I was made aware of another major failure of the U.S. education system a few weeks ago, when someone I know made the statement that she knew how to do the math, but she was not good at story problems. It turns out that this is extremely common. I feel I need to make something clear, if you cannot do "story problems," knowing the math is worthless.
Math is about solving problems. I don't mean that it is about solving problems that look like "3 × 4" or "32x + 3y". These are the kind of math problems you get in school, on homework and tests. They might be good for passing an utterly awful math class that does not actually teach anyone how to use math. The fact, however, is that there is absolutely no value in learning this kind of math, if you cannot apply it to real problems. In short, we could eliminate math entirely from the U.S. education system, and the negative effects would be minimal, because the way we currently teach math is not actually worth anything! (This is a mild exaggeration, as occasional students figure out application on their own, as they learn the abstract math.)
Consider this math problem: You have a standard room in a house (that means the ceiling height is 8 feet, and the corners are all right angles). The floor dimensions are 10 feet by 12 feet. You are buying paint that claims to cover 350 square feet per gallon. How many gallons of paint do you need to paint the walls and ceiling? If you cannot figure out how to solve this problem, you do not actually know math. What I mean is, this is a real math problem. All real math problems are like this. Not only that though, but this problem is also a trivial problem. If you cannot solve problems like this, you don't actually know math. Being able to solve abstract problems like 3 × 4 is nice, but it is purely academic. It is worthless by itself. In fact, it might be argued that it is utterly worthless either way, because computers can do that problem faster and more accurately than any human. Real math is all word problems, and if you cannot do word problems, there is no value in knowing how to calculate the answers.
Now that you feel that I have insulted your intelligence, let me explain something else: None of this is your fault! Yes, I am absolving you of any fault, because it is not your fault. Now, I have heard math teachers say that the problem is the laziness of the students, and maybe this is a small part of it, but it sounds like an excuse for poor teaching performance to me. The fact is that the students would be a lot less lazy, if they understood how to use this math in real world applications (this has been demonstrated on many occasions). In other words, the laziness of the students is probably largely attributable to the teachers who don't know how to teach real math.
Of course, even the teachers are not entirely at fault. This problem can be traced back to the industrialization of education. There was once a time when math was taught purely in terms of application. Merchants learned addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in terms of money transactions. Farmers learned basic math in terms of crop yields and taxes. Alchemists and other scientists learned more advanced math in terms of their specific disciplines. No one learned "2 + 2 = 4". Instead they learned "Two dollars plus two dollars is four dollars", "two bushels of wheat plus two bushels of wheat is four bushels of wheat", or "two ounces of mercury plus two ounces of mercury is four ounces of mercury". The industrialization of education (which came with the creation of the public education system) changed this, attempting to generalize math by reducing to the most abstract form. The problem is that removing the context from the math makes it worthless for everyone. Knowing this abstract math does not matter if you don't know how to use it.
How do we fix this problem? To start with, teachers need to learn to teach math differently. Math should be taught using a variety of applications, from money, to calculating how much paint is needed, to figuring out the best unit price for buying a product. Our current system teaches abstract math and then expects students to figure out the application on their own, and it clearly fails at this. Teaching to the application instead of adding it as an afterthought is the key to teaching real math. Unfortunately, there are things in place that hinder this goal. The good news is that they are easily fixed. The typical math text has a list of 30 homework problems at the end of each chapter. There are usually 2 to 4 kinds of abstract problems, and 2 to 4 word problems at the end. Math tests are similar, with 15 to 30 problems, where only 2 to 4 of them are word problems. Given this balance, it is clear why teachers don't bother making sure students actually know how to use the math. When around 80% of the problems are abstract, and our current education system is funded largely based on test scores, even competent teachers who know how to teach real math feel backed into a corner. So, I propose that students cannot pass a math class without knowing how to apply the math. Instead of 20 to 30 math problems for homework, only give students 5 to 10 problems, but make them all story problems. For tests, no more than 30% of the problems should be abstract problems, and no more than one abstract problem of each type should be allowed. As with homework, reduce the number of problems accordingly. A 10 problem test with 7 or 8 story problems will tell far more about a student's ability to use math than a 30 problem test with only 2 to 4 story problems. In addition, this can leverage the propensity to teach to the test to encourage teachers to teach students how to use math, instead of just teaching them to compute problems that any computer could do for them.
Now, I don't want to imply that abstract math is entirely worthless. Memorizing addition and multiplication of all one digit numbers will make learning pretty much all higher math much easier. Learning abstract algebra concepts is essential to certain kinds of higher math problems. The fact, however, is that even all of these abstract concepts have real world applications, and teaching to the application is not that hard. Within a single math class, teaching significant amounts of abstract math may be essential, but anything the student is graded on should require a demonstration of application of the abstract concepts. The abstract math should be stepping stones, not the end goal.
Abstract math has no value without application. Research has shown that teaching application motivates students to learn math better, and students who learn math through application come away with a better understanding of the math and much better ability to use it. The first reform we need in math education is to change the homework and tests so that teachers teach application instead of abstract math.
If you are still confused with the above story problem, I will explain how to solve it here. A standard room has 6 surfaces (4 walls, a ceiling, and a floor). We only want to paint the four walls and the ceiling. The dimensions of the room are 8 × 10 ×12, but it is important to know which dimensions go with which surface, because we don't need to buy paint for the dimensions of the floor. The ceiling and floor are 10 × 12, two of the walls are 8 × 10, and the other two are 8 × 12. We need the surface area of the ceiling and all of the walls, so (10 × 12) + 2 × (8 × 10) + 2 × (8 × 12) = Total Area. This gives us 120 square feet for the ceiling, two walls with 80 square feet each, and two walls with 96 square feet each, for a total of 120 + 2 × 80 + 2 × 96 = 472 square feet. Now, a single gallon can of paint covers 350 square feet, which is not enough. Two cans cover 700 square feet, which is too much. Since we cannot buy a fraction of a can, we will have to buy too much (which is perfectly fine, since now we will have some extra in case we need to make repairs in the future). So, we will need two gallon cans of paint for this project.
This problem may seem complicated if you have not learned to translate real world problems into abstract math, but honestly it is incredibly easy. If you really want to know what is complicated, calculate the exit velocity of a projectile from a rail gun given the materials and dimensions of the rails and the projectile, the initial input voltage and capacitance of the power supply, the friction between the rails and the projectile, and the resistance of the wires from the power supply to the rails. I'll give you a hint: This problem require calculus, but the calculus is not the hard part. The hard part is translating all of that data into the abstract math problem!
Monday, May 9, 2016
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Making Learning Easier
In nearly every industry, there is one primary goal. That goal is to do more with less work. We want to produce more, in less time, with less effort. We want to provide services for more people with less work, in less time. This desire to increase profits and improve outcomes with less expenses, in less time, with less work is nearly universal. There is one exception: Education.
