sounds promising

from Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change by Timothy D. Wilson:

Several companies now market [educational] videos for kids and millions of children have watched them. As a result, these kids are now exceeding smart, right?

Unfortunately not, because it turns out that toddlers do not learn very well from disembodied voice-overs on videos. 

I guess this changes when kids turn 5 and go to school in flipped classrooms.

Derek Owens - AP calculus

Crimson wife also points us to Derek Owens' course.

Front page articles on the edtech bandwagon

Fast on the heels of a front page New York Times exposé on how education technology has failed to raise test scores comes a front page Education Week article on the virtues of replacing teacher-centered lessons at school with technology-centered lessons at home.  The technology in question is that of the Khan Academy, whose library of lectures and problem sets is impressive in its vastness but not in its instructional feedback. If you input a wrong answer to a math problem you are told that your answer is wrong, but not why, nor how to fix it. Despite this, the Khan Academy has empowered teachers like 10th grade biology teacher Susan Kramer to skip over direct, structured instruction, and instead to watch her students "weave through rows of desks, pretending to be proteins and picking up plastic-bead 'carbohydrates' and goofy 'phosphate' hats as they navigate their 'cell.'"

To be fair, the Khan Academy (1) hasn't been around that long and (2) is the creation of a former hedge fund manager with degrees in math, computer science, and engineering but not in, say, cognitive science and child development. As such, the Khan Academy hasn't profited from the "over 20 years of research into how students think and learn" that underpins more established educational software programs like Carnegie Mellon's Cognitive Tutor.

So it was a bit disconcerting to find, fast on the heels of the Edweek's Khan Academy article, a front page article in Sunday's New York Times on Cognitive Tutor, and how it, too, has turned out to have no statistically significant impact on test scores. While I'd never had a chance to try it out (unlike the Khan Academy, Cognitive Tutor gates access to demos and charges big bucks instead of nothing at all), I'd heard only good things about it, and J enjoyed soaring through its algebra lessons during middle school. But as soon as I read the Times' description of its pedagogy, its limitations became crystal clear:

When the screen says: “You are saving to buy a bicycle. You have $10, and each day you are able to save $2,” the student must convert the word problem into an algebraic expression. If he is stumped, he can click on the “Hint” button.

“Define a variable for the time from now,” the software advises. Still stumped? Click “Next Hint.”

“Use x to represent the time from now.” Aha. The student types “2x+10.”

A math buff would soar right through this; for anyone else, the hints seem way too much of a crutch. There's no mechanism here for ensuring that you're working things out to the best of your ability before resorting to "hint"---i.e., nothing to stop you from clicking "hint" the moment you're not sure what to do. And what if your answer is almost right: say you forgot to include the initial $10, or let x stand for hours rather than days? As far as I can tell (I've now tried it out a bit), you're either right or wrong, and that's it. The program simply isn't sophisticated enough to highlight exactly what needs adjustment. And there's a very simple reason for this. As I discovered in creating a software  program that highlights grammatical errors in English phrases and sentences, this kind of perspicuous feedback takes a huge amount of coding (of the sort that you don't find in any other language teaching software program, thank you very much). Programming in the analogous feedback for mathematical expressions and equations strikes me as even more prohibitive.

On closer inspection, therefore, Cognitive Tutor seems inevitably to foster--in all but the brightest, most motivated students (the ones most able to basically teach themselves)--far too passive of a learning environment for lasting learning. Indeed, the only truly active learning environment that I've ever seen in any software program for any academic subject is that which a computer programming language platform provides for--what else?--computer programming. Only here does the feedback--the error messages or the unexpected outputs--precisely reflect what you've done wrong.

Will these recent exposés about the limitations of educational technology for subjects other than computer science have any effect whatsoever on the edtech bandwagon?

We might as well ask whether recent cognitive science findings have had any effect on how schools teach "higher level thinking." Or whether mainstreaming kids on the autistic spectrum has had any effect on mandatory group work and personal reflections. Or whether parental concerns have had any effect on schools choosing Reform Math. Or whether, for that matter, the Pope is Jewish.

(Cross-posted at Out In Left Field).

Agressive Distraction

I'm days away from starting an Online SAT course and am more than a bit nervous. Not sure if I have the self-control to push through "Compare the Two Passages" with the internet at my fingertips.

We shall see.

