Isn’t it best to offer a balance of all different kinds of learning opportunities for students?… Can’t we have open-ended problem-solving AND show the kids how to do the hard parts when they get in trouble?
Now, I would never tell a teacher what to do, it’s too easy for me to type a bunch of words and I don’t have to be there every day. But I think you have to consider the unexpected consequences of striving for balance between two opposing theories of learning – instructionism and constructionism.

To illustrate this, let’s imagine a playground game of hide and seek. On Monday, when everyone has hidden and the seeker finishes the count, he or she looks up… and at that moment, the teacher steps in and points out where everyone is hiding. On Tuesday, the teacher stands back and says nothing. On Wednesday, the teacher helpfully points out the hiders, on Thursday, says nothing.

What do you think happens on Friday?

I’m pretty sure that the seeker would immediately look to the teacher and ask where everyone is hiding. Or maybe everyone would just refuse to play since there’s no point to it. On the previous days, the teacher has trained them how to get the answer. Even with the “balance” in game play, one outweighs the other. There is no balance possible, because the teacher’s authority causes the balance to permanently shift. It’s the very essence of disempowerment. Teacher power and authority is the 800 pound gorilla siting on the end of a see-saw.

I believe that for many of the same reasons, the attempt to explicitly show students how to solve problems becomes a roadblock when you suddenly turn around and demand that they figure things out for themselves. It just sounds like a trick, and if they wait long enough, you will give them the answers and move on. Children are pretty pragmatic about these things.

I still think you need balance…
I could almost go along with the “balance” argument if the world of U.S. school math weren’t so unbalanced. I would guess that 95% of all math taught in all classrooms across the US is direct instruction aimed at the “skill” level and memorizing the right algorithm to solve problems most likely to be found on standardized tests. So there’s no balance there to start with – the only way to achieve “balance” is to do more open-ended, student-led inquiry about math, solving real problems (not textbook or test prep problems), not telling students what the right answers are, etc. And do LOTS more of it. Then we can talk about balance.

But at least the ability to stop and replay the video gives the student control – isn’t that what we always look for in student-centered learning?
Here’s the tradeoff – is student control over the pace worth losing student control of the entire process? They get to choose how quickly they are force-fed someone else’s representation of a process instead of creating their own representation in their heads. Asking the student to give up control of their own thought process to absorb a one-size-fits-all delivery of information requires a large degree of compliance on the student’s part. In my book, the ability to control the pace pales in comparison. I think a teacher would have to weigh these very different kinds of control and whether the trade-off is worth it.

Why shouldn’t we teach students a good way to solve a problem, what’s the point of letting them fumble around?
When we tell a student the “right way” – we are really telling them that math ability is primarily about compliance. This is about power, and we lose a lot of students in these power struggles.

Margaret Mead said, “emphasis has shifted from learning to teaching, from the doing to the one who causes it to be done, from spontaneity to coercion, from freedom to power. With this shift has come… dry pedagogy, regimentation, indoctrination, manipulation, & propaganda”. (thanks to Ryan Bretag for this fortuitous quote)

What we call “good students” are compliant students who don’t call this power structure into question. (By the way, this was me – even when I saw other ways to solve problems I knew not to say anything. I amused myself by solving problems in alternate ways, then would write down the answer the way I knew the teacher wanted.) If you don’t think students are acutely aware of the power structures in school, you are underestimating students.

Students “fumbling around” is actually where the learning happens – and there’s no shortcut for this process.

Why waste time letting students “discover” everything. They aren’t going to re-invent the Pythagorean theorem by themselves.
It’s a straw man argument about inquiry-based, constructivist education that it’s “illegal” to lecture. Whenever I hear this I imagine a scene where the constructivist police burst through a classroom door and wrestle a teacher to the floor who was just explaining to a student how to do something. The difference is that explanations should serve to naturally move a problem-solving process along, not be the whole lesson.

In this kind of classroom, the teacher’s role is crucial – by posing problems that lead to big ideas and steering a class as they solve problems. By “being less helpful” as Dan Meyer says. (He doesn’t say don’t help at all!) This is not wasting time, it’s letting the students build the knowledge in their heads and acknowledging the fact that this takes time. It also takes time to learn how to teach this way. It’s not the case that the teacher is off taking a smoke break while the kids do this on their own. The teacher’s role is crucial – it’s difficult work and takes years to master.