In education, the mentality is that more work is better. Some teachers have the view that if students are working less hard than they worked in school, then the students are getting off easy. The "I had to work so hard for this, so you should too" mentality is pretty common in schools. Another common mentality is that students that are not spending a lot of time and effort learning are lazy. It is pretty much taken for granted that time and effort spent are equal to the learning that occurred.
Imagine the CEO of a company telling employees that the company is not going to automate processes, because the CEO had to do things manually when he was a grunt worker, and it would be unfair for the current grunts to have it any easier. That CEO would be canned so fast! Successful businesses are constantly looking for ways to cut fat. If they can find a reasonably cheap way to make a process take half the time, they will do it. They even do this for learning activities, like training. Training is important, but if training time can be cut in half without sacrificing learning, then we should do it. Streamlining processes is better for everyone (except the employees who have to find new jobs...).
Laziness in business is a bad thing, but so is useless work. If a fast food restaurant has a lot of employees but not much work, the employees will be told to clean. If the cleaning is finished and things are still slow, a good fast food place does not tell the employees to clean all the same things again (though bad ones do this all the time...). Employees are let off early. There is no attitude that an employee should be constantly doing worthless busywork to avoid laziness. If an employee's services are not needed, then the employee is sent home. If the situation becomes chronic, employees schedules are cut or they start getting laid off.
Lastly, imagine a business that treats time and effort as value produced. No one cares about actual output. An employee who does five times the work, but only works half the time of another employee is treated as less valuable. Raises and promotions are not based on performance but rather on time served. Some companies do work like this. Those companies have been slowly dying out over the last several decades. Many still exist, but the truly successful and promising businesses of today care more about productivity than time spent. The guy that spends half of his time on Facebook but produces more than three other guys is more likely to get the raise. Some businesses are allowing flexible schedules for more productive employees, because they are more interested in how much is produced than how much time is spent producing it. Even though many businesses still value time more than production, it is beginning to be widely recognized that valuing production over time is a more sustainable and profitable long term business strategy.
Now, let's apply this to learning. What if we could teach everything from kindergarten through 3rd grade in a single year? What if we could do it in exactly the same amount of time we currently spend on just kindergarten? Maybe this is impossible, maybe it is not, but what if it was possible? If it was, our current education system would reject it. They would say that one school year is not enough time to learn all of this stuff. They would say that we would be letting the students off too easy. They would compare time spent to learning, as if there were a mathematical formula proving that the maximum speed of human learning is too slow for this to work. Or maybe I am wrong, and they would not, but I would argue that they already have done this.
We have proof that there are better teaching and learning methods than what we currently use in the U.S. The problem is that administration would rather spend money on new white boards (seriously, we already have enough) than on equipment for improving learning. They are skeptical. They don't think kids are capable of learning that fast, and they treat using technology to speed up learning as cheating. When you show them that they are wrong, they will praise you and say a bunch of nice words, but their "I had to do it the hard way, and so should you" attitude does not change. The problem with improving the U.S. educational system is not about mental, monetary, or technological constraints anymore. The problem is the attitude of those in charge, who think that anything that makes learning easier or faster is unfair cheating.
We need to treat education more like a business. The desired outcome is for students to learn (and retain, within reason) a bunch of specific stuff. The input is money, time, and teachers. In a business, we would be looking for ways to streamline the process. A student takes 13 years to teach enough to get through the public school system. How can we reduce that? Maybe we can trim some fat. Is there something we are teaching them that is worthless (in some places, there are)? Is there some way we could change how we teach that would help learning to be faster (the evidence points to heck yes)? What can be do to reduce costs, without sacrificing quality (hint: make the process faster)? Can we reduce the number of teachers without sacrificing quality (another hint: fire crummy teachers and use some of the money saved to pay the good teachers more, so they have more time and motivation to figure out how to teach faster)?
Frankly, this should be an easy task. Just over the last 5 years, education research has come up with many ways of improving learning speeds (in fact, I would argue that this is evidence that our current system may actually be using the single worst possible method for teaching). Cut the fat in places like homework (there is no reason teachers should be grading 30 minutes to an hour worth of homework per student each day, when research has repeatedly shown that there is no value in more than 15 minutes of homework a day). In fact, using the right teaching techniques, some schools have managed to teach students as much as any institutionalized public school, while letting students choose whether they want to learn or play each day.
I once complained that there was not enough research on education, and I still believe that, but over the last few years, we have seen a large amount of new research done. There are no more excuses. If our public education officials cannot treat this more like a business, we don't need them. Maybe we should be electing people with real business experience for this job, instead of a bunch of budding politicians with strong opinions but no real world experience (or even a tiny bit of research) in either business or education. (My solution is home school. At least that way, I can be sure that the teachers are actually fully invested in the well being of my children!)
In education, the mentality is that more work is better. Some teachers have the view that if students are working less hard than they worked in school, then the students are getting off easy. The "I had to work so hard for this, so you should too" mentality is pretty common in schools. Another common mentality is that students that are not spending a lot of time and effort learning are lazy. It is pretty much taken for granted that time and effort spent are equal to the learning that occurred.
Imagine the CEO of a company telling employees that the company is not going to automate processes, because the CEO had to do things manually when he was a grunt worker, and it would be unfair for the current grunts to have it any easier. That CEO would be canned so fast! Successful businesses are constantly looking for ways to cut fat. If they can find a reasonably cheap way to make a process take half the time, they will do it. They even do this for learning activities, like training. Training is important, but if training time can be cut in half without sacrificing learning, then we should do it. Streamlining processes is better for everyone (except the employees who have to find new jobs...).
Laziness in business is a bad thing, but so is useless work. If a fast food restaurant has a lot of employees but not much work, the employees will be told to clean. If the cleaning is finished and things are still slow, a good fast food place does not tell the employees to clean all the same things again (though bad ones do this all the time...). Employees are let off early. There is no attitude that an employee should be constantly doing worthless busywork to avoid laziness. If an employee's services are not needed, then the employee is sent home. If the situation becomes chronic, employees schedules are cut or they start getting laid off.
Lastly, imagine a business that treats time and effort as value produced. No one cares about actual output. An employee who does five times the work, but only works half the time of another employee is treated as less valuable. Raises and promotions are not based on performance but rather on time served. Some companies do work like this. Those companies have been slowly dying out over the last several decades. Many still exist, but the truly successful and promising businesses of today care more about productivity than time spent. The guy that spends half of his time on Facebook but produces more than three other guys is more likely to get the raise. Some businesses are allowing flexible schedules for more productive employees, because they are more interested in how much is produced than how much time is spent producing it. Even though many businesses still value time more than production, it is beginning to be widely recognized that valuing production over time is a more sustainable and profitable long term business strategy.
Now, let's apply this to learning. What if we could teach everything from kindergarten through 3rd grade in a single year? What if we could do it in exactly the same amount of time we currently spend on just kindergarten? Maybe this is impossible, maybe it is not, but what if it was possible? If it was, our current education system would reject it. They would say that one school year is not enough time to learn all of this stuff. They would say that we would be letting the students off too easy. They would compare time spent to learning, as if there were a mathematical formula proving that the maximum speed of human learning is too slow for this to work. Or maybe I am wrong, and they would not, but I would argue that they already have done this.
