First Pitch

Yes, I’m throwing out the first pitch at tonight’s Red Sox game against the Angels. My wife won the prize at a charity auction and gave it to me for my 50th birthday. It’s an incredible gift, and one that allows me to reflect directly on some of the research I’ve been reading and writing about -- particularly the research on anxiety and performance.

Ever since my wife presented me with the gift last fall, friends, family, and strangers have inquired about my fitness and ability. “You know, it’s pretty far from pitcher’s mound to home plate. Can he throw it that far?” “Has he been practicing?” My cousin sent me a link to a YouTube video of a mayor throwing the first pitch into the dugout. “You don’t want to be like THAT guy.” Thanks everyone for the pressure.

I’m no athlete, so I’ve been playing a little catch. Sixty feet, six inches. When I’m just throwing the ball with my wife or son, it doesn’t seem like a problem. But practice is different from high stakes performance. Throwing in an empty field is different from throwing under the gaze of 35,000 fans. Okay, so none of those fans finding their seats and buying their hot dogs will actually be watching me; they’ll still be there. Will anxiety about not screwing up dominate my thinking and make me forget how to throw? Is this how some kids feel when they’re getting ready for high stakes testing?

I’ve got it easy. Whether I bounce the ball into home plate or throw a looping strike, I’ll give a satisfied smile and a fist pump. They only take pictures of me, not where the ball goes. Wish me luck.

Digital nomads with their heads (and data) in the cloud

My son Jake, a rising high school senior, doesn’t have his “own” computer. Instead, he seems to have everyone’s. At school he moves from the computers in the computer lab to those in the student center to those in the film studio. He emails documents to himself or carries work on a flash drive. At home, well, at home no computer is safe. I’ll open my work laptop and find FirstClass open, my son’s Facebook page on the browser, and a couple of homework documents on the desktop. “Do you need any of this stuff?” I ask. “No, I got it.” My computer was handiest; he used it and pushed his work into the Internet cloud to be retrieved at the next available machine. When we travel Jake always manages to find someone or someplace with a computer, iPhone, or some other cloud-friendly device. He connects with friends, moves pictures to Facebook, and checks tennis scores. Welcome to the world of the digital nomad.

Don’t get me wrong, Jake wants his own laptop. He needs a base (we have an aging iMac at home that is “his” in general), but his ability to exist in the cloud frees him from that base (making anything “his” at any moment). And the shrinking size of computers and growing power of cell phones offer the promise that maybe the base can move with him as well. Or at least be available wherever he goes. For him, with the exception of a few specialized applications, school work has no boundaries. Any computer in our house, at school, at a public internet station, or anywhere will do.

As more and more work, student and teacher, exists in the cloud, the opportunity to do something really interesting with it grows because we can all access the cloud and what it contains. Despite my own experiences, direct and vicarious, with mash-ups and remixes, I’ve been slow to see the potential of the collaborative Web 2.0 promise. I’m finally beginning to see the light, but it’s fraught with questions and issues we still need to figure out.

Let me give a specific example: We are about to launch a new program, Timeliner XE. The original TimeLiner 1.0 in 1986 turned Apple IIs and early PC’s connected to dot matrix printers into simple systems for generating banner time lines with ease. Type in events in any order, and the software created a proportionally-spaced chronology that could be printed out sideways on the scrolled paper of those early printers. Simple and sweet. Over the years and releases, the program added the ability to print posters, save as html, create slide shows, and add graphics, links, and other media. This new version takes a huge leap forward. Timeliner XE, built with Adobe Flex and Air, contains a built in browser that enables users to gather, organize, and present information within the same application. In addition to time-related events, any sequential information -- like the life cycle, the steps in a research project, or the plot of a book -- can be managed in the program. It’s very cool.

So what happens to the time lines and sequences that students and teachers create? While having thousands of students create their family histories or story arcs for Tuck Everlasting each year is nice, can’t we take their efforts further by putting the work into the cloud? Imagine a Day-in-the-Life time line that students from around the world contribute to. Each contribution gets its own category and color code so that they can be distinguished and turned on and off. How about collaborative time lines highlighting the flow of information and technology around the world as it happens? What might it look like for users to stand on the shoulders of previous work rather than simply repeating what others have already done? We’re having fun imagining the possibilities.

We’re also straining to understand the implications. What student information is private? Is it okay to share a student’s day in the life in the cloud? Can other users change someone’s time line? What about ownership and attribution? How do we make sure that copyright is respected in what gets posted? It is exciting, but it’s also complicated.

Many of our students are already living in the cloud. It’s happening even as the rules are being created and understood. We’re working on it. I hope you’ll be part of the unfolding story.

Brain Doping

A recent edition of Economist magazine had a very interesting editorial and article about the coming wave of cognitive enhancement drugs that augur the possibility of some tough ethical dilemmas ahead. As research uncovers chemical paths to improving memory and mental processing power for those afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive disabilities, what happens to those who seek to use those chemicals for a brain boost rather than just a neurological repair? Many of us already use over-the-counter drugs, like caffeine, to enhance general alertness or to help study for a test. Where do we draw the line?

