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SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday at the Movies (Motivation)
Here's a thoughtful presentation about motivation which suggests strongly that paying employees (teachers) more for results will backfire. Doug will like this because it casts doubt on the value of performance pay, but he won't like it because it suggests we could lower teacher salaries without negative consequences. YouTube link
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Not Sage Enough
The independent review of the Ontario College of Teachers discipline and investigations process has been released. The review was prompted by the discovery of several irregularities (to say the least) of how bad teachers were disciplined by their regulatory governing body. It was discovered, for instance, that the chair of one such committee was a teacher who wrote porn prose aimed at the teen market or how teachers who had been convicted of sexual assault in a court of law did not have their teaching certificates taken away until years later--that sort of thing. The public outcry was understandable.
Justice LeSage's thorough review looked at how the discipline and investigations process worked (or didn't) and made recommendations for improvement. The lack of transparency was paramount, however, some of his recommendations just don't go far enough.
SQE was invited to provide input and comment at the time the review was carried out. A quick online search found that the majority of College members were past union executives either at the provincial or local level. You can't suck and blow at the same time--the very people responsible for disciplining bad teachers are the same people who offer union protection.
Rather than comment on process, we wrote a simple letter to the Justice stating that the fundamental problem was the huge conflict of interest that exists as long as the teacher federations are in control of the College. You can read our press release here, which pretty much summarizes what we outlined in our original letter. LeSage wrote in his report:
“There has been cynicism expressed to us about the relationship of the teacher unions with Council. This is exacerbated, when as we are told, prior to each Council meeting, the elected members of Council meet with their respective unions to consider and be informed on the upcoming Council agenda. Those optics do nothing to enhance the independence of the Discipline, Investigation and Fitness to Practise Committee that I have been asked to review. Whilst I recognize that cases before the Investigation Committee and/or Discipline Committee would not be on the Council meeting agenda, the perception of impartial independent adjudication, which is vital at both the Investigation Committee and the Discipline Committee is compromised."
In fact, LeSage pointed the root of the problem in his account of the history of the College in the report. Since the Royal Commission on Learning initially proposed the formation of the College it was always warned that the federations should not have control. It operated that way until shortly after the current government was elected and the College was essentially handed over to the federations, likely as payback. Moira MacDonald at the Sun writes more on this today as well.
Originally SQE had proposed that only two federation members be allowed to serve. LeSage recommended that teachers who serve on the College should resign any union post while they serve the college. We don't think this is enough. In light of LeSage's findings, we now propose that no past or current union executive serve on the College. Until this very serious conflict of interest problem is corrected, no procedural overhaul, no matter how ingenious or rigorous, is likely to lead to increased effectiveness or public confidence.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Honesty is the best policy
I'm not sure how closely our Canadian readers have been following the attempt in Wisconsin to recall governor Scott Walker for sharply curbing collective bargaining powers for public sector workers in the state. That vote was held on Wednesday, and Governor Walker scored a decisive victory that is described as a harsh blow to the labour movement.
Jay Greene has an interesting blog on the declining power and popularity of public sector unions, in particular the teachers' unions. He likens this phenomenon to what happened to the Tobacco Institute, which for many years denied the link between smoking and cancer. Dr. Greene writes that outright lies like this destroy credibility so much that even very rich and powerful institutions eventually are marginalized.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
The Fooler Game
Siegried Engelmann, the father of Direct Instruction, can walk into a class of young ghetto kids and have them eating out of his hand within three minutes. Here's an entertaining excerpt from a new booklet, Clear Teaching: With Direct Instruction, Siegfried Engelmann discovered a better way of teaching by Shepard Barbash (pp 28-29).
Some people try to get inner-city kids to work hard for cash. DI teachers get them to work hard for strips of paper and a handshake.
Even more than money, what most kids want is respect,love, and yes, victory. Link any reward to the prospect of obtaining those things and the reward will be effective. One way to do that is to play the fooler game.
Engelmann explains the rules to a kindergarten class. "Let's play the fooler game," he says. "I'm going to touch these letters and say the sounds they make, and if I make a mistake you've got to catch it. If you don't, I get a point; if you do, you get a point. But watch out. I'm good at this game. I'm smarter than you, and I'm going to beat ya real bad." The game is rigged for learning. Students can win, but only by paying close attention. If they miss a sound, they are motivated to get it right the next time because getting it right means not just learning the sound but beating the teacher and not getting fooled. Engelmann loses the game narrowly and exclaims, "You got lucky today, but I'll get you next time!" "No you won't!" the kids shout.
Rewards are attached to the fooler game, but these need be no more than tokens to get kids playing, and even these can be phased out with time. The token depends on the kid. Some will work for a Froot Loop. Others will work to get ten minutes extra recess or to make their teacher do a happy dance or give them a wet-noodle handshake. Engelmann, a big man, once brought order to a group of rambunctious four-year-olds by flexing his bicep and promising to let them touch it after their lesson if they worked hard. (They worked hard!) On entering the room he lit a match to seize the group's attention and let the littlest kid blow it out.