We have proof that there are better teaching and learning methods than what we currently use in the U.S. The problem is that administration would rather spend money on new white boards (seriously, we already have enough) than on equipment for improving learning. They are skeptical. They don't think kids are capable of learning that fast, and they treat using technology to speed up learning as cheating. When you show them that they are wrong, they will praise you and say a bunch of nice words, but their "I had to do it the hard way, and so should you" attitude does not change. The problem with improving the U.S. educational system is not about mental, monetary, or technological constraints anymore. The problem is the attitude of those in charge, who think that anything that makes learning easier or faster is unfair cheating.
We need to treat education more like a business. The desired outcome is for students to learn (and retain, within reason) a bunch of specific stuff. The input is money, time, and teachers. In a business, we would be looking for ways to streamline the process. A student takes 13 years to teach enough to get through the public school system. How can we reduce that? Maybe we can trim some fat. Is there something we are teaching them that is worthless (in some places, there are)? Is there some way we could change how we teach that would help learning to be faster (the evidence points to heck yes)? What can be do to reduce costs, without sacrificing quality (hint: make the process faster)? Can we reduce the number of teachers without sacrificing quality (another hint: fire crummy teachers and use some of the money saved to pay the good teachers more, so they have more time and motivation to figure out how to teach faster)?
Frankly, this should be an easy task. Just over the last 5 years, education research has come up with many ways of improving learning speeds (in fact, I would argue that this is evidence that our current system may actually be using the single worst possible method for teaching). Cut the fat in places like homework (there is no reason teachers should be grading 30 minutes to an hour worth of homework per student each day, when research has repeatedly shown that there is no value in more than 15 minutes of homework a day). In fact, using the right teaching techniques, some schools have managed to teach students as much as any institutionalized public school, while letting students choose whether they want to learn or play each day.
I once complained that there was not enough research on education, and I still believe that, but over the last few years, we have seen a large amount of new research done. There are no more excuses. If our public education officials cannot treat this more like a business, we don't need them. Maybe we should be electing people with real business experience for this job, instead of a bunch of budding politicians with strong opinions but no real world experience (or even a tiny bit of research) in either business or education. (My solution is home school. At least that way, I can be sure that the teachers are actually fully invested in the well being of my children!)
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Linked Learning
One of the problems with this public school system is that it no longer serves its original purpose. The U.S. public school system was intended to prepare students for entry level jobs with good long term career potential. Our modern school system fails horribly in this, and it really does not even do a good job of preparing students for college. It does teach some useful skills, but they are too general and U.S. schools rarely teach application enough for the skills to be immediately applicable to real life. That is beginning to change, with linked learning.
Linked learning teaches through application. Students learn by applying their skills in real life situations. Not only does this teach real life work skills (including communication skills), it also happens to be about the most effective way of learning and remembering what was learned.
An article I recently read discusses the experience of a California high school using linked learning. Students choose a general field to train in. They choose from engineering, business, science and technology, and digital media. These programs focus on applications in the chosen field, but the education is still general enough to be useful regardless of what careers the students eventually choose. Also, despite the focus in a single field, these students tend to do better in college in all fields.
One of the best things about linked learning is that it can easily be done in a way that allows students to apply all of their classes to their projects. Science and math classes can help for the mathematical parts of the project, even if they are limited to accounting and scheduling. Language classes teach research and written communication skills that are essential to most decent jobs. Biology can be useful in many aspects, including the impact a project might have on people or animals. And, classes aside, these group projects also help students develop face-to-face communications and teamwork skills.
Further, most projects at this particular school are regularly reviewed by people working in the field the project falls within. Students are given the opportunity to get advice from experts in their chosen field. Besides the obvious learning opportunities, this also gives students a feel for what working in that field is like.
If this is the future of U.S. education, and given the government funding going into it, it might be, we are looking at a much better future than I ever would have predicted. This does not fix our post-secondary education system, but linked learning has made a big impact on students, who are much more enthusiastic about learning than a vast majority of students have been in all of U.S. history. If linked learning is the future of U.S. education, it might not matter if universities can fix their problems, because if they don't, they will probably be left in the dust, without much impact on education at all.
Linked learning teaches through application. Students learn by applying their skills in real life situations. Not only does this teach real life work skills (including communication skills), it also happens to be about the most effective way of learning and remembering what was learned.
An article I recently read discusses the experience of a California high school using linked learning. Students choose a general field to train in. They choose from engineering, business, science and technology, and digital media. These programs focus on applications in the chosen field, but the education is still general enough to be useful regardless of what careers the students eventually choose. Also, despite the focus in a single field, these students tend to do better in college in all fields.
One of the best things about linked learning is that it can easily be done in a way that allows students to apply all of their classes to their projects. Science and math classes can help for the mathematical parts of the project, even if they are limited to accounting and scheduling. Language classes teach research and written communication skills that are essential to most decent jobs. Biology can be useful in many aspects, including the impact a project might have on people or animals. And, classes aside, these group projects also help students develop face-to-face communications and teamwork skills.
Further, most projects at this particular school are regularly reviewed by people working in the field the project falls within. Students are given the opportunity to get advice from experts in their chosen field. Besides the obvious learning opportunities, this also gives students a feel for what working in that field is like.
If this is the future of U.S. education, and given the government funding going into it, it might be, we are looking at a much better future than I ever would have predicted. This does not fix our post-secondary education system, but linked learning has made a big impact on students, who are much more enthusiastic about learning than a vast majority of students have been in all of U.S. history. If linked learning is the future of U.S. education, it might not matter if universities can fix their problems, because if they don't, they will probably be left in the dust, without much impact on education at all.
Monday, April 27, 2015
High School Graduation Exams
In a common trend nationwide, many states have mandated high school graduation exams. These exams are often very similar to GED exams, and high school students must pass them to graduate. Aside from known problems with standardized testing, it turns out this posses another rather major problem: It hinders students from getting into good colleges.
This is very counter intuitive, but what it comes down to is that high schools that lack sufficient funding are often forced to choose between college preparation and preparing students for the graduation exam. Since students can graduate without the college preparation, it is almost always the one to suffer.
Obviously, this is a major problem. Without college preparation, high school literally offers no benefit. When the public school system was created, its primary intent was to prepare students for the workplace. The skills learned in high school were sufficient to qualify for a vast majority of entry level jobs. This is no longer the case. Few employers willing to accept education lower than college even care about high school graduation. The improvement in employability gained by high school graduation is negligible. In other words, without college preparation, high school is a colossal waste of four years. If we are not going to reform our public education system to meet its original goal, the least we can do is reform it to meet the goal of preparing students for college.
