This article touches on concern about overuse of tech — but also talks about research done on whether or not these methods actually help the kids. The author didn’t have a lot of glowing things to say.
Continue reading “The Backlash Against Screen Time at School”
So, it appears by looking at this week’s meeting agenda, the board had a vote (I’ve been unable to attend the last few meetings, unfortunately) about PBE and voted to continue on its path. Disappointing, due to lack of any research that supports its efficacy, but not surprising. And especially not surprising as tonight’s meeting is billed as a “workshop” — but that certainly appears as though it’s just for show. How can you have a “workshop” after you’ve already voted on your decision?
With the change in the law, districts throughout the state are reassessing where they stand and where they want to go.
York schools recently decided that they weren’t ready to move to a full PBL implementation, and will be granting credit-based diplomas and using a traditional grading system. The principal sent out a letter to the parents, explaining his and his vice principal’s thoughts on the matter and what it means for the students in the district.
Just as in our district, RSU9 is now revisiting PBL and its efficacy and implementation.
Per comments online and the latest school board meeting, it looks like MSAD75 (Topsham – Mt. Ararat) is also moving back to 0-100 — and they are reopening the conversation for PBL in younger grades, as well (not just high school).
This article is a couple years old, but…
I found this perspective particularly enlightening (with my emphasis added):
Headmaster John Vallance pronounced the billions of dollars spent on classroom technology a “scandalous waste of money” that “distracts” from quality teaching. “We see teaching as fundamentally a social activity,” Dr. Vallance said. “It’s about interaction between people, about discussion, about conversation. We find that having laptops or iPads in the classroom inhibits conversation – it’s distracting.”
Dr. Vallance identified a related problem with technological “personalized learning” – when conversation is removed from education, the students find themselves confronted with a uniform point of view. “The digital delivery of teaching materials across Australia has had a powerful normative effect,” he observed. “It’s making it quite difficult for children to learn how to disagree, how not to toe the party line, because they can’t question things – the possibility of questioning things has been taken away from them.”
Throughout this conversation, I’ve been struggling with how to articulate my concerns.
And I find myself feeling like I’m overreacting to new communications from the school system. I take a moment to breathe and try not to respond right away.
So, I’ve taken a week or two since the latest communication from Freeport High School’s Principal, Jennifer Gulko, to breathe and try to figure out what about it caused me to feel agitated.
This is similar to a refrain I’ve heard from others about aspects of PBE that are “good” — “it just makes sense.” My question is why are we instituting new ways of educating kids based on it “making sense” — and not based on actual research? Things that make sense to some, don’t always make sense to others. And this is EDUCATION. We should be basing how we teach our kids on more than someone’s gut feeling. Use the gut feeling to justify doing the research — and find out if your gut was right. Don’t jump past the research stage and into changing a system for thousands of kids based solely on it “making sense.”
From the article:
Perhaps the basic reason for Zuckerberg’s enthusiasm is that, as he has said, “The model just intuitively makes sense.” That is, it intuitively makes sense to people like Zuckerberg and Gates, both highly motivated Harvard dropouts. No doubt they would have enjoyed school far more if they’d been able to race ahead at their own pace and choose what they wanted to learn.
Full article:
Personalized learning is a slippery term, but the basic idea is to tailor learning to individual students and have them demonstrate they’ve mastered one component of learning before moving on to the next. Technology plays a key role, with students using software that is supposed to fit their needs.
And here’s where it seems the author points out that they don’t appear to have any evidence, yet, of its effectiveness:
The idea of personalized learning has proven appealing not only to Zuckerberg but also to his fellow tech titan Bill Gates. “I love this cutting-edge school design,” Gates has declared on his blog. Between 2013 and 2017, the Gates Foundation invested over $300 million to support research on personalized learning. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have announced that their own education initiative will invest “hundreds of millions of dollars a year” in the field, which they believe will provide “every student with a customized education.” Gates and Zuckerberg have even teamed up on one joint grant—a relatively modest $12 million—to promote personalized learning and build an “evidence base” that proves its effectiveness.
