Easter - and the Khan Academy

It’s Easter. I’m sitting with my coffee with an Easter egg, enjoying the delicious blending of coffee and chocolate while reading, with considerable pleasure it has to be said, some fascinating traffic on the blogs around the world – many of them debating the merits or otherwise of the Khan Academy and the recent speech at TED by the Academy’s founder Salman Khan. Then suddenly it occurs to me that Easter and the Khan Academy have much in common.

It is worth remembering that, even before the secular exploitation of Easter, this time of year was a major feast day in the Christian calendar, more important than Christmas. What is sometimes overlooked is the simple but established fact that much of the Christian symbolism used at this time in the Easter story predates the Christian faith. Dating the timing of the celebration via the vernal equinox was already established before Christianity subsumed the date, the notion of a god returning from the dead after three days in the tomb was established, even the use of the egg and the rabbit (albeit in the form of a hare) predates the Christian tradition. (For more on this visit.)

Without wishing to alienate any Christian readers, something that is a huge component of Western life such as Easter has been absorbed into the psyche of our culture to the extent that we no longer question its origins. This is the link to the Khan Academy and our views on education. Some of the internet traffic in support of the Academy is suggesting that it can revolutionize education. (For those who may be unfamiliar with the Khan Academy it is, in essence, a large collection of screen-capture style videos providing primarily math and science instruction. They were originally developed by a financial bureaucrat to assist his cousins learn mathematical concepts but, almost accidentally, became very popular on youtube -despite their amateur nature. The site has grown beyond its lowly origins and is now sponsored by Bill Gates. The site can be visited here. ) It is somewhat perplexing that one of the most discussed educational sites on the internet is one created by a financial analyst, not an educator, and sponsored by a businessman – again, not an educator.

I have blogged previously about the amateur nature of the Khan Academy videos – particularly those created early on. However, with the surge in popularity and the praise it is now receiving on blogs around the globe it occurs to me that educators are accepting a model of teaching devised in an earlier age without question. The model of “chalk and talk” delivery is no longer a preferred model of teaching for good reasons. Yet here is the Khan Academy, providing nothing more than the modern day version of this technique, being hailed as some sort of modern messiah of education. “Chalk and talk” via video is still “chalk and talk”.

There is merit in the Khan Academy. However, it lacks some essential elements for me to see it as anything other than another teaching tool – albeit a potentially powerful one.
1. Where is the motivation of the student taken into account?
2. Is the Kahn Academy anything more than an electronic version of a text book?
3. The approach taken by the Kahn Academy is useful as tutorials for specific skills. This is what it is designed to do and so it may seem odd to criticise it for this feature. However, every educator will stress the importance of students being able to synthesise their knowledge, of being able to see the whole rather than simply the part. The Kahn Academy seems an unlikely vehicle to advance this. It does not currently require students to “join the dots” and make connections between subject matter in the manner that one hopes effective teachers would do.
4. The Kahn Academy seems to be reflecting “old world” attitudes with “new world” technology – but the underlying assumption is the age old one of the empty vessel being filled by the wisdom of the virtual teacher. It is a reflection of the attitude that education is nothing more than the transmission of skills – which should not be confused with understanding or insight – and certainly not wisdom. Students all over the world have voted with their feet given this attitude – the “failure” to graduate rate in the USA is consistently reported to hover around 30% of High School students. Surely this is, at least partly, a reaction to the lack of engagement of students? True, some students may respond well to a video format such as that offered by the Khan Academy. But the real problem is not just the format of lessons – it is the content of the curriculum itself. The Kahn Academy is not progressing this – it is simply repackaging the existing – and failing – curriculum.
So, the Kahn Academy does have merit – but it is not the savior of schooling. When attempting to reform education we need to examine our starting points – the assumptions originally used to establish our model of schooling may no longer be current. For example, how could the existence of the internet change the educational paradigm if we were not constrained by our current mindset of what constitutes “schooling”? How could the prospect of 1:1 child to computer ratio impact on classroom practice? Indeed, what does a classroom look like if it is designed around the presence of mobile computing devices with ubiquitous access to the internet?
These and other questions should be addressed if we are to maximize the opportunities that digital technology offers and turn schooling into education – which no doubt will include the use of sites such as the Khan Academy.

