computer drone

Just another Edublogs.org weblog

Question 3… What is learning?

December 18th, 2005 by · 1 Comment · Uncategorized

This one is easy…

learning is what I did!

A need existed… I found multiple ways to meet that need, including connecting (multiple times… too many to quantify) with a teacher. I asked questions. I researched and communicated with others. I thought. I took risks, and fixed mistakes. (I made new mistakes!) I reevaluated and revised. I interacted with my environment… an environment that was out of my comfort zone for sure! I  made new friends along the way.

I am not the same person I was before. I see some things differently. I see different potentials and challenges… and some ways to meet the needs.

My parting gift to you all in this course… Quotations on Teaching, Learning and Education… by those who know (or think they know)… for you to decide.

http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/quotes.htm

Question 2 … What is education?

December 18th, 2005 by · 3 Comments · Uncategorized

As I usually do when I initially think the question is simple (it isn’t!), I headed off to Google. I discovered the Greek concept of Paideia. (too many vowels!) I learned that, in this philosophy, the goal of education is not mastery of subject matter, but of one’s person. Subject matter is simply the tool.

I’ve heard “the tool, the tool, the tool” so many times during this course… so of course, the answer HAS to be incorporated into this philosophy, because if it looks like a tool, and it works like a tool, and it sounds like a tool, then it IS a tool.

Paraphrasing from “Rethinking Education”… What is education? is it knowledge in basic skills, academics, technical, discipline, citizenship… or is it something else? “Our society says that academics are important, and that is is defined as collecting knoweldge without understanding its value. How about the processing of knoweldge, using inspiration, visionary ambitions, creativity, risk, ability to bounce back from failure, motivation? Most educational institutions don’t consider these skills. There is a huge disconnected gap. Schools should be a place where one learns alot, and especially learn how better to learn.

From Adler… “As I write this, e-learning is becoming an education model that the present system cannot compete with. It is focusing on what motivates rather than what the system thinks is good for students. It is also leaving out politicians, textbooks, industries, testing companies and unions. These forces are now fighting back, trying to maintain a system that is in their interest, not the students. At this time, they are focusing on standardized test, which seems to be a last ditch effort to maintain the status quo.”

“As I write this…” = 1980′s

Why are we no further along? … a quarter of a century and we’re still stuck in the mud asking the same questions. (rhetorical… I know… I just did some research in JVIB, and 100 years later, we’re still asking the same questions… ).

 

Question 1 … Why?

December 18th, 2005 by · 1 Comment · Uncategorized

I could be flippant and say, “because” or I could respond in the manner in which I usually responded to my children, “because I have the keys.” This short response will not do justice to this question… this question could (should?) be the focus of an entire semester’s worth of learning.

How have the trappings of education (grades, syllabi, rubrics, etc. become confused with education?

This could easily be someone’s doctoral dissertation topic, and I hope that someday, it does achieve that status and lend impetus to “the DE education reform movement.” For the moment, because I just have to get at least something up here in way of a response (my NOT having responded has resulted in these questions living rent free in my head for these past few weeks; I have to purge myself of this guilt and responsibility… just do it).

So, let me start (and unfortunately, finish) with grades. Grades don’t mean anything about you as a person. Your GPA is not a reflection of your personal worth. They won’t change what you’re doing in 20 years - unless you let them. Outside of teaching, your grades won’t matter much after you get your first job.

As a teacher, there are no rules about the best way to grade. How a teacher grades depends on his/her values, assumptions and educational philosophy (Erickson and Strommer, 1999). Grades provide the students with an avenue for complaining, and put a teacher in the position of having to defend them.  

Some questions that have scrolled across my forehead since I started to think about this question…

1. when we give students numerical grades instead of qualitative feedback for their performance, do we stifle their creativity?

2. when students know they are getting a grade, they study for the test; for what they think they need to know. How would their conceptual knowledge at the end differ if they knew in advance that they weren’t getting graded for it? Does a student think about what she is doing, (he/she… interchangeable terms)  or does the student think only about how well she is doing?