This exact question is discussed by Piaget as related in a brilliant essay by Alfie Kohn – What Works Better than Traditional Math Instruction from his book The Schools Our Children Deserve. (I can’t improve on his explanation of why traditional math instruction is failing our children – please read this essay.)

So isn’t this the “flipped classroom” that Khan Academy proposes?
People are associating Khan Academy with the “flipped classroom” – something I talked about in this post (‘Teach Naked’ and complacency natives). In a so-called flipped classroom, the lecture takes place outside the classroom and classroom time is spent on discussion and problem solving. Students might watch the video at home (or in the car, bus, or anywhere) and then there would be a lot of classroom time freed up for discussion, working on individual problems, or whatever else needs to be done. That’s the theory, anyway.

So, first off, do you believe:

• Students will actually watch the lecture?
• The percentage that do watch the lecture will be any different than those who currently do their homework?
• The percentage of kids who zone out, multi-task, or don’t understand will be any different than during a classroom lecture?

But I’m willing to let all these assumptions slide so we can move on. Let’s pretend that most of the students will listen/watch a math lecture on their own time.

Can you disconnect the lecture from the problem solving? Khan Academy videos have no context outside of class – other than that they match the standardized tests. As Derek Muller points out (see Part 1), these videos may have the unintended consequence of cementing incorrect models as students assume that they understand, thus making the teacher’s job that much harder.

Swapping the timing of certain teaching practices seems a minor logistics issue, at best. Moving the timing of the lecture doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a lecture, and not even a lecture about interesting stuff. Most of these “lectures” are simply worked out example problems. Do we think that a student who doesn’t “get it” in the classroom is more likely to “get it” on the bus? The main issue is the reliance on information delivery to trigger understanding.

This also assumes that you are replacing one lecture with no feedback with another lecture with no feedback. That’s pretty insulting to LOTS of teachers. I won’t assume that ALL teachers who lecture are bad, or that there aren’t a thousand ways to intersperse lecture with checks for understanding. There are no raised hands in the Khan Academy, no questions, no teachable moments, no interesting asides. You have one interaction, and one interaction only — the ability to play, stop, and rewind.

If I were a huge fan of making videos about how to solve problems, I’d certainly try to make it more student-centered by allowing students to make the videos. The process of figuring out how to clearly explain a concept would give a student time to reflect about the process in depth. They say teaching is the best way to learn, so why let Mr. Khan have all the fun!

But seriously, here’s a conundrum — the art of leading a productive learning discussion is much more difficult than lecturing. Are we to expect that the teacher who couldn’t even do the lecture part is suddenly going to be able to lead a productive discussion about math? It would seem to me that the teachers most likely to see Khan Academy videos as a good substitute for their own lectures are also the least likely to be able to take advantage of the classroom time for any substantive discussion that would help students.

Let’s not even talk about what happens if 3, 4 or 5 teachers each assign a 40 minute lecture to listen to every night – so if this model actually works… it’s impossible. Don’t you love models of teaching where successful adoption assures failure?

Nothing like this has ever existed before, it’s so exciting!
Really now? Didn’t you ever watch Donald Duck in MathMagic Land or Sunrise Semester? The amount of acclaim for Khan Academy is, in my view, way over the top and only reflects our acceptance of math myths as drivers for pedagogy and wishful thinking that there is a easy answer for learning.

I’m just glad to see that technology is finally useful in education.
I’ve seen Khan hyped as a transformative use of technology, but. I can’t even begin to understand how turning the computer into a VHS player is seen as transformative. I know, I know — he’s got quizzes too. Answer ten questions and you can resume playing the video. Brring, brrring… 1988 called and they want their CAI (Computer Aided Instruction) back.

But the Khan Academy videos show students how to solve the math problems that will be on tests – don’t we want students to do better on tests?
That is the heart of it – do we care about kids learning math or doing well on tests? They aren’t the same thing.

These videos have millions of hits on YouTube – it proves that students need this help and are searching for it.
Yes, it does. It shows that many students really do want to do well, and doing well is defined as passing tests. We have a nation where lots of students are working their hardest to do something that matters little. Imagine if we asked students to do math that was actually useful and interesting!

