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.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, March 7, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Being a struggling learner
I received a helpful reminder at TSP’s annual holiday party about what it’s like to be a struggling learner. Our “holiday” party really needs a new name, unless the holidays we’re celebrating are Martin Luther King Day and Valentine’s Day. Each year we seem to edge the date closer to President’s Day. There are plenty of holidays to celebrate, but the traditional Christmas and New Year’s holidays are well-behind us by the time we party. Anyway, for the last couple of years, we’ve had dance instructors at the party. Last year the instructors taught salsa; this year they did swing. You get a sense where this struggling learner story is headed?
One of the party organizers came to me during the party and asked me to help get folks participating in the swing instruction. I long ago learned that you can’t ask people to do something that you’re not willing to do yourself. Fortunately, my wife likes to dance. Unfortunately, she married someone who doesn’t have a lot of natural rhythm or coordination. Nonetheless, we took center stage, and I loudly invited others to join us. The student-to-dance teacher ratio at the outset would have been the envy of even the most well-endowed private school. Gradually, though, we gathered a good-sized crew of dancing students. It was fun, but I clearly struggled. At one point I noticed people looking at me and realized that my lips were moving along with my feet -- 1, 2, 3...5, 6, 7. I’d like to think my awkwardness was endearing, but I felt embarrassed. At the end of the night the dance instructor told me, “Well, not quite, but you have something to work on.” Not exactly the kind of robust praise I prefer to hear.
Without the obligation of recruiting participants, I’m sure I would have abandoned the effort after just a few missteps (and I had many). The experience got me thinking about Carol Dweck’s work on motivation and self-efficacy. Dweck’s research has received a lot of attention and press in the past year, and her book Mindset has been well-received (for more about the book and links to relevant articles go to http://mindsetonline.com/). The basic premise is that those who view intelligence or other abilities as fixed -- I’m good at these things but bad at those -- tend to gravitate toward activities they’re already good at. Those who see intelligence as something malleable -- if I work hard, I can get better -- are more willing to try and stick with things that are initially difficult.
I was living the research during the party. Dancing doesn’t come easily to me. (Neither does skiing. I got the award for most perseverance after a week at ski school in Aspen.) I’ve never stuck with dance lessons for more than an evening. The initial failures to succeed have led me to believe that I just can’t dance. I prefer to avoid it so I don’t look foolish. For me to stick with it, I need to believe that eventually, with effort, I can succeed. And the instruction needs to be structured in a way that gives me a sense of progress, that reinforces my belief that I can get better.
While my story is about dancing, students everyday are experiencing similar senses of “I’m not good at this” in math, reading, history, science, music, physical education, and all the other school subjects. Why, they might think, should they even try if they’re just not good at it.
Recent neuroscience research has revealed that our abilities are not fixed at birth. With focused effort and attention, our brains can change. It’s called neuroplasticity, and we should help our students understand it. We also need to adjust our instruction to reward effort and help students see incremental progress. Adaptive technology that challenges students at the edge of their competence, that isn’t too easy or too difficult, can play an important role.
The morning after the party, I shared with my son that I was caught moving my lips with my feet while learning to swing dance. I told him that I’m not much of a dancer…yet. He said that he wasn’t much of a dancer either. I pointed my finger at him and said, “Yet.”
One of the party organizers came to me during the party and asked me to help get folks participating in the swing instruction. I long ago learned that you can’t ask people to do something that you’re not willing to do yourself. Fortunately, my wife likes to dance. Unfortunately, she married someone who doesn’t have a lot of natural rhythm or coordination. Nonetheless, we took center stage, and I loudly invited others to join us. The student-to-dance teacher ratio at the outset would have been the envy of even the most well-endowed private school. Gradually, though, we gathered a good-sized crew of dancing students. It was fun, but I clearly struggled. At one point I noticed people looking at me and realized that my lips were moving along with my feet -- 1, 2, 3...5, 6, 7. I’d like to think my awkwardness was endearing, but I felt embarrassed. At the end of the night the dance instructor told me, “Well, not quite, but you have something to work on.” Not exactly the kind of robust praise I prefer to hear.
