Teach Effectively!

Over on Learning Matters in his blog, Taking Note, John Merrow published an entry entitled “On Learning to Read” that raises some good points, but nearly omits a terrifically important one. I suspect regular readers (whom I’ve neglected terribly in the recent months—sorry) can guess which one was omitted.

Here’s Mr. Merrow’s lead:

Why children want to be able to read is not open for debate. It’s for the same reasons that they want to walk: to control their own destiny. It’s purely pragmatic; children understand that, when they know how to read, they are better able to navigate their environment successfully, just as they intuitively understand that walking is better than crawling or toddling.

Continue reading ‘Merrow on reading’

Under the headline “Harvard Offers New Doctorate for School Leaders Who Aim to Shake Up Status Quo” in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Peter Schmidt reported that Harvard University announced a grant-funded doctoral degree program to leaders in education. The graduates are supposed to be people who can engender “major school reform.”

The program’s mission will be to train top officials of school districts, government agencies, nonprofit groups, and private organizations who will be equipped to shake up the status quo in elementary and secondary education.

“Our goal is not to develop leaders for the system as it currently exists; rather, we aim to develop people who will lead system transformation,” Kathleen McCartney, dean of the Graduate School of Education, said in written statement.

What reform, one might wonder? Transformed to what? Just any old transformation? I’d like it if the transformation was toward adopting evidence-based practices. Will the graduates of the program know anything about effective teaching?

Read Mr. Schmidt’s article.

Snippet from DCPS framework

A sad note sounded in a document that has many otherwise valuable suggestions: The Teaching and Learning Framework of the Washington (DC, US) Public Schools (DCPS) recommends incorporating learning styles into instruction. Why the developers of this document included the rather-thoroughly debunked learning styles idea eludes me, but it is very clearly there, appearing on the front cover and receiving three pages of coverage starting on page 24 (see image at right).
Continue reading ‘DCPS goes for learning styles bunk’

Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell, is an interesting read. But I got to wondering about the message of the book. I understand that Gladwell maybe didn’t mean for it to have a message for educators. But, then again, maybe he did. I just don’t know. But I do know that the book left me unsatisfied as far as knowing what to do as an educator is concerned. OK, so timing, luck, opportunity, hard work, a culture of high demand are all important in creating outliers. The implications for educators seem to be that students should work hard and seize opportunities. The implications for teachers seem to be that we should try to create opportunities and encourage hard work. Beyond that? I dunno. We can’t change a lot of the things that Gladwell thinks are important, like when people are born, where they’re born, their families, their cultures. Then, too, I’m thinking that only a relatively small percentage of people can become outliers regardless of any of these things.

Gladwell does mention KIPP as an example of an educational program that shows dramatic results because it emphasizes a culture of hard work and achievement. He says the students in KIPP are chosen through a lottery system. Sounds great! One little issue, though. KIPP chooses through a lottery only those who’ve applied. If you don’t apply, then KIPP doesn’t put you in the lottery. Doesn’t even consider you. Now, I may be a little cynical about proposals to revolutionize public education, but probably if KIPP wants to go head-to-head with other schools, then it needs to select at random from all those potential students who live in a catchment area, regardless of whether they’ve applied. So, KIPP would include students who don’t want to go to school at all and those who don’t want to work hard and those who aren’t motivated to apply—in short, kids at random without any protective screen whatsoever. And KIPP would have to report on drop outs and students suspended or expelled.

Oh, never mind. If you’re looking for outliers… well, welcome to Lake Wobegon North, where all the children are not only above average, they’re all WAY above average!

Actually, Gladwell has some interesting observations. Only thing is (and he never proposed that purpose for his book), they don’t tell us much about how we go about making things better for kids in typical public schools.

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke to the National Education Association today, calling on its members to work with him toward the goal of ensuring that “every child in America is learning from an effective teacher—no matter what it takes.”