(Cross Posted on Perfect Score Project)

a really big class size

from the Ed Week article on Reasoning Mind:

The Gates Foundation, based in Seattle, recently awarded a $742,996 grant for a pilot program of Reasoning Mind, which will test whether one Reasoning Mind-trained teacher can affect the math scores and proficiency of 250 students using the program in different grades at several schools.There will be nine teachers trained, responsible in total for 2,250 students.

wrong turn

at the Reason Foundation:

reason: What is at the very top of your education reform list?

Jeb Bush: Applying digital learning as a transformative tool to disrupt the public education system, to make it more child-centered, more customized, more robust, more diverse, and more exciting.

Here is my prediction: online learning is not going to save us.

I'm pretty sure.

I would like online learning to work. (I think.) I just don't expect that it's going to work, partly because it hasn't worked (well) for me or for anyone close to me, and partly because distance learning was an expensive flop when colleges tried it in the 1990s (see pages 98-99).

This brings me to my beef with education reformers who are advocating "technology": if they don't have an argument as to why technology is going to be "transformative" this time around, then they don't have an argument.

That's not to say they're wrong; maybe this time will be different. But I have yet to hear a reformer explain why this time will be different, and that's a problem.

They are not reckoning with the evidence against their position.



High-Tech Heretic: Reflections of a Computer Contrarian 




Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom

 

Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? 

The Computer Delusion by Todd Oppenheimer 


In defense of Clifford Stoll

Virtual Schools at Education Next

Debbie Stier on online learning

Here’s What’s Wrong With Online Learning: Kaplan, A Case Study

Salman Khan at WSJ

Salman Khan writing in the WSJ:

I soon discovered that people all over the world were watching my YouTube videos. More important, teachers were using them to change the basic rhythm of their classrooms. They asked their students to watch the videos at home and then used class time for actual problem-solving. Instead of 30 students listening passively to a one-size-fits-all lecture, they were learning at their own speed. Some could focus on filling in gaps in their arithmetic while others were able to jump ahead to trigonometry—and it all took place in the same classroom. It is often said that technology makes modern life less personal, but in this case, it has allowed teachers to take a big step toward humanizing their instruction.

[snip]

Last fall, we began a pilot program with the public schools in Los Altos, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley. The initial results are very promising. In order to help teachers customize their instruction, we created a dashboard of robust data for them to follow, linked to their students' online exercises. Students don't move on to more advanced concepts until they have mastered basic ones. Those who get "stuck" promptly receive help, often from peers who are already proficient in a subject. The overall effect has been to create a more collaborative classroom culture.

Turning the Classroom Upside Down
APRIL 9, 2011
By SALMAN KHAN

I'm skeptical.

I'm a fan of the videos, but when the content is slightly over my head, hitting pause doesn't help. Also, in spite of the fact that I have now read a bazillion articles on the disruptive possibilities of online learning, I still prefer books to videos. I don't know why. (Debbie Stier is having the same problem.)

e.g.: I've plowed through nearly 100 pages of Introduction to Counting and Probability on my own - not easy - without having looked at a single Khan video. I keep telling myself I should watch the Khan videos. . . and then I don't watch the Khan videos. Watching a Khan video on counting and probability seems like a chore; studying counting and probability in a book seems like fun.

I'm also skeptical that having students watch videos at home and then work problem sets in class eliminates all the efficiencies of grouping.  But we'll see.

Very interested in the Dashboard, though.

And I do watch the SAT solutions. Those are great - fantastically helpful.

onward and upward, part 3

also in the new Harvard Education Letter:

Other experts working to train teachers onlinoe agree. "One of the hallmarks of online learning is that it changes the onus of learning from the teacher to the student," obseves Dr. Lynne Meeks, who runs Alabama's portion of eLearning for Educators, a federally funded multistate ODP [sic] project.
Like Teacher, Like Student
by Dave Saltman
Harvard Education Letter
January | February 2011
p. 4

Federally funded, you say.

I'm pretty sure I don't want to pay for a multistate ODP project.

Or OPD, as the case may be.^*

Heck, I don't even want to pay for a curriculum department for my own school district.

Also, I vote for the "onus of learning" remaining with the teacher, thank you very much.

Of course, I don't have a vote.


^* OPD = online professional development

math writing

Not infrequently, I have trouble understanding written explanations in the math books and on the web sites I've been using. In this case, the first line of College Board's explanation threw me for a loop:

The function with equation y=(-x)^2+1 and the function with equation y=|x^2+1| each have a minimum value of 1 when x=0...