Without the obligation of recruiting participants, I’m sure I would have abandoned the effort after just a few missteps (and I had many). The experience got me thinking about Carol Dweck’s work on motivation and self-efficacy. Dweck’s research has received a lot of attention and press in the past year, and her book Mindset has been well-received (for more about the book and links to relevant articles go to http://mindsetonline.com/). The basic premise is that those who view intelligence or other abilities as fixed -- I’m good at these things but bad at those -- tend to gravitate toward activities they’re already good at. Those who see intelligence as something malleable -- if I work hard, I can get better -- are more willing to try and stick with things that are initially difficult.
I was living the research during the party. Dancing doesn’t come easily to me. (Neither does skiing. I got the award for most perseverance after a week at ski school in Aspen.) I’ve never stuck with dance lessons for more than an evening. The initial failures to succeed have led me to believe that I just can’t dance. I prefer to avoid it so I don’t look foolish. For me to stick with it, I need to believe that eventually, with effort, I can succeed. And the instruction needs to be structured in a way that gives me a sense of progress, that reinforces my belief that I can get better.
While my story is about dancing, students everyday are experiencing similar senses of “I’m not good at this” in math, reading, history, science, music, physical education, and all the other school subjects. Why, they might think, should they even try if they’re just not good at it.
Recent neuroscience research has revealed that our abilities are not fixed at birth. With focused effort and attention, our brains can change. It’s called neuroplasticity, and we should help our students understand it. We also need to adjust our instruction to reward effort and help students see incremental progress. Adaptive technology that challenges students at the edge of their competence, that isn’t too easy or too difficult, can play an important role.
The morning after the party, I shared with my son that I was caught moving my lips with my feet while learning to swing dance. I told him that I’m not much of a dancer…yet. He said that he wasn’t much of a dancer either. I pointed my finger at him and said, “Yet.”
Friday, February 22, 2008
How different are kids today?
I’m writing this blog on the flight back from FETC, the Florida Educational Technology Conference. My visit was very brief. I flew down, cruised the exhibit floor, did a session, and flew back. In that day, though, I did feel a much higher energy level than I expected to find. With all the dire news about the economy and ongoing grumblings about NCLB, I anticipated a somewhat depressed sensibility among the conference attendees. Not so, at least around the Tom Snyder Productions booth. It was constantly crowded and full of enthusiasm. Participants were excited, curious, and scrambling to learn more about lots of products. It felt good. But that’s not what this blog is about.
Several of the sessions I breezed in and out of and a number of the informal conversations I had reflected the underlying assumption that today’s kids are different. And I often wonder what that really means. Certainly 21st century children are using tools and interacting with each other in ways that are completely alien to old folks (like yours truly). I can’t imagine as a teenager being willing to share my personal history and preferences for the world to see like my son does on Facebook. I remember in graduate school scoffing at the notion of computers and the Internet threatening the existence of libraries. How could you do research without wandering the stacks and feeling the heft and integrity of the books that contained the knowledge. Wow. What a drag it is now when a journal article isn’t online, and I actually have to open a book. Many kids never had that kind of old-fashioned library experience.
My son and graduate students text each other without a thought and flit from one computer to the next without a care. Their work and identities travel with them or wait patiently in the ether until accessed from whatever machine is at hand. I just didn’t grow up that way. I’ve had to relearn how to do some things, and the pieces of this emerging world that I have embraced don’t look the same as those growing up in it initially. (My son thinks it’s just wrong for me to be on Facebook.) So, yes, it’s clear that today’s kids look and behave in new ways; but didn’t I look strange to my parents?
My parents couldn’t understand how I could spend so much time on the phone. How could I do homework while watching TV? And that music on the stereo…. Yes, every generation is different from the preceding one, but isn’t the pace of technology outpacing our ability to keep up? These 21st century kids REALLY are different. I wonder.
I had a brief conversation with a year ago with the recently deceased Peter Lyman, a cultural anthropologist from Berkeley who had been studying digital youth culture. He gave me some sense that underneath the surface today’s kids are a lot like yesterday’s. They still value status and being part of a group. They still feel anxieties about who they are and will become. The venues for exploring those feelings have dramatically changed, but maybe the core remains familiar. Maybe. It's a good question. I’ll keep looking for the answer.
