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Getting The Details With Common Core

Posted May 24th, 2013 by Bill

On Wednesday, OPB ran one of the better stories I have heard within mainstream media on the Common Core standards; the piece was reported by Rob Manning. The piece focused on adoption within Oregon, and contains gems like this quotation from a district superintendent:

Lazy Cow

“In eastern Oregon, we have a saying that cattle get bigger because you feed them, not because you weigh them.”

However, the story also fails to nail down some key details.

Adopting the "Smarter Balanced" Assessment

The Manning piece describes how the Oregon Board of Education recently voted to adopt the currently incomplete Smarter Balanced assessments.

The tests are a work in progress and are still two years off. But hundreds of Oregon students and teachers have already tried the new “Smarter Balanced” assessment.

While the tests are two years off, there has been concern about whether or not the tests are on schedule to meet that timetable. Recent large scale failures of online tests (see previous link) do not allay these concerns. A lack of internet connectivity required to administer the tests is also a recognized problem.

Additionally, even Arne Duncan admits that the new tests will lead to “a couple of choppy years” for schools.

So, while the tests are technically a work in progress, not acknowledging that there is uncertainty about whether the tests will be ready when they are needed is an omission that glosses over the scope of the challenges involved in rolling out the tests accompanying the new standards.

Moreover, there are some concerns about the quality of both PARCC and Smarter Balanced questions.

A more accurate description here would read:

The full content of these tests is not yet finished, and there have been concerns that the tests won't be fully ready in time. However, hundreds of Oregon students and teachers have already field-tested a draft version of the new “Smarter Balanced” assessment.

The Origins of Common Core

The original piece at OPB contains scant and incomplete information about the origin of the Common Core standards, and the conditions that led to their widespread adoption.

Unlike "No Child Left Behind," this didn’t come through Congress. State-level officials put it together -- though the Obama Administration is on board.

State level officials did not put this together. The original group that put this together consisted of a small group of people working for testing organizations, with support from the major textbook companies and Edison Learning, a charter school operator and "school turnaround" specialist with a spotty record of success. The fact that the Common Core standards are called "state" standards is good marketing, but it ignores the reality that these standards were designed at the national level, by people and organizations doing work both nationally and internationally.

Also, saying that the Obama administration is "on board" misrepresents the level of support from the Obama administation for the Common Core standards. As noted in an earlier post, the Obama administration set the adoption of Common Core standards - and of tying teacher evaluations to standardized test results - as weighted criteria in Race to the Top, and as a requirement for NCLB waivers. When federal funding is tied to adopting both a set of standards, and assessments tied to those standards, that goes far beyond being "on board."

A more accurate description here would read:

The Common Core standards were developed by representatives from textbook companies, educational organizations, testing organizations, and other individuals, with lead authorship generally attributed to David Coleman, Sue Pimentel, Bill McCallum and Jason Zimba. While the Obama administration has been careful not to advocate for the standards by name, federal education policy has provided funding incentives for states that adopted the standards, and assessments aligned to the standards.

Field Tests

Students in Oregon were subjects in field testing, but the method of choosing schools for these field tests remains unclear.

David Beasley, superintendent of the Gaston District in western Washington County, says “Well, I’d like to say we volunteered, but we didn’t.”

Unfortunately, there is no follow up here to learn why or how this district was chosen. It's clear that students were made to take the tests, and we can only assume that this was done at the expense of instructional time. In New York, Pearson was paid millions of dollars to administer field tests, sparking parent outrage and a larger Opt Out movement.

Why was this district chosen? Did they have a choice? How much instructional time was devoted to these tests in this district? How many other schools in Oregon took these tests?

The superintendent clearly is not completely pleased here. It would have been interesting to hear more - even just one or two sentences - about the backstory.

With All That Said...

The rest of the story is pretty solid. They get student observations on the tests, which is an interesting perspective that most education writers overlook or ignore entirely. But the details matter.

The Common Core standards, much curriculum aligned to those standards, the tests measuring progress relative to the standards - these different pieces were all developed by the same people. Some companies or organizations had representation in all of these elements, and Federal education policy - and more importantly, Federal education funding - supported the adoption of the Common Core standards. Adopting the standards, of course, creates an immediate need for the new tests and the new curriculum.

With this much business at stake, it's no surprise that the people working on Common Core also spend a good chunk of money lobbying:

However, the adoption of Common Core standards, the rollout of the tests related to these standards, and the need for new curriculum that supports these standards, are often treated as separate entities. On the one hand, that's technically true - the standards are just standards. But, the federal policies, especially incentives in the various strands of Race to the Top and the NCLB Waiver process, helped ensure that Common Core standard adoption and new standardized assessments occurred together.