While teaching to exit exams is a major problem that hinders the ability of high schools to prepare students for what really matters, the most basic solution is incredibly simple. Choose an exit exam that will help with college preparation. There are two incredibly obvious candidates, and neither of them will take any extra work from the schools. These exams are the SAT and the ACT. While both of these tests are graded, their grades mean different things to different schools. Some colleges care more about high school GPAs than about these aptitude tests. Some schools will accept ACT scores as low at 18, while others require 24 or 27 or higher. Schools or states can easily pick a minimum grade that counts as passing though. The benefit of using these tests, instead of some state mandated test that means nothing in the real world, is that teachers will be teaching to the tests that actually matter.
The ideal situation would be to administer both of these tests, with minimum passing scores on each, because there is really no solid standard which all colleges use. Often more competitive schools prefer the SAT, mostly because it penalizes students for wrong answers. Many schools prefer the ACT though, because they consider penalizing incorrect answers to be counterintuitive or even unethical, since it encourages students to second guess themselves and skip questions they may know the answers to, resulting in inaccurate scores. Many schools will accept either test. Teaching to both will not only offer the biggest benefits, it will also make sure students have a reasonably broad education in the subjects colleges will expect them to already have a background in.
There is potential for state mandated high school exit exams to be valuable to students, but arbitrary tests that do not ensure students are prepared for the real world are totally worthless. High schools that do not prepare students for college are a waste of time, money, and effort. While there is a lot of reform that needs to happen to meet this goal, one of the simplest things that would make the biggest difference is replacing current high school exit exams with real world college entrance exams. This would help low income students the most, and they are the ones that need it the most, but overall, it would have a major impact on education in the U.S., as it would help a great many very smart students get into colleges that can do them justice.
This is very counter intuitive, but what it comes down to is that high schools that lack sufficient funding are often forced to choose between college preparation and preparing students for the graduation exam. Since students can graduate without the college preparation, it is almost always the one to suffer.
Obviously, this is a major problem. Without college preparation, high school literally offers no benefit. When the public school system was created, its primary intent was to prepare students for the workplace. The skills learned in high school were sufficient to qualify for a vast majority of entry level jobs. This is no longer the case. Few employers willing to accept education lower than college even care about high school graduation. The improvement in employability gained by high school graduation is negligible. In other words, without college preparation, high school is a colossal waste of four years. If we are not going to reform our public education system to meet its original goal, the least we can do is reform it to meet the goal of preparing students for college.
While teaching to exit exams is a major problem that hinders the ability of high schools to prepare students for what really matters, the most basic solution is incredibly simple. Choose an exit exam that will help with college preparation. There are two incredibly obvious candidates, and neither of them will take any extra work from the schools. These exams are the SAT and the ACT. While both of these tests are graded, their grades mean different things to different schools. Some colleges care more about high school GPAs than about these aptitude tests. Some schools will accept ACT scores as low at 18, while others require 24 or 27 or higher. Schools or states can easily pick a minimum grade that counts as passing though. The benefit of using these tests, instead of some state mandated test that means nothing in the real world, is that teachers will be teaching to the tests that actually matter.
The ideal situation would be to administer both of these tests, with minimum passing scores on each, because there is really no solid standard which all colleges use. Often more competitive schools prefer the SAT, mostly because it penalizes students for wrong answers. Many schools prefer the ACT though, because they consider penalizing incorrect answers to be counterintuitive or even unethical, since it encourages students to second guess themselves and skip questions they may know the answers to, resulting in inaccurate scores. Many schools will accept either test. Teaching to both will not only offer the biggest benefits, it will also make sure students have a reasonably broad education in the subjects colleges will expect them to already have a background in.
There is potential for state mandated high school exit exams to be valuable to students, but arbitrary tests that do not ensure students are prepared for the real world are totally worthless. High schools that do not prepare students for college are a waste of time, money, and effort. While there is a lot of reform that needs to happen to meet this goal, one of the simplest things that would make the biggest difference is replacing current high school exit exams with real world college entrance exams. This would help low income students the most, and they are the ones that need it the most, but overall, it would have a major impact on education in the U.S., as it would help a great many very smart students get into colleges that can do them justice.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Trigger Laws
I just read about an interesting new type of education reform legislation. It is called a trigger law. Trigger laws, implemented in several states, including California, allow parents to force schools to reform. In California, they can even be used to take over the school entirely, turning it into a charter school. Typically, it requires a petition signed by more than half of the parents with children in a specific school to activate trigger laws. The goal of these laws is to provide parents with a tool to improve poor schools, even when the government or school board refuses to. In California, there have been several instances where trigger laws were activated, in one case turning the school into a charter school, and in other cases making significant changes to school leadership. There have also been a few cases where trigger laws were not actually activated, but the thread of activation caused the school board to take badly needed action. Of course, not everyone believes these laws to be a good thing. In one case, trigger laws were used to fire a principal, but some critics have claimed that the principal was not at fault for the problems. I want to respond to some of the critical remarks targeted at trigger laws, and I also want to look at some of the implications of trigger laws.
In one of the California cases, a mother involved in intimidating the school district into action said that her child was subject to regular bullying, and school officials ignored her requests for action. In another California case, a school with very poor academic performance was taken over and turned into a charter school. The idea behind these trigger laws is that parents should have some control over the quality of education received by their children. Much of the action taken based on trigger laws has taken places in low income neighborhoods, where parents are often accused of having little involvement with the education of their children. Ironically many critics are attacking these people for their sudden interest in the education of their children (now that they actually have some control over it). A great deal of good has been done with trigger laws, but not everyone agrees that all of the results have been good.
Critics believe that trigger laws will hurt innocent educators who get caught in the crossfire. Some say that the principal who was fired as part of the activation of trigger laws was not responsible for the problem, and was harmed entirely unjustly by trigger laws. Several critics are bothered by how one school district responded to threats of takeover, by funneling funding from other schools in the district to appease the parents. None of these cases are so clear cut that the claims of the critics can be verified, but they certainly do raise concerns about the potential for abuse. Of course, the biggest critic of trigger laws is teacher's unions, and because they have a strong monetary interest in the outcome, it is hard to imagine that they have a stronger interest in the education of the children than parents do.
Here is my take on the problem: The U.S. education system is currently pretty awful. Even our highest performing public schools cannot compete with schools in many other countries. We are so poor at effective teaching that many U.S. high school students would rather drop out than suffer through courses even half as rigorous as found in countries with decent education systems. This is a huge problem, and it is leading the U.S. to being one of the least competitive developed nations in cutting edge technology and science. Something needs to be done. Trigger laws allow parents to have more control over how their children are educated. Clearly, without practically any parental control, our education system is failing. At least trigger laws are allowing us to try something new. Given how bad our education system currently is, it is not likely to make it much worse. Now, I admit that there are concerns with trigger laws, and they may turn out to be a disaster. If they do, then I am all for removing them and trying something else. I am certainly not for removing them as a reaction to one or two situations where their propriety is a little ambiguous. I say let them run their course, then evaluate them and make revisions based on the results.
