | Visit other CBS Interactive sites:</div>
Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-17454758007520980592017-12-08T04:43:00.000-08:002017-12-08T09:28:58.744-08:00We get to decide the future.<span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">AlphaZero mastered chess in 4 hours and is now the best on the planet ever (link <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf">here </a>to academic paper). It is, perhaps, the first generalized artificial intelligence. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14.6667px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Babies born today will never drive. 40% of the worlds jobs will be disrupted by automation. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-size: 14.6667px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">We get to decide what kind of future it will be. Will we guarantee a minimum income and set up communities where less work is needed and more play? Will the very rich hoard ever greater slices of the pie?</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 14.6667px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">We get to decide the future.</span><br />
<h1>
<a href="https://gizmodo.com/alphazero-annihilates-world-s-best-chess-bot-after-just-1821081928" style="font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank">AlphaZero Annihilates World’s Best Chess Bot After Just Four Hours of Practicing</a></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
George Dvorsky<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
A few months after demonstrating its dominance over the game of Go, DeepMind’s AlphaZero AI has trounced the world’s top-ranked chess engine—and it did so without any prior knowledge of the game and after just four hours of self-training.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
AlphaZero is now the most dominant chess playing entity on the planet. In a one-on-one tournament against Stockfish 8, the reigning computer chess champion, the DeepMind-built system didn’t lose a single game, winning or drawing all of the 100 matches played.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
AlphaZero is a modified version of AlphaGo Zero, the AI that recently won all 100 games of Go against its predecessor, AlphaGo. In addition to mastering chess, AlphaZero also developed a proficiency for shogi, a similar Japanese board game. This latest achievement underscores the system’s versatility and ability to acquire superhuman levels of competency in rule-based domains.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
Writing in Chess.com, Mike Klein put it this way: “Chess changed forever today. And maybe the rest of the world did, too. A little more than a year after AlphaGo sensationally won against the top Go player, the artificial-intelligence program AlphaZero has obliterated the highest-rated chess engine.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
The system works nearly identically to AlphaGo Zero, but instead of playing Go, the machine is programmed to play chess and shogi. Impressively, AlphaZero acquired its expertise with no outside help, and with no prior empirical data, such as a database of archived chess games, or well-known chess strategies and openings. Essentially, AlphaZero acquired 1,400 years of human chess knowledge—and then some—on its own, and in a ludicrously short amount of time. AlphaZero acquired the expertise to defeat Stockfish 8 in four hours, and AlphaGo in eight hours, according to the accompanying paper, which has yet to go through peer view.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
Some publications are reporting that AlphaZero “taught itself how to play [chess] in under four hours,” but that’s not entirely accurate. Rather, AlphaZero learned how to dominate chess in just a few hours. When the exercise starts, AlphaZero already knows how to play chess—just not very well. The system is armed with the rules to the game, but it has zero chess playing experience. Starting from a blank slate, and armed with nothing more than a reinforcement learning algorithm, a neural net, and the pieces on the board for input, AlphaZero plays itself over and over again, refining its skills with each passing match. The system can churn out 800,000 positions each second, as compared to Stockfish 8's 70 million moves a second.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
In its one-on-one tournament against Stockfish 8, AlphaZero won 25 games and tied 25 when it played as white, while winning three and drawing 72 games when playing as black—a fascinating result for chess theorists who have long known about white’s supreme first mover advantage. AlphaZero’s favorite openings included the English Opening, the Queen’s Gambit (my personal favorite), and the Queen Pawn Game.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
AlphaZero was also pitted against its sibling, AlphaGo, which was also modified to play chess. After eight-hours of self-play, it amassed a record of 60 wins and 40 losses against the digital old-timer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
“After reading the paper, but especially seeing the games, I thought, well, I always wondered how it would be if a superior species landed on Earth and showed us how they play chess,” grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen told Chess.com. “I feel now I know.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
AlphaZero’s victory over Stockfish 8 has rocked chess experts, who are now wondering if traditional “minimax” chess engines, such as Stockfish 8 and Elmo (another chess engine that got trounced by AlphaZero), are now obsolete. Only time will tell.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
Perhaps obviously, AlphaZero’s dominance in chess is less impressive than its mastery over Go—a game that’s significantly more complex. Indeed, expert chess bots have been defeating the best human players ever since IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997. But this achievement is impressive in that the same system and computational architecture used to win at Go was leveraged for use in other domains, namely chess and shogi.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 11.55pt;">
This is an important point because AlphaGo has been criticized for being too narrow. Unlike a more generalized intelligence, this expert system is really good at doing one thing and one thing only—a far cry from how human intelligence works. But by adapting the system to learn a new set of rules for an entirely new game, the DeepMind developers demonstrated the flexibility of the system and (possibly) its potential to work outside of mere gameplay. Eventually, this system, and others like it, could be used in more “real world” settings, where it could master a number of rule-based domains, such as finance and scientific discovery.</div>
</div>
Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-75826016281199586402017-11-30T09:52:00.001-08:002017-11-30T09:54:12.987-08:0012 cool things you can do with GitHub<h1 class="graf graf--h3 graf--leading graf--title" id="0683" name="0683" style="--margin-top-multiplier: 0; background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.84); font-family: medium-content-sans-serif-font, "Lucida Grande", "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Sans", Geneva, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.015em; line-height: 1.04; margin: 0px 0px 0px -2.63px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://hackernoon.com/12-cool-things-you-can-do-with-github-f3e0424cf2f0" target="_blank">Link here for the article</a></span></h1>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-31690643575078464292017-09-19T06:28:00.000-07:002017-09-19T06:28:52.044-07:00Personalized, Competency-Based<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Personalized, Competency-Based.” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These three words (maybe two words, depending on how you count) most succinctly define an approach to education that puts each learner at the center of the </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">learning ecosystem</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. An alternative term often used for this movement, “</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">blended learning</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,” while it has advantages, evoking nuance and hybrid approach, instead of false dichotomies (such as digital and physical, testing and anti-testing, whole language and phonics, new math and old), loses the imperative to move past antiquated approaches to teaching and learning, built from 18th century Prussian model, and brought to scale under Horace Mann in America as universal public education.</span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although this </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">assembly line model for education</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> made universal public education possible, it no longer serves our diverse population to prepare them for the careers of the future. Since the 90s, all 50 states have worked towards clarifying academic standards in core academic areas that are aligned with preparation for college and careers. Whether based on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Common Core</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, or not, each state has published a taxonomy of 50-100 competency statements for each grade and subject. In an effort to ensure all young people stay on track to these standards, ability-grouped tracking has lost favor and been replaced by a commitment to all kids. While an understandable reaction to the demonstrated stigma of hard tracking, this approach has resulted in classrooms that by middle grades where a math teacher may be challenged by students whose math abilities may range from one or more grade behind to one or more grade ahead, therefore, spanning perhaps 600 skill differential between highest and lowest performing students. From this perspective, “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">teaching to the middle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,” makes little sense.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead, as Sal Kahn says, we can “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">flip the classroom</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,” and provide anytime, any place, any pace access to learning experiences that target the “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">zone of proximal learning</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” for each student. Instead of moving with the herd of learners by age and grade, each learner can “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">move on when ready</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” to the content and depth optimized to their needs. In these new learning environments, teachers become elevated from that of lab technician, working nights and weekends in a near futile attempt to provide timely feedback, to learning doctors, synthesizing self-grading learning materials into personalized, constructive feedback.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We stand at the brink of a new era in education</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; one in which learners demonstrate skills in diverse settings both within and outside traditional schools. For less than 1% of the average US K12 budget, every student in America can have access to a learning device like a Chromebook. New skills, like computational thinking, add to the foundational skills of numeracy and literacy that are rapidly becoming indispensable for participating in the new economy. Open source, not-for-profit, and philanthropic learning tool providers like EnageNY, Open Up, Kahn Academy, Code.org, EdX are providing a rapidly growing set of high-quality free resources. While many public schools remain on the treadmill of letter grades on transcripts targeting college admissions, elite independent schools across the nation are shifting the conversation by coming together through the Mastery Transcript Consortium to replace letter grades on transcripts within five years. Although the federal government is no longer providing meaningful leadership, US global tech titans Apple through XQ Super Schools and FaceBook through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative have joined foundations funded by Gates, Dell, and Hewlett to help spur the innovation needed for these changes to occur.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What does it look like? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A classroom that has been “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">flipped</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” provides learners with online videos and reading material they can watch and read at their own pace, and often in their own language, in their home or any other informal learning environment. When in school, in the presence of a trained educator, learners typically benefit most from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">learning while doing</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, practicing skills like writing and problem solving under the supervision and support of their teacher. The classroom is flipped because the type of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">active learning</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> traditionally assigned to homework is done in the classroom and the more </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">passive reading and viewing</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are done outside of class. In this environment, learners are freer to move at their own pace, practicing each skill until mastery is evidenced and then moving on instead of waiting for classmates. Taken to its logical extreme, the concepts of “class” and “course” break down to learning modules that group students more dynamically and avoid the negative consequences of rigid tracking.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What should states do to support personalized, competency-based learning?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The evolution of the learning ecosystem occurs at all levels, individual, class, school, district, and state. States have a critical role, establishing the conditions to support local innovation. Most importantly, as I described in my </span><a href="https://blogsandbadges.blogspot.com/2015/11/fix-dont-discard-mcasparcc.