The origins of the standards, and the web of policies tying together the standards, the assessments, and the new curriculum, is very opaque. The complexity is made worse when one starts to look at the financial interests of the organizations that played a role in developing these new standards, as many of the companies and organizations involved in developing the standards could make enormous sums of money from services ranging from textbooks, testing, teacher training, and school turnaround support.

This complexity, however, is all the more reason why stories about the Common Core need to get the background right. If you miss the background, you miss the story, and everyone remains underinformed.

Image Credit: "Lazy Cow" taken by sarah white, published under an Attribution Share-Alike license.

Common Misconceptions Around Common Core

Posted April 24th, 2013 by Bill

There's no getting around it. The Common Core standards bring out the crazy.

Benjamin Reilly does a good job of collecting the crazy in one place, but his "alert" highlights a real issue: the amount of disinformation about Common Core has the potential to derail any rational discussion about the standards.

So, for those following along at home, here is a high level breakdown of the elements of this discussion. At the outset, I want to stress that this is a summary, and that there are certainly things I am missing and/or getting wrong. Please, point out these myriad shortcomings in the comments.

The best place to start is with the Common Core standards - these are learning standards, plain and simple. There are things to like and dislike about them in their own right, but the standards are just that: standards. My preferred starting point for analysis of the standards and their implications is Tom Hoffman.

Of course, new standards require new curriculum aligned to those standards. Thank goodness, some of the people that participated in writing the standards are ready with products to sell that make sure districts meet those standards.

The Federal Race to the Top program (and it's worth noting that there are different strands of Race to the Top) emphasized adoption of Common Core standards and the implementation of student data systems. In Race to the Top, when you see language around "college and career ready standards" that is generally a stand in for Common Core. Whenever you see language around personalized learning, bringing data-driven decisions to the classroom, and/or identifying teachers with a track record of success, the means to achieve these goals are generally understood to include a comprehensive data system.

A representative sample of what this language looks like in the Race to the Top documentation is included below:

Under Proposed Priority 1, applicants must design a personalized learning environment that uses collaborative, data-based strategies and 21st century tools such as online learning platforms, computers, mobile devices, and learning algorithms, to deliver instruction and supports tailored to the needs and goals of each student

The federal data standard is at CEDS; inBloom is implementing the CEDS standard in its datastore.

When the Obama administration allowed states to get waivers for NCLB, the conditions for getting waivers reinforced some of the incentives in Race to the Top, including Common Core adoption and using student test scores as part of teacher evaluations - which, in turn, reinforced the need for a comprehensive data system.

Another facet related to - but separate from - Common Core are the new tests that accompany Common Core adoption. These tests have been referred to as the Next Generation of Assessments, and have been discussed in many places; this speech from Secretary Duncan in 2010 provides a good introduction to the concept. A recent flare-up over some of the new tests - in this case, written by Pearson - sparked an Opt-out movement in New York. Gotham Schools looks at some of the good things in the new tests.

So, a short version - we have:

  • Common Core standards;
  • New curriculum, aligned to the Common Core standards;
  • New standardized tests, aligned to the Common Core;
  • Centralized data systems to collect information on students and teachers;
  • Race to the Top, which gave money to states and districts that prioritized implementing the above components;
  • Waivers for NCLB, which reinforce some of the incentives for Race to the Top.

And, of course, this is happening against a political and social backdrop that includes heated debates about the worth of teachers unions, intense and well funded efforts to privatize public education, the agressive expansion of both for-profit and non-profit charters, cheating scandals, a narrative about how our school system is failing, and an increased reliance on standardized tests as a measure for both teacher effectiveness and school success. All of these elements are related - but ultimately distinct - strands in the conversation.

This web of related-but-separate elements makes it simultaneously honest but disingenuous when advocates for Common Core say things like, "The new standards don't mandate what teachers teach." This is honest because the standards, with some glaring exceptions, attempt to stay out of implemetation. It's a disingenuous statement, though, because the implementation of Common Core is embedded in these other elements that do place constraints on educators.

But, when you have Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin adding their misshapen four cents to the conversation, one thing is nearly certain: the progressive left will support whatever they argue against. This is a lost opportunity, because the educational system in the entire United States would benefit from a clear discussion of Common Core. The present direction of the conversation makes that increasingly unlikely.

Barriers and Contradictions

Posted April 8th, 2013 by Bill

Last weekend, we ran another open content authoring session at Lewis Elementary in Portland, OR; we'll have more details on the event in a post laster this week. During this session, we talked with several educators about ways to work around the organizational barriers they face. I'm going to list out a couple here; frequently, when we talk about the things that are absent from school learning environment, the conversation stops at blockages of YouTube and other social media sites. Really, though, there are barriers that are far more basic and pervasive than that.

Contradiction

Students Can't Save HTML Files

We spoke with an educator working within PPS who had set up a lesson where students were learning about the web, including some basic HTML and css. The lesson went fine until it came time for students to save their work; they were blocked from saving html files.

