Day: September 24, 2014

Posted by Nicky Mohan

Original Source

Technology is disruptive. Education technology is in a whole new league. Breaking down the traditional barriers of the school system, it has led to revolutionary changes in the education sector. Where once the golden rule of the classroom was “no talking”, we now have teachers encouraging open collaboration. Where once we had students falling behind without being noticed, we now have systems pinpointing a student’s weaknesses and providing instant help. Where once all communication between student and teacher was lost once outside the classroom, we now have social media to connect at all times. It’s simply indisputable that technology is impacting education for the better, and while some remain sceptical, the proof is in the pudding.

1. It’s Making Learning Personal

One of the biggest benefits of education technology is its ability to facilitate one-to-one instruction. Long considered the most effective form of teaching, it has been deemed an impossibility given the ratio of teachers to students in our system. Technology makes it possible to reach every single student on a personal level, delivering personalized resources and a personalized learning experience to every single student. Fishtree does this by assessing students’ Learning DNA, generating resources specific to their needs, and tracking student progress on a continuous basis, with instant help at hand.

2. It’s Making Learning Adaptive

In much the same way as personalization, adaptive learning keeps the focus on the students, moving with their rhythm, adapting to their every need. Technology has allowed us to keep students learning at their own pace, in their own way, tailoring the learning experience as it continues. Fishtree’s adaptive platform identifies a student’s learning path, provides tailored resources, tracks a student’s learning, and ensures every specified target is reached in an adaptive way.

3. It’s Making Learning Mobile

Technology has finally given learning the legs it needed to ensure the process never comes to a halt. Through the use of mobile technology like Fishtree, educators can keep students learning long after leaving the school gates. Through the use of personalized resources and lessons, students are encouraged to indulge in independent learning and self-assessment, fueling their creativity and critical thinking skills.

4. It’s Making Learning Social

In a world increasingly dominated by social media, integrating social networking in education and encouraging positive collaboration is more important than ever. Technology has given us the key to bringing the social aspect into learning, along with the added bonus of keeping educators, students, and peers connected. Fishtree gives educators and students a safe, monitored, social media-based feature that encourages open, respectful collaboration at all times, further promoting the importance of digital citizenship and online safety.

5. It’s Making Learning Transparent

While technology certainly makes it easier to facilitate better learning, it goes a step further, giving educators complete transparency into the learning process. With the help of technology, we can now see exactly how each student is learning, using what resources, and at what pace. Fishtree provides key insights into student learning, identifying the specific path taken by each, and translating the personalization process step-by-step, keeping the teacher involved at all times.

6. It’s Making Teaching Easier

There’s nothing easy about teaching. Simultaneously acting as counsellor, mediator, parent, supervisor, educator and nurturer is never going to be easy. Yet the administrative duties of teachers have piled high in recent years in response to state demands. Technology can take the pressure off by tracking student progress and performance for you, building an organized system of student portfolios. What’s more, a platform like Fishtree offers a lesson planner with millions of standard-aligned resources at the ready, saving a lot of precious time. While it could never replace the key instructor in the classroom, technology really does make the process a whole lot easier.

About the author:
Lorna Keane is a teacher of French, English and ESL. She specializes in language teaching and has taught in second and third-level institutions in several countries. She holds a B.A in languages and cultural studies and an M.A in French literature, theory and visual culture. Subscribe to her blog or follow her on Twitter.

Image credits: Brad Flickinger  / CC BY 2.0

Posted by Nicky Mohan

Original Source
 

We’ve all had to face a tough exam at least once in our lives. Whether it’s a school paper, university final or even a test at work, there’s one piece of advice we’re almost always given: make a study plan. With a plan, we can space out our preparation for the test rather than relying on one or two intense study sessions the night before to see us through.

It’s good advice. Summed up in three words: cramming doesn’t work. Unfortunately, many of us ignore this rule. At least one survey has found that 99% of students admit to cramming.