Several of the sessions I breezed in and out of and a number of the informal conversations I had reflected the underlying assumption that today’s kids are different. And I often wonder what that really means. Certainly 21st century children are using tools and interacting with each other in ways that are completely alien to old folks (like yours truly). I can’t imagine as a teenager being willing to share my personal history and preferences for the world to see like my son does on Facebook. I remember in graduate school scoffing at the notion of computers and the Internet threatening the existence of libraries. How could you do research without wandering the stacks and feeling the heft and integrity of the books that contained the knowledge. Wow. What a drag it is now when a journal article isn’t online, and I actually have to open a book. Many kids never had that kind of old-fashioned library experience.
My son and graduate students text each other without a thought and flit from one computer to the next without a care. Their work and identities travel with them or wait patiently in the ether until accessed from whatever machine is at hand. I just didn’t grow up that way. I’ve had to relearn how to do some things, and the pieces of this emerging world that I have embraced don’t look the same as those growing up in it initially. (My son thinks it’s just wrong for me to be on Facebook.) So, yes, it’s clear that today’s kids look and behave in new ways; but didn’t I look strange to my parents?
My parents couldn’t understand how I could spend so much time on the phone. How could I do homework while watching TV? And that music on the stereo…. Yes, every generation is different from the preceding one, but isn’t the pace of technology outpacing our ability to keep up? These 21st century kids REALLY are different. I wonder.
I had a brief conversation with a year ago with the recently deceased Peter Lyman, a cultural anthropologist from Berkeley who had been studying digital youth culture. He gave me some sense that underneath the surface today’s kids are a lot like yesterday’s. They still value status and being part of a group. They still feel anxieties about who they are and will become. The venues for exploring those feelings have dramatically changed, but maybe the core remains familiar. Maybe. It's a good question. I’ll keep looking for the answer.
Monday, February 4, 2008
A moment to brag…but not about myself
I recently finished evaluating student projects from the software design class I teach at the Harvard Grad School of Education. With all due respect to my past classes (which were all fabulous, each one better than the others), this year’s group really clicked, and the range of high quality projects was impressive. To complete the projects students work in small teams on a project of their choice. They gather evidence to define an educational problem they are tackling, review relevant research for clues about effective approaches, devise a plan, construct a prototype, and test and revise it. I learn an enormous amount; hopefully they do too.
I had a number of former, current, and prospective teachers in this year’s mix. They helped maintain a grounding in reality that sometimes gets lost when folks start playing with the possibilities technology offers. One group of students, who are in a mid-career teacher transition program, took on negative numbers. They wanted a program to help them with a problem they were encountering in their classrooms. Digging into the research gave them a depth of awareness about a core learning issue that few teachers have the luxury to plumb. They found no easy answers, but I suspect the knowledge and experience they did gain will serve them well down the line.
So too for the group that focused on teaching the physics of sound, the one that hoped to use a program on the Pilgrims to help elementary students see outside themselves to better understand history, and the one with fabulous activities to build reading comprehension skills. The physics group developed a pre-assessment on student conceptions of sound that was incredibly enlightening. The drawings and descriptions revealed a great deal about kids’ thinking and provided a powerful reminder about the importance of respecting the knowledge students bring with them to class. The Pilgrim project worked to push second and third graders developmentally, and the effort uncovered the edges of what young students can comprehend. The reading comprehension project simply radiated a graduate student’s passion about what she teaches in her high school English class in Florida. Her project introduced me to some very intriguing ideas about using comics and graphic novels to teach comprehension. More importantly, it allowed her to focus and deepen her thinking about some very powerful instructional lessons. Wouldn’t it be fantastic for all teachers to be able to take a semester to really grapple with some element of their teaching?
Three projects gave me hope that recently neglected parts of the curriculum may soon recover. One was a project that engaged students in using primary sources scaffolded reading and interpretation and helped turn what is too often a “read and remember” subject into one that is dynamic and alive. History is being made and interpreted everyday; we should teach it! When the “Culture Shock” team presented its project to the class, they started with a National Geographic geography online quiz. While the performance of my graduate students was pretty solid (this is Harvard, after all), the national results were pretty sorry. We are a geographically ignorant nation. That’s sad given how interconnected the world has become. The team’s simulation puts students in the role of manufacturers looking for the best resources and most responsible working conditions from around the globe. That’s real and relevant. Can’t we squeeze a little geography and culture back into the curriculum? The third project dealt with decision-making, civic responsibility, and conflict management. They developed a whole class prototype that had my students engaged in rich conversation and perspective-taking for two hours. Shouldn’t we devote a bit of school time to learning how to see and work with others?