SSH is blocked

We have worked in schools, and worked with teachers in schools, where SSH is blocked. For anyone working in web development, SSH is a central tool to doing out work. Blocking SSH is akin to teaching carpentry without hammer and saws.

Districts Claim Ownership Over Teacher Intellectual Property

The way some district contracts are written, districts claim ownership over any work that is done during school hours, over a school network, or on a school-provided machine. So, if a teacher does planning during the school day, even if she is creating something entirely new that is her creation, the district position is that they - the district - own that work.

Why Should We Care?

In the current political climate of educational reform, teachers are under a tremendous amount of pressure. Teachers and schools have a lot of rhetoric directed at them about how they need to embrace "21st century learning" and teach web literacies and develop knowledge workers, all while meeting more time consuming reporting mandated by the unfunded mandates of NCLB, and having their performance measured by standardized tests that often don't examine what learning looks like.

And in the face of all this, there are district-level policies that directly interfere with a teachers ability to work. When a district claims ownership over creative work done during the work day, the district creates an enormous disincentive to work with peers during school time, as any result of the collaboration would be owned by the district and not the creators. This flies directly in the face of what networked, connected teaching should be, as it is predicated on sharing our work with others. Fortunately, as we discussed in our authoring event, incorporating openly licensed materials into our work makes district claims of ownership a moot point, as the district can still claim ownership but the license allows for free and universal reuse.

What is incredibly heartening is talking with teachers, and hearing the creativity, thought, and caring that they put into their work. There are some amazing educators working to help our kids learn, and it's great to see.

What is disheartening is to see the artificial, policy-driven barriers put in their way. Here in Oregon, we are hearing a lot of talk about improving our educational system. And some of these things actually sound okay. And please don't get me wrong: high level change is part of the solution too. But we also need to remove the unnecessary barriers to teachers doing their best work. The notion that a district owns a teacher's work needs to be addressed legislatively, and through contracts. If a district thinks that they are going to get rich from owning and selling content, they should go talk to their local newspaper - the one that went out of business three years ago.

Image Credit: "Contradiction" taken by sweetenough, published under an Attribution Share-Alike license.

Additional Questions About How inBloom, Schools, Districts, and States Store Data

Posted April 1st, 2013 by Bill

Over the last few days, I spent a little time looking over the inBloom Data Store Logical Model. Based on what I have seen there, I have some additional questions and observations about the data that is stored within the system. The questions included here are not comprehensive by any means. Rather, this is a short list compiled after spending around an hour reviewing the data model.

A. inBloom Could Be Used to Screen Immigration Status

inBloom can store information about how a person verifies their identity. The values used here could be used as a screen to check immigration status. Given some of the laws passed at the state level, I would hope that schools would not be passing on this information. What educational goals are supported by collecting this data?

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I also like how "Family Bible" is included as a proof of ID.

B. Getting Ready For People to Opt Out

inBloom appears be anticipating that people will opt out of tests. The Reason Not Tested list includes parental waivers, and parents opting out.

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Using this data, people or organizations with access to data stored in inBloom could create a rolodex of parents - complete with addresses, emails, and contact info - who are opting out of testing.

C. Getting Ready To Restrain

inBloom has the capacity to track when students are restrained.

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However, inBloom makes no similar accomodations for tracking students that are subject to corporal punishment. According to congressional testimony (quoted below), there are between 2 and 3 million occurrences of students being hit in school each year, and corporal punishment is legal in 30 states. Given how inBloom supports tracking other disciplinary actions, this seems like an odd and unnecessary omission.

The prevalence of corporal punishment of children in schools remains high in the United States. In spite of many education and other national groups calling for corporal punishment in schools to be banned, the United States remains one of the few industrialized countries allowing corporal punishment in 30 states.\2,21\ According to the Office of Civil Rights (2007), school officials, including teachers, administered corporal punishment to 223,190 school children across the nation during the 2006-2007 school year.\8,12\ Experts note that there are about 1.5 million reported cases of physical punishment in school each year, but calculate the actual number to be at least 2-3 million; as a result of such punishment, 10,000-20,000 students request subsequent medical treatment each year.\8,9,12\ During this same period, the top ten states for students being hit were, in order of highest to lowest frequency: Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia, Missouri, and Florida.

D. What Student Characteristics Really Matter?

inBloom supports the ability for schools to track Student Characteristics

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Apparently, "Immigrant" and "Single mother" are "conditions" that get recorded. See point A, above, about how inBloom could be used to target families based on immigration status.

E. Collecting Social Security Numbers

According to the enumerations, Social Security Numbers are among the ID's stored by inBloom for both Staff and Students.

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Additionally, inBloom's FAQ states that social security numbers will be stored if everyone agrees that they should:

inBloom discourages storing social security numbers in its data service, but legally school districts and state may record student social security numbers. inBloom prohibits storage of social security numbers in the data store unless agreed to by both inBloom and the state/district on a case-by-case basis.