You might think that’s down to nothing more than simple disorganisation: I’ll admit it is far easier to leave things to the last minute than start preparing for a test weeks or months ahead. But studies of memory suggest there’s something else going on. In 2009, for example, Nate Kornell at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that spacing out learning was more effective than cramming for 90% of the participants who took part in one of his experiments – and yet 72% of the participants thought that cramming had been more beneficial. What is happening in the brain that we trick ourselves this way?

It’s better to spread out revision before the big exam (comedy_nose/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)

Studies of memory suggest that we have a worrying tendency to rely on our familiarity with study items to guide our judgements of whether we know them. The problem is that familiarity is bad at predicting whether we can recall something.

Familiar, not remembered

After six hours of looking at study material (and three cups of coffee and five chocolate bars) it’s easy to think we have it committed to memory. Every page, every important fact, evokes a comforting feeling of familiarity. The cramming has left a lingering glow of activity in our sensory and memory systems, a glow that allows our brain to swiftly tag our study notes as “something that I’ve seen before”. But being able to recognise something isn’t the same as being able to recall it.

Different parts of the brain support different kinds of memory. Recognition is strongly affected by the ease with which information passes through the sensory areas of our brain, such as the visual cortex if you are looking at notes. Recall is supported by a network of different areas of the brain, including the frontal cortex and the temporal lobe, which coordinate to recreate a memory from the clues you give it. Just because your visual cortex is fluently processing your notes after five consecutive hours of you looking at them, doesn’t mean the rest of your brain is going to be able to reconstruct the memory of them when you really need it to.

Merely thinking hard about what’s on the blackboard isn’t enough to make learning actually happen (Thinkstock)

This ability to make judgements about our own minds is called metacognition. Studying it has identified other misconceptions too. For instance, many of us think that actively thinking about trying to learn something will help us remember it. Studies suggest this is not the case. Far more important is reorganising the information so that it has a structure more likely to be retained in your memory. In other words, rewrite the content of what you want to learn in a way that makes most sense to you.

Knowing about common metacognitive errors means you can help yourself by assuming that you will make them. You can then try and counteract them. So, the advice to space out our study only makes sense if we assume that people aren’t already spacing out their study sessions enough (a safe assumption, given the research findings). We need to be reminded of the benefits of spaced learning because it runs counter to our instinct to relying on a comforting feeling of familiarity when deciding how to study

Put simply, we can sometimes have a surprising amount to gain from going against our normally reliable metacognitive instinct. How much should you space out your practice? Answer: a little bit more than you really want to.

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This article by Miriam Clifford for Te@chThought was originally published in 2011 and updated on September 23, 2014 identifies 20 ways to include best practices for collaborative learning in the classroom.

Posted by Ian Jukes

Original Source

There is an age old adage that says “two heads are better than one”.  Consider collaboration in recent history:  Watson and Crick or Page and Brin (Founders of Google). But did you know it was a collaborative Computer Club about basic programming at a middle school that brought together two minds that would change the future of computing?

Yes, those two were of course Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the founders of Microsoft.

Collaborative learning teams are said to attain higher level thinking and preserve information for longer times than students working individually.  Why is this so?

Groups tend to learn through “discussion, clarification of ideas, and evaluation of other’s ideas.” Perhaps information that is discussed is retained in long term memory.  Research by Webb suggests that students who worked collaboratively on math computational problems earned significantly higher scores than those who worked alone.  Plus, students who demonstrated lower levels of achievement improved when working in diverse groups.

Collaborative learning teams are said to attain higher level thinking and preserve information for longer times than students working individually.

Many consider Vygotsky the father of “social learning”.  Vygotsky was an education rebel in many ways.  Vygotsky controversially argued for educators to assess students’ ability to solve problems, rather than knowledge acquisition. The idea of collaborative learning has a lot to do with Vygotsky’s idea of the “zone of proximal development”.  It considers what a student can do if aided by peers and adults. By considering this model for learning, we might consider collaboration to increase students’ awareness of other concepts.

What are some ways to include best practices for collaborative learning in our classroom?