I read this as saying -- as implying -- that x=0 is somehow critical to finding a minimum. Which I (thought I) knew it wasn't.

Mark's explanation cleared things up:

Both of those functions have a minimum value of 1, and that minimum occurs at x=0.

This is why I can't imagine computer-based math courses panning out. Online practice and assessment, yes. Online teaching, no. You need a teacher -- Mark, in this case -- to see why the student doesn't understand and to re-phrase the explanation.

Though I suppose you could write algorithms to try to do what Mark just did. First step: get rid of subordinate clauses --- especially subordinate clauses at the end of sentences, instead of the beginning. From Grammar Bytes:

Writers use subordination to combine two ideas in a single sentence. Read these two simple sentences:

Rhonda gasped. A six-foot snake slithered across the sidewalk.

Since the two simple sentences are related, you can combine them to express the action more effectively:

Rhonda gasped when a six-foot snake slithered across the sidewalk.

If the two ideas have unequal importance, save the most important one for the end of the sentence so that your reader remembers it best. If we rewrite the example above so that the two ideas are flipped, the wrong point gets emphasized:

When a six-foot snake slithered across the side walk, Rhonda gasped.

A reader is less concerned with Rhonda's reaction than the presence of a giant snake on the sidewalk!

I am accustomed to putting the most important idea last for emphasis. That's the rule I used reading the CollegeBoard explanation.

Khan Academy

Westchester Laura put me onto the Khan Academy - wow.

Apparently Salman Khan has been working on his been working on his website full-time since September 2009, but I'm just hearing tell.

Here he is on the question of how he knows the Khan Academy is effective:

My background is in math, computer science, and investment management, so I think you can imagine that no one is more obsessed with data and analytics than me. The chart to the right is provided by YouTube. It can be used to determine if and/or when viewers' attention falls off at a certain point of a video. I can then go back and try to identify (and possibly fix) what happened at that point in the video. This next chart shows the average (black line) progress of a cohort of 30 rising 8th graders on the Khan Academy software over a 6-week period. The horizontal axis is "days working on the site" and the vertical axis is "modules completed." The green lines show one standard deviation above and below the mean. This chart exemplifies both the level of data we are capturing and also highlights the importance of individualized, self-paced instruction and real-time assessment. The purple line shows a student who may have been deemed "slow" by traditional assessments because she was more than one standard deviation below the class average after working on the site for a few days. The reality is that she just needed more time ramping up on negative numbers than the other students in the cohort. Once she was given the chance to become proficient on that concept, she raced forward and ended up being one of the top students in the cohort.

More than the data, however, it is the anecdotal evidence from users that has convinced me to quit my job and make this the focus of my life. I receive hundreds of letter and comments a week. Many are simply notes of strong appreciation, but several reach the level of being genuinely inspiring. Here is a letter I received from a YouTube user in September 2009 (I bolded some of the text):

Mr. Khan,

No teacher has ever done me any good--this may sound harsh but I mean it quite literally. I was force fed medication to keep me from talking and chastised for not speaking out when called on. Where I am from blacks are not welcomed with open arms into schools--my mother and her sisters had to go to a small shack two hours from home when they went to school. About five years ago my family collected enough money to move from where i was born, so that I could have a chance at having an education and living a real life. But without a real mastery of elementary math I was slow to progress.

I am now in college and learning more than I ever have in my life. But an inadequate math background has been holding me back. I found the Kahn Academy in June of 2009, right after I completed Math 141 ( a college algebra course). I have spent the entire summer on your youtube page. And I just wanted to thank you for everything you are doing. You are a Godsend. Last week I tested for a math placement exam and I am now in Honors Math 200. No question was answered incorrectly. My placement test holder was so impressed by the breadth of my knowledge of math that he said I should be in Linear algebra.

Mr. Khan, I can say without any doubt that you have changed my life and the lives of everyone in my family.

I wish you and the Khan Academy the best of luck,

How did you get started?

My uncle's family visited me in Boston after my wedding in the summer of 2004. At some point during the trip, my Aunt told me that her daughter (my cousin) was having trouble with "unit conversion" which was not allowing her to be placed in the more advanced math track for 7th grade. Nadia was clearly a very bright girl, so I made a deal with her. I'd remotely tutor her for an hour after work as long as she was willing to do any extra work I gave her.