That’s a noble goal. In my view, it requires that educators shed their allegiance to theory and adopt effective teaching practices. That’s what it takes.

To be sure, there is a lot of emphasis on high-stakes testing. Mr. Duncan even discussed it as one of the four features of his plan for reforming education. The effective teacher idea is another of the four. High-stakes tests (which need reform of their own, in my view—that’s another post) are only part of the game. Another is using evidence to guide instruction.

But even in the absence of results on high-stakes tests and from pristine research projects, educators can ascertain whether they’re using effective methods. That is, we can devise our own means of ascertaining whether teaching practices are effective at a more micro level. In a lot of ways, the process is relatively simple:

1. Identify goals and objectives in objectively measurable terms. How will we know if the students have learned X?
2. Identify the skills and knowledge that students will need to demonstrate mastery of those goals and objectives. What is required to show that a student can competently and independently do X?
3. Devise teaching algorithms for leading students to acquire the skills and knowledge identified in (ii).
   • Model: Demonstrate the skills for the students or tell them the knowledge;
   • Test: Have the students perform the skill or state the knowledge;
   • Coach: Reinforce and correct their performance;
   • Practice to mastery: Have them perform the skill or repeat the knowledge until they are facile with it and can do it under different, increasingly more challenging conditions.
4. Assess students’ competence according to the goals and objectives specified in (i).

Sure, I’ve simplified it here. Sure, the goals and objectives would need to be integrated in a fashion consistent with an epistemology of various subject areas. And, you’ll have to cut me a little slack about my use of words such as “tell” and “correct”; telling would need to include providing materials to read, for example. But the idea is just about as simple as I’ve sketched it here.

The area of early reading has been mapped according to this perspective on teaching. We can say how we would recognize a competent reader (i), what the component skills are (ii), and how to teach those skills. But the to-be-learned material doesn’t have to be elementary level reading. If the area is chemistry and the objectives were conducting an experiment using electrophoresis, I think we could perform a similar analysis.

Of course, the real trick will be to get people on board with such thinking. Mr. Duncan seems to want to do something like that, but he’s talking about things at a much grander scale.

Remarks of Arne Duncan to the National Education Association—Partners in Reform

Howard Gardner’s Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences seems to occupy a special place in the pantheon of education memes. I was reminded of this when I read “Not Every Child Is Secretly a Genius” by Christopher Ferguson. Mr. Ferguson’s essay—it appears in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the news source of record for higher educators—politely explains that sustaining Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory is not a good idea.

Rational analyses of the MI evidence by Dan Willingham and Lynn Waterhouse have shown that there are problems with both the theory itself (e.g., most of the eight intelligences are highly correlated, meaning that they are likely measuring the same “thing” for the most part) and its application in education (e.g., methods based on MI do not lead to better outcomes).

Mr. Ferguson’s essay continues in that same tradition. He makes a strong case for his conclusion that “Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences was a great idea and worth investigating. It’s just not panning out.”
Continue reading ‘Multiple intelligences ain’t’

This was a tough one to develop. Thanks to many suggestions from colleagues, however, we have a new opportunity to waste time.

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To see the results of the previous poll, take a look at the original posting of it.

As with previous Bogus Bowls, please remember that the results of these polls do not provide credible scientific evidence; they simply reflect the opinions of the respondents. Also, note that some of the choices that got few votes in a poll might just re-appear in a future BB on Teach Effectively!; mayhaps we’ll have a challenge bowl about which was the most bogus question, too.

To see the results of all Bogus Bowls and other polls from Teach Effectively, please follow the link labeled “polls” in the top navigation element. Meanwhile, I welcome suggestions for topics for future Bogus Bowls. Just drop ‘em in the comments.

Bogus Bowl III is closing and Bogus Bowl IV is about to open. Click here to vote in (or see the results of) BB III; voting is open until about 5:00 AM (US East Coast) 11 June. The new poll will appear in a post 11 June just after BB III closes.