1. Establish group goals

Effective collaborative learning involves establishment of group goals, as well as individual accountability. This keeps the group on task and establishes an unambiguous purpose. Before beginning an assignment, it is best to define goals and objectives to save time.

2. Keep groups midsized

Small groups of 3 or less lack enough diversity and may not allow divergent thinking to occur. Groups that are too large create “freeloading” where not all members participate. A moderate size group of 4-5 is ideal.

3. Establish flexible group norms

Research suggests that collaborative learning is influenced by the quality of interactions.  Interactivity and negotiation are important in group learning. In the 1960’s studies by Jacobs and Campbell suggested that norms are pervasive, even deviant norms were handed down and not questioned.

If you notice a deviant norm, you can do two things:  rotate group members or assist in using outside information to develop a new norm.  You may want to establish rules for group interactions for younger students. Older students might create their own norms. But remember, given their durable nature, it is best to have flexible norms.  Norms should change with situations so that groups do not become rigid and intolerant or develop sub-groups.

4. Build trust and promote open communication

Successful interpersonal communication must exist in teams. Building trust is essential.Deal with emotional issues that arise immediately and any interpersonal problems before moving on. Assignments should encourage team members to explain concepts thoroughly to each other.Studies found that students who provide and receive intricate explanations gain most from collaborative learning. Open communication is key.

5. For larger tasks, create group roles

Decomposing a difficult task into parts to saves time. You can then assign different roles. A great example in my own classroom was in science lab, fifth grade student assumed different roles of group leader, recorder, reporter, and fact checker.  The students might have turns to choose their own role and alternate roles by sections of the assignment or classes.

6. Create a pre-test and post-test

A good way to ensure the group learns together would be to engage in a pre and post-test. In fact, many researchers use this method to see if groups are learning. An assessment gives the team a goal to work towards and ensures learning is a priority. It also allows instructors to gauge the effectiveness of the group. Changes can be made if differences are seen in the assessments over time. Plus, you can use Bloom’s taxonomy to further hone in on specific skills.

Individuals should also complete surveys evaluating how well the group functioned. “Debriefing” is an important component of the learning process and allows individuals to reflect on the process of group learning.

7. Consider the learning process itself as part of assessment

Many studies such as those by Robert Slavin at Johns Hopkins have considered how cooperative learning helps children develop social and interpersonal skills. Experts have argued that the social and psychological effect on self-esteem and personal development are just as important as the learning itself.

In terms of assessment, it may be beneficial to grade students on the quality of discussion, engagement, and adherence to group norms. Praise younger groups for following collaborative learning standards. This type of learning is a process and needs explicit instruction in beginning stages. Assessing the process itself provides motivation for students to learn how to behave in groups. It shows students that you value meaningful group interactions and adhering to norms.

8. Consider using different strategies, like the Jigsaw technique.

The jigsaw strategy is said to improve social interactions in learning and support diversity. The workplace is often like a jigsaw. It involves separating an assignment into subtasks, where individuals research their assigned area.  Students with the same topic from different groups might meet together to discuss ideas between groups.

This type of collaboration allows students to become “experts” in their assigned topic. Students then return to their primary group to educate others. Here are some easy steps to follow the Jigsaw approach.  There are other strategies discussed here by the University of Iowa, such as using clusters, buzz groups, round robin, leaning cells, or fish bowl discussions.

9. Allow groups to reduce anxiety

When tackling difficult concepts, group learning may provide a source of support.  Groups often use humor and create a more relaxed learning atmosphere that allow for positive learning experiences.  Allow groups to use some stress-reducing strategies as long as they stay on task.

10. Establish group interactions

The quality of discussions is a predictor of the achievement of the group.  Instructors should provide a model of how a successful group functions.  Shared leadership is best.  Students should work together on the task and maintenance functions of a group. Roles are important in group development. Task functions include:

• Initiating Discussions
• Clarifying points
• Summarizing
• Challenging assumptions/devil’s advocate
• Providing or researching information
• Reaching a consensus

Maintenance involves the harmony and emotional well-being of a group. Maintenance includes roles such as sensing group feelings, harmonizing, compromising and encouraging, time-keeping, relieving tension, bringing people into discussion, and ore.