My teacher is terrible and these videos help me.
I’m sorry. I’m glad you’ve found something that helps. Nobody is trying to take away something that is helping you.

Salman Khan is a master teacher and shouldn’t everyone get the best teacher?
Salman Khan obviously has a gift for clearly explaining how he understands complex computations. Being a teacher, however, is more than explaining stuff. When a student has misconceptions, they often need to talk through them, and a teacher SHOULD be an expert in recognizing those misconceptions and steering students through those rough waters. There SHOULD be a lot of listening involved. I’m not excusing bad teaching practice – far from it.

You’ve cherry-picked your research and sources.
Absolutely true. I said at the beginning this wasn’t going to be a literature review. I’ve included a few quotes and references that influence my thinking. Kamii, Papert, and Kohn appear often. Between them they have decades of work, dozens of books, and research to support it all. If you disagree, I hope at least you’ll read further. Their ideas form a connective network with other great educators from Piaget to Dewey to Vygotsky to Freire and many more.

Just to pile on, I’m looking forward to Alfie Kohn’s new book, Feel-Bad Education . . . And Other Contrarian Essays on Children & Schooling. I’m also loving his recent column, What does education research really tell us? He relates new research about how studies done in the short term often support the use of traditional teaching practices (like direct instruction and homework for practicing skills). However, as these studies are refined and the students followed for longer periods (months or years instead of weeks), these traditional practices have zero, or even negative results. Yup, I <3 Alfie.

I like teaching in a more open-ended way – but no one understands.
Many teachers struggle with these math myths and the cultural expectations of how math should be taught. Even if they want to teach in more open-ended way, they are often alone, facing off with parents, colleagues and administrators. Any attempt to teach math as less skill-based is met with skepticism, if not outright hostility. Even research is met with a “… yes, but, I believe it’s important” as if it’s a matter of opinion. It’s almost impossible not to give into that pressure, and as a consequence many teachers give up.

I for one would never encourage a teacher to martyr themselves in a no-win situation, especially with the overemphasis on standardized testing and current punitive politicized atmosphere.

As far as parents go, though, I think that most parents really do want what’s best for their children and many can be convinced. Teachers may find allies among parents who are at their wits end with battles over math homework or with parents who watch their children go into school natural learners and come back hating it. Some parents are going to buy fraction flashcards for their kids no matter what you say or do, that won’t change. Try showing them this: Finland’s Educational Success? The Anti-Tiger Mother Approach

Find allies wherever you can. Teachers are doing amazing things all over the US and around the world. These days, it’s possible to develop colleagues who you may never meet in person, but might be your pedagogical soulmates.

You must not know much about real schools – haven’t you seen the list of standards that math teachers have to meet? The expectations for the test? The 400 page textbook? We have to get the kids through this stuff and there’s just no time for exploring, discovery, or anything else. Hoping that things will change someday doesn’t help me or my kids today.
You are right – the need for Khan Academy is completely fits the way we assume math has to be learned and taught. The “if it’s Tuesday it must be exponents” model is failing us. That has to change.

I’ll say a bit more about this Monday… Someday dilemma in my next (and last) post of this series.

Sylvia

There are obvious ways that this could be used in a classroom. It allows all aspects of the production process that are important to learning – planning, creating, sharing, and editing. It requires writing, always a good thing. It gives shy or quiet students, or students who are learning English the same “voice” as everyone else. Being able to quickly see and hear the results of your script and polish it endlessly is a real positive. This editing process is where the real learning happens, yet is often overlooked or rushed through in schools because it takes “too much” time. So this may be a be a good solution when real video production is too time consuming or too costly.

Now, you have to be careful – if you allow complete access to the site there is a gallery of user-submitted movies that have no guarantee of being appropriate. Xtranormal has an “education safe” setting that allows for some degree of protection.

However, the biggest issue of all – this is NOT free. When you sign up for an account, you get a few free “points” that you can use to buy characters and backgrounds. You can also get a discount as an educator by contacting them. There is a full explanation here.

If you read this blog – you know that I’m not an advocate of free stuff in all cases. There are certainly great free services, but increasingly I believe that you generally get what you pay for. We pay for hardware – if you want to do video production, you would pay for the cameras, for example.

Xtranormal is having a contest/film festival that might be just the ticket to get started. I believe you can enter the contest using your “free” points without having to spend any money. If anyone knows this is not true, let me know!

