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SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday at the Movies (Working Memory, Part 2)
Here's a TVO interview with an expert on working memory from UWO. The interviewee is, in my opinion, too diplomatic about what teachers are doing wrong. She hints at the need for things like phonics and memorization and sequencing and practice when she talks about using chunking and automaticity to work around working memory constraints, and at around the 8 minute mark she hints that teachers are not giving at-risk students the foundational skills they need, but all in all it's a bit disappointing. I expect most educators could watch this video and conclude that it validates their current practices. It doesn't, though.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Trying to Keep the Educational Technology Genie in the Bottle
Consistent with its central planning mindset, the Ontario government is poised to spend several million dollars on a "Learning Management System (LMS)" that is to, inter alia, try to identify common needs when it comes to e-learning. more
Of course, the whole point of the explosion of educational technology is competitiveness and diversity. The market has produced thousands of options - just think of the huge variety when it comes to smartphones - and it is ridiculous to think in terms of a government choosing a one-size-fits-all solution. Indeed, the government's designated solution in 2011 - Desire2Learn - is user-unfriendly and spurned by many educators.
It's as if the government had fallen in love with the Model T Ford and tried to make everyone drive one. Today, you can get a purple convertible Mini Cooper or a polka-dotted SUV or a four-wheel-drive jeep or any of a million other options. Competition keeps the market vibrant and ensures that everyone can choose the solution best suited to his or her pocketbook, needs, and life style.
The Ontario government should let the technology genie out of the bottle.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
DIY
Click here for a resource-rich article on what to do if your child's elementary school has stopped teaching content (you know, mere facts).
As the article says, "For sure, it’s crazy that we public school parents have to supplement our kids’ classrooms when it comes to basic subjects such as history and science. We should all pressure our school boards to bring back a well-rounded curriculum in the early grades, especially since not all kids are lucky enough to get supplemental instruction at home. In the meantime, though, teach them yourself. It’s a whole lot of fun—and you will surely learn a bunch (about the world, yourself, and your kids) along the way."
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Course Access Programs
This article, although it begins by droning on about the inability of small, rural districts in the US to offer high-level courses to their students, is an illustration of the coming disruption of education cartels (see my previous blog).
In the past, the impulse has been to consolidate schools and bus students. But now technology has made possible a different (and better) solution - course-access programs.
"Course-access programs provide students with flexibility in the funding that the state sends to their school. For two, three or more classes, students are able to choose from a set of courses approved by the state that are offered online, at a local community college or nearby school, or by a trade school or apprenticeship program. The cost to the state is minimal; the only new expense is the vetting of courses and the tracking and payment of providers. The actual cost of the courses is covered by a proportion of the funds the state already sends to the school. Providers are held accountable as well, getting a portion of the money up front and the rest when students successfully complete the class.
"Even better, as we have seen in the course-access programs offered in states like Michigan, Minnesota and Texas, school districts and even groups of teachers have come together to create courses that can be offered in the course-access marketplace. This can represent a new revenue stream for districts and cash in the pockets of teachers, all for providing students with courses their schools couldn't otherwise offer. It's a win-win-win."
H/T LJCD
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Accursed Cursive
Following up on Saturday's blog "Join Your Letters in Support of Cursive Writing", CT sent in this illustration of educators' attitude toward cursive writing.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
$250,000 could pay for two additional teachers or 10,000 textbooks or 83 electrical outlets or…...
Doretta is quoted in this Toronto Sun article about a $250,000 Toronto byelection to replace a trustee who resigned from the post.
When a trustee needs to be replaced in one of my local school boards, they just appoint the runner-up from the previous election - at zero cost to the taxpayer. It's not as if trustees matter, after all.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Politics 101
Over the past 10 years or so, the scope of school board trustees' powers has been whittled away until now they are pretty much puppets.
The latest whittling concerns the Toronto District School Board and its contract with its maintenance and trades workers. Although the contract means that the board has to continue to pay in the order of $3,000 for electrical outlet jobs, the contract has just been unilaterally renewed by the province, leaving the trustees speechless. more H/T TB
All around the province, powerless trustees are starting to speak up. Ottawa North Bay H/T JD Lindsay
As far as I can tell, the province doesn't want its trustees to have any decision-making powers, but it still wants the trustees in place so it can blame them when things go wrong.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Sunday at the Movies (Working Memory)
Here's an interesting TED talk on the limitations of working memory. This has all kinds of implications and ramifications for teachers, and I propose to explore this a bit further this coming Sunday.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
Join your letters in support of cursive writing
GUEST BLOG BY EDDA MANLEY, CAMPAIGN FOR CURSIVE
Today is National Handwriting Day. The downward decline of handwriting sadly is continuing. For over a decade many of us have watched the gradual process of cursive handwriting being eliminated from the public school curriculum. It has been completely removed from the Common Core curriculum in the United States for several years, except for a few states that chose to go take the necessary legal steps to have it brought back into their schools. Here in Canada, in many provinces it exists in name only, included in the curriculum but not taught to even the lowest level of proficiency.
Now we are beginning to see yet another form of decline in handwriting. Printing is now beginning to undergo the same process of decline that was applied to cursive handwriting. The teaching of printing is being done by assigning printed sheets for children to trace over with directional arrows to guide them. Only a minimum of actual instruction is given in forming printed letters. It is now perfectly acceptable for children to form the letters in any direction/way they choose. A reasonable facsimile of all letters is fine. Added to the lack of instruction is the decreased amount of handwriting in any form that children are being asked to write. Gone are the days of asking children to write several sentences in the primary grades. Filling in the blank with one word answers, circling the correct word. and drawing lines to match words are used much more frequently. Unless teachers and parents keep samples of their children's work over years, this subtle yet significant change will hardly be noticed.
So what is filling this void? Increased use and teaching of computer applications are now deemed necessary even for the very young. In the cited article, it states that "computer coding and other technology skills may become as critical as reading and writing." From what I am have been observing over the years, technology is becoming more important than reading and writing. Truly, some technological skills are necessary in our school curriculum. The concern I have is that they will gradually replace the basic foundational skills we have valued for centuries.
There is a great deal of research that shows the value of handwriting in creating more neural connections in young children's brains, as well as better literacy outcomes, stronger memory, increased focus and ability to concentrate, and many more benefits. Thankfully, private schools and home-schoolers are heeding this research and continue to ensure that their students master this skill.
A great deal more information can be found at Campaign for Cursive. To show your support for cursive handwriting, please tweet a short note or a photo of it to #cursiveiscool and follow us on twitter @Campaign4cursiv.
SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT
BC’s Very Ambitious Social Experiment
The higher-order learning disease has infected education leaders across Canada, nowhere more than in BC where a new "21st-century" curriculum is about to be implemented.
There are lots of problems with the new curriculum, and here is one BC university professor's take on it. He is most concerned about the de-emphasis on learning facts, in favour of "big ideas" - ideas, as he points out, that are built into the curriculum, for example "development in Canadian society can be viewed in many different ways depending on an individual’s worldview or experience". Hmmm, pseudo-profundity as far as I'm concerned.
However, an even-worse problem - in my opinion, anyway - is the lack of attention to foundational skills. Although the Ministry of Education is quick to reassure parents that the basics are still to be taught at the elementary level, the evidence for this is not convincing. In math, for example, the operational procedures of fractions have been pushed back to Grade 8. As far as I'm concerned, you can inculcate all the buzzwords - like "creativity", "teamwork", "personalized", "innovation", "transformation", "dynamic", "flexibility", and so forth - but if your students can't read or add up, they're toast.