3. Does the assignment of grades foster a fact-orientated curriculum, since it’s easier to evaluate? Does grading relieve educators from having to rethink what and how they are teaching?

4. By the assignment of grades, whose interests/needs are being served?

 

And… how many times have you – as a teacher – heard this comment from a student,

“Do we have to know this?”

back in the saddle… introspectively… about competence and skills

November 18th, 2005 by · 2 Comments · Uncategorized

I recently received an email message from one of the students in my Fall university cohort…
here is the message:
This will be the next chapter we are studying and I need suggestions.  Please tell me how to send AERNet messages properly.  I am computer illiterate.

 

Thanks,

 

(Student name deleted to respect confidentiality)

There are 3 weeks left to the trimester, it’s been an online course at the graduate level, this student is barely passing, and I get the above message … and it’s got me thinking…
I don’t know if universities have “a policy” about student competence in computers and/or student equipment but I’d like to muse about this…
If this doesn’t already exist, could we/should we at the university say that students coming into an online class must possess the following prerequisite computer literacy skills:
ability to receive and send an email message successfully
ability to create and save a Word document, and open one.
ability to attach a file to an email message and send it successfully
ability to open an attachment sent to them by email.
Internet knowledge; enough to be able to access/search google and type in key words and find resources/webpages
possibly… ability to use IM for communication.
possibly… how do download a (free) program and install it on their computer
We can teach them the navigations specific to Blackboard or WebCt. I see that as “part of the job” of being a university instructor in an online environment. However, I’m supposed to be teaching them braille, and I find myself spending hours on email and/or the phone teaching them basic computer literacy skills. (now THAT’S a scary thought!)
Could we/should we suggest or require that they have these pre-set computer skills before they enroll in an online course? If they don’t have them, could we/should we (I’m starting to sound like Dr. Suess here!) suggest that they take a computer course at the university first… or even at their public library??? Something!
My second musing… could we/should we set a minimum requirement for computer technology in order to enroll in an online course. They need to have:
a computer with ____________ (someone with tecchie skills has to talk about the memory and gigs and bytes and kilograms and stuff like that!)
high speed Internet access (no dial-up!)… if they don’t have it on a personal computer, they need access to a school or library computer with this.
Microsoft Office for Word and possibly powerpoint.
I am one of the least technologically-saavy people around, but if I can do these things, anyone can.
Students in braille (or in any other class) should not have to fight the learning environment in order to get to the content.
Am I too brash and bold because of what I’ve learned this trimester, or am I not holding them to high enough standards?
What do you guys do about this?

Sounds like a good way to wrap up this discussion

November 6th, 2005 by · Comments Off · Uncategorized

The chatter on AERNET about “Best Practices” has slowed to a crawl. This is a reprint of the last comment before those folks/our BVI colleagues moved on…

(In reference to NCLB frowning on action research…)

 I don’t know if they do or not. If they do frown on it, they are wrong. Experiential evidence is what generates the questions that later may be framed into
empirical investigation questions. When you have a problem, try a solution, and find out whether or not it helps, you have conducted single subject research. That doesn’t guarantee that it will or won’t work the next time, or with a different kind of student, but you know it worked for that student.

NCLB has a nickname: NCLTFBUTCKU (No child left too far behind unless they can’t keep up.) That’s not original. I got it from a good friend on a school psych listserv.

Time for this issue to go to bed for the night.

heading to Baltimore

November 6th, 2005 by · Comments Off · Uncategorized

Just wanted to let you guys know that I’m heading/driving to Baltimore tomorrow and will return late Tuesday night. I will have Internet/email access, but not a lot of time to participate… so I’ll do the best I can to chime in… and I’ll catch up when I return on Wednesday.

I’m part of the National Literary Braille Competency Test Development Committee… it will be a very intensive and intense couple of days.

 

I love LEGO!

