Almost three years ago to the day, I was given a charge.
Do not focus on technology.
Research how children learn. Start there. Understand that. Then talk about how technology can be used to support the unique learning preferences of today’s students, if at all.
So I did that. I spent almost a year doing only that. I started with a question and pushed forward to find an answer. (Please note, I didn't say the answer). I had no guides, no limits, no ideological predispositions. I just wanted to understand how we could break through and meaningfully connect to our kids. I thought if we better understood how to reach our children, then we could better understand how to teach our children and to how build instructional practices around that understanding; instructional practices that could, in theory, impact every child in every school, irrespective of background, race, culture or socioeconomic status.
This much I knew. I knew we had to do something. Because we’re losing so many of our kids. Children who, as so poignantly noted by Jonathan Kazol, "have done nothing wrong" and "have committed no crime." These are children after all. We shouldn’t be losing children. We should be preparing them to take the reins, to carry the torch, to lead, and to participate fully in the promise of the American Dream.
So the first and most important fact to understand about our Department of Education Technology is that it really is an education department. Our guiding vision, then and now, is that we can only meaningfully impact the quality of education in our schools, close achievement gaps and improve educational outcomes by focusing on student learning, not on pushing products. IT firms have been notoriously guilty of foisting hardware and software onto schools and school districts for decades, usually accompanied by grandiose promises of “reform” and “change,” but what has really changed? Are our schools any better? Computers have been physically present in our schools for some time. The student-to-computer ratio has dropped from approximately 19-to-1 in 1992 to a nationwide average of less than 5-to-1 now. e-Rate has made it possible for most schools, even in the poorest districts, to enjoy some Internet connectivity. Despite this, the drop out rate in our 50 largest urban centers hovers around 50%.
What does all of this mean?
It means that it’s not about the technology. Technology is just a tool, and if our teachers don’t know why the tool is there (assuming the tool is actually in the classroom at all) or how the tool can be used to impact student learning, then the tool becomes a toy; yet another expensive distraction that does very little to improve student outcomes or the change quality of education available to our students.
So even though I work for an IT firm, I choose to do something a bit unusual. I do not make a case for more computers.
I make the case for constructivist education.
I make a case for change.
Our White Paper
I make the case in our white paper, “1-to-1, The Smart Technology Services Education Initiative” (1-to-1). 1-to-1 provides a detailed outline of how schools can prepare students today to compete and succeed in the global economy of the 21st century. 1-to-1 challenges schools and policymakers to think beyond the same model of education we’ve employed for decades—quiet, teacher-driven, lecture-based classrooms—and consider a more active, constructivist, student-driven approach. Today’s students need to know how to think critically, apply knowledge in real world contexts, analyze information, comprehend new ideas, communicate, collaborate, solve problems and make decisions. 1-to-1 stresses the need to fully integrate technology into our K-12 and to then use this technology to engage our students in deeper, more meaningful and authentic thinking and learning. To support our case, 1-to-1 provides case studies detailing how a school, schools within a district, a district and a state successfully launched and maintained 1-to-1 initiatives and the educational outcomes from those initiatives.
Our case…
There was a time in this country, romanticized in the novels of Horatio Alger, when vision, thrift, hard work, and not necessarily a formal education or cognitive skills, were considered the keys to success. However, in the age of information technology, the “Digital Age,” dedication, desire and even the best of intentions absent education are simply not enough. In the 21st century, children who cannot read, write, reason or communicate effectively will be virtually unemployable. Children without the critical thinking and cognitive skills required in knowledge-based global economy will be lost.
So what’s the problem?
I think a large part of the problem is that we have the problem all wrong.
As a nation, we want to blame someone, anyone, for the failure of our schools. Bad teachers. Lazy students. Uninvolved parents. The one seeming constant is that we tend to view the education problem as a people problem.
But the education problem is not a people problem.
It is, first and foremost, a pedagogy problem.
Our current method of teaching—our pedagogy—is based on the 3 R's. Not reading, writing and arithmetic, but RAM, REMEMBER and REGURGITATE. This method of instruction is fine for standardized tests which assess students’ ability to repeat discreet bits of information, but does very little to promote actual comprehension, the deep processing of ideas, higher-order thinking, creativity and actual learning.
What does?