Eater egg graphic via
http://crazy-frankenstein.com/free-wallpapers-files/holidays-wallpapers/easter-wallpapers/easter-eggs-wallpaper.jpg

"Well, Duh!" - Alfie Kohn

“Well, Duh!”

Prolific writer and vocal advocate for educational reform Alfie Kohn has just published a new collection of essays under the banner of “Feel – Bad Education”.   His introduction ,  “Well, Duh!: Obvious Truths That We Shouldn’t Be Ignoring” sets the tone for the text.   In the introduction Alfie lists some commonly agreed beliefs about education  such as “Much of the material that students are required to memorize is soon forgotten.”   He then challenges teachers – if we hold these beliefs, why is it that our core understandings of educational realities are not in evidence in our schools?

Why indeed.

Rather than summarise the section here I have prepared a brief slide show that can be accessed here.

There are real challenges for educators in these assumptions.  If we accept them as valid, and I believe that almost all teachers will, the next question we should ask ourselves is why our schools don’t actually reflect them strongly.   Then comes the real challenge – to implement educational processes that demonstrate our beliefs in reality, not just rhetoric.

(NB: The show does not auto-start and will commence with a black screen – click the start arrow to begin, thereafter it is automatic and lasts about one minute.  It was designed to share with pre-service teachers in a lecture situation and I wanted to keep control of the starting time. Also,  there is no audio – the program used to create the slide show does allow for audio to be embedded in each slide – but not the creation of a continuous backing track.)

Learning the game - James Paul Gee

James Gee is a professor of literacy at Arizona State University - from his job description you would expect him to be a fan of dusty texts and heavy leather bound tomes.  You’d be wrong.  Gee has some really interesting things to say about the relevance of video games to education - all the more interesting as Gee is a few generations away from the tee-shirt wearing pierced-eyebrow type who you would normally associate with this view point.

In this short video Gee makes some interesting observations - some new, some not so new, but all worth thinking about.  Gee reminds us that testing drives teaching and that we won’t get genuine reform of teaching until we have genuine reform of our testing - not new but none-the-less worthy.  Gee also says that traditional education systems now have rival - 24/7 teaching delivered on line and tailored to your learning style and lifestyle.   Although in its embryonic stages Gee says that the new form of education is outperforming traditional schools.

This is where Gee’s video gets really interesting – he draws a parallel between education and video games.  Video games are challenging and require sustained effort and concentration to master. But children will play them for hours. They will even pay significant amounts of money for the privilege of doing so.   One of the characteristics of effective games is that they build in feedback at regular intervals DURING the game. In order to master the game players have to absorb the feedback and apply it.  That is the only way that they can be effective.  Players also EXPECT to get the feedback through the process – a game that doesn’t in effect teach you how to play it would not last long in the market place.  Gee states that it would not make sense to test players at the end of the game to see if they had learnt the required skills – they simply cannot finish the game unless they have learnt them.  Finishing the game is itself evidence that the skills have been acquired. Yet in schools we test at the end of units of work – often too late to provide useful performance feedback to students.  Gee’s point is that if our feedback followed the model offered by video games then school reform might be one step closer.

Rather than summarise the video further I’d simply recommend that you watch it. Gee is a softly spoken character – this video is well worth viewing more than once as he delivers great insight in such a gentle manner that the significance of what he has said can slip past.

Games and Education Scholar James Paul Gee on Video Games, Learning, and Literacy from DML Research Hub on Vimeo.

Perhaps the old adage is right – “It’s not winning or losing that matters – it’s how you play the game”.