However, less than a month ago, Iwan Streichenberger, the CEO of inBloom appeared to say (via Twitter) that inBloom does not store Social Security numbers. As I asked a couple days ago, however, it looks like inBloom defers to states and/or districts, and that they will store what they are provided.

Closing Thoughts

In many ways, inBloom is helping to bring visibility to the issue of data collection, data storage, and data sharing. inBloom is a data store, collecting data from many sources into one location. inBloom is different than other past efforts for its scale and partnership efforts. It would be great to see inBloom and the various agencies collecting data be more proactive about how data is collected, when the collected data can be reviewed by students, teachers, and parents, and how inaccurate date in the system can be reviewed or deleted. Right now, inBloom appears pretty silent on most of these questions, which does nothing to dispel concerns about how - and by whom - the data will be used.

When data is collected at scale, on a large number of people, over time, the role of for-profit companies in the ecosystem needs to be blatantly, obviously clear. When a data set is large enough, even a small number of data points from within that data set can be used to target and identify individuals within that data set. Given the value of student data, and the lack of transparency around how that data is used once it has been handed over, both inBloom and any schools, districts, and states collecting data need to clarify the rules, and how people can be certain these rules are being followed. In the absence of guarantees, students and parents need to be given access to their data so they can review and correct it as needed.

As we have seen, sometimes data is completely worthless. Moreover, if a student is at a school where corporal punishment is practiced, how much can we trust a discipline report from the same person who hits kids in the name of education? There are lot of open questions here, and these open questions undermine the value of any data that would be collected at scale.

Most importantly, kids aren't going to school to provide researchers with data points. The purpose of school isn't to get people comfortable with life under constant observation. The endless efforts at data collection to capture what "works" with learning have the potential to disrupt the learning they are trying to capture. Learning requires trust; treating students like subjects - rather than people - is a surefire way to erode trust before it has a chance to get started. Without clear, obvious, and fully transparent rules around data collection and how that data is managed, we run the risk of observing our public education system into irrelevance.

Beverly Hall, Cheating, and Ruling By Fear

Posted April 1st, 2013 by Bill

When Beverly Hall ran the Atlanta public school system, she oversaw gains on student test scores on standardized tests throughout the city. These gains resulted in her being named the 2009 Superintendent of the Year, and collecting $580,000 in performance bonuses over 10 years.

According to an indictment handed down on Friday, Beverly Hall and 35 other people within the Atlanta school system conspired to cheat. The cheating consisted of people changing student answers on standardized tests. The gains in Atlanta - based largely in improved test scores on standardized tests - are likely not real.

Beverly Hall and Arne Duncan at the White House

While the cheating in Atlanta - and the level of cheating - is horriffic, it's not new - and there are some indicators that it could be widespread. With that in mind, it's worthwhile to look at the conditions that existed under Dr. Hall's leadership that are cited in the indictment as contributing to the scandal.

The cheating scandal also has implications for the integrity of data collected on students. Given the push to collect more data, and to use that data more widely, the actual quality and accuracy of data needs to be unquestioned. Cheating scandals like this make that seem like an unreachable goal.

The quotations in A, B, and C are from the New York Times. The quotation in section D is from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A. Merit Pay, and Fear of Job Security

Teachers and principals whose students had high test scores received tenure and thousands of dollars in performance bonuses. Otherwise, as one teacher explained, it was “low score out the door.”

Ms. Parks, a 17-year veteran, said a reason she had kept silent so long was that as a single mother, she could not afford to lose her job.

B. No Excuses Mentality

Her (Hall's) focus on test scores made her a favorite of the national education reform movement, nearly as prominent as the schools chancellors Joel I. Klein of New York City and Michelle Rhee of Washington. Like them, she was a fearsome presence who would accept no excuses when it came to educating poor children. She held yearly rallies at the Georgia Dome, rewarding principals and teachers from schools with high test scores by seating them up front, close to her, while low scorers were shunted aside to the bleachers.

C. Ruling By Fear, and Job Security

Dr. Hall was known to rule by fear. She gave principals three years to meet their testing goals. Few did; in her decade as superintendent, she replaced 90 percent of the principals.

Teachers and principals whose students had high test scores received tenure and thousands of dollars in performance bonuses. Otherwise, as one teacher explained, it was “low score out the door.”

D. Retribution Against People Who Spoke Out

When a teacher at C.W. Hill Elementary complained about cheating by a colleague in 2005, Hall suspended the accused educator for 20 days. As for the whistle-blower, Hall fired her.

Closing Thoughts

Richard Hyde, one of the investigators whose work led to the indictment, made the following observation after listening to secretly taped recordings of the people cheating:

As he listened to the hours of secretly recorded conversations of cheating teachers and principals, he was surprised. “I heard them in unguarded moments,” Mr. Hyde said. “You listen, they’re good people. Their tone was of men and women who cared about kids.”