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">prior post</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, state-supported summative assessments must evolve to take less instructional time and separate faster accountability instruments from embedded diagnostic tools. In addition to that, states need to support technology and policies that enable learners to pursue pathways to future careers through an open system of micro-credential badges. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">States like Georgia are leading the charge</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Since 2015, under the leadership of State Superintendent of Schools, Richard Woods, the Georgia Department of Education has been committed to leading the Nation in use of open standards, open source technology, open education resources, and free educational resources to create personalized learning pathways for the next generation of Georgia learners. GA DOE will begin this work with a focus on computer science and computational thinking and will expand to all other subjects. They are developing partnerships from the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and leading education foundations to establish a micro-credential pathway from K-12 to military enlistment/training, employment/occupational licenses, and postsecondary learning. When complete, Georgia will become the first state in the nation to implement scalable policies to support personalized, competency-based learning. </span></div>
Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-85504050416499206402017-05-09T06:24:00.004-07:002017-05-09T06:24:46.341-07:00Evidence of Khan positive impact<div class="MsoNormal">
By Caitlin Emma<o:p></o:p></div>
05/08/2017 03:49 PM EDT<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Students who use free SAT preparation materials from the nonprofit Khan
Academy for about 20 hours gain an average of 115 points on the 1,600-point
test, the College Board said today.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
The College Board in 2014 announced it was partnering with Khan Academy to
offer the free materials at the same time it said it was redesigning the
college admissions test. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
The announcement came in response to criticism that low-income students were
unable to afford costly test prep materials that gave them an edge. The test
overhaul, which was rolled out two years later, eliminated obscure vocabulary
words and placed more emphasis on real-world data in subjects like math and
science. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
For the evaluation, the College Board looked at nearly 250,000 test takers
to determine whether they made gains between when they took the PSAT and the
SAT. Students who didn't practice at all saw a gain of 60 points, it said.
Practicing six to eight hours led to a gain of about 90 points. Overall, it
said that 16,000 students saw increases of 200 points or more.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
David Coleman, president of the College Board, said the gains made were
consistent across race, gender, family income and ethnicity. The testing
organization didn't immediately provide reporters with a breakout of that data
during a media call this afternoon. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<br />
Coleman said he believes the test prep materials go beyond just
familiarizing students with the SAT by helping students better learn the
material and target points of weakness. <o:p></o:p>Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-89977682782579738222017-04-11T06:15:00.000-07:002017-04-11T06:15:17.090-07:00Kindergarten Red Shirting<h1 class="post_single" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; float: left; font-family: "Open Sans", "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 27px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 0px 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 3px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 520px;">
Is Your Child Ready for Kindergarten?</h1>
<div class="post_cover" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #504945; float: right; font-family: "Lucida Grande", Lucida, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 17px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
<h3 class="post_single" id="postSingleSubTitle" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; float: left; font-family: "open sans", "times new roman", times, serif; font-stretch: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 3px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 520px;">
<i style="color: #555555; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Redshirting may do more harm than good</span></i></h3>
<div>
<i style="color: #555555; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i style="color: #555555; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i style="color: #555555; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<br style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #504945; font-family: "Lucida Grande", Lucida, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" />
<br style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #504945; font-family: "Lucida Grande", Lucida, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" />
<span class="meta-author" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #504945; font-family: "lucida grande" , "lucida" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="color: #555555; font-family: "open sans", "times new roman", times, serif; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"><a href="http://educationnext.org/is-your-child-ready-kindergarten-redshirting-may-do-more-harm-than-good/" target="_blank"><b>EducationNext</b></a></i></span><br />
<span class="editpost" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #504945; font-family: "lucida grande" , "lucida" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #504945; font-family: "lucida grande" , "lucida" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"></span><span class="meta-author" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #504945; font-family: "lucida grande" , "lucida" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="color: #555555; font-family: "Open Sans", "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">By <a class="author url fn" href="http://educationnext.org/author/dwschnazenbach/" rel="author" style="border: 0px; color: #777777; cursor: pointer; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Posts by Diane Whitmore Schnazenbach">Diane Whitmore Schnazenbach</a> and <a class="author url fn" href="http://educationnext.org/author/shlarson/" rel="author" style="border: 0px; color: #23238e; cursor: pointer; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Posts by Stephanie Howard Larson">Stephanie Howard Larson</a></i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #504945; font-family: "lucida grande" , "lucida" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><span class="meta-date" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #555555; font-family: "open sans" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #504945; font-family: "lucida grande" , "lucida" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"></span><br />