Two groups of students gained experience by working with real clients. One team of international students partnered with a professor at the University of Athens in Greece. They aimed to design an online support environment for a course that’s part of a program training future teachers of English to native Greek speakers. The team that developed a technology-rich program for a media literacy unit in a local urban high school also had to revise and rethink based on the input from the teacher who would ultimately be using the materials. We all relearned the lesson that designing something cool might be different from designing something that will work somewhere real.
And speaking of contextual constraints, one group turned to cell phones as a delivery platform for teaching French to children and adult learners in Ghana. That team had to think through a whole new infrastructure that leverages a number of emerging technologies with solid, proven pedagogy. This mobile learning project, along with one working to incorporate some web 2.0 features into an online vocabulary-building environment, particularly highlighted the promise of new technologies. All of the projects had solid research foundations, but they each took creative paths to applying that research with the aid of technology to meet important educational needs.
I think I covered all the projects from this fall’s course. I hope I didn’t embarrass any of my students or leave anyone out. I just wanted to brag about their efforts a bit and tease out some of the general lessons that are easy to overlook in the details of each project. Nice work!
I had a number of former, current, and prospective teachers in this year’s mix. They helped maintain a grounding in reality that sometimes gets lost when folks start playing with the possibilities technology offers. One group of students, who are in a mid-career teacher transition program, took on negative numbers. They wanted a program to help them with a problem they were encountering in their classrooms. Digging into the research gave them a depth of awareness about a core learning issue that few teachers have the luxury to plumb. They found no easy answers, but I suspect the knowledge and experience they did gain will serve them well down the line.
So too for the group that focused on teaching the physics of sound, the one that hoped to use a program on the Pilgrims to help elementary students see outside themselves to better understand history, and the one with fabulous activities to build reading comprehension skills. The physics group developed a pre-assessment on student conceptions of sound that was incredibly enlightening. The drawings and descriptions revealed a great deal about kids’ thinking and provided a powerful reminder about the importance of respecting the knowledge students bring with them to class. The Pilgrim project worked to push second and third graders developmentally, and the effort uncovered the edges of what young students can comprehend. The reading comprehension project simply radiated a graduate student’s passion about what she teaches in her high school English class in Florida. Her project introduced me to some very intriguing ideas about using comics and graphic novels to teach comprehension. More importantly, it allowed her to focus and deepen her thinking about some very powerful instructional lessons. Wouldn’t it be fantastic for all teachers to be able to take a semester to really grapple with some element of their teaching?
Three projects gave me hope that recently neglected parts of the curriculum may soon recover. One was a project that engaged students in using primary sources scaffolded reading and interpretation and helped turn what is too often a “read and remember” subject into one that is dynamic and alive. History is being made and interpreted everyday; we should teach it! When the “Culture Shock” team presented its project to the class, they started with a National Geographic geography online quiz. While the performance of my graduate students was pretty solid (this is Harvard, after all), the national results were pretty sorry. We are a geographically ignorant nation. That’s sad given how interconnected the world has become. The team’s simulation puts students in the role of manufacturers looking for the best resources and most responsible working conditions from around the globe. That’s real and relevant. Can’t we squeeze a little geography and culture back into the curriculum? The third project dealt with decision-making, civic responsibility, and conflict management. They developed a whole class prototype that had my students engaged in rich conversation and perspective-taking for two hours. Shouldn’t we devote a bit of school time to learning how to see and work with others?
Two groups of students gained experience by working with real clients. One team of international students partnered with a professor at the University of Athens in Greece. They aimed to design an online support environment for a course that’s part of a program training future teachers of English to native Greek speakers. The team that developed a technology-rich program for a media literacy unit in a local urban high school also had to revise and rethink based on the input from the teacher who would ultimately be using the materials. We all relearned the lesson that designing something cool might be different from designing something that will work somewhere real.