When we talk about improving our educational system, how do we ensure that the structure around teachers and students support and reward our best work? How many more cheating scandals do our students need to endure before we begin to look at - and jettison - the failed experiments of merit pay, no excuses, and ruling by fear?

Image Credit: Picture of Beverly Hall and Arne Duncan at the White House found at http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1866

A Course I Would Love To See

Posted March 3rd, 2013 by Bill

I'd love to see a Stats or Data Analysis course powered by selected elements of the following data sets:

This course could help develop an incredibly broad range of skillsets, and cross-curricular learning opportunities. In addition to learning the basic statistical skills required to make sense of the datasets, students could also learn the work required to clean up datasets to the point where they are usable.

The data analysis work could also tie in to learning about mapping, or other visual means of representing the stories suggested by the information we collect. Increasingly, data literacy helps shape media literacy, as many claims within the media are predicated on a specific interpretation of data.

Finally, an increased awareness of data would empower learners to use the data collected about them to become the architects of their own learning. Students would learn the skills necessary to analyze the data collected about them by the various systems that track them. Part of this course could include professional development for teachers, delivered by students within the course, to support teachers interpreting the data collected about their school and the learners within their school.

Given that the amount of data collected about people is likely to continue to increase, we have an obligation to give people the tools needed to make good use of the data.

Reclaiming Personalized Learning

Posted February 15th, 2013 by Bill

I landed my first job teaching late in the winter, about eight months after I graduated college. I was hired by a school district near Boston to tutor a 15 year old kid - a sophomore - who had gotten expelled from school for pulling a knife on another kid. I was his tutor for his core academic subjects - English, History, Algebra, Biology. I learned later that no one expected him to show up, but as I hadn't been let in on that secret yet, I made the time to go and meet with all of his teachers, find out where he had left off in the curriculum, and hopefully (and yes, I recognize how hopelessly naive this sounds) get some insight into what he was like as a student.

Bob's teachers (that's not his name, but that's what we'll call him in this story) were not excited to talk with me. His English, History, and Algebra teachers refused to meet with me, and his Biology teacher met me with some questions of his own.

"Why are you here?" he asked me, as he gave me photocopies of a textbook, along with tests and quizzes. "In the time that we have talked today, I've seen more of you than I've seen of Bob in the last month. What do you really think you'll accomplish here?"

I mumbled something about wanting to make a difference, but really, I hadn't thought about it that much.

But the screwy thing was, Bob showed up, and kept showing up. We met at the Brookline Public Library. We spent two hours each weekday covering the four core subjects; I assigned homework, along with quizzes, tests, papers, and other assignments. And for the most part, he did the work. After I had been stood up by his English teacher, I asked my boss - who worked in the office of Home and Hospital Instruction - if I could have some latitude in book selection. She looked at me funny, and a couple days later gave me a book list. I stopped reading it as soon as I saw that A Clockwork Orange was on there, and the next day, Bob got a library card, checked out the book, and started reading.

And so things went for about a month. On Fridays, I would go down to the district office, hand in my time sheet and Bob's completed and graded work, talk with the receptionist, and then go home.

Then, on a Monday, Bob didn't show up. On Tuesday either. Over the weekend, we had started in on one of the unnaturally warm stretches that can slip into long Northeastern winters - somewhere between three to seven days of sunshine, and warmth that tempts you into thinking that winter is done. I left messages at his house - this was in the dark ages, before cell phones, before texting, before even email was in mainstream use - but had heard nothing back. I figured I had lost Bob to the weather, and maybe for good. On Wednesday, though, he was there - ten minutes late, but there.

"What's up," I asked. "Where were you?"

Bob was always pretty quiet. He was a tall kid - taller than me - and skinny, with the beginnings of a peachfuzz mustache that probably wouldn't require shaving until he was in his twenties. But today, when he spoke, he was quieter than normal, and I had to lean in to hear him. "My friend got shot."

"When?"

"I'm not completely sure," Bob said. "Either Sunday night or Monday morning."

"You okay?" I asked him.

He nodded.

"You involved?" I asked.

He shook his head, no.

"I don't know who did it though. And I don't know if he's okay."

"You want to try and find out?"

Bob looked up. "Yeah. How?"

And that day, I showed Bob how to do basic research within a newspaper - nothing big, but the library had the print versions of the Globe going back two weeks, and we started with the Metro section, and we broke down how the whole paper was organized. The reference librarian also got into the mix, and I let Bob know that reference librarians know how to find out about everything. After around forty-five minutes, Bob found a blurb that gave him information about his friend - he had been shot late Sunday night, had been taken to a hospital, and was in stable condition.

After that day, I continued tutoring Bob for the next few weeks; eventually he was placed in a halfway house for at-risk youth, and I don't know what happened with him after that. On my last week, when I handed in my time sheet, I met with my boss.

