A Learners’ View (ALV) Is Of Choices On The Shortest And Fastest Path To Learning, The Oxygen of Social life.

This sixth conversation with Dr. W.E. Doynit extends a series of descriptions of how to accelerate, increase, and deepen (AID) learning by increasing learning efficiency rates with and without Tablets and other mobiles.

Topics: Responses to Robert Reed’s comments about school reform addressed in NESI Conversation 2: Doynit on School Reform, and the “Yes, but …” strategy.

Tablet PC Education: It’s good to have you back at this blog. Let’s review comments made by Robert Reed at the end of NESI Conversation 2: Doynit on School Reform.

He said he was of two minds about the New Era School Initiative (NESI) demonstration of school reform at the fictitious charter school in Normal, California.

Restate these principles for me, so we can talk about them.

Doynit: First, let me say that NESI demonstrates a way to defeat ignorance, at least in part, the generic reason education exists as a social institution.

Through NESI, educators may accelerate, increase, and deepen (AID) learning by reducing risks of student failure to meet learning criteria for grades PreK12. To demonstrate a potential of these results, students meet criteria in six (6) regular academic years.

From this view, accelerated learning is the dependent variable of schooling. All other activities in school should directly, measurably contribute to that acceleration. Specifically, we monitor students’ learning rates to identify what changes at NESI charter school will likely yield the most rate increases.

Arguably, this demonstration contributes to discussions of what’s technically possible through so-called school reform. I say so-called, because schools change constantly. Some of us try to exert control over aspects of these changes. NESI gives priority to demonstrating a way to manage increases in learning rates through adjusted lessons.

Tablet PC Education: Do you mean that only through a NESI like program schools will change in a controlled way?

Doynit: NESI serves as platform for a proof-of-concept for prompt, dramatic increases in learning efficiency. School reform advocates at least infer that learning will increase through whatever brand of school change they advance.

The NESI proof-of-concept relies on objective, experimental, empirical behavioral and social science research studies to indicate how people learn. Use of such learning principles through lessons reduces time required to meet learning criteria by reducing risks of failure.

NESI simply shows a way to use these principles as guides for instruction in a fictional setting until someone arrange for a real world venue.

NESI policy makers accept these principles of learning. In turn, they accept three operational principles to guide school practices. We suggest that other school policy makers adopt these same principles to accelerate learning rates through schools.

1. Accept that instructional-failure-is-not-an-option;

2. Use a learners’ view when making school decisions, including decisions about instruction; and

3. Count something, regardless of what role (from policy formulator to custodial and maintenance services) any person performs in any part of a school.

To this end, we give priority to teachers consistently demonstrating that they can increase student learning rates on-demand as part of their intentional employment and contract renewal processes.

Tablet PC Education: You said earlier that you consider these principles as absolutes. Yes?

Doynit: Yes. Without using these three principles, we do not see schools increasing learning rates promptly and routinely.

If instructional failure is tolerated, students pay the price with less learning.

If teachers’ instruction does not match how people learn, then something other than instruction occurs.

If teachers do not count what they do and what learners do, then they do not have an objective measure of how to adjust their instruction in order to increase learning rates.

Tablet PC Education: Reed comments that with his engineering mind, he gets it. He has an instant affinity, at least, with counting something. Counts provide feedback for next decisions.

With what he calls his humanistic, liberal mind, he has cautions.

Doynit: So do I have cautions, and I hope others weigh these two views carefully.

At NESI, we see overlap, not exclusivity, between these views. Our board of education agrees that a conflict does not necessarily over ride either of these two views. Indulge a little personal background as a preamble to indicating overlaps.

For decades, I gave priority to popular and authoritative views of what some call humanistic, progressive philosophies of education and other aspects of life. I learned to demonstrate “good practices” based on them, as well as cite scholarly and journalistic writings to support my priority when challenged.

At the same time, I watched too many students not learning as much as they wanted or probably could. Also, about half lagged behind other age and demographic peers. I and other educators explained these differences away with mounds of data and theories about how “others, not teachers, caused” these differences.

We recited litanies such as everything important in school can’t be measured, more learning occurs than what’s tested. We also argued, students need breakfast at school if not at home, snacks, preschool, different family support, less corporate influence in schools, community involvement, different Federal mandates, increased teacher salaries, more and better professional development for teachers, more respect for teachers, better and more supportive administrators, etc. The list has continued to grow to this day.

