Resnick

I believe that the personal computer is the single greatest invention of our time. The computer’s potential is limitless, unfortunately few people are able to use a computer to it’s fullest potential. Most people use a computer for word processing, email, and downloading music, few people know how to use the computer as a cognitive tool. Using the computer as a cognitive tool would mean using it to create projects not just using the computer as a dispenser of information. McLuhan would argue that we must control the technology and create with the technology rather than depend on the technology to dispense information to us.

Assessment is a mainstay in the K-12 school system. As it stands now standardized assessments are king, Pennsylvania for example uses the PSSA’s to determine how well a school is performing. Resnick argues that assessment and all education for that matter should be project based and should focus on solving problems.

On a philosophical level I agree with Resnick. I believe that education should prepare students for the real world they will face. I learned in my special education class that all students are better able to transfer skills they learn in school if they learn them in the context in which they will be using the skills. Resnick’s plan is very difficult and impractical to implement. There is a significant cost factor associated with his plan not to mention the restructuring that would have to take place.

Another significant downside to Resnick’s plan is the way school systems would be viewed by outsiders. Often times people who are not in the education field often cannot relate student progress to anything other than standardized test score. Parents and community members can easily relate the numbers to understand student progress. However there is a population of parents who believe that standardized do not accurately reflect student performance.

References

Resnick, M. (2001). Revolutionizing learning in the digital age. Publications from the forum for the future of higher education. Boulder, CO: Educause.Available online at http://www.educause.com/reources

Shepard, L.A., Bliem, C.L. (1995). Parents’ Thinking about Standardized Tests and Performance Assessments. Educational Researcher. 8 pp. 25-32.

High Stakes Testing

The world in which we live in is rapidly changing and the student I teach will face an entirely new set of challenges that I never had to face. It will be my job as a teacher to prepare my students to meet these challenges. My students will need more than basic reading and mathematical skills; they will also need analytical and critical thinking skills. Unfortunately, many believe that what is assessed is only what is taught. This is true to an extent for a variety of reasons. Depending on the ability of a student population a teacher may struggle to have his/her students read on grade level.
There needs to be a balance between what schools teach students and what the world demands of them. The problem with reforming education is that all components of a school community (community leaders, parents, students, teachers and administrators) need to be on board first with education and second with the reform measures. Many times there is a lack of support for reform in one or more components of a school community.
High stakes testing is not the answer to assessing student ability. A single test should not determine a student’s future. (AERA 2000). Instead assessment should be an ongoing process using curriculum based assessment. If the curriculum needs to change to emphasize the analytical and critical thinking needs of our society so must the assessment methods. Assessment methods need to focus on the students’ ability to apply what is learned in the classroom to real world situations. How this translates into a cost effective assessment tool that can be implemented across the country I have yet to solve that puzzle. It is clear that standardized tests do not assess the skills students will need in the changing world but what in many places teachers are only teaching what is on the test.

References:

Educational Researcher (2000). Position Statement of American Education Research Association concerning High-Stakes Testing in PreK-12 Education. Vol. 29, (8). P24-25.

Bond, L.A. (1995). Critical issue: rethinking assessment and its role in supporting educational reform. North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.

Bloom

The trend in education is to educate every student to his/her fullest potential. This trend realizes that there are limitations to what people are capable of but that does not mean that they cannot be educated. Bloom contends that given the proper support, instruction and time vast majority students can master any skills (Bloom 1968). The article points to upper middle class parents tutoring their students in math because the student was not grasping the concept in the classroom as support for the argument that any student can master a skill given the support. The fact that these students achieved with the help of tutoring does not support the idea that any student can master a skill given the support. Instead it points to the idea of diverse instructional delivery. I struggled with calculus in high school, I did not seek help from my teacher instead I sought help from another math teacher who was able to explain the concepts to me a different way and help me be successful.
A major barrier to Bloom’s idea of every student being able to learn any skill is financial. It is not financially practical to expend the resources to re-teach and re-teach skills to students who are not grasping the concept. That being said, educators need to accept that not every student is capable of going to college or wants to go to college.
The solution to balancing Bloom with doing what we can to educated every student to the fullest potential lies with differentiated instruction supported by technology. The early forms of education (one room school houses) would teach to a particular group and those who were more advanced were promoted and those who were behind were retained (Artley 1981). The modern trend is individualized instruction where students move at their own pace through the help of computer programs designed to guide students. Although computer program have gotten a bad rap for being too simplistic and unresponsive to student needs advanced computer programs that can respond to student needs may be the solution to educating each student to his/her full potential.

References:

A.S., Artley (1981). Individual Differences and Reading Instruction. Elementary School Journal, 82 (2), 142-151.

B.S., Bloom (1968). Learning for Mastery. Evaluation Comment, 1 (2).

Mindtools

Using computers as mindtools in the classroom is a lofty goal. Mindtools are devices that enable the learner to learn with rather than learn from. Traditionally technology in the classroom was thought to be the dispenser of information to the student or the assessor of information learned by a student. Some examples of mindtools include databases, spreadsheets, cognitive mapping, expert systems, modeling tools, microworlds, and visualization tools (Jonassen, Carr & Yueh 1998). On paper these mindtools sound like very effective education tools, however there is little consideration to the actual implementation of such tools.
K-12 classrooms are some of the most traditional places in America, although in the last 20 years drastic changes in the area of technology have been made for the most part classrooms have remained the same. Technology has been slow to come into the classroom for a variety of reasons- schools lack the infrastructure, cost, technologies can unreliable, and technology does not imbed itself in the curriculum (the material can be taught without the technology) (Becker 1998). What the mindtools article neglects to point out is the capabilities of computers in the early days, computers did not always come with spreadsheet software preloaded or mapping software already available, not every computer had a modem to access online tools and the Internet was not always as popular as it is today.
One of the major problems with the mindtools is they require computers, which are hot commodities in many schools. Not every student in every school has a computer and not every classroom has a class set of computers. Although many of the mentioned mindtools either come with computers or can be purchased relatively cheaply the larger problem is access to computers for students.