<div class="post_userbar" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: solid; border-image: initial; border-left-color: initial; border-left-style: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0px 2px; color: #23238e; float: left; font-family: "Lucida Grande", Lucida, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 5px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 710px;">
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a class="print" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" style="background: url("img/userbar_print.png") 0px center no-repeat; border: 0px; color: #23238e; cursor: pointer; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 3px 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 5px 20px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">PRINT</a> | <a class="pdf" href="http://educationnext.org/is-your-child-ready-kindergarten-redshirting-may-do-more-harm-than-good/#" style="background: url("img/userbar_pdf.png") 0px center no-repeat; border: 0px; color: #23238e; cursor: pointer; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 3px 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 5px 20px; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">NO PDF</a> | <a class="share" href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&pub=xa-4a796db05610a5c2" style="background: url("img/userbar_share.png") 0px center no-repeat; border: 0px; color: #23238e; cursor: pointer; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 10px 3px 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 5px 20px; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">SHARE</a></div>
<div class="right" style="border: 0px; float: right; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">
SUMMER 2017 / VOL. 17, NO. 3</div>
</div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #504945; font-family: "lucida grande" , "lucida" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"></span><br />
<div class="blog_content" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #504945; display: inline-block; float: left; font-family: "Lucida Grande", Lucida, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
In his 2008 blockbuster, <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Outliers,</em> Malcolm Gladwell makes the case that a person’s age relative to his or her cohort is a key predictor of success. That is, the older you are in relation to your peers, the more likely you are to perform at an elite level in sports, to excel in school, and even to attend college. We see this principle applied in college athletics when coaches “redshirt” freshman athletes, allowing them to practice with the team but not play in official games. Redshirting gives younger athletes an additional year to develop skills and extends their playing eligibility, since colleges allow these freshmen five years to attend and compete.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
On the other end of the student age spectrum, many parents of preschoolers have bought into this concept, choosing to delay their child’s entry into kindergarten for a year—a practice known as academic redshirting. Their justifications parallel those of college coaches: these parents believe that their children need that extra year to develop the necessary skills and maturity to succeed in kindergarten. A redshirted child is a year older at kindergarten entry and thus becomes one of the oldest in his class and remains so throughout his school years, enjoying the presumed advantages of age.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Preschools and elementary schools often recommend redshirting, asserting that it bestows the “gift of extra time,” but parents should take such advice with a grain of salt. After all, a preschool stands to gain financially from the practice, since the school will likely capture another year’s tuition. And elementary schools may also have mixed motives: older children are easier to teach and they perform at higher levels, just by virtue of being older. In other words, older children make the school’s job a little bit easier.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
How should parents decide whether they should enroll their child in kindergarten when he is first eligible or hold him back for a year? In this article, we draw upon our combined experience—Schanzenbach as an education researcher and Larson as a preschool director—to provide some practical, evidence-based advice. Notably, we find that Larson’s take on the issue, formed by 14 years of experience with preschoolers and their parents, accords perfectly with Schanzenbach’s conclusions based on academic studies: redshirting is generally not worth it.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Despite the weightiness of the decision, rest assured that a child is likely to be successful whichever path his parents choose. We know dozens of families who have redshirted their children and have been perfectly happy with the outcome. On the other hand, in most instances there is a good case to be made for resisting the pressure—not only from schools but sometimes from other parents as well—and sending a child to school when he is first age-eligible.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Why Delay? </strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
We recognize that deciding whether or not to redshirt a preschooler is difficult. Parents want what’s best for their children now and in the future, and they have to make the kindergarten-enrollment decision with limited and uncertain information. The concerns that lead parents to contemplate redshirting are most often related to the child’s physical, social, and emotional maturity as the parents perceive it. In particular, parents seem to wrestle most with the redshirting decision when they have a son whose fifth birthday falls just before the cutoff date for kindergarten eligibility, which is most commonly on or around September 1. If the child starts kindergarten “on time,” he will be among the youngest in his grade; if he is redshirted, he will be one of the oldest.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
In terms of physical maturity, it is true that redshirting changes the child’s relative height in the kindergarten class. For example, using national data, we calculated that a summer-born boy who is in the bottom third of the national height distribution will be, on average, the fourth-shortest child in a class of 24. If he is redshirted, the height he gains during the additional year of preschool will move him closer to the middle of the pack. On the other hand, if the boy enters on time, he will also tend to gain relative height over the years, and by 3rd grade the odds are only fifty-fifty that he will remain in the shortest third of his class.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Emotional development presents a thornier issue. Parents correctly want their child to be able to walk into his kindergarten classroom with confidence—standing tall, asking questions, developing relationships with the teacher and with other students. If the child’s work habits or ability to sustain attention or fine motor skills are less advanced than those of his peers because he is younger, parents fear that the child will be left behind. One challenge here is that the child’s skill level in April, when the redshirting decision is often made, is a poor predictor of what his skills will be in September or October, when the school year is underway. Children’s development is highly uneven, with bursts of improvement in language, fine motor skills, and other capacities coming somewhat unpredictably.