Whether a student’s learning preference is visual or auditory, verbal or physical, social or solitary, we now know that the more a student actually gets to experience, the more that student gets to “connect and experiment” with what they’re trying to understand, the more they actually learn.
This is a fundamental tenant of constructivist learning—that we learn by doing, not through the rote repetition of facts. The word “constructivist” derives from the Latin “con struere,” which means “to arrange or give structure.” In a constructivist classroom, knowledge is not taught, but is "created, discovered and experienced." Teacher “push” gives way to learner “pull” as students are encouraged to communicate, collaborate, ask questions, carry out their own experiments, make their own analogies and come to their own conclusions. The teacher, in turn, no longer acts as the “sage on the stage” but as the “guide on the side”—a mediator—who does not control or direct the learning but facilitates the student’s efforts to construct meaning for themselves.
You see elements of constructivist learning at work in many Pre-K through 3rd grade classrooms. These are generally noisy and active classrooms. Children often sit in groups, collaborate and are generally given the freedom to move around and experiment. And there are two things that are truly noteworthy about school during these Pre-K through 3rd grade years. The first is that you simply don’t see the enormous achievement gaps that exist during later years. Yes, there are some exceptional students and there are some students who fall behind. But the overwhelming majority of students, irrespective of race, background or socioeconomic status, fall within a reasonable median range. The other thing that is truly remarkable about school during these years is that most children actually refer to school as “fun.”
But all that changes in the 4th grade. That’s usually when “real” school begins. That’s when we tell these same active and curious minds to sit down. Go slow. Be quiet. Turn the same page at the same time. Speak when spoken to and repeat exactly what you’ve been told in order to succeed on the test.
And what happens? What are the educational outcomes we see as a result of this shift away from active, hands-on classrooms to classrooms dominated by a stick of chalk, a piece of slate and teacher lectures? We get what educators commonly refer to as the “4th grade slump.” We start to see enormous achieve gaps. We start to see frightening numbers of children being left behind.
So what do we do then? How do we respond?
With more of the same.
Walk into almost any middle school in the country and what will you see? You will see classrooms where students are sitting in single file rows while a teacher lectures from the front of the room. No talking in class, no talking in the halls, no talking except at lunch. You will see students that are not allowed to socialize, get together in groups or just talk. You will see young people being ushered from one place to the next, unsmiling, always under constant visual supervision. You will see places that look and feel more like prisons than places of learning. The most notable characteristic about school at this point is the seeming absence of joy.
And the results are truly devastating.
According to the 2004 U.S. Department of Education national technology report:
By the 4th grade…
• Only 36% of our nation’s students are proficient in math;
• Only 31% are proficient in reading; and
• Only 29% are proficient in science.
By the 8th grade…
• Only 31% of our nation’s students are proficient in reading;
• Only 30% are proficient in math; and
• Only 29% are proficient in science.
By the 12th grade…
• Only 10% of our nation’s Native American students;
• Only 4% of our Hispanic students; and
• Only 3% of our African American students are proficient in math.
So why is a shift to student-driven, constructivist learning so important now? Because results like this suggest that our educational system is not getting better, it is getting worse. Because, to quote Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat,” our world has changed and there is no going back. Because we no longer live in a world that rewards the ability to remember, repeat or perform the same function over and over again (e.g., think of the millions of manufacturing jobs that have been eliminated, automated or shipped overseas). Employers’ do not need a workforce whose collective ability is defined by the ability to do what they’re told or rattle off discreet bits of information. Who cares if our students can recite the capital of every state in the union? Employers need something they can’t get on Google. Today’s students need “21st century skills” for a 21st century world and these skills are simply not developed in lecture-based “ram, remember and regurgitate” classrooms.
What we have right now is a generation of students who are simply checking out, dropping out or just going through the motions. Many “play” school. They do enough to get by; they remember what they need for the test, and they move on. Then we wonder why our educational outcomes at almost every level are so dismal.
So what do we do?
Keep doing what we’re doing?
If we do that, then we’ll keep getting what we’ve got.
And what we’ve got, in one man's humble opinion, is not good enough.
Do not focus on technology.
Research how children learn. Start there. Understand that. Then talk about how technology can be used to support the unique learning preferences of today’s students, if at all.