"Most of the time, these things don't last more than a week," she told me.

It took me a second to realize that "these things" meant a kid working with a tutor.

"Most kids stop coming, if they even come at all. We do what we can, but once a kid has been expelled, we don't have a lot of options. Seven weeks is probably some kind of record."

I think about Bob, and the kids like him, when I hear about people talking about how "Big Data" will save education, and enable more effective "personalized" learning.

And I wonder what Bob would look like in one of these systems:

InBloom Discipline XML

The great thing about data is that, with enough points, we begin to have a collection of information against which we can begin to look for patterns, and, hopefully, to ask good questions. But the bad thing about data is that it looks suspiciously like a fact, which leads to good data being put to bad use. Additionally, it can mislead people into thinking that activities that don't produce a data trail are somehow less worthwhile.

The push for more "personalized" learning is occurring against a backdrop where teachers - and teacher's unions - are being blamed for an outsized percentage of what is "broken" with our educational system. But, as we listen to the finely tuned and user tested rhetoric about our broken educational system, it's worth remembering that some of the "reformers" see teachers as little more than personnel expenses. As Chris Lehmann observes, this attitude isn't something that people are going out of their way to hide:

In the spring of 2012, at the opening keynote of Education Innovation Summit, Michael Moe told a room full of education entrepreneurs that over 90% of the many billions of dollars spent on education in the United States was spent on personnel, and the only way to further monetize the education sector, as he called it, was to reduce personnel costs. To the few teachers in the room his point was clear–if you want to use technology to make money and education you have to find a way to reduce the number of teachers. And there are many powerful people who seem to agree with Mr. Moe’s statements.

The quest for personalization addresses the issue Moe raises: it allows for less money to be spent on personnel, therefore allowing companies selling personalized solutions to "monetize the education sector." Translated, this roughly equates to firing teachers in order to hand public dollars to private companies. Part of the impetus for this is buried in the innocuous phrase, "personalized learning."

In today's landscape, sitting in front of a screen using educational games is considered "personalized learning" because the user can choose their path in the game.

Rocketship

Spending hours on computerized adaptive tests is called "personalized learning" because the questions shift based on what you answer right or wrong.

Watching videotaped lectures is called "personalized learning" because the learner can choose to rewind or rewatch the video as many times as they want.

In the hands of a marketer, personalized learning is sold as the answer to our educational problems. With more data, they want us to believe, we can get people the content they need, just when they need it. The unspoken piece to this - and this is the subtext - is that a machine can do it better than a person. We need to be clear: that is not personalized learning. That is algorithmically mediated learning. Coming from a logical place - from a place where actual words mean actual things - it's difficult to make the argument that greater personalized learning needs to occur with fewer persons involved in the process.

I don't know if I made any lasting impact on Bob's life. For the purposes of this blog post, my N is 1, and all I have is a rambling anecdote devoid of anything that even resembles a data point. But, the notion that a person can be improved by well-timed inputs of the "right" data seems simplistic at best. One thing I do know: the day Bob learned how to break down a newspaper to study current events, he was more focused and more engaged than at any time I had seen him. When I think of truly personalized education, this is what I think about: an ongoing flow of action, reaction, conversation - and hopefully growth - that occur when people think about what they want to learn, and how they want to get there.

Image Credit: The image of the boy in the chair is reused from Rocketship’s Learning Labs & The Cost Of Personalization, by Dan Meyer, published under an Attribution license.

When We Talk About Open Content, This Is What We Talk About

Posted January 1st, 2013 by Bill

Over the next six months, we have three scheduled events supporting communities developing open content. The three scheduled events are taking place on the following dates and times:

Climbing

These events are being run unconference style. We will be documenting the planning (both logistics and content-related) to run a successful event over the next few weeks. Our goal is to create an replicable blueprint that supports anyone, anywhere putting on their own open content event. We will update this post with information on the San Francisco and Portland events in early 2013.

We have also talked with a few other people in different cities, and it is possible that we will add other dates to this list. If you are interested in hosting an event, please be in touch. We want to see community focused open content authoring events become a common part of the landscape.

As part of our work with open content, we are also working on freely available open source web-based software that will allow communities to create, distribute, remix, and redistribute their own open content. This software allows organizations to create their own resources, texbooks, and supporting material, which they can then share if, when, and how they choose. We have already built the tools that allow this content to be exported in ePub 3.0 and .mobi formats, so that any content created within this site can be browsed on the web, and/or exported and read on Android and iOS devices. We are also putting considerable focus on the user experience of authors, and of the design of the site across all devices that connect to the internet. As part of this work (as well as for some client work) we recently built Zoundation, a Foundation-based theme. This earlier writeup provides additional background on Foundation.