“Fame and fortune awaits you (maybe): submit your decision-themed film to the Xtranormal Film Festival between March 24 and April 14. Entrants are eligible to win their share of over $10,000 in prizes, and one lucky winner will be immortalized as an Xtranormal character.”

I’m not sure what a “decision-theme” is, but since the sponsor is Bing, and that’s their slogan, I suppose that’s the connection.

The contest is open to US residents over the age of 13. See all contest rules and entry instructions.

Sylvia

This video was created by students from McNary High School in the Salem-Keizer School District,  Oregon to showcase the conference. Love it!

For those of you blocked from YouTube, here’s a link to check out later! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdgIoDBWQWI

Don’t you love how young people totally understand the “vocabulary” of filmmaking - from the establishing shots to the closing credits.

Sylvia

Other project based learning resources:

• Buck Institute for Education (BIE) – mentioned in the video
• Edutopia Project-based Learning
• andDESIGN – online magazine for people interested in Design Education in K-12 schools

Like this video? There are lots more online explaining everything from Twitter to RSS at Common Craft.

Bonus idea: Why this is a great model for students to make their own videos

• RSS in plain English – Ideas for student-made help videos

Sylvia

Last but not least, Student-led Conferences. This is something that most schools do NOT do, but some do very successfully. So why is this practice not more well-known? Perhaps it takes a matching philosophy of student empowerment in all areas, including assessment and planning.

Traditional parent-teacher conferences are places where a teacher shares information with parents about their child, parents can ask questions, and together, they can steer the course of a successful educational experience for that child. That’s the ideal, of course, but even that leaves out the most important stakeholder, the student. How can this succeed if the student themself only gets third party reports about what happened?

Proponents of student-led conferences say that the practice put students in charge of their own learning, gives students a better handle on their own progress, and shows parents that student achievement is in the student’s hands, not theirs (or the teacher’s). The hallmark of an effective student conference is preparation, not just for the student to create an authentic report of their own progress, but also for the parents since this is not what most parents are used to.

Resources:

Student-led Conferences – Very recent and up-to-date information, examples, and resources. Multiple videos for a range of grade levels modeling best practices, viewer guides, handouts, and planning guides from Curriculum Services Canada. These videos show that student-led conferences aren’t just a stunt, but a serious reflection exercise for students, parents and teachers.

Student-led Conferences (Education World) – A good overview article of student-led conferences. Some of the  links have gotten old, but enough are still working to make this a recommend resource.

How to Run Successful Parent-Team Conferences: Tips by the Dozen for Middle-Level Educators (PDF) – An article from Middle Matters magazine in 1998. These tips are timeless!

Student-Led Conferences Hold Kids Accountable (Education World) – quotes research about the benefits of student-led conferences, including higher rates of parent participation.

Successful Student-Led School Conferences – A number of resources and articles from MiddleWeb – Exploring Middle School Reform.

Sylvia

More back to school posts!

• Back to school: Ten commandments of tech support
• Back to school – games for collaboration and teamwork
• Back to school – what tech vision will you share?
• Back to School – What do students want from teachers?
• Free back to school resource for laptop schools
• Back to school: Acceptable Denial Policy

And one more thing. In between all this, the GenYES student crew from the Kent School District put together this video that was shown during the closing keynote. NCCE asked for a video that would capture the spirit of Seattle and the energy of the conference.

I think they did the job!

Sylvia

As part of our Learning Games webinar series, we invite you to join us this Wednesday, Feb 10, 2010 for Olympics Science: Online Resources for the Classroom from NBC Learn.

Description: On February 12th, the torch will light over Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Join the Learning Games Network’s Alex Chisholm and special guest Norman Cohen, producer at NBC Learn, to bring the science of the Winter Olympics home to your classroom.

NBC Learn has collaborated with the National Science Foundation to create this series of video resources and lesson plans demonstrating the links between the laws of physics and the principles of chemistry, and downhill skiing, bobsledding, and other sports.

We hope you’ll join us this Wednesday, Feb 10, at 7:30pm EST to learn more about how NBC Learn can inspire students by approaching the science of sports from a new perspective.

Links:

NBC Learn: http://nbclearn.com/olympics

Lesson Plans: http://lessonopoly.org/svef/?q=node/9086

The website has a YouTube video introducing the contest to students.

