Interesting article on the barriers to e-learning on a national level. The basic problem is that learning packages have to be localized to the standards of the district, state or school. A few companies are making good money providing content not only to specific states but to many international countries, charging per course. Many states still have no funding for virtual classrooms or only limited funding for pilot programs, whereas several countries have their entire educational curriculum available electronically. Maybe it's time for a national curriculum?
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Put up or shut up!
How often as an educator have you heard this argument from a student?
"If this is so important why don't I get paid to learn it?"
Maybe not so much, but DC schools and Harvard's Ed Labs are taking the message to heart. The Capital Gains program is active in 14 schools in DC, with about 2,700 kids participating (although about half of these are in the control portion of the experiment). The program exist for middle schoolers, with the average student earning $50 every two weeks and up to $1,500 per year. Students get paid based on their attendance, behavior, and other various measures such as grades or homework completion.
Experimenters are optimistic about the results, but conflicts have already been reported; it remains to be seen whether the problems are with implementation or are inherent to the structure of the program. Critics wonder if paying students to learn erodes intrinsic motivation towards learning. Right now there are no clear results in either direction, but some indication that cash as a motivator works well on hispanic children, boys, and children with certain behavioral disorders, as measured by the DC-CAS test.
What does this mean for the rest of us? Sometimes money can work, other times it can. My theory is that this depends on both the general culture of the community and school and the personal culture established at home by the parent(s). It's not like parents who can afford it do not already have such a system set up with their own children, but those parents individually set the terms of such a reward system. For schools to attempt to do it systematically appears to be complicated at the very least and potentially disruptive if not executed effectively.
"If this is so important why don't I get paid to learn it?"
Maybe not so much, but DC schools and Harvard's Ed Labs are taking the message to heart. The Capital Gains program is active in 14 schools in DC, with about 2,700 kids participating (although about half of these are in the control portion of the experiment). The program exist for middle schoolers, with the average student earning $50 every two weeks and up to $1,500 per year. Students get paid based on their attendance, behavior, and other various measures such as grades or homework completion.
Experimenters are optimistic about the results, but conflicts have already been reported; it remains to be seen whether the problems are with implementation or are inherent to the structure of the program. Critics wonder if paying students to learn erodes intrinsic motivation towards learning. Right now there are no clear results in either direction, but some indication that cash as a motivator works well on hispanic children, boys, and children with certain behavioral disorders, as measured by the DC-CAS test.
What does this mean for the rest of us? Sometimes money can work, other times it can. My theory is that this depends on both the general culture of the community and school and the personal culture established at home by the parent(s). It's not like parents who can afford it do not already have such a system set up with their own children, but those parents individually set the terms of such a reward system. For schools to attempt to do it systematically appears to be complicated at the very least and potentially disruptive if not executed effectively.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Taxonomy of Teaching
Basically what this guy is selling is the idea that if the rules mentioned in his taxonomy are followed, anyone can have the classroom management skills to be an effective teacher. In a sense, this is expert advice on the "soft skills" that are expected to be inherent in teachers, but may only be present in the select few that demonstrate results. Combined with an extensive background in the subject area being taught, a thorough understanding of these skills can be a one-two punch that will make teachers, students and schools more effective.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Rote Makes Right?
Bloom's Taxonomy maintains that the highest order of thinking occurs at the evaluating and creating levels which infer that the thinkers must have knowledge, facts, data, or information in their brains to combine into something new, or with which to judge relative importance or value. Therefore, effective knowledge acquisition has to come first.
I'm not exactly sure how memorization segways into the ability to think deeply and critically; I think science needs to figure out which one is the cart and which one the horse.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The mirror has two faces
Interesting news article in light of our recent discussions about laptop dispersion programs...
The issue came to light when the Vice Principal used a photo of "inappropriate conduct" taken while the student and laptop were in the child's home, prompting a class action lawsuit by every student issued a laptop. Nice job genius.
If you want a more direct look at the facts of the case check this out:
Hey Everybody!
My first post! I thought it would be best not to create an overarching tone in my first post, so I'm not going to have anything worth looking at! Problem solved!
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