11. Use a real world problems

Experts suggest that project-based learning using open-ended questions can be very engaging.  Rather than spending a lot of time designing an artificial scenario, use inspiration from everyday problems. Real world problems can be used to facilitate project-based learning and often have the right scope for collaborative learning.

12. Focus on enhancing problem-solving and critical thinking skills

Design assignments that allow room for varied interpretations.  Different types of problems might focus on categorizing, planning, taking multiple perspectives, or forming solutions. Try to use a step-by step procedure for problem solving. Mark Alexander explains one generally accepted problem-solving procedure:

1. Identify the objective
2. Set criteria or goals
3. Gather data
4. Generate options or courses of action
5. Evaluate the options using data and objectives
6. Reach a decision
7. Implement the decision

13. Keep in mind the diversity of groups

Mixed groups that include a range of talents, backgrounds, learning styles, ideas, and experiences are best. Studies have found that mixed aptitude groups tend to learn more from each other and increase achievement of low performers. Rotate groups so students have a chance to learn from others.

14. Groups with an equal number of boys and girls are best

Equally balanced gender groups were found to be most effective.  Some research suggests that boys were more likely to receive and give elaborate explanations and their stances were more easily accepted by the group.  In majority male groups girls were ignored.  In majority girl groups, girls tended to direct questions to the boy who often ignored them.  You may also want to specifically discuss or establish gender equality as a norm.  This may seem obvious, but it is often missed.  It may be an issue you may want to discuss with older students.

15. Use scaffolding or diminished responsibility as students begin to understand concepts.

At the beginning of a project, you may want to give more direction than the end.  Serve as a facilitator, such as by gauging group interactions or at first, providing a list of questions to consider. Allow groups to grow in responsibility as times goes on.  In your classroom, this may mean allowing teams to develop their own topics or products as time goes on.  After all, increased responsibility over learning is a goal in collaborative learning.

16. Include different types of learning scenarios

Studies suggests that collaborative learning that focuses on rich contexts and challenging questions produces higher order reasoning.  Assignments can include laboratory work, study teams, debates, writing projects, problem solving, and collaborative writing.

17. Technology makes collaborative learning easier

Collaboration had the same results via technology as in person, increased learning opportunities. Try incorporating free savvy tools for online collaboration such as Stixy, an online shared whiteboard space, Google groups, or Mikogo for online meetings. Be aware that some research suggests that more exchanges related to planning rather than challenging viewpoints occurred more frequently through online interactions.

This may be because the research used students that did not know one another. If this is your scenario, you may want to start by having students get to know each other’s backgrounds and ideas beforehand on a blog or chat-board.

18. Keep in mind the critics

As with any learning strategy, it’s important to have a balanced approach.  Cynics usually have a valid point. A recent New York time article, cites some criticism of collaboration for not allowing enough time for individual, creative thinking. You may allow some individual time to write notes before the groups begin.  This may be a great way to assess an individual grade.

19. Be wary of “group think”

While collaborative learning is a great tool, it is always important to consider a balanced approach. At times, group harmony can override the necessity for more critical perspectives. Some new research suggests that groups favored the more confident members. Changing up groups can help counter this problem.

20. Value diversity

Collaborative learning relies on some buy in.  Students need to respect and appreciate each other’s viewpoints for it to work. For instance, class discussions can emphasize the need for different perspectives.  Create a classroom environment that encourages independent thinking.  Teach students the value of multiplicity in thought.  You may want to give historical or social examples where people working together where able to reach complex solutions.

By definition learning is social in nature.  Using different mediums, whether it be books, discussions, technology or projects we study and develop new ideas. We impart ideas and share perspectives with others.  Collaboration is a learned process. If managed correctly, it is powerful tool that can allow educators to tap into new ideas and information.

This is a cross-post from opencolleges.edu.au; image attribution flickr user flickeringbrad

In this Te@chThought article written on September 21, 2014 by the legendary Terry Heick, Terry suggests that traditional grades “work” for students who come to school for any reason other than intellectual curiosity, literacy, or understanding; and that we need to design systems to communicate progress and performance to students, parents, and communities.