So I did that. I spent almost a year doing only that. I started with a question and pushed forward to find an answer. (Please note, I didn't say the answer). I had no guides, no limits, no ideological predispositions. I just wanted to understand how we could break through and meaningfully connect to our kids. I thought if we better understood how to reach our children, then we could better understand how to teach our children and to how build instructional practices around that understanding; instructional practices that could, in theory, impact every child in every school, irrespective of background, race, culture or socioeconomic status.
This much I knew. I knew we had to do something. Because we’re losing so many of our kids. Children who, as so poignantly noted by Jonathan Kazol, "have done nothing wrong" and "have committed no crime." These are children after all. We shouldn’t be losing children. We should be preparing them to take the reins, to carry the torch, to lead, and to participate fully in the promise of the American Dream.
So the first and most important fact to understand about our Department of Education Technology is that it really is an education department. Our guiding vision, then and now, is that we can only meaningfully impact the quality of education in our schools, close achievement gaps and improve educational outcomes by focusing on student learning, not on pushing products. IT firms have been notoriously guilty of foisting hardware and software onto schools and school districts for decades, usually accompanied by grandiose promises of “reform” and “change,” but what has really changed? Are our schools any better? Computers have been physically present in our schools for some time. The student-to-computer ratio has dropped from approximately 19-to-1 in 1992 to a nationwide average of less than 5-to-1 now. e-Rate has made it possible for most schools, even in the poorest districts, to enjoy some Internet connectivity. Despite this, the drop out rate in our 50 largest urban centers hovers around 50%.
What does all of this mean?
It means that it’s not about the technology. Technology is just a tool, and if our teachers don’t know why the tool is there (assuming the tool is actually in the classroom at all) or how the tool can be used to impact student learning, then the tool becomes a toy; yet another expensive distraction that does very little to improve student outcomes or the change quality of education available to our students.
So even though I work for an IT firm, I choose to do something a bit unusual. I do not make a case for more computers.
I make the case for constructivist education.
I make a case for change.
Our White Paper
I make the case in our white paper, “1-to-1, The Smart Technology Services Education Initiative” (1-to-1). 1-to-1 provides a detailed outline of how schools can prepare students today to compete and succeed in the global economy of the 21st century. 1-to-1 challenges schools and policymakers to think beyond the same model of education we’ve employed for decades—quiet, teacher-driven, lecture-based classrooms—and consider a more active, constructivist, student-driven approach. Today’s students need to know how to think critically, apply knowledge in real world contexts, analyze information, comprehend new ideas, communicate, collaborate, solve problems and make decisions. 1-to-1 stresses the need to fully integrate technology into our K-12 and to then use this technology to engage our students in deeper, more meaningful and authentic thinking and learning. To support our case, 1-to-1 provides case studies detailing how a school, schools within a district, a district and a state successfully launched and maintained 1-to-1 initiatives and the educational outcomes from those initiatives.
Our case…
There was a time in this country, romanticized in the novels of Horatio Alger, when vision, thrift, hard work, and not necessarily a formal education or cognitive skills, were considered the keys to success. However, in the age of information technology, the “Digital Age,” dedication, desire and even the best of intentions absent education are simply not enough. In the 21st century, children who cannot read, write, reason or communicate effectively will be virtually unemployable. Children without the critical thinking and cognitive skills required in knowledge-based global economy will be lost.
So what’s the problem?
I think a large part of the problem is that we have the problem all wrong.
As a nation, we want to blame someone, anyone, for the failure of our schools. Bad teachers. Lazy students. Uninvolved parents. The one seeming constant is that we tend to view the education problem as a people problem.
But the education problem is not a people problem.
It is, first and foremost, a pedagogy problem.
ped.da.go.gy:
The art or science of teaching; instructional methods; principles of education; the activity of educating; activities that impart knowledge or skill.
The art or science of teaching; instructional methods; principles of education; the activity of educating; activities that impart knowledge or skill.
Our current method of teaching—our pedagogy—is based on the 3 R's. Not reading, writing and arithmetic, but RAM, REMEMBER and REGURGITATE. This method of instruction is fine for standardized tests which assess students’ ability to repeat discreet bits of information, but does very little to promote actual comprehension, the deep processing of ideas, higher-order thinking, creativity and actual learning.
What does?
Whether a student’s learning preference is visual or auditory, verbal or physical, social or solitary, we now know that the more a student actually gets to experience, the more that student gets to “connect and experiment” with what they’re trying to understand, the more they actually learn.
