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Accelerated Learning Interview Part 4 completes the first interview in a the series of observations about learning efficiency. Part 1 includes discussion of Tablet PCs, learning efficiency, learning rates, learning losses, persuasive empirical data, and all students can earn a high school diploma. Part 2 includes comments about 21st Century Learning, creativity, learning as adoption of behavior patterns, Tablet PCs as state-of-the-art learning tools, and Tablet based automated lessons. Part 3 includes descriptions of teacher pre -service preparation as well as selection and pay. Part 4, this section of the interview, includes discussions of educator malpractice, world class and classic learnnig, funding Tablet PCs, and increased learner benefits. Tablet PC Education conducted this interview with Dr. W.E. Doynit, Superintendent of the Normsville, California, Unified School District (NUSD), and then posted it in multiple parts. We met at Landgrant University on the Normsville, California (LUNC) campus. Dr. Doynit received approval last night from the NUSD Board of Education to proceed with plans to open New Era (charter) School Initiative (NESI). This initiative offers students a complete program of study in six academic years that meets all state academic standards from kindergarten through 12th grade. Students and faculty use Tablet and other mobile PCs with available learning packages to earn a high school diploma. Tablet PC Education: Why do you think non-Tablet PC using teachers will face instructional malpractice legal challenges? Some teachers might take that as a threat. Doynit: Another reality, not a threat. As learning efficiency databases increase in availability and sophistication, students and their advocates can assert these data as a state-of the art standard for instruction. In turn, they can and I think will challenge educators in court who use less efficient procedures. I think they will challenge administrators first by following the principle of administrative abuse outlined in the 1980s by faculty at the University of Oregon. Tablet PC Education: You’re full of surprises. You also said you think school boards will increase funding for personal computers while holding funding for teachers steady. Doynit: Yes, advancing communication tools allow learners to adopt more skills and information at their own pace than do most teachers. I expert school boards to shift funding increases from teacher salaries to computing and communication devices. Their decisions will increasingly follow the data. In turn, school boards will shift teacher assignments to complement communication device based learning. Teachers will spend more time analyzing why learning efficiency increases and drops for individual students and then promptly coaching them back to higher learning rates. Tablet PC Education: Is this what you mean by world class education? You mentioned world class education several times during your presentation to the school board. Doynit: We discussed world class learning and schooling. We do not use the term education to describe our programs. World class learning refers to students demonstrating the successful adoption of behavior patterns consistent with the best thinkers in the world. That means our students give priority to learning what the most informed people in the world know. That’s really classic learning brought into 21st century living. Tablet PC Education: How’s that classic learning? Doynit: It’s classic learning, because students in our New Era School Initiative are told what to learn, when, and how to show they learned it. This instruction gives focus to principles they can use to generalize to specific and sometimes utilitarian situations. They follow an intense learning schedule. Few public school students in the U.S. meet these same standards. Many private school students follow a scaled down version of our intensity. Our schedule demands consistent attention to the teacher’s lessons, with little flexibility for student deviation, as seen in movies such as Paper Chase and Stand and Deliver. At the same time, we have confidence that almost all students can meet these standards through our program. That’s world class schooling. Tablet PC Education: As a final question, what in the future excites you the most? What keeps your interest, now that your New Era School Initiative has received board approval to implement? Doynit: My driving interest continues to be increasing student learning rates even further. We have doubled them, on average, across K12 grades. I wonder how much further we can stimulate more efficient learning rates. We’re already beyond so called common sense. Tablet PC Education: What about spreading your initiative to other students through more New Era Schools? Shouldn’t that interest you? Doynit: I think parents will need to demand that teachers immediately advance their children further once they see how we do it. Nothing we do is new to teachers. They know how to do what we do. Parents will need to figure out how to get teachers’s attention that results in rapidly increased learning efficiency for every student. For me, increasing student learning rates shows respect for student time, effort, and other personal resources that they use to meet school criteria for academic accomplishment. I want us to balance that respect with dramatic increases in learning benefits obtained through schools. That means refining links between classic learning and contemporary living. That’s our next big challenge, and our team is getting ready to tackle it head on next year. Tablet PC Education: Thank you, Dr. Doynit, for taking so much time to share your ideas with our readers. I look forward to our next interview session when you describe some of the learning and organizational principles used in the New Era School Initiative. Related Resources Learning Efficiency Rating of Instruction http://www.robertheiny.com/2008/04/learning-efficiency-rating-of.html Accelerated K12 Mobile Learning: Press Release http://www.robertheiny.com/2009/02/accelerated-k12-mobile-learning-press.html Accelerated Learning Interview http://www.robertheiny.com/2009/02/accelerated-learning-interview.html Accelerated Learning Interview Part 2 http://www.robertheiny.com/2009/02/accelerated-learning-interview-part-2.html Accelerated Learning Interview Part 3 http://www.robertheiny.com/2009/03/accelerated-learning-interview-part-3.html
Posted by The Tablet PC In Education Blog, March 15, 2009, at 1:08 PM. |