Education Evolutions Newsletter #14

Seeing as there will be no newsletter next week, I packed this one fuller than most. I hope you find some of these items interesting. Enjoy the festive season and may you steal some moments to relax and recuperate.

Education Evolutions:

Select Readings on Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age

For the festive season, here are five curated articles about education, technology, and evolutions in teaching.

• Year in Search 2016 – Google Trends  (2 minute video & a wormhole)
  Outside of Apple, Google might be the cleverest company at marketing themselves there is. No matter what you think about them, they are awfully good at creating things that seem cool. The page that they have developed to document The Year in Search is clever in how the information is presented as much as the information itself. The two-minute video is exceptionally well-made and will no doubt make anyone think, “Oh, yeah. I already forgot that happened this year.” It is a remarkable visual narrative of the biggest stories of the year which in turn would have sparked searches which are displayed in enough ways to suck you into a timeless vortex of clicking, something that Google is also very good at doing. I especially love how the color coding of the Breakout Searches work.

• Education Research Highlights From 2016 – Edutopia – Youki Terada  (7 minute read)
  This collection is for the wonkier types who actually like education research, as Edutopia has collected their top 15 studies from the year. Some of these look more interesting than others. I read number two, the one about Kindergartners when it was released. It was sadly sobering. Numbers six and seven, on stress levels among teachers and students, look like potentially interesting takes on the subject. I am certain I will read number eight about the benefits of racially diverse schools and number 15 about one-to-one programs. To think, Google funded a study on “84 percent of parents believe computer science is just as important as math, science, and English.” No self-interest involved there.

• Technology Should Replace Basic Teaching Tasks, a New Paper Says – Teaching Now blog @ EdWeek – Madeline Will (11 minute read)
  This is a piece highlighting a new white paper published by the Clayton Christensen Institute at Harvard University. These findings remind me a whole lot of when there was a groundswell of thinking that schools would be able to use television for basic instruction. That hype did not exactly live up to the promise. Again and again, phrases like “adaptive learning software” and “personalized learning” are co-opted by forces that advance this notion that education is to be done to students. Learning is not simply about accumulating content knowledge or a set of skills. The most ominous line in the article is the last, “Fortunately, innovations that commoditize some elements of teacher expertise also supply the tools to raise the effectiveness of both non-experts and expert teachers to new heights.” Keywords “commoditize” and “non-experts” in connection with “expert teachers” this Thomas Arnett says is fortunate.

• PARCC Undertakes a Major Restructuring (Again) – Curriculum Matters blog @ EdWeek – Catherine Gewertz  (11 minute read)
  There are a whole lot of questions about PARCC, Common Core, NCLB’s replacement Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and the new federal administration. While there may not be nearly as many answers about all of these things one thing can be certain, the virulence of entities like PARCC and the efforts to which they will go to remain alive. Also, watch just how much copyright will be used as a big stick to hammer things into a desired shape in future. That will be telling. This is particular interest to Massachusetts, considering their plan to produce MCAS 2.0 and what that is likely to look like.

• Crash Course: College Board faces rocky path after CEO pushes new vision for SAT – Reuters Investigates – Renee Dudley  (23 minute read)
  As someone who has followed David Coleman’s rise from co-architect of the Common Core to the CEO of the College Board with keen interest and a number of ethical questions, this is a fascinating read. I have always thought that there was an inherent conflict of interests in one of the principal designers of the Common Core taking over the College Board. Even if it is not an actual legal issue, it always just seemed very seedy. Plus, this article also highlights just how healthy their bottom line is for a not-for-profit. I’m not sure that students and their families benefit nearly as much from Advanced Placement as does the College Board. By the way, none of the problems raised in this article are terribly surprising, knowing more about Coleman’s record, and they should be a clarion call for putting too many eggs in any one basket.

Education Evolutions Newsletter #13

It was a little harder to find decidedly more positive pieces for this week, as some of that is a bit in the beholder. Hopefully, this selection does not require a dark soundtrack, perhaps a bit more like jazz.

Education Evolutions:

Select Readings on Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age

Here are four curated articles about education, technology, and evolutions in teaching.

• When Finnish Teachers Work in America’s Public Schools – The Atlantic – Timothy D. Walker  (11 minute read)
  Walker is a Massachusetts native living and working in Finland as a teacher. In this piece, he characterizes three teachers from Finland now working in American schools and documents their experiences. Considering how Finland is widely considered the best school system in the international scoring tables, it is interesting to see their first-hand difficulties with the way our American system is structured. Also interesting is the inclusion of long-time standards advocate Marc Tucker who writes a regular column for EdWeek. While he is considered an expert in education policies and practices from abroad, Tucker’s warning at the end of the article seems rather alarmingly dramatic.

• Why Identity and Emotion are Central To Motivating the Teen Brain – KQED’s MindShift – Emmeline Zhao  (7 minute read)
  While there might not be anything truly revolutionary in this article, it does a nice job of consolidating a lot of emerging understanding about the adolescent brain. Perhaps its primary value is in a kind of reframing that enables to see certain kinds of challenges as genuine opportunities. It certainly provides soft support for the notion of students driving a lot of their own learning through setting their own goals involving their own interests, something many high schools have a difficult time embracing institutionally. There is increasingly little doubt that it is a profoundly romantic period in life, in the purest sense.

