This press release continues the series describing school learning efficiency. The first post described Learning Efficiency Scale; the second, Learning Efficiency Rating of Instruction; and the third, Rationed Learning Interview. Readers should review comments at the beginning of previous posts about learning efficiency.
Thanks, Anonymous, for sending me a copy of this embargoed press release! I’ll post it without further comment. Here goes:
LANDGRANT UNIVERSITY, Office of Information, EduChoice Publications
CONTACT: Earnest E. Lann, Chairman
PRESS RELEASE: EMBARGOED UNTIL 04-07-2012 12:00 AM EDT
Normsville, CA Megan Smiley-Washington, Senior Research Scientist, Landgrant University, and Chip “Friendship” Larnen, Professor Emeritus and award winning education author, released the first glimpse of findings from their longitudinal study report titled Rationed Learning: A Conspiracy of “Yes, but … 2002-2012.” The study followed a cohort of digital native students as they entered public and private schools until the first one graduated from high school.
“We concluded,” said Dr. Gather Fisher, a senior research associate on the project, “that the ideological divide among educators about uses of mobile personal computers in classrooms distributed learning among students according to their use of advanced electronic communication technology in and out of schools.”
Students who used mobile PCs in schools, to complete and turn in assignments, and to learn information independently online learned 25 percent more than students who did not. Students in classrooms where teachers, but not students, used mobile PCs learned slightly more than students in classrooms without any mobile PCs.
These lightweight PCs included features such as Ink, speech and writing recognition, speech to writing, writing to speech, language translation, and video and auditory recordings.
These PCs serve as platforms for classroom notetaking, reorganizing notes, adding graphics; editing text and images; importing and adding notes to PowerPoint slides movies, animations, music as well as creating movies, composing and performing music; calculating mathematical formulae, constructing multidimensional scientific models; and linking to original sources, such as images of the Declaration of Independence, novels, and music scores.
Fisher went on to explain that in 2010, approximately 9 percent of teachers and 23 percent of students used mobile PCs in classrooms. By 2012, 52 percent of teachers used mobile PCs at least once in a classroom.
In 2012, these percentages increased to 23 percent of teachers and 29 percent of students used mobile PCs routinely to complete classroom instruction and student assignments.
At the same time 79 percent of teachers and 52 percent of urban youth and 89 percent of all youth have cell phones for personal use.
Larnen said that these scientists found that a major difference between teachers of the fastest learning students and other students appeared in the way they talked about learning with electronic communications.
Teachers of the fastest learning students talked about how they and students arranged and used mobile PCs for learning in and out of schools.
Teachers of slower learning students acknowldeged the potential of these communications in schools, but described reasons for not using them in schools.
According to researchers, these two talking patterns of school educators ration how fast and how much students learn in the same and across different schools.
“We try to give educators the benefit of the doubt, but our data indicate that they probably unintentionally hold back student learning by talking about problems rather than how to implement electronic communications for learning,” commented Dexter Booster, Superintendent of Southside City Schools, a low income central California urban school district.
Booster served as a member of the research study board of advisors representing a school with and without teachers and students using mobile PCs.
“After watching data from this study develop during the first three years, I put a sign over my door: ‘Bring me your solutions, not your problems.’ It took awhile for teachers and others to get the hang of it, but I insisted that all of our staff talk about how to make things happen. I still refuse to listen to people talk about why things don’t happen.
“I’m proud to work with such positive, can-do people.”
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