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Who Is Redshirted? </strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Most parents wrestling with these issues ultimately decide to enroll their child on schedule, as the vast majority of children are not redshirted. Among parents of the kindergarten class that entered in fall 2010, 6.2 percent reported that they delayed their child’s school entry by a year, and the share was slightly higher for boys (7.2 percent) than for girls (5.2 percent, see Figure 1a). The rate was higher among highly educated parents (see Figure 1b), with college graduates approximately twice as likely to redshirt their sons as high-school graduates are. The variation by parental education was especially stark for boys born during the summer months: among those with college-educated parents, approximately one in five was redshirted, a rate that is about four times as high as that for summer-born boys with high-school-educated parents. Note, however, that even among summer-birthday boys with college-educated parents, the great majority of them enter kindergarten on time.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Research</strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
In his analysis, Gladwell overstates the benefits of redshirting to some degree. In fact, a balanced look at the research suggests that while children derive a short-term gain from being redshirted, that advantage dissipates quickly over time.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It is difficult to study the impacts of redshirting because students who are redshirted differ across a host of dimensions from those who start on time. As noted, children of more-educated parents are more likely to be redshirted; separating out the effects of the delayed school entry from those of other characteristics, such as family background, presents a challenge.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
No one has conducted a true randomized trial related to redshirting. Instead, researchers have sought out opportunities to isolate the effects on student outcomes of the two variables that by definition change when a student is redshirted: age itself and the student’s age relative to those of classroom peers. Once these effects are known, one can simulate the impact of being redshirted by statistically aging a kindergarten entrant by one year, and predicting the impacts of absolute age and of relative age on his outcomes.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The research literature includes many serious attempts to estimate the impact of being one of the oldest students in a class or grade, using variation in students’ age or relative age that is driven by external factors. For example, a study by Todd Elder and Darren Lubotsky leverages cross-state differences in birthday cutoff dates for kindergarten entry. In some states, a child must turn five by December 1 to be eligible for kindergarten in a given year; in others, the cutoff date is September 1. In states with earlier cutoff dates, eligible children who enter on time (and not a year late or early) are, on average, older than their counterparts in states with later cutoffs. These differences in state policy allow researchers to estimate the impact of the child’s age at kindergarten entry.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Another study, co-authored by Elizabeth Cascio and Diane Schanzenbach, uses data from the well-known Project STAR experiment in which students were randomly assigned to classrooms prior to kindergarten entry. Project STAR was initially designed to study the effects of reductions in class size. The random assignment of students to classrooms, however, meant that pairs of children with the same birthday fell into different positions in their classroom age distribution by the luck of the draw.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Both studies find that the benefit of being older at the start of kindergarten declines sharply as children move through the school grades. In the early grades, an older child will tend to perform better on standardized tests than his younger peers simply by virtue of being older. This makes perfect sense—a redshirted kindergartner has been alive up to 20 percent longer than his on-time counterpart, which means his brain has had more time to develop and he has had that many more bedtime stories, puzzles, and family outings from which to build his general knowledge. This initial advantage in academic achievement dissipates sharply over time, however, and appears to vanish by high school when, as a 9th grader, the redshirted student is at most 7 percent older than his peers.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
One benefit that redshirting might indeed confer has to do with grade retention and special education placement. Statistically, older children are less likely to be retained in a grade or to be diagnosed with learning disabilities such as ADHD. This may be because schools make judgments about retention and referrals based on a student’s relative achievement within a grade, and by virtue of their age, older students are less likely to have very low achievement. Most parents who are considering redshirting, however, have children who are not likely to perform at levels that would put them at risk for grade retention; thus, we would argue that the slightly decreased probability of retention afforded by redshirting should in most cases be given relatively little weight.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Influence of Peers</strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Both of us have stories of children who were redshirted and would likely have had a better school experience if they had enrolled on time. Larson tells the story of Joshua, a preschooler with a spring birthday who was on the low end of the normal developmental range in terms of work habits: he had trouble sitting still during circle time, for instance, and finishing multi-step projects. His parents decided to hold him back and give him an extra year of preschool. By fall, though, he had matured tremendously and clearly would have been flourishing in the kindergarten classroom. The following year, when he entered kindergarten at age six, Joshua was well ahead of his classmates and was often bored in class. Over subsequent years, he became demotivated and even developed behavioral problems. He was physically and emotionally more mature than his younger classmates and had trouble making friends.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Schanzenbach teaches Sunday school to preschoolers. It turns out that her experience in teaching college students does not transfer to good classroom-management practices for preschoolers, and the room can be somewhat chaotic at times. While some children sit on the story blanket and are engaged in listening to the short Bible lesson, others—typically the high-energy boys—tend to misbehave, goof off, and need constant reminders to pay attention. One little girl who was especially small for her age, Julia, would always sit front and center, actively listening and asking questions about the lesson. After story time one Sunday, as the kids were transitioning to the next activity, Julia walked up to her teacher, got within an inch of her face (as kids will do), and demanded to know, exasperated, “What is wrong with those boys? Why can’t they just sit still and listen?”