Posted by Ian Jukes

Original Source

Yesterday, Justin Tarte shared a thought about grading that’s indicative of a growing dissatisfaction with grading in education. So let’s take a look at what we’re doing, and how we’re doing it, shall we?

Great point. Mark Barnes also recently started a facebook group for throwing out letter grades altogether. Clearly this is an issue, even if it’s not new.

Should grades support, report, or punish?

If to support, support who?

If to report, report what, and to whom?

If to punish–to “hold students accountable like in the real world,” does it work like that? Does this work for the students?

Who Do Letter Grades “Work” For?

Our current system of letter grades works well for many kinds of students. These are the students who learn to play the game. Form relationships with teachers. Can see the rules and parts of the games–which assignments matter, what the teacher values, how to format responses, how to use a rubric, how to study, and so on.

They also probably read and write fairly well. They value their own academic image–how people see them as a student. Their grades, GPA, and assortment of certificates and achievements are a source of intense pride for these students. The grades function as an extrinsic reward that push them to wade through whatever you put in front of them because they see themselves as “smart” and successful, and that’s what smart and successful students do.

Letter grades may help students that “hate school,” and come just for extracurricular activities. If they get the grades, they play; if not, they don’t. Grades simplify it all for them. In short, grades “work” for students who come to school for any reason other than intellectual curiosity, literacy, or understanding.

Which means they don’t work for anyone.

What Should Grades “Do”?

We’ve talked in the past about alternatives to the letter grade, but this is something slightly different–looking at the mistakes we make in grading so that we can better design systems to communicate progress and performance to students, parents, and communities. And that’s what we want “grades” to do, right? Historically, grading has been expected to do two things:

1. First and foremost, give students some kind of idea how they’re doing, because–in our system of teaching and learning–we’re the content experts and how else would they know? (Hopefully it’s clear how crazy this is.)

2. Secondly, work as a living, breathing document of their academic travels–what they’ve studied and how they performed therein? (And hopefully here, it’s obvious how woefully grades perform in this role.)

What about “begin to communicate the nuance of the habits, character, knowledge, and critical thinking ability of the student right here in front of you”? To not reflect failures, but affection? Potential? Creativity? There is a much larger conversation here about curriculum design, instructional design, literacy, learning models, and even technology. But if we isolate letter grades as they are used now in the system we have now with the thinking we use now, we are left with the following.

7 Grading Mistakes That Haunt Students

1. Grading too much

Or worse, grading everything. What sort of masochism makes us think this is a good idea? It’s an incredible workload for you, and doesn’t do them any favors. An alternative? Be very selective about what you grade. Choose assignments that aren’t threatening, or confusing in exactly what it is that you’re measuring. In short, don’t grade “practice,” grade landmark assignments.

Or have no landmark assignments at all–use a “climate” of assessment that adjusts for the day-to-day drudgery of a classroom, and simply uses tests, quizzes, exams, projects, and the like as part-and-parcel to the process of learning.

2. Highlighting weaknesses

As used, grades highlight weakness, deficiency, and mistakes, which only motivates the most well-balanced, dedicated, and supported students.

Offer corrections to performance rather than mechanisms to help students reflect.

3. Use letters and numbers

They’re reductive–artifacts from an old way of teaching and learning that valued the institutions and the flags they fly over the students themselves. There’s got to be a better way. (See gamification in learning and alternatives to the letter grade to get the conversation started.)

4. Equate grades with understanding

Most teachers worth their salt don’t make this mistake, but everyone else in education–from university admissions to parents to businesses to the students and their peers–do. Grades are, at best, a reflection of how well the teacher designed an assessment to reflect the language of a particular academic standard. At worst, they’re subjective conjurings that mislead.

5. Averaging numbers

See Justin Tarte’s tweet above. The learning process isn’t gas mileage.

6. Waiting too long to grade

After a certain point, it’s less about feedback or reporting, and more about students “wanting credit” and teachers “needing to get grades in.”