Credits:
Original prompt for this blog =  http://henryjenkins.org/2011/03/how_learners_can_be_on_top_of.html
Video - details contained on video

"Flipping", video and the KhanAcademy.

It is often said that the school room is the one place in our society that seems immune to change.  In many schools educational practices are still fairly consistent with those of many many decades ago - “school” has remained fairly constant for generations.  The growth of the Internet and the technology of video promises to change that.

Salman Khan, the almost accidental founder of the KhanAcademy, gave a speech at TED recently - “Let’s use video to reinvent education”.   In it he describes the developmental pathway of the site.  The fact that it began as his own attempts to tutor his cousins remotely via video link explains the production values and style of the videos.  

At this point I have to state my personal bias - I’m not a huge fan of the site. Whilst I rate its intent highly I have issues with production values.  You only have to watch a few videos, particularly the early ones, to see that production values were low and the pedagogy dated - despite the ultra-modern “screen capture” style presentations.  In a sense this is to be expected for Khan is not a teacher - and it shows.  (He worked at a hedge fund prior to the growth of the KhanAcademy.) However, whilst this may be true - it offers a comprehensive collection of “no frills” explanations of mathematical procedures via web-based video free of charge.   The site now is a registered “not for profit” organisation and receives support from Bill Gates’ charity. This is allowing the KhanAcademy to become more professional and it is now offering some enhanced services to educators and families such as charting student progress.

Khan makes some interesting points in his speech, not the least of which is his notion that video can be used very effectively to enhance what teachers do in school.  If a student is away at the start of a unit and misses some crucial explanation by the teacher how do they catch up? What about students who may have attended the lesson - but failed to understand it?   Does the teacher make the rest of the class sit through it while they explain it again? Do they expect the absent student  to miss out and catch up as best they can?  This issue is avoided if the teacher uses video.

A teacher can either  video the actual lesson they present or prepare a video based lecture; for example, create a narrated powerpoint to introduce a topic or as a lesson.  Students can then view the lesson when they are able or the child can review it as often as needed until “the penny drops”  - either in class or at home.  Thus no child needs to miss the lesson or not understand something heard only once.  Surely this is an aim worth pursuing.

Associated with this is the notion of “flipping”.  Instead of the teacher introducing the topic in class time and then having some time practising examples and then students completing homework to consolidate skills ,“flipping” swaps the process around.  In the “flipped” classroom the teacher prepares a video lesson and students then watch it for homework BEFORE coming to class.  This frees up class time for discussion of the concept and generally working with the concept.  Students who need more time can revisit the video, those who don’t can get straight down to work.  The claim is that this results in much more productive class time - and should, in theory, allow for class time to devoted to higher level exploration of the topic.     It is too early for reliable data to establish if this approach does actually result in higher student achievement and understanding - but there is every reason to believe that it could.  Surely this is an aim worth investigating.

The case for  video lessons would appear to be strong - maybe we should press the “play” button and see if the reality can match the rhetoric.  

Alfie Kohn, school reform …and taking the first steps

Alfie Kohn is an educator known for his iconoclastic attitude towards schools and educational systems. Much of his writing challenges conventional attitudes and practices in education. Often his statements are controversial as they challenge “the way we do things”. In his address at the MAAP conference (2011) Kohn revisits some of the key concepts that he suggests for educational reform often found in his writings.

Some of the key items that Kohn suggested include;
Schools should be more concerned with social and emotional education - not only for its own sake, but as an added bonus, it is also linked to higher academic achievement.
Rather than ask “How can I get the kids to do what I want” we should ask “What do these kids need?” He reminds the audience that we all need three things; autonomy, a sense of belonging and a feeling of competence - but that our school system often runs counter to these needs (especially at the high school level where they are perhaps most needed).
As a result, we should look for structural problems at the school level before we blame kids for behaviour.
It is not enough that we have to change schools to do good things - we also have to stop doing bad things. By “bad” Kohn includes anything that places emphasis on competition.
Schools should shift from being “doing to schools” (i.e. traditional schools where the structure of the school places emphasis on compliance to teacher authority which is used to dictate the lesson content required by an external curriculum authority) to “working with schools” where the motivations of the students inform the long term goals and help set the direction of their education).
Teachers should talk less and ask more.
Plus more.