November 4th, 2005 by · 4 Comments · Uncategorized

I love LEGO! I have many fond memories of playing with them… and of spending hundreds of dollars on every conceivable LEGO kit for my son. I still have his LEGO collection, and will shortly pass it along to HIS son.

So, when Nate shared an article earlier this week by Stephen Downes http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=29-1  on e-learning, I did what the good computer drone does, I clicked on the blue/underlined link and started to read. I didn’t get far in that article when my eyes came across LEGO! So, I clicked on it (I can get lost very easily this way!) I arrived at http://www.learnativity.com/standards.html and a very intriguing article on learning standards and objectives…. and LEGO! Here is a clip from that article that I intend to revisit:

A simple example of valuable standards that I came to appreciate in life, and my children still enjoy, comes in the LEGO(tm) product-line. All LEGO blocks adhere to one absolute standard for pin size. Every LEGO piece, no matter what shape, color, size, age, or purpose can always be snapped together with any others piece because of their uniformly shaped pins. This allows children of all ages to create, deconstruct, and reconstruct LEGO structures easily and into most any form they can imagine.

If we map this to the world of learning content, we start to see the opportunities that would result if we were able to have the same standards and capabilities to reuse and assemble or disassemble content drawn from any source at any time.

I feel as if I am at a tasting party. I don’t have the time to read thorough and savor and digest everything we’re being asked to read… but I manage to taste it all.

I’m even starting to save some of this stuff in my newly-created furl.

I’m waiting for my computer to explode!

a second helping of Best Practice

November 4th, 2005 by · Comments Off · Uncategorized

Many iterations of this have come and gone on the AERNET listserv; obviously, this is a topic of importance to many folks, based on their passionate comments.

Here is a second helping…

I believe “best practice” has to be about attaining goals. The desired end result will show what the best practice is when a number of methods are tried out. The most useful and functional method to the goal will be the “best practice.” Best practice has to be situational
A second helping from FM - 
 
Nope, no objection at all. Feel free to share.
To me the biggest thing is how our low-incidence field fits into NCLB–I’ve been watching this for years to see how it will unfold, especially in the area of literacy.
The other idea I was going to add (but then the message got so long) is that in GA, at least, what we hear from our state dept of ed is the phrase “most promising practices” rather than “best” practice. If I remember correctly, Mary Phagan-Kean (who I think you’ve met) our state consultant for VI, told me that this phrase is used now by states because schools are not required to provide “best” practice but just for students to make adequate and appropriate progress. I should look into this more because that was years ago–it’s possible there’s another phrase used now!
And this 3-way conversation really sparked some feedback… I think the sparks are still flying in Colorado…
I asked Nate to respond to Monica’s comment, since it wasn’t my place to speak for his thoughts.
I’m not on the AERNet but I’ll ask Shiela to forward my reply.

My original statement was this:
————————————-
There have been some interesting posts about best practices but they
largely confirm my contention that what constitutes ‘best practice’ is
hardly up to the standard required by NCLB’s “scientifically based
practice” requirement. Given that level of required evidentiary support,
what passes for ‘best practice’ is nothing more than superstition.

There’s nothing wrong with superstition. It’s based on an action and
observed reaction pair. The problem is that — in the absence of
adequate research (and NCLB raises the bar substantially on what
constitutes adequate research) the average teacher has nothing more
substantial to go on than intuition and annecdotal evidence based on
experience. In short, superstition.
————————-

Let me make some points.
1. This email was part of a larger discssion with my class to get them to consider what the phrase “best practice” actually means. Almost all the responses about best practice involved annecdotal connections between actions and outcomes. Worse, the best practices were not presented in any context, limited as to their generalizability, nor explained with any rationale beyond “When you do this as a teacher, it’s a good way to get your students will do that.”

2. Part and parcel of that conversation is trying to get my students to understand that the scientifically-based practice requirements of NCLB are such that any notion of “best practice” as supported by the kind of clinical-trial, medical model of large numbers of students is problematic. I don’t know of that many research based “best practices” in general education, let alone distance education (the subject of this course) or in the reduced populations represented by low incidence disability.