I began remotely tutoring Nadia in August of 2004. She was in New Orleans--where I also grew up-- so we used a telephone to talk and Yahoo Doodle as a shared notepad. Nadia ended up catching up and getting ahead of her class so I started tutoring her brothers, Arman and Ali, as well. Eventually, word got around and I was remotely tutoring and handful of cousins and family friends. Scheduling around my work, their soccer practice, and the different time zones became a little ridiculous, so I started to make YouTube videos for them to watch in their own time, at their own pace.

It didn't take long to see that other students (including adult learners) were hungry for videos like these so I kept going!

Even before I made the videos, I started writing simple Javascript problem generators so that my cousins would never run out of practice problems. I wanted to know when and how they were doing the problems, so I added a database to track usage. 70 modules and 10,000 lines of code later (much of which has made the software adaptive) , it has morphed into the adaptive math program on our site.

How did you have the time to do this while working full-time?

My wife was doing her residency--in internal medicine-- from 2005 to 2008, so there were many nights/weekends where she was working and I would have felt guilty doing anything less productive. I also try to watch very little television. On top of that, I was working at an investment fund that had me working 5am to 2pm (we were working East Coat hours from California) so my afternoons were free (although I did go to bed at 9).

How are you funding/making money off of this?

I quit my day job as of September 2009 to work on this full-time and was digging into my savings until recently. In May, some generous individuals have given large enough gifts for me to take a salary for the time being. I could be aggressive with advertising on the site, but I don't want to do that until I have to. I am speaking to some foundations that might enable Khan Academy to get to the next level. If you know of potential partner foundations who would agree that there is no better way to educate and enlighten the world, they shouldn't hesitate to email me (sal 'at' khanacademy 'dot' org) :)

Khan Academy is a IRS-recognized 501c3 not-for-profit organization. My goal is to make it self-sustaining in the next five years.

Are you interested in turning this into a business? Maybe with some VC funding?

I've been approached several times, but it just didn't feel right. When I'm 80, I want to feel that I helped give access to a world-class education to billions of students around the world. Sounds a lot better than starting a business that educates some subset of the developed world that can pay $19.95/month and eventually selling it to some text book company or something. I already have a beautiful wife, a hilarious son, two hondas and a decent house. What else does a man need?

With that said, if you are a social venture capitalist and are looking to deploy capital with the highest possible social return per dollar invested, we should talk. I think you'll find that there is no more measurable, scalable and high impact way to educate the world.

Did you do all of the videos?

As of today (6/10/2010), yes. All 1400+ videos have been made by me. Volunteers have begun to translate the videos into other languages. Here is the Khan Academy en espanol. Hope to have other channels in the not-too-far-off future!

What topics do you plan to cover?

My goal is to cover everything. Yes, everything! Most of k-12 math has already been done (although I do need to make 20 or 30 more elementary math videos). My goal really is to keep making videos until the day I die (which will hopefully not be for at least another 50 or 60 years). Should give me time to make several tens of thousands of videos in pretty much every subject.

What is the long-term goal for the Khan Academy?

I see Khan Academy becoming the world's first free, world-class virtual school where anyone can learn anything--for free.

The videos are just part of the vision. We hope to build out the adaptive software to cover all the topics that the videos cover. We also intend to develop simulation games to give more nuanced and applied understanding of concepts.

SAT prep, too

We have done all 8 math practice tests (432 problems) in "The Official SAT Study Guide" by the College Board (which you should buy) in the 100+ videos below.

We recommend that you buy the book and take at least one practice test (3 math sections) per week during each of the 8 weeks prior to the exam. In the earlier weeks, you should focus on comprehending and working on every problem. In the second four weeks, you should focus on speed and eliminating careless mistakes (although you should still try to do any problems that you didn't get to). After grading each of your exams, watch the corresponding video below.

If you have the self-discipline to take the practice tests, review your problems and watch the videos, we think you will be as prepared as anyone. You should view these videos as your on-demand personal tutor.

If you need to review (or learn) underlying mathematical concepts covered on the SAT, we have over 800 videos on general math topics in our video library.

SAT Preparation

I just watched the solution to question 17 on page 412 and had a major duh moment.

Which is exactly what I should be having -- but am not having with the SAT prep books, which frequently make simple problems seem more complex, at least to me.