We argued, with these needs met, we teachers could increase student learning. After all, that’s what we’ve always wanted to do, but couldn’t.

I came to think of this as the “Yes, but …” strategy.

Tablet PC Education: You oppose schools offering humane services to students and to improving working conditions of teachers?

Doynit: To the contrary. I’ve spend decades contributing to policies and practices to implement such programs, including in schools. They have value, but apparently not enough to accelerate learning substantially. When implemented, students still have not consistently or dramatically increased learning rates.

However, most of us as educators have not done enough of what we can control without anyone’s permission wherever we teach. Except for several notable groups, we have not adopted anything like what we now call the NESI Principles to guide our commitment to increasing student learning promptly with whatever resources we have immediately available whenever we teach anyplace.

Tablet PC Education: That’s a tough accusation.

Doynit: I mean it as an observation, not a judgment. As a practical matter, schooling provides people with one of the few venues in life intended first to increase learning.

From the NESI view, we accept the premise that education is the only social institution that gives priority to learning. Schooling, as a formally organized social effort, helps to fulfill that priority.

Anything, no matter how noble in schooling that does not contribute measurably to learning can be considered, from this view, to detract from increasing rates of learning. That distraction occurs even when the school effort has humane results.

Tablet PC Education: How do you see principles of what people do while learning as resolving the apparent conflict between Reed’s engineering and humanistic “minds?” He suggests that resolving this conflict seems a key to adopting the NESI approach to school reform.

He seems to infer that enough caution exists among educators and policy decision makers to over ride how an engineer might appreciate NESI. Do you agree with this inference? In general, what was your first reaction to his comments?

Doynit: I find his thinking reasonable and consider his comments supportive of exploring NESI further. I also think that other people appear to benefit more from exercising such cautions than students benefit. (That comment always gets me in trouble.) These cautions result in less learning than appears possible today in schools.

Tablet PC Education: With the debate now joined in our talk, how does NESI resolve the conflict of engineer vs. liberal, humanistic interests?

Doynit: Here’s a NESI argument for resolving these two views.

First, we view the world as offering a plethora of predicaments where we rank order social actions, not dilemmas where must choose either this or that. So, we rank order options according to their likelihood of increasing learning rates. Thus, we assume we can work with both views Reed poses. The NESI challenge is to figure out how to do so in order to increase learning promptly and consistently.

Second, NESI gives priority to classic liberalism. Some cast this as separating personal choices from those imposed or limited by the king, or some other powerful authority. That is, to increasing the range of personal choices that can result from increasing learning rates of individuals.

Reed appears implicitly to consider this argument, although he uses different words. For example, we both use the word “liberal,” but with NESI, we address classic openness for that definition over concerns about techniques such as objectivity and measurement. I hope I’m not putting words in his mouth.

The NESI argument goes this way:

1. The necessary purpose of schooling is to increase learning beyond any individual’s trial-and-errors. At NESI we call that learning efficiency.

2. Learning more increases a student’s, not necessarily the teachers, choices in and out of school.

3. Reduced numbers of trial-and-errors save resources of students and school financiers, such as time, attention, energy, etc., and lastly, money.

4. To the extent that learning efficiency happens, school has fulfilled its unique, primary social mission to increase learning more than people will likely acquire on their own.

5. When increased learning does not happen for any student, the schoolers have failed that student.

Tablet PC Education: Can you state the liberal, humanistic side also?

Yes, stated as questions:

1. What’s humane about allowing any student to learn less than possible?

2. What’s liberal and humane about knowingly limiting any student’s choices that would result from learning more? Who has the (legal) constitutional, or human right to authorize such limits?

3. What and how much learning does any lesson buy in any school? What does it cost a student in time, attention, effort, etc. to learn /A/?

4. When a school fulfills its primary mission to increase learning, but does not provide full personal support of any student, does that make it something other than a school?

5. When a student does not learn as much as possible, how has the school fulfilled its unique social mission?

Tablet PC Education: Reed says he’s still concerned that the system of measurement should prevent the widespread practice of teaching to the tool (or from the No Child Left Behind – NCLB – legacy, teaching to the test.) Yet, he sees learning efficiency as having potential for leaving more time for classroom discussions, a sort of trade-off to avoid adverse gaming of the NESI system. How do you respond?