Our goal is to be as close to fully transparent in our work as possible; any software we release will be freely available under an open source license, and as an installable site built in Drupal, and we will regularly blog about our progress and our process. After the Open Content event in Philadelphia, we are presenting at Educon on this work, and looking to grow the network of potential collaborators. To be clear, when I say "collaborators" in this context, I mean both technological and educational, as both skillsets are required to make this grow in a sustainable way.

While we have written about open content in the past, we find it both useful and necessary to revisit our definitions and make sure that we're not working on any assumptions that are out of date, or otherwise crazy. In general terms, when we talk about open content, this is part of the foundation holding up the conversation.

Granularity

When creating open content, it needs to be easy to break a collection of resources up into its component parts. As an example of what we mean, a unit on the French Revolution can stand on its own, but someone coming along looking to adapt the material should be able to extract the information directly relevant to the Tennis Court Oath, and only use that.

Some formats (pdf, flash, SCORM, etc), regardless of how the content is licensed, require work to disassemble into their component parts and reuse the material. At times, organizations that market their work as open put technological barriers between users and content as a means to complicate the process of reuse. Keeping the concept of granularity in mind when designing systems for open content, and when authoring open content, can help ensure that no unnecessary barriers to use and reuse are placed between people and information.

Licensing

Licensing is a topic worthy of many posts; over the years, many of these posts have been written by people far more knowledgeable on the subject than me.

As a matter of personal preference, I strongly prefer the Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license. This license allows for reuse and modification, by anyone, in any work, provided they are not using it it commercially, provided they attribute our original work, and provided they share it under a license that supports non-commercial reuse. Part of the reason I like this license is that if someone wants to reuse my work commercially, all they need to do is ask. The non-commercial clause is a lot better than the status quo, and the need to ask permission is the same as material covered under a traditional copyright.

However, when remixing content from various sources, the combination of the Non-Commercial and Share-Alike licenses can prevent reuse of content from different sources. As an example, a person has content from two sources. One is licensed under the Non-Commercial Attribution Share-Alike license. The second source is licensed under an Attribution Share-Alike license.

The Attribution part is easy, but things start to get dicey with the Share-Alike portion of the license. It's very unclear what license the derivative work can or should be released under. Within the FunnyMonkey office, Jeff Graham has been telling me this for years, and due to my innate stubbornness I have only come to realize the accuracy of what he has been telling me in the last few months. This post on data migration also demonstrates some of the issues at play here; while the focus of the writeup is data migration, the section on License Chaining is directly relevant to open content.

And, until this gray area gets cleaned up, we are advocating for use of the Attribution Share-Alike license. The thinking behind this is that the Share-Alike component of the license will prevent anyone from appropriating open content and interfering with the free reuse of derivative works. It's a good thing the textbook companies don't have many lawyers, and that they aren't litigious about inane details.

The short version: licensing is not simple, but the Attribution Share-Alike license simplifies more problems than it creates.

Sharing, and the various layers of sharing

So far in this post, we have spent some time focusing on the ideal setup, rather than the practicalities.

However, all open content becomes open through a simple act of sharing. There are countless reasons people give to not share their material: It's not good/coherent/clear/polished enough; I only wrote this for me; I need to be able to collect usage data, etc, etc, etc. However, let's set these arguments aside, and ask a simple question:

What happens if a piece of work gets shared out in any format, be it a pdf, a word-processing document, a google doc, something linked within a Tumblr or Posterous - really, just some low level, relatively straightforward mechanism to share?

First, no one might find it. But, that's no different than the status quo. If work isn't shared, no one will find it there either.

Second, no one might use it. See answer above.

But the reality is, if its on the internet, someone, somewhere will stumble across it. And, out of the people stumbling across it, someone will find it useful.

Reuse cannot occur without the initial act of sharing starting things off.

And yes, I realize that earlier, I was talking about granularity, and the need for formats that support reuse, etc. And all of that still holds, but if we look at creating open content as a continually ongoing process of refinement, redistribution, and reuse, information in less usable formats can be curated and converted into more usable formats. The process of bringing good information into reusable formats is one of the key goals of the Open Content Barn Raisings that we are holding.

And it all starts with sharing what you have created under a license that supports reuse.

Web to print

I have seen many open content initiatives get mired in the perceived need to support a web to print (not "ctrl-P" print, but "professional textbook" print) workflow. This is a business or organizational need, not a learning need. It's 2013; between a responsive design that works on the web across devices, .mobi and ePub export, and the ability to (ctrl-P) print sections, we have the majority of learner-centered use cases covered. If an organization needs to be able to support print on demand, they can develop a workflow that makes sense for their organization - this is a problem that has been solved in many ways, but it is not a foundational concern for learners. I haven't encountered many learners reading content on their phone saying, "I really wish I could convert this free ebook into a textbook I could pay sixty dollars for."