The Arlington Algebra Project & e-math instruction

These look like terrific resources:

The Arlington Algebra Project

eMath Instruction


Thanks to Kate!

hold your horses

Just stumbled across this abstract in an NBER Reporter I downloaded while searching for something else altogether:

Putting Computerized Instruction to the Test: A Randomized Evaluation of a "Scientifically-based" Reading Program

Although schools across the country are investing heavily in computers in the classroom, there is surprisingly little evidence that they actually improve student achievement. In this paper we present results from a randomized study of a well-defined use of computers in schools: a popular instructional computer program, known as Fast ForWord, which is designed to improve language and reading skills. We assess the impact of the program using four different measures of language and reading ability. Our estimates suggest that while use of the computer program may improve some aspects of students' language skills, it does not appear that these gains translate into a broader measure of language acquisition or into actual reading skills.

Working Paper 10315 (pdf file)
NBER Working Paper Series
Cecilia Rouse
Alan B. Krueger
with Lisa Markman

It's not too often you read a peer-reviewed abstract whose tone could be described as droll.

I like droll.

Here's the intro:

According to the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 37 percent of 4th graders in the U.S. read below a basic level and an additional 31 percent read at a basic level, as determined by the National Assessment Governing Board (U.S. Department of Education, 2001). Currie and Thomas (2001) find that scores on a reading test taken at age 7 by participants in the British National Child Development Study are positively correlated with their earnings and likelihood of employment at age 33. Furthermore, adults who score higher on the literacy test in the Adult Literacy Survey have a greater probability of working and higher earnings if they do work (see, e.g., Sum, 1999). While the interpretation of the correlation between literacy and employment outcomes is unclear, it is very likely that improving literacy skills for troubled readers would generate important economic and social benefits.

When we all finally get tired advocating for edu-reform (or edu-revolution, as the case may be), we can take up the cause of simplified spelling.

I certainly intend to.


Mark Twain on simplified spelling
more from Twain
Diane McGuinness on the trouble with English spelling
H.L. Mencken on simplified spelling
Theodore Roosevelt's List of Simplified Spellings
Simplified Spelling Society

kids & online learning - please send stories

Palisadesk found a Forbes excerpt of Clayton Christensen's Disrupting Education , which sparked some emailing back and forth about people's experiences with online learning.


This is mine:

I don't understand why online learning has been such a flop thus far. Colleges & universities sank a fortune into "distance learning" in the 1990s & it didn't work. Hasn't worked for me, either.

I think it might have to do with a social element in learning, a la Alex the parrot, who learned virtually nothing in one-on-one, stimulus-response teaching. Irene Pepperberg adopted a "model-rival" learning situation in order to teach Alex. In "model-rival," you have the bird, the trainer, and another "student," who is a person. Pepperberg taught the lesson to the human student and when Alex watched his rival learn the answer and get the reward, he learned.

No one had ever been able to teach birds until trainers changed the paradigm to a social learning set-up.

Parrots are highly social, and so are we.

I subscribed to ALEKS a couple of years ago &, while I thought it was great, I stopped using it. I went back to my math books, which seem "warmer," somehow (maybe because I use them sitting in a room with people?)

Otoh, I'm sticking with Fluenz. I've grown to like the educational telepresence, and books don't talk or record my voice so Fluenz has the advantage there.

Where I can see online learning making a big difference is in homeschooling, where a parent is managing the curriculum.

from Concerned Parent:

I'm certain you're on to something with the lack of social aspect of online learning. As much as ALEKS has been a good supplement, it's definitely not a replacement for math learning. My kids perform better if I'm nearby. They'll actually call me over because they think they're stuck and once I'm there they don't need me to help. I end up watching over their shoulder while they quiet my help with, "I get it Mom." And yet, they don't want me to leave. They'd rather have me there.

me again:

I'm positive there's some weird social "thing" about online and computer learning. Online learning is one of those things that makes perfect sense ---- until you actually try it.

My own case is so "illogical."

I've never UNsubscribed to ALEKS; I'm still paying for it on grounds that it's a terrific program and I'm going to get back to it. Now that I don't have to teach math to C., I'm not in emergency mode; in theory I never have to look at a math book again. And yet I'm plowing through the Dolciani Algebra 2 book, in spite of the fact that I've already plowed through the Saxon Algebra 2. I'm repeating Algebra 2 using a book, not ALEKS.

Why am I doing this?

I don't know why.