Perhaps the biggest argument teacher's unions have against trigger laws is that they can be used to fire union members without proving just cause. In the case where the principal was fired, some critics claimed that this person's life was ruined, when there was no evidence she was responsible for the problems the school had. This has led to some less than civil condemnations of trigger laws and parent oversight organizations that may activate them. This is certainly a concern, but is it really justification for cutting parents out of the education of their children? In my opinion, it is not. While educators have a contractual obligation to care about the education of their students, and many do care beyond this obligation, parents have the biggest interest in the education of their children. It is true that parents do not typically know as much about education as trained educators, but most parents can tell if their child's school is doing a poor job. It is a valid concern that parents may use trigger laws to do things that may not help, and this may result in harm to innocent educators. This is certainly a shame, but the cost of not reforming the education system will be far higher than just the occasional unlucky teacher loosing a job unfairly. Teacher's unions have managed to keep even some of the worst teachers in teaching positions, doing untold amounts of harm to innocent students; there needs to be some way of combating this, even if it does occasionally backfire. Every law has its costs. Giving control of education back to parents is worth the cost of occasional harm to a teacher. I see this as a check to the power of school districts and teacher's unions in deciding how to educate children.
One of the cases resulted in what could turn out to be a complete misappropriation of funds. The parents did not actually activate trigger laws, but they threatened to do so. The school in question was failing academically, but it was also allowing bullying to go unchecked. One mother said the school administration was consistently ignoring her complaints about the bullying of her daughter. Along with many other parents, she threatened the school district to activate trigger laws to take over the school and convert it into a charter school. The threat got the attention of the school district, who forced the school to communicate with the parents and address the bullying problem. The district also allocated $300,000 to hire new staff, in an effort to raise the academic performance of the school. Many critics saw the money as a bribe, and even some of the officials involved in creating the trigger laws were disconcerted with the results. The problem with the money is that it has to come from somewhere, and this means that some other schools in the district are being forced to run on lower funding to appease some parents of students at one particular school. This is certainly a concern, and it could even ultimately lead to competition between parent groups for different schools. This may lead to a need for legislation limiting the power of school districts to redistribute finances, but I do not think we need to jump the gun on this. The worst case scenario is that parents from all schools in a district demand additional funding for their schools, with threats to activate trigger laws. This would leave a school district in an impossible situation, where almost no one can be satisfied. I see two solutions to this problem. This first is, let the parents activate trigger laws, turn the schools into charters, and deal with the funding issues directly. Putting the funding issues into the hands of the parents would be an effective teaching opportunity. The second is, the state could provide more funding for the school district. The first is the natural consequence of the problem, and I suspect it would be very rare. Also, I suspect that after the first few instances, it would never happen again, because parents would quickly learn that the funding problem cannot be solved by wresting control of the schools. The second deals with the root of the problem. If all of the schools in a district are performing poorly due to lack of funding, then maybe the district is just not getting enough funding to provide a good education. Yes, it will probably require a tax increase, but if the state cannot provide a sufficient education at the current tax levels, it is probably time to raise taxes (consider this an investment; better educated graduates will generate more tax revenue, potentially allowing tax reductions in the future). While poor financial practices as a response to threats of trigger law activation is a valid concern, it is also likely a problem that will eventually go away as parents involved see the consequences of it.
The last concern I want to discuss is the fear that "parent unions" will pass around petitions for the activation of trigger laws without and discussion of the issues involved. Parent unions are groups of parents that organize, typically without involvement of school officials (in contrast with PTAs), with the goal of encouraging or enforcing reform by leveraging trigger laws. Without the involvement of school officials, it is feared that parents will make and enforce decisions for schools without understanding the issues well. This is also a very valid concern. People have become very complacent about political issues over the last few decades, and will often join movements or sign petitions based on uninformed emotional responses. This is not a problem exclusive to trigger laws. This is a general problem of self obsession in the U.S. Getting rid of good, useful laws that could be accidentally misused is not going to fix the problem. The problem is the people, not the laws. Now, that aside, I suspect that this problem will resolve itself with respect to trigger laws. Right now, trigger laws are very young, and good use of them is not well understood. It is highly likely that over the next few years, we will see some misuses as well as their consequences. As people become more familiar with appropriate and inappropriate uses of trigger laws, instances of misuse will become less and less common. It is very likely that this will evolve into deep dialog on the propriety of any activation of trigger laws long before anyone even starts passing around the petitions. It is also very likely that parent unions will learn to involve school officials in these discussions, to avoid making uninformed decisions that could cause harm.
There are many valid concerns with trigger laws, but none of them seem to be critical. Some may turn out to be too problematic or costly to tolerate. Others will probably go away as we learn from experience. Overall, the goals of trigger law are very good, and trigger laws have the potential to increase freedom and save our failing education system. I believe we need to keep them and deal with the consequences. As we begin to understand them better, we can refine them to reduce potential for abuses and increase the potential for good. While the initial uses of trigger laws will probably involve some poor choices, I think giving parents more control over how their children are educated will ultimately result in more cooperation between educators and parents in the long term. It will probably take some time for this new power balance to stabilize, but I believe it eventually will, for the good of the students and the U.S. education system.
In one of the California cases, a mother involved in intimidating the school district into action said that her child was subject to regular bullying, and school officials ignored her requests for action. In another California case, a school with very poor academic performance was taken over and turned into a charter school. The idea behind these trigger laws is that parents should have some control over the quality of education received by their children. Much of the action taken based on trigger laws has taken places in low income neighborhoods, where parents are often accused of having little involvement with the education of their children. Ironically many critics are attacking these people for their sudden interest in the education of their children (now that they actually have some control over it). A great deal of good has been done with trigger laws, but not everyone agrees that all of the results have been good.
Critics believe that trigger laws will hurt innocent educators who get caught in the crossfire. Some say that the principal who was fired as part of the activation of trigger laws was not responsible for the problem, and was harmed entirely unjustly by trigger laws. Several critics are bothered by how one school district responded to threats of takeover, by funneling funding from other schools in the district to appease the parents. None of these cases are so clear cut that the claims of the critics can be verified, but they certainly do raise concerns about the potential for abuse. Of course, the biggest critic of trigger laws is teacher's unions, and because they have a strong monetary interest in the outcome, it is hard to imagine that they have a stronger interest in the education of the children than parents do.
Here is my take on the problem: The U.S. education system is currently pretty awful. Even our highest performing public schools cannot compete with schools in many other countries. We are so poor at effective teaching that many U.S. high school students would rather drop out than suffer through courses even half as rigorous as found in countries with decent education systems. This is a huge problem, and it is leading the U.S. to being one of the least competitive developed nations in cutting edge technology and science. Something needs to be done. Trigger laws allow parents to have more control over how their children are educated. Clearly, without practically any parental control, our education system is failing. At least trigger laws are allowing us to try something new. Given how bad our education system currently is, it is not likely to make it much worse. Now, I admit that there are concerns with trigger laws, and they may turn out to be a disaster. If they do, then I am all for removing them and trying something else. I am certainly not for removing them as a reaction to one or two situations where their propriety is a little ambiguous. I say let them run their course, then evaluate them and make revisions based on the results.
