In putting together
a short executive summary of the BC Education Plan and I had an idea
to use a neat little word cloud program called Wordle to see what
really matters in terms of the words used in this BC education plan
document. For those of you not familiar with Wordle, this piece of
software can be found at www.wordle.net.
You add the text of your choice and the program automatically does a
word count and then represents the words in a graphic. The more times
the word is used, the bigger the word. Hence the term for the graphic
– word cloud. It's a cool little site that has many practical in
and out of the classroom.
I took the text from the plan and
poured it into the Wordle engine and this is what I got.
Interesting how you get all the
important words for education: students; teachers; education; and
learning. All the words you would expect when talking about a plan
for BC's education system. These words don't really reflect the whole
story in this plan. On page 4 of the plan, the strengths that will be
built upon in the BC system are identified as:
Staying solid on the basics
More real-world skills
Improved student assessment and
reporting
Importance of teachers
Effective teaching
Greater flexibility
Freedom to adapt
Now looking at the word cloud graphic
above, I don't get a sense of these areas the government is
suggesting we move our system, sometimes with legislation if
necessary. And let's not miss this signal. legislation means there's
a political will to make this happen.
In an attempt to get a better sense of
the document, I took out the top 10 words in the word cloud. This
included students, teachers, education and learning plus a few more. Dumping the text back into the Wordle engine, you
get a very different view.
I will allow you to interpret this
image how you wish, but for me the message is we're not clear on
where we're where going. The multitude of words about the same size
seems to indicate there are a lot of competing priorities for what is
important. I think the contributors of this plan understood this
issue and attempted to provide some clarity by identifying a response
or action steps to this challenge. The plan identifies five key
elements to creating a flexible, adaptable and excellent education
system for BC. These elements are:
Personalized learning for every student
Quality teaching and learning
Flexibility and choice
High standards
Learning empowered by technology
All great stuff, but I don't see it in
the graphic and I don't see it in the plan.
20 years ago when the government of the
day developed the Year 2000 plan in response the Sullivan Royal
Commission on Education a lot of resources were brought to bear on
creating a system for the 21st century. That plan, which
used very similar language to this plan, was thrown out and replaced
with a vigourous, underfunded curriculum revision process. A process
which was needed because we spent so much time talking about what
could 'be' rather than what 'is' and what can we afford.
As we move forward, let's take the
those words in the Wordle, identify which are key to us and make sure
we can afford to implement and sustain them. From there we can take
the vision from the plan and laser focus our efforts into making real
change that improves our education system for all British Columbians.
In October 2009 during a keynote address to over 220 BC Science Teachers, I pointed out that eventually a time will come when they will have to take steps to become informed and deeply understand the direction the Ministry of Education is going with educational reform. I also stated I would identify when that time would occur.
This is that time.
Who Decides to Do This...?
When I was seconded to the Ministry of Education in the mid 90's to work in the curriculum branch, one of the most common questions I received was “who makes these decisions to do these things?” This somewhat cryptic question could be aligned to any educational issue of the day, but it tended to focus on curriculum documents because this was the time of the IRP, the BC curriculum document. I was somewhat fascinated by the question teachers asked me, because the answer, while not alway clear, was “you”.
There are two definitions for “you” according to all knowing Google:
Used to refer to the person or people that the speaker is addressing: "are you listening?";
Used to refer to the person being addressed together with other people regarded in the same class: "you teachers".
My answer is predicated on both definitions when it comes to decisions made around educational policy. When referring to a person the speaker is addressing, generally the Ministry makes attempts to communicate their intentions to educational professionals and the general public through the media. This is usually done by announcement of a plan that may or may not be attached to new funding. This is different from policy tweaks and changes to operating procedures that occur on a regular basis. For example, the removal of grade 12 exams are a policy change. For teachers of grade 12 courses this is a huge change in the day to day operation of their job, but the view from a bureaucratic level is it's making a minor change to the system. But, back to the plan. In the mid 90's the current majority NDP government announced their Educational Plan and this included information on curriculum changes. At the time, the educational community was still recovering from the cancelling of the Year 2000 Plan. Consequently, the new Educational Plan was for the most part missed or misinterpreted by most people.