3. There are many definitions of the word “superstition” – some of which have to do with irrational fears and lucky charms — but in broader sense, I like this first paragraph from the definition in the Wikipedia:

“A superstition is an irrational or invalid belief about the relation between certain actions (often behaviors) and other actions. The superstitious individual erroneously believes that the future, or the outcome of certain events can be caused or influenced by certain specified behaviors, despite the lack of a causal relationship in reality. Many superstitions emerged from the notions of “good luck” and “bad luck”; the notion of “luck“, however, can itself be considered a form of superstition. Some popular superstitions are a result of misinterpreting correlations as causes, although many others are simply urban legends that have no rational justification whatsoever.”  [retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition ]

While the terms “irrational” and “luck” are involved, the general meaning of superstition is the mistaken belief that a causal relationship exists between an action and an anticipated outcome. I challenged my students to justify their “best practice” in any way that supported the causal relationship implied beyond the two standards of “we did this in our class–” and “we’ve known for years that –”

So far none of them has.

And let me be very clear. I’m not saying “best practices” do not exist. What I am proposing is that what passes for “best practice” in general is no more valid than the person who does better on a test because they’re wearing their “lucky underwear.” It’s not the underwear that provokes the outcome. It’s the confidence of believing that makes the difference. And THAT is superstition.

And, yes, Monica, I probably am out of line.

But if I’ve managed to make anybody think seriously about what ‘best practice’ really means, then I’m happy to be out of line.

And it doesn’t mean I’m not right.

N

Braillenut wrote:

Sheila,

 

Pardon my saying so, but your professor seems to be a bit out of line using the word “superstition”. My understanding of superstition is that it is based on irrational fears and lucky charms. However, there are individuals who come to the table with unrealistic ideas or unrealistic expectations. 

Sheila, when I read about the “supersition” I assumed he was talking in
terms of the psychology profession, where the word “supersition” refers to
the beliefs that we all have about cause and effect which are not based on
fact, but based on something we experienced and associate with success (or
failure).

For example the chicken in the experiment learns that if she pushes a
little bar, a pellet comes out, which of course is the real
cause-and-effect but if she happens to turn around just before pushing the
bar and getting the pellet, she may come to think that to get the pellet,
she has to turn around and then push the bar.  The psychologists call that
belief that she has to turn around “supersitition.”  My husband is
convinced that if we record the Steelers’ football game, they are doomed to
lose because almost every time he records the game, they lose.

So if a teacher happens to use a certain colored chalk on the days that she
is very successful teaching her students, she may think that the colored
chalk helped to make it successful.  The colored chalk may actually be
causing the success, or it may be just a superstition — I guess the point
is that only objective research will determine which is real effect and
which is merely superstition.

 

 

I’ve enjoyed scanning through the posts on this. I
agree with the poster who said that not everything can
be proven through large scale controlled studies,
especially with a low incidence population and the
confounding variables of syndromes and conditions that
make it more likely for children to have concomitant
additional disabilities.

Teachers are both practitioners and scientists. If you
can, take a course on “action research.” We do that
every time we try something and it works and then try
it again with a different student and it works again.
Pretty soon we’re doing it with lots of kids and find
that it works with some, but maybe not with others.
Example: a student could not do arithmetic problems
correctly, not because she didn’t know her facts or
the processes, but because she couldn’t keep her
columns straight when copying the problems from the
math book. I grabbed a piece of dark line graph paper
and had her write the numbers in the squares. She
could then get them all correct. I spread that to
other students. Now I’m not the only person who
discovered that. I found that others were doing it
too. I’ve seen resource teachers do it with kids with
spatial problems who aren’t VI.

Remember: the plural of anecdote …. is data.

This is Sheila again… the above is a compilation of comments posted to the AERNET listserv as a result of my query on best practice. I feel like the monkey-in-the-middle who is trying to maintain a conversation from both ends. It’s a lot of information to process; perhaps too much for the scope of this course (hmmm… how about a course on Best Practice – the myth or the reality).

