Why do we need celebrities to fix education?

Director M. Night Shyamalan is the latest celebrity to take a turn at telling us how to fix the education system in the United States. I just heard about his book, I Got Schooled, Wednesday and decided to check out his ideas. Rather than read the book, I thought I would follow how the media is covering his book tour. [updated 10/3/13] Already, I have found a funny prediction from Slate, a review from NPR, interviews from Leonard Lopate, Fox News Radio,U.S. News, The Dallas Morning News, My FOX LA, and Travis Smiley, and this from The Cycle.

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It would be fair to say that I ought not criticize the book without having read it. But I do not plan on reading or critiquing the book. You see, I do not think nearly as many people will read the book as will watch the media-attention associated with the book tour. (To be honest, I have enough books to read on education reform.) Besides, the real problem is that the 5 Keys to Unlocking Quality Education he is touting ought to be questioned, not just accepted at face value.

Unfortunately, once again the media does not appear up to the task. So John and I got the MTT2K band back together and created this parody. It will help if you watch The Cycle interview first as we are trying to mirror (in an alternative universe kind of way) what happens in that clip.

In case you did not make it all the way through our video, let me make it clear that we are mostly frustrated with a media that seems to be more interested in crafting questions than analyzing answers.

Mr. Shyamalan is free to offer his interpretation of the educational research, but, as I said before, I am not buying it. And neither should you. (Turns out Mr. Shyamalan agrees: "I really just don't know who could possibly want to pick up this book.") Go ahead and watch the celebrities share their education reform solutions, but then check out the actual education research. If you are interested in improving teaching and learning, read John Hattie's Visible Learning for Teachers. If you want to know about the achievement gap and ways to address it, read Claude Steele's Whistling Vivaldi.

And media, if you are paying attention, invite real experts to address educational issues and try to avoid the education celebrities. (Or be sure to add the following disclaimer, just like this reviewer did: "I won't pretend to know if whether Shyamalan's findings or theories are sound...")

What do teachers do?

The above Tweet was my take on a comment made at the Michigan Council of Teachers of Mathematics (MCTM) Conference. I agree with the President's point. An unintended consequence of compulsory education in the United States is that everybody thinks they know what it takes to teach but these people have only experienced education from the student-side of the desk. It is important to remember that those interested in becoming a teacher also fall into this category. Teacher preparation needs to make explicit what it means to be a teacher.

I am in the process of redesigning a probability and statistics course for preservice elementary teachers and I want to be sure that the activities in the course reflect the actual work of teachers - especially those aspects that go on behind the scenes. In order to set the intention that they will be doing the work of teaching, I am going to call my students teachers and group them according to grade levels and schools. Furthermore, the course will concentrate on the three areas of the Teaching-Learning Cycle that are often invisible to the casual educational observer: Assessment, Evaluation, and Planning.

Because I just finished reading Hattie's (2011) Visible Learning for Teachers, I want the overall theme of the course to be "Teaching is Learning." Too often, people interested in teaching think it is about telling or controlling or managing or ... because that is what they saw. And while teaching may involve these behaviors, if the teacher is not learning about the content and the learners along the way to inform instructional choices, then the teacher's actions will be haphazard and likely ineffective.

The course is separated into three projects. Each project is worth 30 points toward the teacher's final grade. Engagement Exemplars make up the last 10 points.

In the first project, schools will create 6-8 curricula using the Standards for Mathematical Practices (SMP) and the content standards for Probability and Statistics from the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). This is intended to make it clear that the CCSS do not represent a curriculum but require teachers to create units appropriate for their students. The 6-8 curricula will build on a K-5 curriculum using the SMP and Data and Measurement Standards that we will create together beforehand for practice.

The second project will require each teacher to demonstrate competency in the content associated with the standards in the curriculum. It is important that teachers are fluent with the mathematics they are teaching in order to assess understanding and select appropriate learning trajectories. Sometimes teachers encounter new content during their planning that they have to learn for themselves first. I remember having to teach myself about box-and-whisker plots when the topic showed up on the Eighth-grade Michigan Curriculum Framework. In order to demonstrate competency in the content, my teachers can choose between creating a problem portfolio or taking traditional exams.

For the final project, teaching pairs will conduct formative assessments on middle school students. They will gather data related to the students' understanding in Probability and Statistics and ability in the Standards for Mathematical Practice. In order to determine students' fluency, the teaching pairs will use the evaluation framework from the Teaching-Learning Cycle: What can they do; What are they trying to do; and What comes next?

The goal is that the teachers will leave this course with a better understanding of what teachers do and a set of tools that will empower them to teach effectively regardless of the circumstances they find themselves in during their career. Again, it comes down to phronesis.

So what do you think? Besides drinking large amounts of coffee, have I forgot anything that teachers do?

Is rewinding the answer?

“If you don’t get it, pause, rewind and listen again.” 

Sal Khan

"Mastery is easy to achieve using a computer, because a computer doesn't get tired of showing you the same video five times."

Daphne Koller

Whether we are talking Khan Academy or Massive Open Online Courses, proponents nearly always get around to the power these resources offer the people watching their videos. The power is that viewers are given the chance to replay the video. So watching the lecture over-and-over again is the answer to learning with understanding?

If I am reading John Hattie correctly, the answer is no.

A strong message from the findings in Visible Learning is that, more often than not, when students do not learn, they do not need 'more'; rather, they need 'different'. p. 83

it will not be enough merely to repeat the same method again and again. pp 84-6 

But maybe I need to reread it to truly "get it".