The contest is open to active middle, secondary and college students, ages 13 and older. Starting September 21, through November 2, students can submit their videos on the contest website. The videos must be less than two minutes long, but otherwise, there are no restrictions on the style of the video. Winning videos will be chosen based on the following criteria: use of creativity, strength and originality of content, and ability to inspire.

Timeline

• November 2 – 9, video submissions will be reviewed by a panel of judges, including Secretary Duncan. Judges will choose 10 finalists to promote on the U.S. Department of Education’s official YouTube channel.
• November 9 – 24, the public can view the finalists’ videos and vote on their favorites. The top three finalists with the most votes will each win $1,000 prize issued by the U.S. Department of Education.
• Winners will be announced the week of December 1.

Contest rules

• Each video must be submitted by an active student, age 13 and older, and a U.S. citizen or legal resident.
• Contestants chosen as finalists will be contacted through their YouTube account and must respond within seven business days to confirm eligibility.
• Finalists under the age of 18 must submit a parental consent form.
• Video must be two minutes or less in length.
• The Department of Education’s website (www.ED.gov/IAmWhatILearn) must be featured in the video.
• The video content must be original.
• The video must convey the importance of education, as well as the student’s individual academic goals.

Full contest rules here.

———

My comments: This is an incredible opportunity for students to show their media and technology literacy skills to a wider audience! Don’t wait for your “video production” lesson set for May — if you can shuffle things around, why not?

And why limit the topic to “I am what I learn” – how about “I am what I do”, or how about some of our GenYES or TechYES student-mentors show “I am what I TEACH.” Learning is not just about input, but output too – it’s what students do that counts.

Yes, sigh, I know that YouTube is blocked at many schools. It’s ironic that the federal government is using this information channel without seeming to realize that their own regulations cause schools to block that channel.

And finally, several people commented on my previous post (President to speak to students) questioning the age limit. Why 13 years old? My guess is that because they are using YouTube to submit videos and also to contact contest winners, they are bound to the terms of service set by YouTube. YouTube requires anyone creating an account to be at least 13. This, in turn, is a direct response to the federal government online child protection regulations that severely restrict any online interaction with children younger than 13.

But enough of that, let the cameras roll!

Sylvia

The screencasts are short 1-2 minute help videos that quickly show students, teachers and advisors how to use the online tools and curriculum for GenYES and TechYES. The first set of TechYES screencasts went up today, and TechYES schools can see them by logging into their account and looking in the Toolkit. GenYES screencasts will be coming soon.

We’ve also started to do webinars for our member schools – if you are a GenYES or TechYES teacher, advisor, or district coordinator, you should have received an email with the instructions. And if you can’t attend live, no worries – they will be archived on the Generation YES website on the Free Resources page. We plan to do one a week for now, with topics on everything from the online tools, to tips and tricks, and using the curriculum. We’d love to hear your ideas too!

The plans are to add webinars about more general topics, such as student empowerment, project-based learning, and introductions to GenYES and TechYES.

We are happy to say that our webinars are being presented in Elluminate, thanks to the fine people there who accepted us into their Community Partner program. We couldn’t do this without their support!

Sylvia

Adobe has issued the call for entries to the 2009 Adobe School Innovation Awards program. The awards program honors creative and innovative technology design projects from high school students in the US and Canada. With the theme “The World is Your Stage,” students can submit entries using Adobe applications in three categories: Web Design and Development, Film and Video, and Graphic and Print Design. Category award winners will be named, in addition to a grand prize winner for best overall submission.

The purpose of the School Innovation Awards is to engage students in learning and to encourage them to communicate what they know and care about in the community.

Full-time students age 14-19 years in grades 9-12 from accredited public or private high schools in the US and Canada (except Quebec) are invited to submit through the Adobe School Innovation Awards website.

Submissions will be accepted through May 8, 2009.

Winners will be selected by a panel of Adobe judges based on their originality and effectiveness in communicating project objectives. The best of the best winner will receive Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 Master Collection and be recognized by Adobe in their community. The winning student’s teacher receives a trip to the 2009 National Education Computing Conference (NECC) in Washington D.C., and the winning student’s school will be awarded a site license of Adobe Creative Suite 4.