Perhaps the biggest argument teacher's unions have against trigger laws is that they can be used to fire union members without proving just cause. In the case where the principal was fired, some critics claimed that this person's life was ruined, when there was no evidence she was responsible for the problems the school had. This has led to some less than civil condemnations of trigger laws and parent oversight organizations that may activate them. This is certainly a concern, but is it really justification for cutting parents out of the education of their children? In my opinion, it is not. While educators have a contractual obligation to care about the education of their students, and many do care beyond this obligation, parents have the biggest interest in the education of their children. It is true that parents do not typically know as much about education as trained educators, but most parents can tell if their child's school is doing a poor job. It is a valid concern that parents may use trigger laws to do things that may not help, and this may result in harm to innocent educators. This is certainly a shame, but the cost of not reforming the education system will be far higher than just the occasional unlucky teacher loosing a job unfairly. Teacher's unions have managed to keep even some of the worst teachers in teaching positions, doing untold amounts of harm to innocent students; there needs to be some way of combating this, even if it does occasionally backfire. Every law has its costs. Giving control of education back to parents is worth the cost of occasional harm to a teacher. I see this as a check to the power of school districts and teacher's unions in deciding how to educate children.
One of the cases resulted in what could turn out to be a complete misappropriation of funds. The parents did not actually activate trigger laws, but they threatened to do so. The school in question was failing academically, but it was also allowing bullying to go unchecked. One mother said the school administration was consistently ignoring her complaints about the bullying of her daughter. Along with many other parents, she threatened the school district to activate trigger laws to take over the school and convert it into a charter school. The threat got the attention of the school district, who forced the school to communicate with the parents and address the bullying problem. The district also allocated $300,000 to hire new staff, in an effort to raise the academic performance of the school. Many critics saw the money as a bribe, and even some of the officials involved in creating the trigger laws were disconcerted with the results. The problem with the money is that it has to come from somewhere, and this means that some other schools in the district are being forced to run on lower funding to appease some parents of students at one particular school. This is certainly a concern, and it could even ultimately lead to competition between parent groups for different schools. This may lead to a need for legislation limiting the power of school districts to redistribute finances, but I do not think we need to jump the gun on this. The worst case scenario is that parents from all schools in a district demand additional funding for their schools, with threats to activate trigger laws. This would leave a school district in an impossible situation, where almost no one can be satisfied. I see two solutions to this problem. This first is, let the parents activate trigger laws, turn the schools into charters, and deal with the funding issues directly. Putting the funding issues into the hands of the parents would be an effective teaching opportunity. The second is, the state could provide more funding for the school district. The first is the natural consequence of the problem, and I suspect it would be very rare. Also, I suspect that after the first few instances, it would never happen again, because parents would quickly learn that the funding problem cannot be solved by wresting control of the schools. The second deals with the root of the problem. If all of the schools in a district are performing poorly due to lack of funding, then maybe the district is just not getting enough funding to provide a good education. Yes, it will probably require a tax increase, but if the state cannot provide a sufficient education at the current tax levels, it is probably time to raise taxes (consider this an investment; better educated graduates will generate more tax revenue, potentially allowing tax reductions in the future). While poor financial practices as a response to threats of trigger law activation is a valid concern, it is also likely a problem that will eventually go away as parents involved see the consequences of it.
The last concern I want to discuss is the fear that "parent unions" will pass around petitions for the activation of trigger laws without and discussion of the issues involved. Parent unions are groups of parents that organize, typically without involvement of school officials (in contrast with PTAs), with the goal of encouraging or enforcing reform by leveraging trigger laws. Without the involvement of school officials, it is feared that parents will make and enforce decisions for schools without understanding the issues well. This is also a very valid concern. People have become very complacent about political issues over the last few decades, and will often join movements or sign petitions based on uninformed emotional responses. This is not a problem exclusive to trigger laws. This is a general problem of self obsession in the U.S. Getting rid of good, useful laws that could be accidentally misused is not going to fix the problem. The problem is the people, not the laws. Now, that aside, I suspect that this problem will resolve itself with respect to trigger laws. Right now, trigger laws are very young, and good use of them is not well understood. It is highly likely that over the next few years, we will see some misuses as well as their consequences. As people become more familiar with appropriate and inappropriate uses of trigger laws, instances of misuse will become less and less common. It is very likely that this will evolve into deep dialog on the propriety of any activation of trigger laws long before anyone even starts passing around the petitions. It is also very likely that parent unions will learn to involve school officials in these discussions, to avoid making uninformed decisions that could cause harm.
There are many valid concerns with trigger laws, but none of them seem to be critical. Some may turn out to be too problematic or costly to tolerate. Others will probably go away as we learn from experience. Overall, the goals of trigger law are very good, and trigger laws have the potential to increase freedom and save our failing education system. I believe we need to keep them and deal with the consequences. As we begin to understand them better, we can refine them to reduce potential for abuses and increase the potential for good. While the initial uses of trigger laws will probably involve some poor choices, I think giving parents more control over how their children are educated will ultimately result in more cooperation between educators and parents in the long term. It will probably take some time for this new power balance to stabilize, but I believe it eventually will, for the good of the students and the U.S. education system.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Funding for food?
I do not usually write on policy not directly related to education, but this blog is about education reform, and I have just become aware of some rather absurd funding restrictions that may be harming education.
This article discusses new Federal guidelines on how schools handle food. According to the article, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has started restricting food related school funding for schools that are not regulating not just food offered by the school but also food prepared for students by parents. Now, I do not want to focus on the rather blatant privacy and freedom concerns this brings up, but seriously, what free government thinks they have the right to force schools to regulate food that they have no control over?
There are still three concerns I want to discuss. The first, which has already had some press coverage, is that many students are either getting off of the school lunch program or refusing to eat the healthy food included in compliance with Federal mandate. According to a U.S.A. Today article, $3.8 million in produce is being thrown away annually by students who choose not to eat the mandatory fruit and vegetable servings. They say you can bring the horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. Well, the Federal government is forcing schools to waste $3.8 million bringing the metaphorical horses to water, when they know they are not going to drink it (or at least they could ask). No wonder our schools are having funding issues.
That brings up the second concern: Since when is it ethical to base school funding on nutrition? I thought the primary responsibility of schools was education. Admittedly, most of the funding that is restricted by this is funding paying for school lunch programs, but this is still absurd. Instead of wasting government time, effort, and money trying to force schools to worry about things that they really have no business worrying about, maybe the money could be spent teaching children about nutrition better. This makes far better sense, since teaching is what schools are supposed to be spending their effort on anyway.
The third is directly related to the first. Many of the students getting off of the school lunch program in response to this were participants in free lunch programs. These are students that have a difficult time getting sufficient nutrition in the first place. Likewise, students that are staying, but throwing away the less desirable but healthier foods are getting less to eat, because the healthy foods are displacing some of the other foods. This might just sound cruel, but it gets worse. Poorly fed students do not learn as well as students who are getting enough to eat. This Federal mandate is not only interfering with funding, it is interfering with students' ability to learn. I want to stress again, the primary responsibility of schools is education. Now schools are being manipulated into giving nutrition a higher priority than education. No wonder our education system is doing so poorly. Our government has given it so many extra responsibilities that it is surprising it functions at all.