My guess is that I'm doing Dolciani's Algebra 2 because C. is doing it! People do what other people do.

back to Concerned:

Absolutely. I hadn't really thought about that aspect of computer learning until you brought up the social aspect. Another interesting observation I didn't mention ocurred when S. was working with Headsprout. She could do the whole thing on her own without a hitch (it's designed that way), but she much preferred if one or preferably both of her siblings watched her do it. They giggled at the silly images, and encouraged her to keep going. I didn't realize that this is probably a need common to most of us. We're very much like Alex the parrot, indeed.

here's my sister:

Online learning is really not going to work for many learners unless it is “live,” say a skyped in lesson. My daughter took her 8th grade Algebra I, among other things, on line through a canned program. She found it very difficult. She said she absolutely preferred having a teacher she could talk to. We tried several on-line programs while we home schooled – three different ones in math trying to find a good fit. She was most comfortable with a program where the instructor was actually standing there teaching and switching back and forth to an artsy chalkboard where examples popped up as he continued talking. She did best with it, but still struggled and wanted a teacher. She missed raising her hand and asking for clarifications. All she could do was stop the program, rewind, and replay. I do fret a bit about the on-line hype.

and, later on:

I really am worried about the new buzz of on-line instruction. I spoke to a 50ish man in his PhD program for education. He has a masters in music and taught music at the middle school for years. He said on-line learning was absolutely the next wave and that the classroom was failing miserably. He left mainstream education to serve as a principal of a continuation school and he knows education is a mess. However, I don’t think on-line is the answer either. I’m afraid it will end up the way of the SMARTBoards. We’ll spend tons, revamp all our programs for on-line, only to later find out it doesn’t work as well as a live classroom. M. is very bright; she's 15, taking all her high school classes in junior college and earning As in courses designated by the UC system as transferable to 4-year universities. If struggled with on-line education, you have to wonder.

I talked to Tex, too:

...What about courses where there are scheduled class/discussion times online. I've read about them, and my only experience with anything similar is participating in "webinars."

Webinars that I've been part of include a screen presentation and a conference call format, with discussions monitored by the leader. I imagine sometimes the discussions are only online, but this would seem to address some of the social issues.

Kids, and many adults, feel a strong sense of community with their online chat friends, who may or many not be friend in RL (real life). Couldn't this carry over to successful online learning for teens?

That's my question.

Obviously, people spend a lot of time hanging out on the web, chatting with friends, Twittering, updating, etc. (Which reminds me: I have to figure out LinkedIn, finally.) My social life is mostly online these days.

So would Skyped-in courses work for a lot of kids?

Or is there some funky in-person effect in teaching & learning that we aren't aware of and don't understand? (Speaking of which, some of you may remember the various times I've mentioned that C. couldn't learn his math facts using online flash cards but mastered them at once when he wrote them on the Saxon work sheets - turns out there is research connecting handwriting to learning! I'll get that posted.)

If you or your kids have had experience with online learning, I'd love to hear about it.

I'm finishing up with another mention of The Logic of Failure by Dietrich Dorner, a life-altering book about solutions that seem logical in theory and fail in reality.

Thanks to Dorner, I am now a committed fan of pilot studies and test cases; I believe that in most walks of life nothing should be "implemented" on a grand scale before it's been tried locally & on a small scale first.

I think this blog post is a pretty good summary of the book:

The thesis: "...we have been turned loose in the industrial age equipped with the brain of prehistoric times." Simply stated, most human beings are terrible at managing complex systems. Dorner's students run a model of a small fictitious African village -- changing variables like cattle stocks, food stores, arable land. Invariably the students kill off the entire "population" through their miss-planning

As it turns out, good managers of complex systems showed common approaches:

1) They started by laying out clear, measurable goals -- they didn't just jump in and start pulling levers.

2) Good managers acted "more complexly." Their decisions took different aspects of the entire system into account, not just dominant factors.

3) They tested their hypotheses. The bad participants failed to do this. Instead of generating hypotheses, they generated "truths."

4) The good participants asked more "why" questions.

5) They showed high capacity to tolerate uncertainty. They didn't get caught up in the "methodism" of bad managers.

George F. Colony's blog

I love this book jacket.

Engelmann's rules for installing a new curriculum

palisadesk on learning sites

Another autism resource for parents and teachers that you might want to check out (don't know if it is suitable for Jimmy, but it might be), is Teach Town. It developes an individualized program for each student in several domains. It was recommended to me by a psychologist for whom I have a lot of respect, and is working well for one of my students. Check out the website at Teach Town website

It's based on ABA principles, has a strong research base, and provides for home, school and therapist interaction (if applicable).

and:

...it sounds like Jimmy isn't the prototypical "visual learner" that children with autism are assumed to be. Neither is my student. His auditory skills are far superior to his visual skills.
He did extremely well with Headsprout Early Reading and had decoding ability at the seventh grade level at the end (his comprehension was of course much more limited -- but prior to that he could not decode or read at all).