Doynit: Again, we agree about increased learning rates offering trade-offs, including more time for classroom discussions. Yet, we should talk more about what we think necessary to occur during schooling.

From the NESI view, we accept the NCLB premise that no child should be left behind in school. It’s not necessary. Instructional options exist to reduce the likelihood that any student will not progress with peers. For example, tell learners what to learn, and how to learn it now. No hide-and-seek. We even give learners access to answers to problems, so they can independently check and correct their work immediately.

Tablet and other mobile PCs provide ways to do so from the transaction to higher levels of learning. For whatever reasons, a relatively few teachers choose to use those procedures and tools.

Tablet PC Education: What about the teaching-to-the-test concern of teachers? What about the point that students and teachers will “game the system.” Do you share these concerns?

Doynit: NESI exploits the teach-test-teach-test pattern. Teachers have no other way of knowing that students learned their lessons.

Every NESI lesson has inherent tests built into it. Teachers manage learning through these lessons. Testing’s no big deal, not even so-called High Stakes tests. They’re high stakes for school educators, not for students.

NESI teachers offer more tests than most other teachers in order to monitor student learning patterns and ways to increase more efficient learning.

As for gaming-the-system, what’s wrong with that? NESI procedures encourage getting to the answer as quickly as possible, and frequent testing identifies what each learner must do to get the correct answer on-demand.

As for conventional cheating, even getting the answer from someone outside the learning venue, NESI’s frequent testing and other procedures make that unproductive for learners.

Tablet PC Education: One last question: with as much candor as you decide to venture, what do NESI people see as the biggest obstacle to schools adopting a NESI approach to schooling and learning? Reed suggests that it is teachers through their unions, because they will not want the level of scrutiny possible through NESI.

Doynit: NESI people have faith in teachers to do the right thing. We consider two problems as that happens.

First, a common perception exists among public school educators that it’s difficult to gain agreement of teachers about what the right things are to do. A relatively small set of vocal people in non-K12-classroom settings keep that perception alive.

Second, public school teachers do not expect enough of students. Instead, for a variety of reasons, these teachers appear to teach to the middle or lower performance levels of classes. By contrast, high ranked private school personnel accept as an article of faith that their students will exceed expectations. This difference appears consistent with the criticism that public schools dumb down curricula.

Historically, gaining agreements about anything related to education occurs during an endemic inside battle, a so-called internicine war about proper vocabulary, purposes and practices among true believers. Pundunts encourage their favorites into battle in the name of “the children.” Science and advancing technology influences schooling at the margins of conventional practices, irrespective of its potential for increasing learning directly and promptly.

This war makes intentional changes in schooling a series of political compromises.

These battles and political decisions share some of the same range of sentiments as among religious and political ideology believers.

Classroom teachers tell me it’s easier and safer mostly to ignore and sometimes to go along with public education spokes people in order to get along in their education circles.

Yet, teachers seem to have a clear focus about what to do when committing to increasing learning for small groups of students, however defined. The problem NESI addresses, then, is scaling that commitment to more learning with more students using the same or fewer total resources.

The NESI approach builds on that commitment with people willing and tools able to venture beyond results from ordinary schooling.

Tablet PC Education: I wonder if you just opened the door to another discussion? In the interim, let’s talk next time about progress with your suggestions for a research program about learnnig with mobile PCs.

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Posted by The Tablet PC In Education Blog, May 10, 2009, 7:27 PM. http://www.robertheiny.com/2009/05/new-era-school-initiative-nesi_10.html

Comment:

Ann Williams said…
You might be interested in some of the research being conducted at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. I share a bit of it on my latest blog entry: http://tablettutor.blogspot.com
Dr. Gunawardena is looking for schools who would like to pilot some of the tablet pc software and participate in studies.

In my own experience with my children, a tablet PC makes a great tool for learning and is very accomodating to different learning styles. Voice recognition/sound features, handwriting recognition, drawing capabilities and keyboarding offer individualized approaches to learning and you don’t have to be a professional programmer to make use of them. 5/11/2009 1:23 PM

NESI Conversation 6 School Reform rev. 2

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