Correlation with NCLB practice/theory

October 29th, 2005 by · 1 Comment · Uncategorized

The definition of “best practice” from the web site of the Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment (at UT Austin, which is part of the National Center for Educational Accountability) is this:

“Instructional best practices are general principles, guidelines, and suggestions for good and effective teaching that are supported by research.”

That was always my understanding: that “best practices” are suggested by research studies. And as every teacher in the U.S. now knows, No Child Left Behind calls for research-based practices to be used in schools–with a very specific definition of what “research” is. That’s also why the US Dept. of Ed.’s Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) has developed the “What Works Clearinghouse” (and dismantled its much-loved ERIC system). (To see a list of the standards for the review process to get into the WWC, see www.whatworks.ed.gov/reviewprocess/standards.html)

The WWC says that “Study designs that provide the strongest evidence of effects include: randomized controlled trials, regression discontinuity designs, quasi-experimental designs (must use a similar comparison group and have no attrition or disruption problems), and single subject designs. For example, qualitative case studies are not in the scope of the WWC’s review because they are not outcome evaluations. Therefore, a qualitative case study would not pass this screen.” One issue is that our small field just doesn’t have even close to the same volume of quantitative research base with randomized controlled trials that other education disciplines have–for obvious reasons.

Interestingly enough (at least to me!) is that also on the US Dept. of Ed web site, one can find a presentation given by Grover Whitehurst (now director of IES) about “evidence-based education” (EBE) which refers to the need not only for empirical research but also for “professional wisdom.” (In fact, the definition of EBE used in the presentation is “The integration of professional wisdom with the best available empirical evidence in making decisions about how to deliver instruction.”) And I like the definition of professional wisdom, which includes these three things:
 ” * The judgment that individuals acquire through experience,
* Consensus views,
* Increased professional wisdom is reflected in numerous ways, including the effective identification and incorporation of local circumstances into instruction”

This gives me hope for our field as far as providing EBE because it does seem that we have certain established practices for which there is wide consensus. And there certainly has been an increased interest in research and some great work by many people in recent years to provide more research that can lead to improved practices. But it’s also true that many of the things we do are not truly research-based but fall more into the professional wisdom category (not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that). Many aspects of our field certainly need additional research, though.
What do you all think?
–FM
(Frances Mary D’Andrea… formerly the director of the national initiative on literacy for AFB)

the voices of experience keep coming

October 29th, 2005 by · 3 Comments · Uncategorized

There is something about this idea… reaching out and asking folks what they thought about “best practice” that intrigues me. I am learning more from listening to their voices of experience than I would have learned if I had read about it in a textbook.

Is true knowledge the collection of voices of experience?

I believe “best practice” has to be about attaining goals. The desired end result will show what the best practice is when a number of methods are tried out. The most useful and functional method to the goal will be the “best practice.” Best practice has to be situational.
After years of working in the system as a substitute teacher grades K-12, as a teaching assistant, as a teachers’ aide, as a technology teacher, as an English teacher, a TVI and a special ed teacher, I was reluctant to answer your question at first.  I have seen so many educational terms and fads come and go.  The sad thing is that each new revelation is treated as if it were the second coming.  Everything that was done in the past is eliminated, even if it was working well.  As I said once, educators tend to continually throw out the baby with the bath water.
 

I don’t know what the so-called experts would term “best practice,” and honestly, I really don’t care.  To me it means whatever works best for that particular child.  As each child is unique, we have a constantly-expanding universe of best practices.

 

 

In addition to research based practice, I would suggest that “best practice” is something that through experience we know works effectively even though there may not be research to back up the practice. I would further suggest that “best practice” for the field would be something that works in many similar situations; it is the best response that practioners in the field have used. In rehab. teaching, we have a number of best practices that are not reseach based but are definitely practical & successful, and are used by many people. “Best practice” might be considered the “tried & true” way for this time.  Hope that this idea adds to the discussion.