Some pluses:
- Kids usually love Headsprout, so he will enjoy doing it;
-You can have him repeat lessons, as needed, and you can stop in the middle of lessons and it will "save" where you stopped
-Headsprout has some knowledgeable people on staff who can provide support for using it with a student with autism, and they have an 800 number
- You get a money-back guarantee. If you are not satisfied that it is a good program for your child you can withdraw before 30 days and get your money back.

It's not for everyone but it works quite well for some very challenged kids, and with a money back guarantee, what's to lose?

nonconsumers and the schools

The Crimson Avenger has another terrific post up about the permanent struggle to reform the public schools.

It seems to me that the education reform work of the past few decades has all focused on combat strategies. We “attack”, so to speak, by instituting new requirements – standards, assessments, etc. – and by pushing for new models of public schooling (charters).

But what we’ve seen is that our pushes have all been blunted, subverted, and ultimately used to reinforce the status quo. Set academic standards, and what was meant to be a baseline floor becomes a ceiling. Require assessments, and the cut scores are set so low that almost every school looks like a high performer. Insist on charters, and then allow the state department of education to act as the authorizing body, ensuring that nothing markedly different gets through. (And then reduce the funding those charters get just to make it interesting.)

[snip]

What if we stopped trying to fight? What if we realized that we can’t reform a monopoly from the outside, and that there’s no incentive to do it from the inside? What if we tried a different approach?

What if we shifted our focus to a war of attrition?

Imagine what would happen if we stopped trying to reform the system, and instead just said, “Clearly, we have different ideas about education. So we’re dropping out. If there are parents who want what you offer, that’s fine. I don’t, so I’m sending my kid elsewhere – which means you won’t be seeing the money he represents any more.”

I personally have reached the conclusion that the system can't be reformed. I say "personally" because I'm not sure I'm right, though I think I probably am. The schools aren't going to change. Individual schools, yes. But the system? No. I don't see it happening.

I had this revelation as the result of an email exchange with a longtime veteran of the schools here. She made me see the reality of what Crimson is saying: when parents have "won" -- when the programs parents put weeks, months, and years of their lives into making happen finally happened -- they weren't what parents had worked for.

They were something else.

Exhibit A: foreign language instruction in the grade school. A group of parents here spent 8 years lobbying for foreign language instruction in K-5.

The administration, backed by the school board, blocked them all the way.

Ultimately, though, the parents prevailed, and foreign language instruction was "implemented" in grades 4-5.

What did that mean?

That meant French and Spanish were both taught to all kids: French one semester, Spanish the next. Or vice versa. Your child couldn't take just one language and develop proficiency. He had to take one language for half the school year and then drop that language and start taking a whole other language the next semester, pretty much guaranteeing he would retain neither.

Also, the school didn't teach spoken French or Spanish. There were no language labs, no language CDs, no use of the school laptops to help kids acquire a native accent before the window closed at puberty a year or two later.

The school didn't teach very much in the way of French or Spanish vocabulary or grammer, either (this wasn't the teachers' fault). Instead, the school taught "the culture." Songs, cooking projects, things of that nature.

That was the beginning, and the district has been chipping away at the program ever since. This year they may be down to just one day of foreign language culture instruction a week.

Now the town is asked to vote in an 8% tax increase which will go, in part, to funding "enhancements" to the program.

Meanwhile there probably isn't a parent in town who does not want real foreign language instruction offered in K-3, but the school isn't going to be teaching foreign language in the early grades. It's out of the question.

Well, it's not quite out of the question. The superintendent says she wants to offer Chinese. A regular 21st century language, Chinese.

That's not going to happen.

The Avenger is right. The public can't win, and whenever the public does win, the win ends up being a loss. Another one.

That's why I was blown away when I read this prediction at the new Fordham blog, Flypaper:

[B]y 2019, half of all high school classes will be taught online.

How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns

from the article in Education Week:

Clayton M. Christensen, the book’s lead author and a business professor at Harvard University, is well respected in the business world for his best-sellers The Innovator’s Dilemma, published in 1997, and The Innovator’s Solution, published in 2003.

Those books analyze why leading companies in various industries—computers, electronics, retail, and others—were knocked off by upstarts that were better able to take advantage of innovations based on new technology and changing conditions.