Kohn’s engaging address is delivered with passion and confidence and is well worth watching and reflecting upon. View Alfie Kohn’s address here.

As with many of Kohn’s statements the difficulties arise when we try to visualise the processes by which we could implement his suggestions; for example, what do schools look like when they don’t recognise success via awards and certificates? What would a school look like that did not feature competition? (After some thought, it is simply stunning how much unintended competition there is in our schools.) How do we maintain discipline in an inclusive social institution such as a school if “punishment” destroys the relationships which students often desperately need?

Fortunately Kohn has some ideas and examples as well as brick bats. He has also been remarkably generous with his ideas on his website which features numerous essays on key issues free of charge. If his presentation piques interest it is well worth a visit here. 
It should be noted that not everyone agrees with Kohn - and not all counter arguments are based on self interest. Follow this link for an alternate view of his work - which also includes a defence by Kohn to the criticisms.

The best thing about Kohn’s work is that he asks questions that challenge our assumptions and often presents research findings that challenge what is commonly accepted as truth.

Practically the only universally accepted notion about “schooling” is that the process needs reforming. The divisions appear when we ask questions such as “What do we change and why?” Viewing Kohn in action or reading his essays is a fair place to begin the process.

The longest journey does not begin with the first step - it begins when we think about taking that first step.

Photo credit: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/alfie_kohn_pic_troy_hicks.JPG

The future of schooling? Holograms, robots and “the algorithm” …

There’s not much of a future in making predictions. According to Greek mythology the prophetess Cassandra was cursed by Apollo so that no-one would believe her predictions - despite their unfailing accuracy. For mere mortals without her gift of foresight making predictions is a haphazard business indeed. Hence, I am not making a prediction; I am merely speculating on some apparently unrelated snippets from the recent web.

Item one. A crowd of concert goers in Japan attend a live performance by Miku Hatsune. So?
Miku Hatsune doesn’t exist - “she” is actually a hologram, although her backing band is real and performing on stage. People are going to a concert to see an artist that does not exist perform “live” in front of them. Judging from the concert footage they seem to be enjoying it.

Item two. A South Korean school is trialling the use of a robot teacher aide to teach students English. The article claims that the cost is one half the cost of employing a real life teacher.

Item 3. In America a boy with a severe illness now attends school via robot. This gives him some much needed “social” interaction as well as access to an education.

Item 4. In New York the “School of One” has significantly redesigned education - largely by using technology to take over the planning of student work. “The algorithm”, aka a computer, assesses student performance each day, discerns the extent of their progress and then creates a unique learning program for the following day - complete with access to off-site subject expert tutors and computer assisted learning. This video of the principal of the school, Dominick D’Angelo, giving a speech includes interview footage with teachers and students from the school.

It is undeniably fascinating material.

My question is simply - what happens if (when?) these items combine?

What might a school of the future look like once these technologies become commonplace?

Photo credit = http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS-7lbpDE4prfyulaMCm_hVqSmp43SgCS9I3z_9W2aWCXZRKZiZeoECGA

The "Crayola Curriculum" continues....

For some years now I have been uncomfortable with the sheer volume of photocopies (worksheets) being used in classrooms. It is very fashionable to want to reduce paper use for ecological reasons – but to be honest, this is not the cause of my concern (albeit that these concerns are valid ones). My concern is that much of the work contained on the majority of photocopied worksheets are low quality or worse – “busy work”. I define “busy work” as work that may well be engaging but does not align to the stated aims of the lesson.