Over the past 8 years, education and specifically curriculum has been a wasteland in BC. There have been tweaks, reductions, nips and tucks and no new funding for any of these changes. As a result not much has changed in our classrooms even though funding for various pet projects and initiatives have come and gone. It's not surprising that the cynicism arising from the lack of vision is creating an environment similar to the mid 90's. With the release of the BC Education Plan (www.bcedplan.ca) by the current government we are moving into a new focus on Education in British Columbia.
It is time for “you” to take notice and read it.
Now for the second definition of “you” and again I reflect on my time working at the Ministry of Education. After I would present the mandate of the government to teachers (as a seconded teacher I was required to present the intentions of the government regardless of my personal view), invariably someone would get upset and vent. Sometimes the group would focus on a particular issue and occasionally the emotion would trigger a letter to the Minister. Which I would write the response for his or her signature before being mailed out. The part that always bothered me in this process was that it ended there. Nothing else happened. Somehow the issue died out, the tyranny of the moment that defines teaching took over.
My hope for this time is the second definition for “you” means groups of teachers, schools, Districts, PAC's, businesses and all possible combinations in-between finds ways to talk and share their views. Maybe it's a conversation with your neighbour, maybe it's your first posting on a teacher community site like www.bcscienceinteractions.com or a phone call to your new Board Trustee. And don't stop there, make sure that the results of these conversations are forwarded to the Ministry. There is an 'Engage' button on the www.bcplan.ca site. Use it. Everyone has a MLA. Communicate with them. Talk to them share your experiences.
You has to be us.
If this doesn't happen now and happen soon, policy will be developed without a clear understanding of the complete picture in today's classrooms. And a year or two from now you will be listening to a Ministry presentation and asking.... “who makes these decisions to do these things?”
A friend passed along an article from Wired about the Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.com). Seems like everyone from the average student to Bill Gates is enamoured with the work being done. The founder, Sal Khan, started with creating math videos to help his niece get through math. Word spread that these videos actually helped his niece, other family relatives and friends learn math concepts. In the vein of “you have to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good” and being located in Silicon Valley allowed Sal to put together an impressive list of DIY Math and Science videos (and a few other subjects). As the story goes, Bill Gates discovered the site, had his kids use it and then told the world. Oh yeah, and he threw in a million bucks or so to help it along.
The videos are Sal talking with appropriate enthusiasm and a whiteboard or several pictures. They are very basic in look and feel with a good solid foundation in content. They are like worked examples the teacher does in class, but delivered in a just in time model. Plus they fit my criteria for anything related to technology in education – they are executed with simplicity that is clear and appropriate for the learner. And 2400 videos later the Academy appears to be doing quite well.
Thinking a bit more about this story, I’m struck by two things that tie back our theme of Digital Distractions. First that content is key for learning new things and second, learning new things is brain based, not behaviour based.
Content Matters
In the Wired story, Bill Gates is purported to remark “what use is a person to society if he had can’t multiply”. I doubt Mr Gates realized the multiple levels of meaning he projected with that statement. But his comment does point to a current issue in education. It comes under the heading of 21st Century Learning. If I understand the gist of this particular educational bandwagon, schools should be training students to be prepared to operate within an information rich society. Lists of skills related to verbs or doing actions follow in an authoritative tone or report and people are lead to believe this will lead to preparing kids for the future. This short video illustrates my point. Sadly, this is a seriously misguided vision and will probably lead most people to realize the whole 21st Century Learning agenda is yet another ill-conceived, poorly thought out waste of precious resources. And not because it’s a bad idea, in fact it’s a great idea. The problem is because the focus is wrongly and exclusively placed on skills.
It’s a seductive argument that with access to unlimited information in this “Age of Google”, why should we need to be teaching content. What you hear from followers of the vision is we should be teaching students to develop the skills needed to access and use the digital information. After all, most jobs students will have as adults don’t even exist right now. As an educational system we need to be developing higher order thinking skills that will serve our students in a variety of potential future contexts of their life.
This line of thought fits nicely into how most educators were trained and how they developed their personal philosophy on teaching and learning. In general, this thinking usually aligns along the behavioural psychology lines of constructivism where students build their own understandings through a variety of experiences provided by the teacher, and more recently by the students themselves. Or put another way, you learn by doing, not by being told. Many will recognize the spirit of John Dewey rising up with those words. Up until recently, I would align my own thinking to this school of thought. In fact, I would argue that the 1 million textbooks with my name on it would be rooted in constructivism. But, over the past few years, a niggling thought kept entering my brain and I couldn’t shake it...How do students learn new concepts?