<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Not 30 minutes later, over coffee, the girl’s mother mentioned to Schanzenbach that they were planning to redshirt Julia because of her small stature. Schanzenbach tried to convince the woman that her tiny, bright, self-possessed girl would do just fine despite her small size, and in fact would be worse-off being delayed, because attending school with less mature peers would frustrate her. Nevertheless, Julia’s parents decided to redshirt her. Now in 3rd grade, she is bored, and frustrated by her less-mature classmates—and is still among the shortest in her class. It is likely that Julia, with her sharp intellectual curiosity and mature self-possession even at age five, would have been better-off starting school on time.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
What do Joshua and Julia have in common? Because they were redshirted, they were both matched with younger peers. As the research literature confirms, the peer composition of a classroom is very important: not surprisingly, children benefit from being in a class with well-behaved, high-achieving children, and are harmed by the presence of poorly behaved classmates. One recent study by Scott Carrell, Mark Hoekstra, and Elira Kuka was able to measure the lasting detrimental impact of being in class with a disruptive peer in elementary school, suggesting that the presence of just one disruptive student out of 25 reduces the earnings of other students in young adulthood by a modest but measurable 3 to 4 percent.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Consistent with this evidence, the research on relative age indicates that being among the youngest in the class has benefits, in both the short and long term. Why? Because older classmates tend to be higher achieving and better behaved. They model positive behavior, and the younger students achieve greater academic gains from learning and competing with older ones. And two studies cited above—the one by Elder and Lubotsky and the one by Cascio and Schanzenbach—find that, with age held constant, learning with older classmates boosts students’ test scores.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
For the older students, on the other hand, the positive impacts of being more mature are offset by the negative effects of attending class with younger students.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
This is not to suggest that students would benefit from being in classrooms with far older children. The studies finding positive effects from older peers are based on classrooms where the age variation is typical—usually a few months. These results cannot be extrapolated to situations where a child is learning alongside much older students.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
But one implication is that if a handful of families in a school decide to redshirt their children, they may be doing the other families a favor by improving the children’s peer group. Rather than feeling pressure to follow in their footsteps, parents may want to thank them.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In the Balance </strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Looking at the evidence, we advise parents to redshirt their child only in unique circumstances. Just what are those situations? Here we have less research to draw upon, but experience suggests a few scenarios. One is extreme developmental delay, outside of the normal range, to such an extent that another year’s development will potentially put the child in range of his classmates. Another is when a child is experiencing trauma, such as having a terminally ill parent or sibling.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Many instances of redshirting, however, involve parents who are trying to gain an advantage for their child down the line. Parents sometimes ask us whether redshirting their child will make him more likely to be accepted into gifted and talented programs. Although we could find no direct evidence in the research literature that this is the case, we can extrapolate from the literature that older children may indeed be more likely to be placed in a gifted and talented program. This depends on how schools assign students to such programs, in particular, whether a child’s eligibility is based on a comparison to other children in his grade or to other children his age. With variations according to individual talent, children’s test scores increase both as they get older and as they experience more years of schooling. So, within a given kindergarten classroom, a six-year-old will, on average, score higher than a five-year-old by virtue of being older. And a six-year-old in 1st grade will, on average, outscore a six-year-old in kindergarten, because the 1st grader has had an extra year of schooling.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
If qualification for the gifted program is limited to the top 10 percent of the 1st graders, then being older may give some children an edge. (We are quick to add, though, that age tends to convey only small advantages that are likely to be trumped by differences in innate academic talent, and that there are many young-for-grade students in gifted programs.) On the other hand, if qualification is based on a test that is normed by age—and therefore six-year-olds are compared to other six-year-olds no matter what grade they are in—then the advantage may tip to the relatively younger child who has been in school longer.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
And finally, parents should bear in mind that redshirting can even have an effect on their child’s economic future. Starting school at age 6 instead of age 5 means heading off to college at age 19 instead of age 18. (Perhaps spending an extra year with a teenager in the house is another cost to consider!) Then the student graduates from college and enters the workforce at age 23 instead of age 22. The redshirted individual will ultimately spend one less year in the labor force and forgo the returns of an extra year of experience throughout his working life. Assuming that, as research seems to indicate, being redshirted has no net long-term impacts on skill level, we can estimate the cost of losing that year in the labor force for a college-educated male who retires at age 67. Over the course of the worker’s career, working full time and year-round, he can expect to earn $80,000 less.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
In sum, we find that redshirting at the kindergarten level bestows few benefits and exacts some substantial costs. Both research and experience suggest that the gains that accrue from being an older student are likely to be short-lived. Because of the important role of classroom peer effects, redshirted children can be educationally and socially harmed by being with others who are performing and behaving at lower developmental levels. Furthermore, while it is hard to predict a child’s likely growth trajectory in the months prior to his expected school entry, the perceived developmental delays and immaturity that prompt parents to choose redshirting in the spring have often resolved themselves by fall.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