References

Becker, H.J. (1998). Running to Catch a Moving Train: Schools and Information Technologies. Technology and the Culture of Classrooms. (Winter), 20-30.

Jonasseen D.H., Carr, C., Yueh, H.P. (1998). Computers as Mindtools for Engaging Learners in Critical Thinking. TechTrands. (March), 24-32.

Learning

Pedagogy is the word used to describe the art of teaching, however there is no word to describe the art of learning. The emphasis in teacher education programs on the art of teaching but noticeably absent if the art of learning. The theory of direct instruction states that the teacher is the one who dispenses the knowledge to the students. However the constructivist theory of instruction states that the learner is to develop meaning within the self and learning is about the experience of acquiring information.
In the tradition school setting a skill will be introduced, the students will have time to practice that skill and then the students will be assessed on that skill. The problem with learning happens internally for the learner. Social taboos are also a barrier to learning (Papert 1993). These social taboos are constraints that “tell” the learner that a particular skill is inappropriate for them to learn. These constraints can be gender, social class, education level, and perceived ability level. For example a pipe broke in my house, a family friend was fixing it and I watched him the whole time. He asked why I was watching him and I said, “I want to learn how to fix a broken pipe”. He laughed at me and said, “You’re fiancé should be watching then, not you.” It’s attitudes like his that inhibit learning; apparently it’s a social taboo for a woman to want to learn basic plumbing.
There is another inhibitor to learning and that is time. Time is a general term for the complex idea of processing time. When students learn a skill they need time to practice that skill and have that skill fester. There is a great discrepancy between the time needed for learning and the time spent learning (Gettinger 1984). Learners need the time to practice and think about what they have learned.

References
Gettinger, M. (1984). Achieving as a Function of Time Spent I Learning and Time Needed for Learning. American Educational Research Journal. Vol 21 (No. 3), Pp. 617-628.

Papert, S. (1993). A Word for Learning. The Children’s Machine. (82-105). New York: Basic Books.

Deep Thoughts By Alison Setebbins

In our fast paced world of email and instant messages teachers are being told that “wait time” is crucial for quality student responses. Students need time to process information and assimilate the information into their memory banks. The higher up Bloom’s Taxonomy ladder a teacher goes the more time will be required for a quality student response. Longer wait time resulted in less probing on the part of the teacher and less rephrasing and redirecting of student answers. This shows that students are able to answer more effectively and with more thought when given the time to consider the question and formulate a response (Tobin 1986).
The new media that is being created is film, audio and pictorial images. As a species we evolved from being a language based society to being a society that could represent language in the form of pictographs. Then we as a society were able to develop a system of letter and words so we evolved from an oral society to a written society. McLuhan would argue that our new media is bringing our society full circle; we are now becoming a society of pictures and moving pictures. The danger in all of this is we as a society are starting to loose our past (Tarrow & Spangler 2001).
The idea of thinking deeply is related to the “wait time” element. Shakespeare plays were intended to be seen and heard not read, but when we read them and have the opportunity to go back and review we realize deeper meaning within certain lines that we do when we hear and watch the play. By our society shifting to a more picture and visual society we are loosing the ability to go back and review with ease. “Reflection after a movie or audiotape is certainly available and likely, but the depth of that reflection, when left only to retrospectiveness may be wanting,” (Tarrow &Spangler 2001). The point being that if educational research is saying that “wait time” and the opportunity for reflection is important for quality answers with the new media there is little opportunity for quality reflection and subsequently little room for deep reflective thought.

References

Tarrow, M.C. & Spangler K.L. (2001). Now more than ever: Will High-Tech Kids Still Think Deeply? TECNOS. (November) 23-27.

Tobin, K. (1986). Effects of Teacher Wait Time on Discourse Characteristics in Mathematics and Language Arts Classes. American Educational Research Journal. 23(2).

Technology Done Right

Thomas Reeves looked at cultural diversity from the product standpoint and making sure that technology based educational product makers consider the audience that will use these products. Judith Ingram article focuses on a more basic need, the need to have access to these materials and to have teachers who know how to use these programs.
The new wave of teachers will have to be proficient with current technology and willing to integrate future technology into the classroom (Ingram 1994). This does not always happen because not classroom has computers for every student or even for the teacher. Ingram highlights the misuse of computers for educational “Activities in a computer lab do not necessarily have anything to do with what is being taught in the regular classroom. The regular teacher is sidestepped!”(Ingram, 1994, 114). Reeves highlights the issue of technology based instruction, rarely do the makers consider the audience. “The culturally sensitive instructional designer and evaluator must be proactive in seeking opportunities to increase the cultural relevance of instructional materials and to build upon cultural diversity and pluralism”( Reeves, 1997, 30).
Education in this new world will require teachers to be open minded about technology and the makers of technology based education tools to be willing to cater to their audiences. For technology to be successful a need must exist first and the technology must be created to fit that specific need. Technology cannot just be created and imposed upon a curriculum. The makers of these products must also realize that what works for one particular demographic will not always work for another and in order to be successful they must be willing to make changes to their products in order to sell them to the largest possible market. Product makers also need to do their research and understand the needs of students and teachers.

References
Ingram, J.K. (1994). Our Evolving Curriculum, Part 2. Peabody Journal of Education, 69(4), 113-130.

Reeves, T. (1997). An evaluator looks at cultural diversity. Educational Technology, 37(2), 27-31.