Already, it seems, a surprising number of intelligent folks are stepping well over the caffeine line. The scientific journal Nature surveyed its readers, a pretty knowledgeable crowd, about their use of cognitive enhancers (Nature 452, 674-675 (2008)). Of the 1,400 respondents to the poll, one in five “said they had used drugs for non-medical reasons to stimulate their focus, concentration or memory.” Does that mean that 20% of Nature readers are cognitive cheaters?

Maybe I’m overreacting, but if we found that 20% of Sports Illustrated readers used prescription drugs, like steroids, for non-medical reasons to enhance athletic performance, I wager many of us would feel that those folks were doing something unfair. How should we think about “natural” intellectual ability versus one that is artificially enhanced? Is it cheating to use drugs to help you study longer or more readily recall what you’ve learned? What about the student who uses a beta-blocker to reduce the effects of anxiety before a test? Are non-prescription boosters okay but not ones that require a doctor’s permission?

I’m not sure I know how to answer these questions yet. If only the well-informed and well-to-do have access to these brain boosters, then I do think there’s a problem. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. On the other hand, improved intellectual ability seems like a good thing in general. Shouldn’t we encourage it whenever we can? Except when it’s unfair or unhealthy. But who decides that? It seems like a good debate is brewing. I look forward to participating in it. I may need a cup of coffee to keep me awake to read all the relevant research and opinions.

Fewer is More, too

My son, Jake Dockterman (he likes it when I use his name; it raises his Google hit count), is a bit of a stickler when it comes to the use of the words “fewer” and “less”. He’s not alone, as a web search of “fewer vs less” will reveal. You see “fewer” refers to how many, and “less” refers to how much. If you can count it -- marbles, tortilla chips, brothers and sisters, or Manny Ramirez home runs -- you use the word fewer. If you can’t count it -- applesauce, happiness, sand, and milk -- you use the word less. You don’t say “I’m fewer happy” when something upsets your birthday. And you don’t say “I have less siblings than my friend.” At least, you shouldn’t say you have less siblings. One last note: the signs above the express line at the grocery store should read “10 items or fewer.”

I’m a big believer in the less is more philosophy, and I enthusiastically embrace the sentiments of the NCTM Curriculum Focal Points and the final report of the National Math Panel. Both documents advocate focusing instruction on the essential content, the core ideas that students need for success in math, Algebra in particular. A report from the National Research Council last year recommended a similar emphasis on big ideas in science. Taking Science to School offers a very accessible review of the research on science teaching and learning and recommends: “The next generation of standards and curricula at both the national and state levels should be structured to identify a few core ideas in a discipline and elaborate how those ideas can be cumulatively developed over grades K-8.” The trend (hopefully) in both math and science is a welcome targeting of the curriculum on what really matters.

So, are these reports calling for less or for fewer? The distinction is important. Fewer topics means dropping some of the content that’s crowding the curriculum. Maybe we don’t need to cover probability or tessellation or the orbits of the planets. Covering the lengthy lists of state content standards provides little time for depth of learning. Cutting the list in half doubles instructional time for each learning objective. Fewer instructional goals could mean more time for truly learning those that remain.

On the other hand, devoting less time to some of the items found in state curriculum guides could also lead to more time for other, more critical, items. The big ideas certainly merit more focus than the supporting skills or concepts. Maybe the issue is one of emphasis. Not all content objectives are equal. The NCTM Curriculum Focal Points document makes this case very clearly. NCTM recommends “areas to emphasize” rather than to slash. Focus on the core ideas and use the other objectives to support those crucial concepts.

From my perspective, I think we need both less and fewer. The list of learning objectives in some states has simply become too long and too atomized. The pressure to cover each standard has turned them into a checklist of disconnected items. It’s time for some judicious winnowing of the curriculum. We need fewer standards to give teachers tangible evidence that they have the freedom (maybe mandate is a better word) to focus on what matters. Even so, we still need a re-emphasis in the curriculum. We must identify the core ideas that merit more time and show how the remaining objectives can support them. Less time on some content can lead to more understanding overall. And fewer topics in the list can help make that re-emphasis possible. Less is more, and fewer is more too.

Arts and Smarts

In March The Dana Consortium released a compilation of research dealing with the arts and cognition. How does studying music or dance or the visual arts affect brain development and learning? I’ve been fascinated with this topic ever since the governor of Georgia, Zell Miller at the time, proposed providing the parents of every newborn in the state with a CD of classical music to play for their infants. The Mozart effect promised to boost performance, particularly in math, simply by listening to classical music. Music could make you smarter.

Well, maybe not. A small study that showed improved performance on a paper folding task after some of the subjects had listened to Mozart became headline news in a media hungry for big stories. Other studies that showed temporary, but not lasting, boosts to IQ (which itself raises interesting questions about what IQ really measures) fueled the media flames. The fact that subsequent studies showed that similar increases in performance could be sparked by other relaxation techniques did little to dampen the media-whipped excitement around the Mozart effect. Naturally, those follow-up studies received fair exposure in academic journals, but the popular media had little interest. Bold stories sell papers (or clicks on the Internet). Nuance is too complicated.