In my opinion, the best way to solve this problem is to increase welfare benefits for families that qualify for free lunch programs, and then do away with school provided lunches altogether. Providing good nutrition is not the responsibility of the education system. Let parents deal with their own responsibilities, but make sure they have the funding to do it. The only role schools should play in nutrition is teaching it. Education is, after all, the reason they were created in this first place.
This article discusses new Federal guidelines on how schools handle food. According to the article, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has started restricting food related school funding for schools that are not regulating not just food offered by the school but also food prepared for students by parents. Now, I do not want to focus on the rather blatant privacy and freedom concerns this brings up, but seriously, what free government thinks they have the right to force schools to regulate food that they have no control over?
There are still three concerns I want to discuss. The first, which has already had some press coverage, is that many students are either getting off of the school lunch program or refusing to eat the healthy food included in compliance with Federal mandate. According to a U.S.A. Today article, $3.8 million in produce is being thrown away annually by students who choose not to eat the mandatory fruit and vegetable servings. They say you can bring the horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. Well, the Federal government is forcing schools to waste $3.8 million bringing the metaphorical horses to water, when they know they are not going to drink it (or at least they could ask). No wonder our schools are having funding issues.
That brings up the second concern: Since when is it ethical to base school funding on nutrition? I thought the primary responsibility of schools was education. Admittedly, most of the funding that is restricted by this is funding paying for school lunch programs, but this is still absurd. Instead of wasting government time, effort, and money trying to force schools to worry about things that they really have no business worrying about, maybe the money could be spent teaching children about nutrition better. This makes far better sense, since teaching is what schools are supposed to be spending their effort on anyway.
The third is directly related to the first. Many of the students getting off of the school lunch program in response to this were participants in free lunch programs. These are students that have a difficult time getting sufficient nutrition in the first place. Likewise, students that are staying, but throwing away the less desirable but healthier foods are getting less to eat, because the healthy foods are displacing some of the other foods. This might just sound cruel, but it gets worse. Poorly fed students do not learn as well as students who are getting enough to eat. This Federal mandate is not only interfering with funding, it is interfering with students' ability to learn. I want to stress again, the primary responsibility of schools is education. Now schools are being manipulated into giving nutrition a higher priority than education. No wonder our education system is doing so poorly. Our government has given it so many extra responsibilities that it is surprising it functions at all.
In my opinion, the best way to solve this problem is to increase welfare benefits for families that qualify for free lunch programs, and then do away with school provided lunches altogether. Providing good nutrition is not the responsibility of the education system. Let parents deal with their own responsibilities, but make sure they have the funding to do it. The only role schools should play in nutrition is teaching it. Education is, after all, the reason they were created in this first place.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Active Learning
According to this article, education researcher Scott Freeman and others have found in a major study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, strong evidence that lecture based learning is far less effective than "active learning." Active learning is a learning model where students do most of the work to learn, instead of just listening to lectures and memorizing stuff. In Freeman's classroom, students spend their class time working in small groups, while TAs roam, answering questions as needed. The study found substantial reductions in failure and dropout rates in classes using active learning, compared to similar classes using lecture based learning. According to Carl Wieman, the statistics from the study are probably watered down by classes included in the study that spend most of the time lecturing, with occasional active learning, and the real effect of full active learning is likely far greater.
Looking through all of this stuff, what I see is further evidence supporting a milestone based system where a majority of learning occurs outside of the traditional classroom setting. I still hold to my claim that occasional lectures are a good thing. For instance, a student who does not know where to start or who may have gotten lost in a complex process may benefit dramatically by attending a lecture. In a forum setting it is easy to answer a very specific question that will help some students, without going over the details of a process that other students may find difficult to understand. In a forum setting, some students may feel embarrassed to ask a followup question that the original questioner clearly already understood. A step-by-step lecture will help those students more than an open forum. On the other side, an open forum may give students the opportunity to ask a question then leave, giving students an answer more quickly and giving them more time to learn outside the classroom. Forums also give students the opportunity to ask questions about topics that may not have been covered sufficiently in a lecture. Now, these are both still classroom settings, but the lack of mandatory attendance and separating the more formal lecture style learning from the less formal forum style learning give students far more flexibility in learning. This is important because different people learn better in different settings. The last setting is outside the formal classroom, but is equally important to effective learning.
The "active learning" taking place in Freeman's classroom is the third setting. This can happen inside or outside of the classroom. In my opinion, college age students should be taking responsibility for their own educations, and as such, active learning should not have to take place in a classroom to be effective. That aside, there are several benefits to Freeman's active learning. The first is group collaboration. While I learn extremely well solo, this is a rare gift (maybe sometimes a curse...). Group collaboration, which is not so common in U.S. schools, has been touted as one of the reasons oriental countries have such strong education systems. Students solve problems together, and at the same time teach each other. Also, weaker students can learn problem solving skills from stronger students. The result is students with better understanding of course material, better problem solving skills, and better team work skills (which may not be as important in school, but are essential in most workplaces). The second is working things out for themselves. Again, this is common in oriental schools, where students are often first asked to find the solution to a problem, then presented with the correct solution after struggling through the problem. Now, these are not problems that they have already learned the tools to solve. Imagine a class where the teacher broke the class into groups, then asked each group to figure out the solution to whatever the class was scheduled to learn that day. In Japanese schools, this is common. Students often spend half the class period trying to derive the solution themselves, in small groups. Then, each group shares its works, and the teacher points out mistakes where they exist. After all of the groups have shared, the teacher explains the correct solution and why it works. One major result of this approach is that students have spent enough time on the problem that they have a vested interest in the correct answer by the time it is provided. When the teacher finally provides the answer, the students are ready to learn it and have struggled enough with the problem that they are ready to understand it as well. This improves long term retention and helps students care more about learning. (Psychologically, there is probably also some work/reward chemistry going on in the brain that improves retention.) Third, the less structured approach tends to work better for students that may be slower learners.
The article also mentions several students that were about ready to drop out of their majors when they first took an active learning based class. One biology major even mentioned a time when a teacher asked him to stop asking questions, because they were confusing the other students. Evidently, many STEM classes (this category contains disciplines focused strongly on science, including technology) encourage memorization but discourage questions. They also tend to offer little explanation for the material students are required to memorize. The article points out that that this memorization only attitude that discourages questions seems to be rather anti-science and fits better into the teaching styles of oppressive religions (ok, I added the oppressive part...). It also mentioned that this teaching style pushes curious people, the people who would do best in those disciplines, away. Otherwise stated, the teaching style of most science and tech classes seems to exclude and push away the brightest and most well suited to working in those fields. Active learning might be part of the solution to increasing the labor pool of the industries with the highest demand for labor (these also happen to be the industries with the greatest potential for solving many or our worst problems).
