Dangerously Irrelevant

I love the ending of this 60–second video! Are we?

Hat tip: Jeff Ronneberg

Just thinking out loud here… Should colleges, universities, and/or P-12 schools be required (or encouraged) to indicate on student transcripts that a particular course or program is partly or wholly online?

There could be codes. For example:

• Wholly face-to-face
• Face-to-face with some online aspects
• About equal time online and face-to-face
• Online with some face-to-face aspects
• Wholly online

I'm not sure this is a good idea. But maybe it is. What's the obligation, if any, to be transparent about the delivery of the learning experience?

Image credit: Internet

Here’s a comment I just left over at another blog:

Thank you for your thoughtful extension of the conversation at my blog. I always appreciate when others express their misgivings about my posts because it forces me to clarify my own thinking and message.

I don't think the answer to everything in education is technology. But I DO think it's important for schools to be relevant to the age in which they operate. Given that we now live in a digital, globally-interconnected era, I think schools owe it to their students to be up with the times. And we don't do that by having our kids spend 90+% of their time in lecture-, textbook-, and notebook paper-driven learning environments. The gaps between how we learn in the real world and what schools do has never been greater. Those gaps continue to increase every year, as the pace of change inside school is dwarfed by that outside of school. What's our moral / ethical / professional obligation as school leaders to prepare students for the world as it is and will be, not what was? I think it's pretty high.

You note that students aren't using the technology for anything 'meaningful.' Why would they be? Have their schools, teachers, or parents helped them understand the power of using digital technologies for productive work within the relevant discipline of study? Most have not, instead utilizing technology primarily for replicating factory, rather than information age, models of schooling. Absent productive use and modeling by their instructors and/or parents, of course students are going to use technology primarily for social purposes (just like we adults do).

The jab at my advisory board membership is undeserved, particularly given that I have yet to receive a dime from any corporation for that type of service.

Finally, I'll note that the post in question was not a poke-in-the-eye aimed at teachers but rather the educational system as a whole. As school leaders, we have much greater influence over 'the system' than classroom teachers do. And it behooves us to make some radical changes quickly if schools are not to be completely irrelevant to the needs of students, families, and society.

Image credit: 25/365

The Economic Policy Institute’s new report, Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers, cautions against heavy reliance on the use of test scores in teacher evaluation.

Authors of the report include four former presidents of the American Educational Research Association; two former presidents of the National Council on Measurement in Education; the current and two former chairs of the Board of Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences; the president-elect of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management; the former director of the Educational Testing Service's Policy Information Center and a former associate director of the National Assessment of Educational Progress; a former assistant U.S. Secretary of Education; a former and current member of the National Assessment Governing Board; and the current vice-president, a former president, and three other members of the National Academy of Education.

Thought I’d share these two videos from the launch of the Spirit Lake (IA) Community Schools new 1:1 laptop initiative. Fun!

Many of you have never seen these parodies of the old Monster.com commercial… Happy viewing!

Teacher Movie (Marco Torres & Lesley University)

Administrator Movie (Wes Fryer & University of Central Oklahoma)

From Will Richardson:

A new video from New Brunswick, in the Did You Know? (Shift Happens) style. Well worth a watch! 

In an earlier post on 21st century curricula, I noted the following quote by Dr. Lauren Resnick, one of our nation’s most eminent cognitive researchers, writing at the time for the National Academy of Sciences:

The goals of increasing thinking and reasoning ability are old ones for educators. . . . But these goals were part of the high literacy tradition; they did not, by and large, apply to the more recent schools for the masses. Although it is not new to include thinking, problem solving, and reasoning in someone’s school curriculum, it is new to include it in everyone’s curriculum. It is new to take seriously the aspiration of making thinking and problem solving a regular part of a school program for all of the population . . . It is a new challenge to develop educational programs that assume that all individuals, not just an elite, can become competent thinkers.

Bill Bradley said in a comment:

[UPDATE: Be sure to read the comments below from Bill, Chris, and others]

Including [thinking] skills in education is a fine idea, but ignoring the realities of differing abilities is foolhardy.

Effective communication is so strongly associated with intelligence that people who can read teleprompters well are seen as far more intelligent than they actually are and people who can not express themselves effectively are not given due weight.

Identifying key points,breaking down problems, making connections, being able to compare and contrast several different ideas or concepts are not equally distributed skills. They can be improved for almost all people, but educators are not able to just order up a round of smarter people.

It is quite obvious in everyday life that many people are lacking in critical thinking, communication, adaptability, and problem solving skills. I find it difficult to believe that the method of their education is the major, or even significantly contributing factor to that situation.

I started my undergraduate education in 1990, by graduation many of my science and mathematics classmates were working in an industry that had not existed when we began (the World Wide Web), and were in high demand. Why? Because the level of adaptability and problem solving required for the field at the time was rare and highly valued. They would have been creative and excellent problem solvers in any field, there just happened to be a sudden market demand. More market demand will not magically produce more ability.

Here’s my vociferous reply:

Bill, isn’t it exactly these kinds of beliefs that have held poor and minority children back for decades? If cognitive, sociological, and educational research have taught us anything, it’s that ‘nurture’ is just as important as ‘nature’ and that notions of intelligence as ‘fixed’ are both outdated and viciously harmful. We have countless examples of instances where kids that society (and, apparently, you?) have given up on because they’re ‘just not smart’ are quite successful because we’ve changed the environments around them. Douglas Reeves’ 90-90-90 schools, the schools profiled by Chenoweth in ‘It’s Being Done,’ the work done by the Education Trust, etc. all belie the notion that some kids just aren’t ‘smart’ enough. The ones who aren’t smart enough are the educators and policymakers who haven’t figured out yet – or are unwilling to – reexamine our practices and structures to do what’s right for kids. I, and the scientific community at large, emphatically deny your assertion.

Image credit: Not my hat!

[UPDATE: I had enough interest for two people per day for the week of September 20. All the slots are full now. Thanks. I'm looking forward to the week!]

I’m looking for 5 to 7 volunteers to guest blog on the topic of Reconciling standards- and data-driven accountability with the ‘21st century skills’ movement.

Posts could pertain to curriculum, instruction, assessment, leadership, policy, professional development, or any other relevant issue. If you’re interested in writing a thoughtful, reflective piece of approximately 5 to 8 paragraphs on this topic, would you drop me a note?

This would be for the week of September 20 to 26. You will be able to cross-post on your own blog(s) and also can put a blurb at the bottom about yourself and your social media sites, so this should give you some good visibility.

Thanks in advance!