But nuance is often the true story behind the research that makes headlines in the popular press (as opposed to the academic journals). Whenever I see a story, even in Education Week, about a dramatic research finding, I track down the source article in the academic journals. How was the research conducted? What do the results really tell us?

The Dana Consortium report does a wonderful job of describing the bits we know and the many questions we still need to answer about the arts and cognition. Learning music intensely, for instance, does seem to make a difference in academic performance. Just listening to music or the occasional weekend music lesson doesn’t reveal any meaningful differences. But serious music study does appear to have a positive spillover effect on academic tasks.

However, the report cautions that it isn’t clear that music is what makes the difference or just the intense study of a subject. Learning music teaches students how to focus their attention, and that habit may be the key underlying skill for success in other areas. Or maybe there is something about music in particular. Of all the activities studied by brain imaging techniques, performing music lights up the most parts of the brain. While the question lingers, there’s certainly no harm in encouraging music study among our children. It does seem to make a positive difference for whatever reason. I see it in my teenage son, who is a serious music student and a successful school student. Like chicken soup, it couldn’t hurt.

Science Dinner

Boston hosted the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) annual conference at the end of March, and Tom Snyder Productions hosted 50+ science educators from the conference for an open house at our office. A mix of science teachers, district-level science coordinators, state consultants, and other science education specialists from across the country joined us for an evening of demos and dinner. It was great fun and a wonderful opportunity to connect with the people doing the hard work at the front lines.

I was particularly impressed with the number of TSP folks who surrendered a Friday night to hang out with a bunch of science educators. Engineers, quality assurance specialists, producers, IT personnel, customer service reps, and others mingled and chatted with our guests. Most of these TSP employees don’t get a chance to meet the people who actually use the products they create. There were fabulous conversations going both directions. I look forward to the next time a relevant conference is in town.

I was invited to say a few words at dinner. The last thing I wanted to do was interrupt the flow of the evening (and the meal) with a boring speech. So I kept it short. I offered three bits of research-based advice for how to behave at dinner.

1) Talk to your neighbors. Research is very strong about the value of sharing what you’re learning to build your own understanding. In fact, recently published research on problem-solving transfer among young children concluded, “The general lesson might be that if you are having difficulty in understanding something, you should try explaining it to your mom.” (Rittle-Johnson, et.al., 2007). I like that.

2) Be careful what you say. Last year’s report from the National Research Council called "Taking Science to School" offers a very nice summary of the available research on science learning and instruction. The report notes that past science instruction paid little attention to the informal background knowledge that children brought with them to school. Kids’ have some well-entrenched notions about the workings of the natural world, notions that can help or hinder the acquisition of accurate scientific concepts. If we don’t take students’ existing understandings into account, then what we tell or teach them may well reinforce a fundamental misconception.

3) Have fun. Affect, the way we generally feel, has an impact on how well we learn. Engagement and happiness tend to reinforce retention. We remember what we enjoy. So have a good time. Learning is fun.

National Math Panel

The final report of the National Math Panel is finally out, and I have to admit that, overall, I really like it. I completely agree with their conclusion that the tension between conceptual understanding and procedural fluency is a false battle. It isn't the standard algorithm OR flexibility in solving problems. Conceptual understanding, fluency, and problem-solving all work together. Quick recall of basic math facts is very important, but it isn't everything. The opposing sides in the Reading Wars eventually accepted a truce; kids need to know how to decode, and they should love and understand what they read. Let's hope the antagonists in the Math Wars have reached a similar accord.
One area noted in the report should readily be embraced by everyone. Effort and attitude matter. They summarize the research of Carol Dweck (see one of my previous blogs) about shifting the learner's attitude from one focused on innate ability to one that recognizes growth through effort. It's critical for students and teachers to acknowledge incremental improvement and the effort it takes to achieve it. I wouldn't be surprised to find a relationship between these attitudes and math anxiety. The panel recognizes the reality of math anxiety and recommends more research to uncover its source. Indeed, the report makes many recommendations for further research. We need it.

The panel's report did, though, leave me wanting in a couple of areas. While the report talks about the importance of problem solving, it never describes what "problem solving" means or how it should be developed. Maybe the research isn't robust enough to illuminate clear directions. I would also have liked more clarity about why the panel members singled out particular areas in measurement and geometry for instructional focus. I don't disagree with the importance of the selected areas of content, but I would welcome more elaboration about how they fit into an algebra trajectory.

Hopefully, NCTM's Curriculum Focal Points and this report of the National Math Panel provide enough guidance for states to review and revise their curriculum standards in math. The list of learning objectives on state curriculum frameworks tend to be long and without emphasis on what's really important. The objectives get treated as separate, isolated teaching and learning events. Fitting them all into a school year inevitably leads to shallow coverage trumping real mastery. Let's concentrate on what's important and make sure kids really get it before moving on. Now, if only we can get the testing establishment to reflect this focus, but that's the topic of another blog.