As any good educator will tell you, parents know their children best. There are multiple factors to weigh when deciding whether a preschooler is ready to thrive in kindergarten. What research tells us about the “average” child or “most” children may not apply to a particular son’s or daughter’s unique abilities and delays. Families might want to speak with parents of older children about their own kindergarten-enrollment decisions and how they view them in retrospect. And then, parents should follow their own best judgment.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach is professor of education and social policy at Northwestern University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Stephanie Howard Larson is the director of Rose Hall Montessori School in Wilmette, Illinois. Kin</em></div>
</div>
Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-56775948893073207542017-04-03T11:27:00.004-07:002017-04-03T11:27:57.707-07:00Report Breaks Down the Big Appetite for EngageNY Among Nation’s Teachers<div class="title-section" style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 2px solid rgb(71, 157, 153); box-sizing: inherit; color: #515151; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; padding: 2rem 63px 1rem; text-align: center;">
<h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #444444; font-family: MuseoSlab-500, sans-serif; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px 0px 0.25rem;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Report Breaks Down the Big Appetite for EngageNY Among Nation’s Teachers</span></h1>
</div>
<div class="author-section clearfix" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #515151; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px auto; width: 735px;">
<div class="author vcard" style="box-sizing: inherit; float: left; padding: 3rem 3rem 0px 0px;">
<div class="clearfix" style="box-sizing: inherit;">
<div class="avatar" style="box-sizing: inherit; float: left; margin-right: 1rem;">
<img alt="" class="avatar avatar-50 photo" height="50" src="https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4f1c960f9c88135ff081f9a67c422046?s=50&d=mm&r=g" srcset="https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4f1c960f9c88135ff081f9a67c422046?s=100&d=mm&r=g 2x" style="border-radius: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; float: left; height: auto; margin-right: 1rem; max-width: 100%;" width="50" /></div>
<div class="author-information" style="box-sizing: inherit; float: left;">
<div class="author-name" style="box-sizing: inherit;">
<a class="url fn n" href="https://marketbrief.edweek.org/author/scavanagh/" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: #479d99; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">Sean Cavanagh</span></a></div>
<div class="author-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #666666;">
Senior Editor</div>
<div class="author-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #666666;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
We’ve known for some time that EngageNY, an online repository of open educational materials, has a magnetic quality for many of the nation’s educators, millions of whom have downloaded its resources for use in their schools.<br />
<br />
A new report by the Rand Corporation offers some specifics on why teachers’ appetites for the English/language arts and math resources are so strong.<br />
<br />
The materials housed on EngageNY are aligned to the Common Core State Standards and were created as “open” education resources, meaning they are free to users and can be shared and altered as educators want. The site, created by the state of New York, has drawn more than 17 million users and has had 66 million downloads since its resources went online in 2011, according to the most recent numbers from New York’s education department, as my colleague Liana Heitin reports.<br />
<br />
The Rand report says that 30 percent of math teachers and more than 25 percent of English/language arts teachers nationally are using the EngageNY in some way. The numbers were higher in individual states that are using the common core and similar standards, according to Rand.<br />
<br />
Among the other findings:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>EngageNY’s math curricular materials are used much more, at roughly three times the rate, that ELA resources are by teachers across the country. But the researchers’ data suggests that ELA teachers may use EngageNY materials “more comprehensively” than do math teachers;</li>
<li>The curriculum is accessed by teachers in every state, but educators in states that have adopted the Common Core State Standards or similar standards are 65 percent more likely to use EngageNY than are their peers in non–Common Core states.</li>
<li>Despite the openly licensed nature of EngageNY, teachers did not say that the”availability” of the materials was an especially big influence in why they choose them. Other factors, such as the influence of the district’s curriculum guidelines, mattered more.</li>
</ol>
<br />
Among a subset of teachers–those who indicated that EngageNY was one of the top three instructional materials they use–more than three-quarters said that their district either recommended or required them to use at least some of the New York materials. A slightly higher portion of teachers using ELA said their districts compelled them to do so.<br />
<br />
The graphic below offers a breakdown of what teachers said about how district policy influenced their decisions in using EngageNY:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKBlZKgajIcKCieULRACO5YUzKwvdUNgw5aEJHZ2s9s9jAEf7_X8L8_7qm3K4Urd85uJavs53wS-mTquDWkL-jMd_iNxSGsJD6vfgSODzRE8cefnvSyfsXHUeXO-3KuCZAs1FRj5OOYdY/s1600/Capture.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKBlZKgajIcKCieULRACO5YUzKwvdUNgw5aEJHZ2s9s9jAEf7_X8L8_7qm3K4Urd85uJavs53wS-mTquDWkL-jMd_iNxSGsJD6vfgSODzRE8cefnvSyfsXHUeXO-3KuCZAs1FRj5OOYdY/s320/Capture.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
The report draws from different data sources collected during the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years. The data include prior surveys of teachers conducted by Rand as part of the American Teacher Panel, as well as Google Analytics reports provided by the New York state education department.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
For a deeper look at changing district demands for open resources, stay tuned for an Education Week special report on curriculum being released this week.</div>
<br />
<br />Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1726992413750945117.post-370266977528710042017-03-15T13:37:00.000-07:002017-03-15T13:37:24.576-07:00Survey Says 86 Percent of Schools Expect to Spend More on Digital Curriculum<br />
<header style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Prelo-Light; letter-spacing: 0.48px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><h1 class="title" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #231f20; font-family: Prelo-Black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-line; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Investment in digital is rising, and schools need to prepare teachers and students for its adoption.</span></h1>