This is a fundamental tenant of constructivist learning—that we learn by doing, not through the rote repetition of facts. The word “constructivist” derives from the Latin “con struere,” which means “to arrange or give structure.” In a constructivist classroom, knowledge is not taught, but is "created, discovered and experienced." Teacher “push” gives way to learner “pull” as students are encouraged to communicate, collaborate, ask questions, carry out their own experiments, make their own analogies and come to their own conclusions. The teacher, in turn, no longer acts as the “sage on the stage” but as the “guide on the side”—a mediator—who does not control or direct the learning but facilitates the student’s efforts to construct meaning for themselves.
You see elements of constructivist learning at work in many Pre-K through 3rd grade classrooms. These are generally noisy and active classrooms. Children often sit in groups, collaborate and are generally given the freedom to move around and experiment. And there are two things that are truly noteworthy about school during these Pre-K through 3rd grade years. The first is that you simply don’t see the enormous achievement gaps that exist during later years. Yes, there are some exceptional students and there are some students who fall behind. But the overwhelming majority of students, irrespective of race, background or socioeconomic status, fall within a reasonable median range. The other thing that is truly remarkable about school during these years is that most children actually refer to school as “fun.”
But all that changes in the 4th grade. That’s usually when “real” school begins. That’s when we tell these same active and curious minds to sit down. Go slow. Be quiet. Turn the same page at the same time. Speak when spoken to and repeat exactly what you’ve been told in order to succeed on the test.
And what happens? What are the educational outcomes we see as a result of this shift away from active, hands-on classrooms to classrooms dominated by a stick of chalk, a piece of slate and teacher lectures? We get what educators commonly refer to as the “4th grade slump.” We start to see enormous achieve gaps. We start to see frightening numbers of children being left behind.
So what do we do then? How do we respond?
With more of the same.
Walk into almost any middle school in the country and what will you see? You will see classrooms where students are sitting in single file rows while a teacher lectures from the front of the room. No talking in class, no talking in the halls, no talking except at lunch. You will see students that are not allowed to socialize, get together in groups or just talk. You will see young people being ushered from one place to the next, unsmiling, always under constant visual supervision. You will see places that look and feel more like prisons than places of learning. The most notable characteristic about school at this point is the seeming absence of joy.
And the results are truly devastating.
According to the 2004 U.S. Department of Education national technology report:
By the 4th grade…
• Only 36% of our nation’s students are proficient in math;
• Only 31% are proficient in reading; and
• Only 29% are proficient in science.
By the 8th grade…
• Only 31% of our nation’s students are proficient in reading;
• Only 30% are proficient in math; and
• Only 29% are proficient in science.
By the 12th grade…
• Only 10% of our nation’s Native American students;
• Only 4% of our Hispanic students; and
• Only 3% of our African American students are proficient in math.
So why is a shift to student-driven, constructivist learning so important now? Because results like this suggest that our educational system is not getting better, it is getting worse. Because, to quote Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat,” our world has changed and there is no going back. Because we no longer live in a world that rewards the ability to remember, repeat or perform the same function over and over again (e.g., think of the millions of manufacturing jobs that have been eliminated, automated or shipped overseas). Employers’ do not need a workforce whose collective ability is defined by the ability to do what they’re told or rattle off discreet bits of information. Who cares if our students can recite the capital of every state in the union? Employers need something they can’t get on Google. Today’s students need “21st century skills” for a 21st century world and these skills are simply not developed in lecture-based “ram, remember and regurgitate” classrooms.
What we have right now is a generation of students who are simply checking out, dropping out or just going through the motions. Many “play” school. They do enough to get by; they remember what they need for the test, and they move on. Then we wonder why our educational outcomes at almost every level are so dismal.
So what do we do?
Keep doing what we’re doing?
If we do that, then we’ll keep getting what we’ve got.
And what we’ve got, in one man's humble opinion, is not good enough.
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1 comment:
I love the 3R comment, "ram, remember, regurgitate" I hadn't heard that before but it is the perfect analogy for what is happening in most schools. What boggles my mind is how so many of us see these needs and are passionate about them and yet things aren't changing. There is a school in Colorado that has refused to take the state mandated test. I applaud them, I wish more schools would take a stand and demand better education for our future. What we have just won't cut it!
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