School organizations are similarly vulnerable, Mr. Christensen contends.
“The schools as they are now structured cannot do it,” he said in an interview, referring to adapting successfully to coming computer-based innovations. “Even the best managers in the world, if they were heads of departments in schools and the administrators of schools, could not do it.”

Under Mr. Christensen’s analytical model, the tables typically turn in an industry even when the dominant companies are well aware of a disruptive innovation and try to use it to transform themselves.

[snip]

With the advent of new technologies, companies usually resort to “cramming down” the innovations onto their existing systems, an approach that generates only incremental improvement, he says.

Upstart organizations—though they cannot at first compete head to head with the leaders—find markets for innovative products and services among “nonconsuming” groups who are are priced out of the main market or are seen as peripheral by the leaders. The nonconsuming groups embrace the innovations, which gradually improve until they are better than the top products—and sweep to dominance, according to the book.

[snip]

Like the leaders in other industries, the education establishment has crammed down technology onto its existing architecture, which is dominated by the “monolithic” processes of textbook creation and adoption, teaching practices and training, and standardized assessment—which, despite some efforts at individualization, by and large treat students the same, the book says.

But new providers are stepping forward to serve students that mainline education does not serve, or serve well, the authors write. Those students, which the book describes as K-12 education’s version of “nonconsumers,” include those lacking access to Advanced Placement courses, needing alternatives to standard classroom instruction, homebound or home-schooled students, those needing to make up course credits to graduate—and even prekindergarten children.

[snip]

Those providers will gradually improve their tools to offer instruction that is more student-centered, in part by breaking courses into modules that can be recombined specifically for each student, the authors predict.

Such providers’ approaches, the authors argue, will also become more affordable, and they will start attracting more and more students from regular schools.

Mr. Christensen and his co-authors apply an S-shaped curve, accepted in the business-research literature as a mathematical model of disruptive change in industry, to data from 2000 to 2007 to predict that by 2019, online learning will account for 50 percent of high school course enrollments.

The prediction is based on current projections of the supply of qualified teachers and of the costs of traditional and computer-based learning. “As long as that ratio stays the same, we’ll see that happen,” Mr. Christensen said. “Who knows if it is 2019, 2017, or 2020, but sometime around there, it should hit 50 percent.”

[snip]

He underscored that the book does not aim to frighten school leaders, but to urge them to treat the approaching changes as an opportunity rather than a threat.

“If they will set up heavyweight teams and create the new architecture for the curriculum in a new space—so they have a school within a school, or a different school underneath the umbrella of the district—at that level the school can truly transform itself,” he said.

Online Education Cast as 'Disruptive Innovation'
by Andrew Totter
Education Week
Vol. 27, Issue 36, Pages 1,12-13

I find Christensen's argument utterly compelling.

nonconsumers

Look at the pitch for K12:

James is reading over 130 wpm and is only a second grader.

Sophie’s brain seems to have undergone somewhat of a mental explosion.

I hope you go to bed each and every night knowing what a HUGE difference your work makes for some of these precious children.

Both girls are superior cognitive gifted. The private school taught to the middle. Now, both children are able to work at their own pace.

No more phone calls from the school to tell me how Bruce “didn’t get anything done today.” No more wasted days where Bruce just killed time at the school.

She was getting C’s and D’s at her public school and was being bullied. She entered last year, two years behind. In one year she completed two math courses 100%.

The other day my son said, “You know mom, three years ago I thought I was dead fish on the wayside of the beach and now I feel like I am an eagle in the sky looking down and know I can soar.

That's a whole lot of nonconsumers ripe for the plucking.

And check out Bror's Blog: Middle School Changes Afoot in the Brick and Mortar World.

Brick and mortar world.

Sounds creepy. Makes me feel like enrolling my kid in the wholesome high-tech online learning world where I can keep an eye on him.

I'm serious. The K12 pitch works for me. Really works. This is some of the most effective advertising I've ever seen, possibly because I am, relatively speaking, a nonconsumer who's just been alerted to a whole new world of possible fun consumption. A nonconsumer being captured by a disruptive innovator.

Here's the high school pitch. It works, too. Sign me up!

Of course, part of what makes this material so effective is the fact that it's a pitch at all.


don't try this at home

Let's watch what happens as a nonconsumer begins the process of becoming a consumer:

find your path

vs.

"If students need distributed practice, parents can find worksheets online."

Oh, and here's Bror.