7. Making them fixed

Rather than flexible. (See below.)

8. Not using the data

That’s the point, yes–using data to revise planned instruction. Not using that data-and those corresponding grades–to make key adjustments that keeps learning in their “ZPD” is a problem, no?

Students:Letter Grades::You:Credit Rating

The closest analogue I can think of for adults is the credit score. It acts as a record of what you’ve borrowed and what you repaid and have not repaid in an effort to predict–for someone that doesn’t know you well enough to make an evaluation of their own–the likelihood that you’ll repay. This predictor is reduced down to a number, arrived it by some combination of both accurate and mistaken reporting on behalf of the companies you’ve borrowed money from.

Within this number there is a lot going on–how frequently you borrow, how much you borrow, errors that claim you still owe money you paid, open accounts you forgot about years ago, and so on. And the next time you apply for credit somewhere–to buy a car, a house, even a cell phone–this is the number lenders go by, with cut scores of their own .

But even credit scores have multiple reporting agencies, mistakes drop off after a certain amount of time, and there are ways to get mistakes fixed, and strategies to reestablish credit after years of less-than-perfect decision-making.

As flawed a system as credit rating is–and it’s awful–it’s downright brilliant compared to letter grades. So how can we design that kid of flexibility in our grading system? Or better yet, something light years better? Parts of gamification in learning may help–especially badges, unlocks, and achievements–but that’s not it either.

As it exists, our current system for grading sets up the students that need it the most to fail. It provides a laundry lists of weaknesses and failures that often haunt students the rest of their lives–paint them as this or not that. More often than not, they lock students out of possibility by offering inaccurate and subjective evaluations of performance without letting anyone in on the joke.

That’s the dirty little secret about grades–and the public doesn’t know. If we admit grades are exactly that–best guesses that summon an alphanumeric character to reflect a student’s performance in “our” class, then they’re probably fine. But if we want something more–something student-centered that to “begins to communicate the nuance of the habits, character, knowledge, and critical thinking ability of the student right here in front of you“?

Well then, we’ve got some work to do. And the answer may lie in a combination of learning models and technology.

The Kinds Of Grading Mistakes That Haunt Students

This is a fantastic article written by Anya Kamenetz for Mindshift and published on September 23, 2014. In it she writes about the $15 million Global Learning XPRIZE, which is being billed as the largest-ever technology competition in the private sector, to “revolutionize global education.” XPRIZE is a nonprofit organization led by tech entrepreneur Peter Diamandis. Previous XPRIZE contests produced the world’s first private space flight, a new method for cleaning up oil spills in the ocean, and a hyperefficient 100- mile-per-gallon car.

Posted by Ian Jukes

Original Source

A boy plays with a solar-powered computer tablet on Mount Wenchi, Mirab Shewa Zone of the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. (Courtesy of Tim Freccia/Xprize)

A rural tribe is living peacefully in the Kalahari desert, free of contact with the modern world. One day, a Coke bottle drops from the sky, falling from a passing airplane.

The villagers find many uses for this unfamiliar new technology: a fire starter, a musical instrument, a stamp for printing on cloth. But because of its very uniqueness, they start to fight over it, and one of the villagers decides that to preserve harmony, it’s best to return this “gift” to the gods.

The Gods Must Be Crazy, a South African comedy, was a global smash hit in the early 1980s. It’s only in the past decade, though, that its plot — or at least, the setup — has been adapted as a playbook for transforming education.

The idea: Some previously unknown technology could, all by itself, catalyze a revolution in children’s learning, especially in the developing world.

‘We don’t know if this is going to work, but if it does, it’s transformative, and why not try?’

The latest incarnation of this idea was announced this week. The $15 million Global Learning XPRIZE is being billed as the largest-ever technology competition in the private sector, to “revolutionize global education.”

XPRIZE is a nonprofit organization led by tech entrepreneur Peter Diamandis. Previous XPRIZE contests produced the world’s first private space flight, a new method for cleaning up oil spills in the ocean, and a hyperefficient 100- mile-per-gallon car.