• This Is Not An Essay – Modern Learners – Lee Skallerup Bessette (11 minute read)
  I have a hunch that I read this once upon a time, since it was written in 2014, although it resurfaced recently as it might as well be required reading. I wish I had written this piece myself for so many reasons. Skallerup Bessette gets right to the heart of a dark disservice that we do to students far too often. Rigid, narrow demands and negative reinforcement are just part of a constellation of associations with writing for students and yet more than ever before they are “writing.” It might not be what teachers want or like but, as Skallerup Bessette observes, “They learn, they teach, they offer their own feedback, they fail, and they try again. And we often actively work in schools to devalue, undermine, and even try to get students to unlearn these skills.” We can meet students where they are or force them to meet us where we are. I know which one I would choose.

• It Turns Out Spending More Probably Does Improve Education – The New York Times – Kevin Carey and Elizabeth A. Harris  (8 minute read)
  There is an element of this article that strikes a kind of cynicism, a well-who-doesn’t-know that kind of response. Yet the research profiled in this piece provides the kind of substantive data as evidence for the claim. Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, there has been a lot less hard evidence in support of this than we might realize. Of course, the researchers are still using tests as a metric because schools are all about testing, right? Still, what research like this does is support the eye-test, what we see all around us, which can at times be the best kind of research and use of data. Not surprisingly, the requisite charter supporter questions the findings and seems almost dismissive. It frustrates me to no end how often journalists, in an attempt to be “balanced” include just anyone with an opposing view regardless of whether they have any warrants for their views or not.

Education Evolutions Newsletter #12

Slightly delayed but hopefully worth the wait, this is definitely a darker themed issue. For the past couple of weeks, there has been a groundswell of material being churned out about new Secretary of Education appointee Betsy DeVos. Having poured through all kinds of related articles, it seemed irresponsible not to include some here. So be forewarned this material is pretty politically focused, except for the last piece which is another ongoing theme I follow.

Still, I feel like this issue should come with a musical score, like the “Imperial Theme” from Star Wars or something. I am already on the lookout for some decidedly more upbeat stuff for next week.

We definitely live in interesting times.

On a side note, I started to add these selected articles into my Flipboard magazine Teaching Today,  as well with only a snippet of the commentary. It needed some new life too.

Education Evolutions:

Select Readings on Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age

Here are four curated articles about education, technology, and evolutions in teaching.

• Betsy DeVos and the twilight of public education – Detroit Free Press – Stephen Henderson  (12 minute read)
  Detroit knows all about new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and one of Detroit Free Press’ editorial page editor is pretty emphatic is his take-down of her here. The more information I learn about the new appointment the more concerned I become as an educator, parent, even citizen. From the information I have been reading from positions across the spectrum there seems little good to come from this appointment. There is little chance of her appointment being blocked, especially considering the campaign contributions she has already made. It is hard to avoid foreseeing a renewed and invigorated assault on public education and all the elements we have come to understand about that system with a strength not previously possible. Most interestingly, both the paper and the writer are supporters of charter schools, albeit with a seemingly more rational appeal.

• What’s the worst that could happen under New Ed Secretary Betsy DeVos? Some scenarios – The Hechinger Report – Aaron Pallas  (13 minute read)
  If Henderson’s editorial on DeVos is not sobering enough, Pallas outlines a couple of almost equally nightmarish scenarios that could forecast the next four years at the Department of Education. Pallas is a professor and former statistician at the federal DoE, so it is fair to say he has some sense of how things work at the highest level. Regardless of which scenario pans out and there are likely a few more possibilities, what may be nailed on with this appointment are serious financial incentives for loosening restrictions on charter schools and school choice/voucher programs. Also, look out for even greater push toward online charter enterprises, which often consist of for-profit entities shrouded in a public cloak. The madam secretary’s husband, Dick DeVos, has strong ties to online provider K12 Inc.

• Meet the congresswoman poised to tear up Obama’s education legacy – Politico – Kimberly Hefling (11 minute read)
  The degree to which education will be further politicized only looks like deepening with haste, especially on the federal level. Virginia Foxx is about to take over as the chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. She has some pretty strong views that are likely to get a fair amount of traction on Capitol Hill. The elder, seasoned representative is highly respected in the House and has no problem making waves. Any thoughts that the government should engage with big intractable social challenges like education or health care she will likely quickly rebuke. Interestingly, retired people make up her largest campaign contribution category, followed very closely by education with her two largest single contributors being for-profit university outfits. That may provide even more insight into which winds fill her sails.

• Heavy Screen Time Rewires Young Brains, For Better And Worse – NPR – Jon Hamilton  (4 minute read)
  This is a wrinkle in an ongoing debate that is not likely going away anytime soon. While the American Academy of Pediatrics did ease their restrictiveness about screen time, the bigger issue is that the problem is a far more complex one than simple prescriptions can accommodate. All screen time is not equal. Brains continue to be a kind of undiscovered country of science and as much knowledge that has been gained we still know so little. Then, throw in the fact of just how different individuals can be and things get pretty tricky pretty quickly. That list only scratches the surface of the variables in play. Still, the implications are profound for educators, parents who are charged with creating environments for young people.