And speaking of contextual constraints, one group turned to cell phones as a delivery platform for teaching French to children and adult learners in Ghana. That team had to think through a whole new infrastructure that leverages a number of emerging technologies with solid, proven pedagogy. This mobile learning project, along with one working to incorporate some web 2.0 features into an online vocabulary-building environment, particularly highlighted the promise of new technologies. All of the projects had solid research foundations, but they each took creative paths to applying that research with the aid of technology to meet important educational needs.
I think I covered all the projects from this fall’s course. I hope I didn’t embarrass any of my students or leave anyone out. I just wanted to brag about their efforts a bit and tease out some of the general lessons that are easy to overlook in the details of each project. Nice work!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Fractions
Dennis Deturck, a noted mathematician and the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, has provoked a little firestorm within the math education community by suggesting that schools consider delaying fraction instruction until students are dealing with higher level math. In a 60 Second Lecture a few years ago, Deturck said: “I have a simple suggestion when it comes to teaching fractions in elementary school: Don’t.” Decimals are sufficient. With a new book offering these and other ideas coming out next year, the UPenn dean’s thoughts about reforming math instruction have been making the news.
Critics of Deturck’s suggestion argue that fractions are a fundamental part of our daily lives, unless, of course, you live with the metric system. Some argue that his suggestion of pushing fractions higher up in the curriculum is elitist. Then again, we delay a lot of content until students are better prepared to handle it. Frankly, I welcome the conversations sparked by this controversy. Math instruction in the U.S. is failing a lot of kids. We should be challenging it.
I met Dennis about a year ago when we were both playing advisory roles for the PBS show Cyberchase (a good program), and we talked about fractions then. Dennis does a lot of work in the Philadelphia area schools. He has a good deal of direct experience with struggling kids, and he feels we push them into finding common denominators and computing with fractions long before they have an understanding of what fractions are. I agree.
We’re doing some work ourselves now at Tom Snyder Productions with fractions. We’ve found kids in upper elementary grades who don’t know that 3/3 is 1. They don’t know how to compare 0.6 and 5/10. And they don’t believe that a fraction can ever be greater than 1; after all, we tell them that fractions are parts of a whole. How could it ever be more than that whole? These students, who don’t get fractions, are being asked to add and otherwise manipulate them. The arcane rules they’re learning for these procedures are meaningless, confusing, and readily forgotten.
We’re seeing what we can do to build a better foundation, to help kids make the tough transition from discrete to continuous quantities, from counting how many to measuring how much. A rich, intuitive sense of fraction quantity and equivalence can provide a much stronger base for learning and understanding rational numbers. We’re working on it.
Critics of Deturck’s suggestion argue that fractions are a fundamental part of our daily lives, unless, of course, you live with the metric system. Some argue that his suggestion of pushing fractions higher up in the curriculum is elitist. Then again, we delay a lot of content until students are better prepared to handle it. Frankly, I welcome the conversations sparked by this controversy. Math instruction in the U.S. is failing a lot of kids. We should be challenging it.
I met Dennis about a year ago when we were both playing advisory roles for the PBS show Cyberchase (a good program), and we talked about fractions then. Dennis does a lot of work in the Philadelphia area schools. He has a good deal of direct experience with struggling kids, and he feels we push them into finding common denominators and computing with fractions long before they have an understanding of what fractions are. I agree.
We’re doing some work ourselves now at Tom Snyder Productions with fractions. We’ve found kids in upper elementary grades who don’t know that 3/3 is 1. They don’t know how to compare 0.6 and 5/10. And they don’t believe that a fraction can ever be greater than 1; after all, we tell them that fractions are parts of a whole. How could it ever be more than that whole? These students, who don’t get fractions, are being asked to add and otherwise manipulate them. The arcane rules they’re learning for these procedures are meaningless, confusing, and readily forgotten.
We’re seeing what we can do to build a better foundation, to help kids make the tough transition from discrete to continuous quantities, from counting how many to measuring how much. A rich, intuitive sense of fraction quantity and equivalence can provide a much stronger base for learning and understanding rational numbers. We’re working on it.
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