The winning team of the Global Learning XPRIZE, organizers say, will “develop a free, open-source and scalable software solution in 18 months that can enable children to teach themselves basic reading, writing and arithmetic.” The software, says the challenge’s director, Matt Keller, will be designed to be deployed on very low cost Android tablet computers.

THE READING PROJECT

Keller explains that the idea emerged from his previous work with the One Laptop Per Child project. Announced in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab, One Laptop Per Child has distributed over 2.4 million of its specially designed “XO” laptops and tablets around the world.

While the majority of these have gone to school systems, Negroponte and Keller ran a side experiment called The Reading Project, where solar-powered computers with literacy apps were distributed directly to children in remote areas of Ethiopia. The children were given no instruction in how to use them.

The initial experimental sites chosen were villages with no schools, no libraries, no printed material, even without road signs. “We tested the supposition that kids could teach each other how to read,” Keller says. “The theory was, if you had the right kind of application and design for self-learning, you could conceivably see a breakthrough.”

Maryanne Wolf, a professor of child development at Tufts University, has been researching the outcomes of the project, now called the Global Literacy Project, with sites in Uganda and the rural American South. She says that while the children haven’t learned to read, they have learned the English alphabet from the tablets alone. “Our data serves as a kind of germinating first round of evidence that this approach can really help many children,” she says.

The Global Learning XPRIZE grows from this seed. According to the press release for the XPRIZE, it aims to prove “that through technology a child can learn autonomously.”

Keller says this is important because an estimated 250 million children around the world lack basic literacy, and 58 million are not in school. Schools are overcrowded and teachers are undertrained.

“I did a lot of work in Afghanistan,” he says. “Teachers there are often just one grade more educated than the kids, and sometimes they’re not literate at all.”

But why not just spend the money to train teachers or build schools?

“Even just to get the kids that are out of school into school, you need to train 3 million more teachers and build 1.1 million more schools, which is going to take a really long time,” Keller says. “You can say you’re looking at a model that has arguably failed many, many, many kids. We’re not in the business of looking back.”

He says the time is ripe to gamble on new approaches.

NO GIRLS ALLOWED

Payal Arora is not so sure. A media and communication professor at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication in the Netherlands, she has studied a similar attempt at technologically driven self-learning, the Hole in the Wall project in India.

Started by Sugata Mitra, Hole in the Wall simply places computers with an Internet connection in locations where they will be accessible by children. Mitra’s concept of “minimally invasive education” won the 2013 TED Prize, given to a “visionary leader” with a “high-impact wish for the world.”

Most of the positive research on Hole in the Wall comes from Mitra himself and his collaborators. There are reports of children acquiring basic computer literacy and researching topics like genetics.

Arora visited a few such sites in the Himalayas and found very different results. “The two most popular things are porn and video games,” she says. “The boys download them and take over. It becomes a male domain, and daughters don’t want to go there.”

Mitra has responded publicly to Arora’s claims, calling them “armchair debate.”

Arora says the Global X Prize, like Hole in the Wall and One Laptop Per Child, represent not an evidence-based approach but an ideology: the belief that “Human resources are so deeply flawed that investments in technological resources will be much more effective.”

But in reality, she argues, “learning is never 100 percent self-directed. Of course we want children to be agents of their own learning, but no one in their right mind would say let’s get rid of human input, from parents, schools, or communities.”

Arora says that before we continue to sway resources toward a quick technological fix, she’d like to see “substantive evidence that self-directed learning autonomous from human mediators can be a stand-alone tool.”

Keller says his prize, if it works as designed, will generate exactly that evidence.

Unlike previous XPRIZE challenges, the final phase will be a controlled trial. Applications developed by the five finalist teams will be distributed to a few thousand children in West Africa, and the program deemed most effective at raising the kids’ basic literacy and math scores from a baseline will be called the winner.

“We don’t know if this is going to work,” he says. “But if it does, it’s transformative, and why not try?”