Now, this active learning does not solve all of the problems by itself. The reduced classroom structure may help slower learners have a better chance to keep up, but it does not solve the problem. Some students just cannot gain sufficient understanding in some subjects in a single semester. A C might be a good enough grade to pass, but it does not bode well for the student if the subject becomes an important part of a career. Students that learn slowly need more time to learn. Note that being a slow learner in a subject does not mean the student will be inferior to faster learners once the subject is learned. In fact, slow learners sometimes learn more slowly because they have a higher comprehension, and it takes more time to understand the small details (I am a slower reader than many others I know, but I notice and remember details that very few others do). Likewise, Freeman's active learning approach does nothing for students that are faster learners in some subjects or students that are already proficient in a subject. Several semesters wasted taking classes that are not teaching anything new or that could have easily been completed in a month or two are a travesty. A student with a good grasp on a subject should not be forced to suffer through a semester long recap, just to prove he or she is proficient in that subject. School is for learning, and a school that forces a student to sit through and participate in a class where that student is not learning anything new is not doing its job (and further, if it is charging the student or the government money for the "privilege," it is cheating the student). Active learning is a major improvement on the current system, and it should definitely be part of the replacement, but it is not the final solution to the ideal education system.
Freeman hopes that the study will cause a similar reaction as the 1964 surgeon general's report stating that tobacco use causes cancer. Despite the overwhelming evidence, there are still many teachers and college professors that swear by the lecture teaching method. This study can almost be regarded as proof that lectures are not the idea way to learn. More research needs to be done, to determine the best way to apply active learning techniques, but it seems that the verdict is in for lecture based teaching, and it certainly does not look good. Like tobacco, lecture centered learning needs to be discarded in favor of something better.
Looking through all of this stuff, what I see is further evidence supporting a milestone based system where a majority of learning occurs outside of the traditional classroom setting. I still hold to my claim that occasional lectures are a good thing. For instance, a student who does not know where to start or who may have gotten lost in a complex process may benefit dramatically by attending a lecture. In a forum setting it is easy to answer a very specific question that will help some students, without going over the details of a process that other students may find difficult to understand. In a forum setting, some students may feel embarrassed to ask a followup question that the original questioner clearly already understood. A step-by-step lecture will help those students more than an open forum. On the other side, an open forum may give students the opportunity to ask a question then leave, giving students an answer more quickly and giving them more time to learn outside the classroom. Forums also give students the opportunity to ask questions about topics that may not have been covered sufficiently in a lecture. Now, these are both still classroom settings, but the lack of mandatory attendance and separating the more formal lecture style learning from the less formal forum style learning give students far more flexibility in learning. This is important because different people learn better in different settings. The last setting is outside the formal classroom, but is equally important to effective learning.
The "active learning" taking place in Freeman's classroom is the third setting. This can happen inside or outside of the classroom. In my opinion, college age students should be taking responsibility for their own educations, and as such, active learning should not have to take place in a classroom to be effective. That aside, there are several benefits to Freeman's active learning. The first is group collaboration. While I learn extremely well solo, this is a rare gift (maybe sometimes a curse...). Group collaboration, which is not so common in U.S. schools, has been touted as one of the reasons oriental countries have such strong education systems. Students solve problems together, and at the same time teach each other. Also, weaker students can learn problem solving skills from stronger students. The result is students with better understanding of course material, better problem solving skills, and better team work skills (which may not be as important in school, but are essential in most workplaces). The second is working things out for themselves. Again, this is common in oriental schools, where students are often first asked to find the solution to a problem, then presented with the correct solution after struggling through the problem. Now, these are not problems that they have already learned the tools to solve. Imagine a class where the teacher broke the class into groups, then asked each group to figure out the solution to whatever the class was scheduled to learn that day. In Japanese schools, this is common. Students often spend half the class period trying to derive the solution themselves, in small groups. Then, each group shares its works, and the teacher points out mistakes where they exist. After all of the groups have shared, the teacher explains the correct solution and why it works. One major result of this approach is that students have spent enough time on the problem that they have a vested interest in the correct answer by the time it is provided. When the teacher finally provides the answer, the students are ready to learn it and have struggled enough with the problem that they are ready to understand it as well. This improves long term retention and helps students care more about learning. (Psychologically, there is probably also some work/reward chemistry going on in the brain that improves retention.) Third, the less structured approach tends to work better for students that may be slower learners.
The article also mentions several students that were about ready to drop out of their majors when they first took an active learning based class. One biology major even mentioned a time when a teacher asked him to stop asking questions, because they were confusing the other students. Evidently, many STEM classes (this category contains disciplines focused strongly on science, including technology) encourage memorization but discourage questions. They also tend to offer little explanation for the material students are required to memorize. The article points out that that this memorization only attitude that discourages questions seems to be rather anti-science and fits better into the teaching styles of oppressive religions (ok, I added the oppressive part...). It also mentioned that this teaching style pushes curious people, the people who would do best in those disciplines, away. Otherwise stated, the teaching style of most science and tech classes seems to exclude and push away the brightest and most well suited to working in those fields. Active learning might be part of the solution to increasing the labor pool of the industries with the highest demand for labor (these also happen to be the industries with the greatest potential for solving many or our worst problems).
Now, this active learning does not solve all of the problems by itself. The reduced classroom structure may help slower learners have a better chance to keep up, but it does not solve the problem. Some students just cannot gain sufficient understanding in some subjects in a single semester. A C might be a good enough grade to pass, but it does not bode well for the student if the subject becomes an important part of a career. Students that learn slowly need more time to learn. Note that being a slow learner in a subject does not mean the student will be inferior to faster learners once the subject is learned. In fact, slow learners sometimes learn more slowly because they have a higher comprehension, and it takes more time to understand the small details (I am a slower reader than many others I know, but I notice and remember details that very few others do). Likewise, Freeman's active learning approach does nothing for students that are faster learners in some subjects or students that are already proficient in a subject. Several semesters wasted taking classes that are not teaching anything new or that could have easily been completed in a month or two are a travesty. A student with a good grasp on a subject should not be forced to suffer through a semester long recap, just to prove he or she is proficient in that subject. School is for learning, and a school that forces a student to sit through and participate in a class where that student is not learning anything new is not doing its job (and further, if it is charging the student or the government money for the "privilege," it is cheating the student). Active learning is a major improvement on the current system, and it should definitely be part of the replacement, but it is not the final solution to the ideal education system.
Freeman hopes that the study will cause a similar reaction as the 1964 surgeon general's report stating that tobacco use causes cancer. Despite the overwhelming evidence, there are still many teachers and college professors that swear by the lecture teaching method. This study can almost be regarded as proof that lectures are not the idea way to learn. More research needs to be done, to determine the best way to apply active learning techniques, but it seems that the verdict is in for lecture based teaching, and it certainly does not look good. Like tobacco, lecture centered learning needs to be discarded in favor of something better.
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