How a teacher treats the reward, more than the reward itself, shapes how kids think of it. "Teaching is like acting," Engelmann says. "A trainee I worked with, Paul, would come back each day totally down. 'I can't get 'em started, I can't control 'em,' he says. So I went in with M&Ms. 'Time to work', I say. I ask them a question, nobody answers. I ask another. One kid answers. I give him two M&Ms. 'Good job!' After about four questions I had 'em all. If they made a mistake, I ate an M&M. For one task, I took out three M&Ms. 'This is the hardest task of all, you're never going to get it,' I say. Of course they all got it. And I acted terribly disappointed that I had to give them three M&Ms and couldn't eat them myself.
"A month later I come back and Paul couldn't buckle his belt. He'd gained 18 pounds eating M&Ms. 'Take 'em off the candy!' I say. 'No way!' he says. 'I remember how they were before.' 'But they're not the same kids now. They're not working for the M&Ms, they're working because they know they're succeeding. They're very proud of what they're doing.' Next day I cut out a pile of strips of yellow paper and went to class. 'What's the most M&Ms you've ever earned for a task?' "Three.' 'Okay, this next task is worth four M&Ms or' - I hold up a piece of yellow paper - 'I know what you're going to choose because you're kids, and like kids you'll choose the M&Ms. Yum! Yum! But adults will often work for certificates - symbols that they they're smart - and the symbol sometimes will just be a piece of paper. So here we go.' I present a task. They all answer correctly. 'What do you want?' I ask, and I reach for the M&Ms. Every kid in the group but one picked the yellow paper. But at that point they weren't doing it for the paper. They were doing it for the real reinforcement: the idea that they were doing better than the teacher - that these were all contests, and they were winning, and it was evidence that they were smart and could show the teacher just how smart they were."
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
How science should inform teaching
Dan Willingham has a new video out on whether teaching is an art or a science, and here's a blog that discusses his video. You're welcome to watch the video, but to me the most interesting aspect of Dr. Willingham's talk is his introduction of the concept of "boundary conditions" in teaching. Here's an excerpt.
“I think what we know about how kids learn, and develop, interact and so on, can suggest boundary conditions. I mean by that things that, if you ignore them, will likely lead to trouble. For example, if you think that someone will acquire a skill without practice, that’s probably not going to work. Providing practice for skills is a boundary condition. Another example, most kids benefit a lot from explicit instruction in letter-sound correspondences when they are learning to read, so providing that instruction is another boundary condition. Notice this doesn’t tell you how to implement practice, or how to implement teaching letter-sound correspondences—it just says that those things have to happen. I call these ‘must have’ principles.”
It sure would be great to have a list of all the boundary conditions!
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Giving credit where credit is due
Schools serve a multitude of purposes, only one of which is to educate children. Others purposes include the provision of free babysitting for parents, a parking place for teenagers who can't find employment, an anchor for communities, the assimilation of immigrants, the integration of students with different backgrounds, and the civic, emotional, vocational, and social development of students.
In addition, as this news release from the Ontario government makes clear, Ontario schools exist to provide jobs for educators.
And, as I think about how well Ontario schools are succeeding at their various responsibilities, it seems to me that the only one where they are a roaring success is the last one - providing jobs for educators. Of course, I have to admit that they're also doing a pretty good job of providing a parking place for teenagers who can't find employment....
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Busy Bees
I thought you might be interested in the finalists in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Here they are. The majority, including the winner, are female. They also tend to be immigrants who speak other languages. Many attend private schools or home schools. And all of them already have a list of accomplishments as long as your arm. I'm not sure what all this means, maybe nothing, but it's food for thought.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday at the Movies (Louisiana)
This is a lively discussion of the recently-passed education reform laws in Louisiana - reforms to the state's "monolithic, monopolistic, mediocre mausoleums". YouTube link
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
On-line learning is coming of age
Quick - what is the largest private high school in Canada? It's the Virtual High School in Bayfield, ON - with over 4600 students! This school, which had its origins in 1995 when its founder created the very first on-line course, recently moved into new premises (shown in the photo). Here's a press release telling more about the school. H/T CC
In fact, the on-line learning field is expanding so fast it's impossible to keep up. Here are a few examples of what's happening. H/T AMP
- MIT has deepened its ties with the Khan Academy, as it recently announced that MIT students will create 5- to 10-minute videos for the Khan Academy.
- Connections Academy is a new on-line option for K-12.
- Harvard and MIT recently partnered to create ed-X, a service which will offer online learning to millions of people around the world.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Their road or the high road
Here's an explanation to those who wonder why most teachers meekly go along with the misguided policies and procedures mandated by their leaders. An Edmonton teacher has been suspended for insisting on giving a mark of zero to students who didn't hand in their assignments. When you consider the lack of sanctions for incompetent and abusive teachers, it becomes clear what's really important to educational administrators - and why teachers toe the party line. H/T LDA