That’s unusual. Generally speaking, education reformers like Gates and Zuckerberg say they want to see an evidence base before they invest in an idea. They want data and “proof points” that show the idea works. And when it comes to personalized learning, the data is inconclusive at best.
The most encouraging study to date found that personalized learning had a modest positive effect on math test scores and no significant impact on scores in reading. But other studies have found that some personalized learning programs can reduce students’ enjoyment of learning or make them less likely to feel there’s an adult at their school who knows them well.
And people wonder why some parents are pushing back?
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s multi-million-dollar, multi-year effort aimed at making teachers more effective largely fell short of its goal to increase student achievement—including among low-income and minority students, a new study found.
This conclusion to an expensive chapter of teacher-evaluation reform shows the difficulty of making sweeping, lasting changes to teacher performance. The results also demonstrate the challenges of getting schools and teachers to embrace big changes, especially when state and local policies are in flux.
The evaluation of the program, released today, was conducted by the RAND Corporation with the American Institutes for Research and was funded by the Gates Foundation.
This article is a couple years old, but it’s a great overview, and highlights a lot of concerns brought up by parents. And the comments add to it.
There are two unwritten assumptions that are constant from the beginning of NCLB and carry through to this new version. Teachers are not trusted to make judgments about what students learn, how they learn it, or how learning is assessed. Assessment is defined as the external monitoring of the work inside the classroom. The second assumption is that data and technology must be instrumental in whatever process is devised. The main innovation here is the more thorough and intrusive penetration of the classroom via computers capable of monitoring learning.
Both of these assumptions are unsupported by any evidence or track record, in terms of their ability to enhance learning.
The flat or declining NAEP scores demonstrate that external accountability systems have failed to lift performance. Repeated experiments with technology-based instruction have failed to show any advantage. Virtual charter schools, the ultimate extension of this model, have been shown to be virtually useless.
Full article:
The legislation was officially signed into law by Gov. LePage. Continue reading “Proficiency-based diploma is no longer state law”
Superintendent Becky Foley reached out to let us know that there’s a new section all about proficiency-based education on the RSU5.org website:
She also mentioned that it’s a work in progress and there are things that they haven’t yet posted and additional updates to sections. But it’s nice to see that it’s been started.
Also, it was nice to see a page set up for research — something I’d asked about repeatedly in meetings. But I don’t think any of it is peer-reviewed, “real” research. They’re articles written by proponents of PBE (to varying degrees). And they mainly point out what they identify as deficiencies in the current system. And they suggest a solution. But I don’t see anything there that is actual research showing why PBE is a solid alternative to traditional systems. Again… pointing out an issue and supplying a solution. Completely skipping the research part — that may or may not support the proclaimed solution.
And Thomas Guskey is cited in there. Every time I see him as a source of research about the benefits of the PBE approach I get concerned. He appears to make his living off selling books, giving talks and promoting reform. And has for years. Check out his CV. He’s prolific! And he’s got a slick website where you can try to get him to come give a talk. He’s also focused on professional development. Or as I think of it — explaining why teachers are to blame for everything and how we need to change them to improve the system — usually, conveniently through some conference or talk or professional materials that he can sell you. And while his bio says he started out teaching, his CV makes it clear that he only taught 7-8th grades for 2-3 years. In the early 70s. At what I think is/was a private school. So, while he has lots of experience at the college level, his first-hand experience teaching PreK-12 is limited at best. I love it when someone with little to no direct experience doing something (or at the very least conducting extensive research about it) tells everyone else they have the answer. And makes a living telling people this. I need to go through the CV in depth to see if anything in there is peer-reviewed research.
Anyway, I appreciate the fact that the RSU5 school system is making an attempt at transparency, even if I think some of it highlights the fact that they don’t seem to have a lot of supporting documentation showing WHY they think PBE is so great. It’s a step in the right direction. And I think it will lead to more discussions. And right now, I’m grateful that our requests aren’t falling on deaf ears.