<div class="byline" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 0, 0); border-top: 1px dashed rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Prelo-SemiBold; font-size: 0.875em; line-height: 1; margin: 30px 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0px;">
<div class="author" style="border-right: none; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; margin: -12px 0px 0px; padding: 12px 0px 0px; width: 685.531px;">
<div class="taxonomy-term vocabulary-person term-byline" id="taxonomy-term-8106" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 20px 0px 0px; position: relative;">
<div class="author-photo" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; float: left; height: auto; margin: 0px 15px 15px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/author/meghan-bogardus-cortez" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all, 0.15s; white-space: pre-line; word-wrap: break-word;"><img alt="" src="https://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/sites/default/files/styles/face-small/public/people/authorpic.jpg?itok=HwabjGNW" style="border-radius: 500px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
<div class="author-info" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 10px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;">by</span><a class="link-term" href="http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/author/meghan-bogardus-cortez" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1583b3; float: left; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all, 0.15s; white-space: pre-line; word-wrap: break-word;">Meghan Bogardus Cortez</a><a class="twitter" href="https://twitter.com/intent/follow?region=follow_link&screen_name=megbcortez&tw_p=followbutton&variant=2.0" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; float: left; font-size: 1em; height: 16px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none; transition: all, 0.15s; white-space: pre-line; width: 18px; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-indent: -9999px;">Twitter</span></a></div>
<div class="author-bio" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 10px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: Prelo-Book; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
Meghan is an associate editor with <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">EdTech: Focus on K–12</em>. She enjoys following all the ways technology is constantly changing our world.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</header><br />
<div class="content" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Prelo-Light; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.48px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;">
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
With 78 percent of students using a digital device for large portion of their school day, it should come as no surprise that 86 percent of K–12 schools are<a href="http://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/01/02/digital-curriculum-survey/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1583b3; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all, 0.15s; white-space: pre-line; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank"> looking to spend more this year</a> on digital curriculum.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
These are findings from The Learning Counsel’s most recent <a href="http://thelearningcounsel.com/2016-survey" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1583b3; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all, 0.15s; white-space: pre-line; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">Digital Curriculum Strategy Survey</a>. In it, the research institute that studies and writes about digital curricula in education found that the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">digital courseware market is maturing</strong>, as spending shifts from individual teacher investments to districtwide spending.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
Another <a href="http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2016/survey-finds-digital-content-used-in-80-of-schools/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1583b3; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all, 0.15s; white-space: pre-line; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">survey</a>, conducted last April by OverDrive and ASCD, found that 80 percent of schools and districts use some form of digital content in the classroom.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
However, both surveys found that only a small portion of educators are using digital resources as the primary source for teaching.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
Though spending on these tools might increase, schools now must work to find the return on investment, <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">prepare teachers for new tools</strong> and address the digital equity issues that might exist.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
“They actually access that curriculum and work at their pace,” Mike Hickman, an assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, told the <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Telegraph</em>.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
Concern about the lack of internet access at home was found to be one of the biggest barriers to adoption of digital curriculum, the OverDrive and ASCD survey reports.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
Monroe County Schools had this is mind when developing its program. The <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Telegraph</em> reports that before rolling out any digital curriculum, the district conducted a survey and found that a majority of students had internet access at home. For those who didn’t, alternative options were developed so they wouldn’t be left behind.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
Many educators find the appeal of digital curriculum to be a no-brainer, writes Amy Brown, a K–12 education strategist for CDW·G, on <a href="http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2016/05/digital-content-drives-learning-so-long-schools-are-prepared" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1583b3; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all, 0.15s; white-space: pre-line; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">EdTech</em></a>.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
“I’ve heard educators heap praise on the interactive, multimedia content for its ability to engage students in new and interesting ways,” writes Brown.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
However, Brown indicates that schools will only get the most out of these options by <strong style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">ensuring that educators get proper training</strong> and professional development.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
“Educators need to understand how classroom devices function,” she writes, “and how digital resources fit into the classroom.”</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Greg Nadeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18043982549181532646noreply@blogger.com0