Bror's Blog

Post-science professionalism: Training technology to heel

You know the cocktail party cliché, “Hey, doc, I've got this nagging pain in my hip. . .” I did have a nagging pain in my hip, and finally went to see somebody about it. It gave me a front-row seat to what you might call “post-science professionalism” - how a huge array of science, engineering, technology can be deployed (or not) to solve a human problem.

Wouldn't it be cool to get learning to be like this?

The short versions: Breakthrough Leadership book launch videos are in!

A quick note - Rick Hess and I over the last week ended up doing two launch events for the book we just published, Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age: Using Learning Science to Reboot Schooling.  Here are links to the videos: 

• iNACOL Blended and Online Learning Symposium, Oct 30, 2013, Orlando, Florida:  Closing keynote session, in which Rick and I chat about the perils of indiscriminate technology use in education - and the seriously good opportunities if we first apply learning science to find good learning solutions for our learning challenges, and only then deploy technology to make that good learning solution more affordable, reliable, available, data-rich, and customizable.
• American Enterprise Institute, book launch event, Oct 31, 2013, DC:  Morning event, where Rick and I chat about learning science, technology, and scaling up the right way with Mark Edwards, Superintendent of the Mooreseville School District in North Carolina, Rick Ogston, founder of Carpe Diem charter schools, and Rosa Atkins, Superintendent of the Chapel Hill School District in North Carolina. 

Good fun!

“We could write a book. . .” – Oh, wait, we just did. . .

Two recent articles, one in EdSurge by Harold Levy and one in The Wall Street Journal by Stephanie Banchero and Erica Philips, illustrate yet again the problem of putting technology ahead of learning for students and schools. 

Someone oughta write a book about how to get this right. . . Ah, it looks like Rick Hess and I have taken a shot!

Learning engineering double-header: EIS and AERA

Last month there were two events in fairly close proximity that are worth reviewing together.  During AERA and at the ASU Education Innovation Summit (EIS) there were sessions talking about why evidence-based approaches continue to get short shrift in education technology and education at scale.  It’s clear (at least to researchers) that there’s a tremendous opportunity to improve learning, and researchers are interested in being involved – if they can figure out how to be helpful, not merely asked to rubber-stamp projects at the end. It’s a mix of things to tackle, it seems: more informal communication between investors, decision-makers, and learning scientists about what’s possible; more practical evidence at scale about how to do the work; more examples of success to draw on; more support for better decision-making by buyers.  It’s not simple, clearly, but not impossible either.

 

An AERA summer drink: Mix cold cognition with warm motivation, and create a stir

The 2013 AERA meeting was a huge (13000 plus attendees), complicated (2400+ sessions), long (five full days in San Francisco for 2013) education research conference, with some unusual sessions. Yet, if you dig a little, you can find real gems, including research from David Feldon, Briana Timmerman, and colleagues, showing a simple intervention change based on cognitive task analysis can lift both learning and retention in an early science course in college. 

The full story is even more interesting!

“Practice-based” teacher education is really learning-based education

An interesting article in EdWeek last month about new methods for teacher preparation caught my eye.  It described an approach focused on giving teachers a specific repertoire of competencies through structured training and practice before they’re let loose on classrooms.  What’s reassuring (and maybe puzzling this didn’t happen earlier) is how close this new approach to training teachers is to what research says works best for learning.

Two sessions will explore: Why so little learning science?

In the next few weeks there will be two different sessions (full disclosure: I’m a panelist on both) talking about how education can benefit from more learning science, one at the ASU GSV meeting in Scottsdale Arizona, and the other at the huge education research conference, AERA.  The audiences are the right ones to also give insight into why that hasn’t happened yet.

Big Data: A big part of the education innovation mix – not all of it

Big data is big news.  Some might think the arrival of very large education-related data sets spells the end of our education troubles – that by analyzing this data, all necessary new information to accelerate learning will be revealed. 

Not quite!

On-line learning vs. in-class learning – three falls out of five?

A recent op-ed piece in the New York Times got me thinking about strengths and weaknesses offered by on-line learning. The writer, Mark Edmundson from the University of Virginia who teaches Shakespeare there, lauds the wonder of the intimate, free-flowing, improvisational-yet-responsive nature of in-class experiences, and contrasts this with what he posits is the cookie-cooker, video-based, hardly-better-than-a-textbook online course that he asserts represents the genre.

 Hmmm. . .

“Students online” vs “student's learning”?

A recent letter in the Wall Street Journal from an over-burdened college professor, Larry Bensky, lamented the push he was feeling towards teaching more students (90 instead of 60) in his summer school online course. He was particularly worried about the quality of instruction he could provide with a 30% increase in student load. Are university students – and professors – doomed to increasingly mediocre learning experiences as technology advances and costs to deliver instruction are forced downwards?