This particular niggling thought germinated when my eldest son was in grade 4 and I was helping him with his math homework. He was given a task of figuring out which three digit numbers were divisible by certain single digit numbers. For example, could 467 be divisible by 7. With no instruction or support, he was to discover algorithms for these problems. Since neither one of us had a clue, I went to the Internet and eventually found the solution which we applied. Total learning in this situation was zero. And he sure wasn’t motivated to continue with the lesson.
Now supporters of the 21st Learning might, wrongly, point out I achieved exactly what they say is the future for education and how kids should learn. If you don’t know the answer, just go to the Internet and find it. Common sense might even lead you to think they would be correct in this statement, but sadly they are completely wrong.
The original intent of my son’s lesson was for students to work on number theory. The activity was originally designed to build a foundational skill in the learning process of mathematics. Sadly it failed to achieve it’s desired outcome because it assumes the novice learner was an expert. This point is key because this is where the findings of cognitive science begin to better address that niggling concern I have had about how students learn.
Cognitive Load Theory – Starting to Understand How We Learn
I’ve had a few people ask me where I built my philosophy on learning and how did I move from the accepted constructivist philosophy engrained into me over many years of teaching and writing. The story starts with a belief that currently educators are artists in their craft. With very little evidence they regularly diagnose, to the best of their ability, student learning styles, learning difficulties and various other student learning issues. I’ve argued that many years from now, when we understand how the brain learns, we’ll look back and wonder how we were able to teach children with such techniques. A bit like comparing Doctors and their practice in the 1600’s to today. And that’s where we need our thinking on learning to go. We need to consider the research being done on cognition and learning.
In recent years the field of cognitive science has embraced technologies like MRI brain scans and evidence based research to begin building an understanding of how the brain learns. Now I am the first to admit I am no expert in this field, but I have been impressed with the work by Bob Sweller from the University of South Wales and his work on Cognitive Load theory
Originally based on the study how to better create instructional manuals, Cognitive Load theory is an evidence-based cognitive theory that provides a basis for describing how we learn within the context of the brain. I like this theory because it is evidence based, focuses on the brain and the findings can be clearly demonstrated in the classroom.
The starting point for Cognitive Load Theory is the most basic question in learning. How does information get from the short term, or working memory, to long term memory. Such a basic question and yet, so little is known.
Sweller identifies five foundational principles that underpin human cognition and Cognitive Load Theory. Listed here, future posts will consider each of these in the context of learning and digital distractions. For those of you that have spent time considering how we learn, you may have troubles accepting the words below. I did and had to keep reminding myself that these beliefs arise from evidence-based research.
1. Information Storage – Human cognition includes a large store of information that governs the bulk of its activity. Long term memory provides this functions.
2. Borrowing and Reorganizing – Almost all information held in long term memory has been borrowed from all other long term memory stores.
3. Randomness as Genesis - Random generation followed by tests of effectiveness provide the initial source for the generation of all information held in long term memory.
4. Narrow Limits of Change – All effective changes to long term memory occur slowly and incrementally.
5. Organizing and Linking – Unlimited amounts of organized information from long term memory can be used by working memory to determine interactions with the external world.
I, along with others holding similar beliefs, take from this that learning involves building schema that we borrow, or learn, from others. These schema move the learner from the novice to the expert problem solver. No amount of searching for answers in an unconnected, undisciplined manner will provide the learning environment necessary for deep understanding. We need to build our own schema, but do so with the support of others.
And that’s where I go down a different path than many of the educational gurus speaking to the masses today. Learning requires a deep understanding of content gathered through working with experts who model how to learn new and sometimes difficult material. All the searching online for an answer will never get the student to the spot where they can engage in open ended, creative problem solving until they are an expert problem solver themselves in a given area of study . This is where we need to start the conversation around the 21st Century Learner.
Or put another way ...there is no free lunch when it comes to learning ...... even with Google!