Khan Academy is on a mission to unlock the world’s potential. Most people think their intelligence is fixed. The science says it’s not. It starts with knowing you can learn anything. Join the movement at http://khanacademy.org/youcanlearnanything.

Posted by Delia Jenkins

Every child has the potential to be anything they set their minds to, and that includes kids who don’t think they’re smart. The Khan Academy believes in this, and they think kids only need to hear four magical words to get them started on the right path.

WASHINGTON — Twenty-two percent of workers laid off in the past five years are still unemployed, according to a new survey.

Posted by Sherwen Mohan

Original Source

The John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University surveyed more than 1,100 workers, including nearly 400 who are unemployed. A slim majority of laid-off workers in the survey, or 54 percent, said they received unemployment insurance when they lost their jobs. However, 83 percent of those who received benefits said the compensation ran out before they found jobs.

Congress dropped extended unemployment benefits at the end of last year, despite complaints from Democrats and a few Republicans. Last week House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who refused to allow a House vote reauthorizing the benefits, said that some unemployed people want to “just sit around” instead of trying to work.

The number of long-term unemployed in the country has fallen to 3 million, down from a high of 6.6 million in 2010. While some are finding jobs, others are no longer counted as unemployed because they’ve given up looking for work. Economists are unsure how much the decline in long-term joblessness owes to people finding jobs.

The Rutgers findings are consistent with a recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report on displaced workers, which found that among the 9.5 million workers laid off from January 2011 through December 2013, nearly a quarter remained unemployed in January of this year.

The BLS survey is a bit more positive than the Rutgers report because it shows some progress in recent years. Compared with its previous displaced workers survey in 2012, the government’s latest data show that more laid-off workers had gotten new jobs at the time of the survey. Among displaced workers who had lost jobs they’d held for more than three years, a majority of the re-employed were earning more money than in their previous positions — up from 46 percent in the previous survey.

HuffPost has been telling our readers’ stories about unemployment and bad pay. Have a story you’d like to share? Email us at workingpoor@huffingtonpost.com or give us a call at (408) 508-4833, and you can record your story in your own words. Please be sure to include your name and phone number.

Bob Marzano is known for, above all else, identifying “what works,” and doing so by reviewing and distilling research, then packaging it for schools and districts to use. Among his most frequently quoted “products” is the “Marzano 9?–9 instructional strategies that have been proven by research to “work” by yielding gains in student achievement. This September 18, 2014 article by  Dr. Kimberley Tyson and Te@chThought staff  turns the nine instructional strategies into infographic form.

Posted by Ian Jukes

Original Source

In education, louder than the call for innovation, engagement, thought, or self-direction is the call to be research-based.

In fact, being research-based may even trump being data-based, the two twins of modern ed reform. The former stems, in part, from deserved skepticism of trends that have little evidence of performance, and the latter comes from a similar place. The big idea behind the both is “proof”–having some kind of confidence that what we’re doing now works, and that because of both data and research, we can more or less nail down what exactly it is that we’re doing that works or doesn’t work, and why.

To be clear, being data or research-based isn’t anywhere close to fool-proof. So many of the modern trends and innovations that are “not grounded in research,” or don’t “have the data to support them” suffer here not because of a lack of possibility, potential, or design, but because of research and data itself being sluggish in their own study and performance.

But this is all way, way beside the point–a long-winded contextualizing for Robert Marzano’s work. Marzano is known for, above all else, identifying “what works,” and doing so by reviewing and distilling research, then packaging it for schools and districts to use. Among his most frequently quoted “products” is the “Marzano 9?–9 instructional strategies that have been proven by research to “work” by yielding gains in student achievement.

And so Dr. Kimberly Tyson thought to gather these nine instructional strategies into infographic form because like moths to a flame, teachers to infographics.

Marzano’s 9 Instructional Strategies  

1. Identifying similarities and differences
2. Summarizing and note taking
3. Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
4. Homework and practice
5. Non-linguistic representations
6. Cooperative learning
7. Setting objectives and providing feedback
8. Generating and testing hypotheses
9. Cues, questions, and advance organizers