Reading Ben Johnson’s blog at Edutopia recently the issue resurfaced. (Paper and Pencil Curriculum: How much do you rely on it?” Ben is approaching the issue from a slightly different perspective from my concerns but his blog contains a link to Mike Schmoker’s article on the “Crayola-Curriculm”. The link is well worth following in its own right as it makes some worthy points. Mike Schmoker uses the term “Crayola Curriculum” to describe what he has observed in many many school visits – the practice of getting children to “colour in” pictures – ostensibly as a part of the literacy program. Mike makes the point that, to a disturbing degree, often this activity does not relate to the objectives of the lesson.

In his article Schmoker states that school administrators were often not aware of the extent of the issue but that, once they were made aware of it, it was a simple matter for staff to ensure that their classes reflected the stated aim of the lesson and that there was less colouring , cutting, pasting and so forth. This may seem trivial – but by replacing such dubious activities (presumably only when they were not valid extensions of the lesson) some schools achieved a 25 point improvement in (SAT) literacy results in only two years. For maths the improvement was even more striking – up to a 40 point improvement in SAT scores. (The debate as to whether SAT scores are valid ways of assessing student performance will not be entered into here – we only have so much time in one life.) While Schmoker’s original article does not give significant details as to the changes made to programs the general thrust is clear – by aligning the actual work in the classrooms with the official objectives (i.e. no “busy work” and more focussed instruction) classroom teachers achieved a statistically significant improvement in measurable performance. Only a statistician would call the improvements “statistically significant”. The rest of us would call them “fantastic”.

Schmoker’s article is now somewhat dated – despite still resonating strongly. In an effort to determine if “busy work” was still as rife as I suspected I did some research. I wanted to discover what was the “average” amount of photocopying done in schools. It was surprising difficult to find a satisfactory answer. Eventually, after more coffee than was good for me and some increasing bizarre Google searches, I came up with a figure. The educational support office at Beaverton School District, (which, according to Google, is in Washington County, Oregon, USA) has some helpful advice to schools wishing to purchase photocopy machines.  The numbers it cites are based on actual observed usage rates in previous years. They suggest that elementary students would require an average of 120 copies per month, middle school students 130 and high school students 140 a month. Remember, these figures are based on actual previous consumptions in schools. Converting the numbers to a daily figure it would indicate that elementary students in Beaverton are issued, on average, six photocopies a day. Every day.

For the sake of argument let us assume that the Beaverton figures are representative of schools in general. If we assume a school year of 180 days then the “average” annual photocopy consumption per student is 1080. This is slightly more than two reams of paper each. If we keep that figure standard then we arrive at a figure of 10 800 photocopies in ten years – and that is ignoring the increase in photocopies in the older grades. Remember, this is photocopy usage, not total paper use.

Are we to believe that all of these photocopies are genuinely instructive? If we believe that learning is a social activity and that schools should follow constructionist techniques then the use of large numbers of photocopies seems difficult to reconcile with effective pedagogy. It seems incomprehensible that these huge volumes of photocopying can be educationally valid. Perhaps, as Mike Schmoler suggested, we should be paying a lot more attention to controlling the “Crayola Curriculum” and ensure that we align our practice with the official curriculum.

The “Crayola Curriculum” is not a pretty picture – no matter how pretty the colouring.


Acknowledgments:
This blog was prompted by Ben Johnson’s blog at Edutopia – “Paper and Pencil Curriculum: How Much do you Rely on it?” http://www.edutopia.org/blog/paperless-schools-techology-ben-johnson?page=1#comment-90537

Mike Schmoker’s article can be found here.
http://mikeschmoker.com/crayola-curriculum.html

The link to the Beaverton School District photocopy advice can be found here.
http://www.beaverton.k12.or.us/home/departments/business-services/purchasing/copiers/requirements/ )

Image of crayons: creative commons http://flickr.com/photos/laffy4k/404319562/