Welcome back to another school year. I always like September with the air of optimism and potential floating through the halls. This year it seems like the winds of technological change are flowing through the sails of our educational decision-makers. More and more Boards are opening their technological infrastructure to 3rd party devices. For example, the Toronto School Board has reversed its cellphone policy and now allows smartphones, cellphones and similar electronic devices to be used as classroom tool to enhance student learning and support curriculum delivery. Of course there are as many supporters as detractors with this course of action. I wonder how this decision will impact folks in the trenches.... both from a classroom management and an instructional point of view?
I think this opening of the doors to technology is an inevitable decision for most educational institutions as they realize it's impossible to sustain the infrastructure necessary to deliver digital content. Since it can't be done on current budgets, why not offload this cost to the family and refocus technology funds to more pressing demands on the system. I'm sure there will the usual concerns over equity, but I do believe the public education system is really good at addressing equity issues. If the issue is identified, there is always a way to make sure a balance is acquired both in policy and actual action in the school. In British Columbia students needed graphing calculators for Math and schools figured out how to support all students with this particular piece of technology. At the same time, I sure feel sorry for teacher who has 15 different smartphones with various operating systems and processing speeds in the classroom at the same time. For those of you who taught Math or Physics, it's like trying to help kids figure our how to punch Cos 45 into their calculators, but a heck of lot more complicated.
But, let's focus on the classroom management issues first.....
I remember watching a UOIT class where every student has a laptop given to them. Imagine a large lecture hall, professor at the front lecturing and everyone taking notes on their shiny laptops..... Hmmm, not quite like that. There were as many Facebook and MSN chat windows open as there was word processing windows. It looked hard to balance a laptop on that tiny folding desktop and find an electrical outlet to plug in the laptop. So, besides the architectural deficiencies in our existing classrooms, the bigger management issue in my mind is the digital distractions these technological devices afford us.
It's kind of funny that when cellphones first came out the concern I remember in our school was drug deals being consummated in the hallways at lunch via the phone. There really didn't seem to be any worthwhile reason for being a kid to have a cellphone. Now with so many choices for entertainment and communication between friends (and yes, the odd family call), it seems like a no-brainer. But, there's a big difference between entertainment and learning. And therein lies the challenge for educators. It's not the content the kids are accessing through their electronic devices that's the challenge. It's what is this digital immersion doing to their ability to learn.
To address this challenge let's consult one of the big thinkers on how technology impacts on us. I like the thinking from Marshal McLuhan and of course he's not silent on this issue. He understood every new medium (or technology) changes us. For him it's not the content in the medium, but what is happening to us when we use the technology. His view was “Our conventional response to all media, namely that is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot”.... the content of the medium is just....”the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.”1
I think most educators would agree, these technological devices are distracting. After all, who wants to learn how to factor polynomials or solve acceleration questions when I can text my friend about Friday nights party. And addressing the digital distractions being introduced to classrooms all over the world may become the biggest issue educators have when teaching “screenagers” (of all ages!).
I found this great graphic from the site Information is Beautiful called The Hierarchy of Digital Distractions2. To use the hierarchy, pick an application like Skype. What does and doesn't distract you from your Skype call? Well, a Twitter message in below a Skype call and a text message is above. So, a Skype call trumps a Twitter message, but not a text message. And all three trump Any Kind of Actual Work!
This image very nicely summarizes the multitude of distractions available to us 24/7. And except for the landline, they're all pretty new distractions. Kind of scary how quickly we accepted these into our lives. No wonder we're all so busy. Distraction maintenance is taking over our lives.
Now I may be wrong about this, but within the classroom, the more rules about when and how the smartphone can be used will just make it more attractive to take a peek at any one of the distractions available. Kind of the forbidden fruit mentality...... rather, I think we will need a clear description of the rights and responsibilities to govern smartphone use in the school. Such a Charter will be more effective in the long run than a list of Draconian rules that can be easily enforced by the Administration. My worry here schools will opt for the later because it offers the short term answer to a complicated issue.
More importantly for educators, I think to find effective uses for electronic media in classrooms will require a deep understanding of what is going on with students brains when students are being constantly distracted by external, non-educational stimuli.
Next time .... what is going on in the brain of our students when they use electronic media
References
1. Marshal McLuhan: Understanding Media: The Extension of Man.
