computer drone

My original statement was this:
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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.
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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).