Open Content as Teacher Professional Development

If a group of teachers are working together to develop resources to both use in their classes and get reused internationally, that sounds like a great use of professional development hours. One of the benefits of having content reused over time, across geographic areas, is that teachers working within the community will have the benefit of feedback on their work from a broader range of professionals than is possible within a single school, district, college, or university.

We have talked about this before, but a broader use and adoption of open content has the potential to shift how we think about Teacher Professional Development. Additionally, if we look at a body of open content that has been created by a group of educators over time, that body of work begins to look suspiciously like a professional work portfolio.

Closing Notes

Open Content is about many things, but a facet that surfaces repeatedly over time has to do with choices. Using open content is a clear way of demonstrating to teachers and learners that we have options. Over the next few weeks, in the lead up to the first event in January, we'll start documenting the planning steps needed to hold an event, and the steps needed to create good open content.

Image Credit: "Climbing" taken by Alex Indigo, published under an Attribution license.

Flipped Classrooms Are A Gateway Drug To Intentional Pedagogy

Posted December 31st, 2012 by Bill

At the outset of this post, I feel the need to freely admit a bias against the term "flipped classroom." The term feels like an attempt to re-invent something that was already there, as many teachers had been inverting the typical class structure for decades under various names: project based learning, student-centered learning, student-paced learning, or just good teaching.

But I digress.

Another Flip

The practice of inverting a classroom, and reserving class time for more quality interactions with and among learners is obviously a great pedagogical practice. The strongest advocates of doing what they call "flipping" a class are doing this as a change from their current teaching style, or pedagogical approach. These starting points are not always clearly defined, but an important element to consider here is that transforming one's pedagogical approach to what some people are calling flipped requires an increased attention to how time is used inside and outside the classroom, how activities should be paced, how activities and learning should support one another, how support structures can be used inside and outside the class, and if or how various elements of work should be assessed.

In other words, the transition to something new requires an attention to detail. Is anyone examining the possibility that some of the benefits currently attributed to what people call flipping are really attributable to more intentional pedagogy, and an increased focus on the craft of teaching?

If the construct of a flipped classroom is what we need to make the transition to student-centered and student-paced learning, then hey, by any means necessary. But my dissatisfaction with the term "flipped" has little or nothing to do with the practice, and everything to do with how a buzzword minimizes the work and skill of practioners focusing on the skills required to meet the needs of every student. Intentional pedagogy is hard work, and time consuming. Attention to detail requires a significant amount of planning time, and significant work after the fact to determine what was effective, and what wasn't. Flipped classrooms, the construct, feels like the Atkins Diet of the educational world. The work of skilled educators is better than that.

Image Credit: "Another Flip" taken by Hc_07, published under an Attribution NonCommercial license.

The Common Core and 70 Percent Nonfiction

Posted November 27th, 2012 by Bill

Common Core is getting a lot of buzz of late, but one element that has received scant attention is starting to draw notice: by grade 12, fully 70% of all reading should be nonfiction.

Moreover, the guiding force behind this increased emphasis on nonfiction has a simple origin - the need to prepare students for the NAEP:

The 2009 reading framework of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) requires a high and increasing proportion of informational text on its assessment as students advance through the grades. The (Common Core) Standards aim to align instruction with this framework so that many more students than at present can meet the requirements of college and career readiness.

For those of you playing along, the switch there was impressively fast. The first sentence clearly states, "The 2009 reading framework of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) requires a high and increasing proportion of informational text on its assessment as students advance through the grades."

Rotten to the Core

The transformation occurs in the second sentence. An accurate sentence would read: "The (Common Core) Standards aim to align instruction with this framework so that many more students than at present can earn higher scores on the NAEP." That sentence, however, would be too honest. The actual phrasing used on the Common Core web site attempts to create an equivalency between success on the NAEP and college and career readiness. However, that claim is not supported by the NAEP, who state clearly:

The achievement levels should continue to be interpreted and used with caution.

In other words, the Common Core Standards require that fiction be de-emphasized in an effort to align with a standardized test whose results should be interpreted and used with caution. Or: we are cutting fiction from the curriculum as part of an unproven thought experiment.

David Coleman, a key player in the development of the Common Core standards (and now the head of the College Board), is more blunt about it. At a presentation titled Bringing the Common Core to Life he weighs in on the personal narrative, fiction's ugly cousin:

(A)s you grow up in this world you realize people really don't give a shit about what you feel or what you think. What they instead care about is can you make an argument with evidence, is there something verifiable behind what you're saying or what you think or feel that you can demonstrate to me. It is rare in a working environment that someone says, "Johnson, I need a market analysis by Friday but before that I need a compelling account of your childhood."

Watch the video here, and read a transcription with some commentary. Comments quoted above start at around 7:45.

Taking things through to their logical conclusion, we need to de-emphasize literature because the bosses supervising the jobs of the future probably won't ask students to write about how they feel.

There is a lot to be said about the shaky foundation used to launch a de-emphasis on literature in our schools, but it's also worth taking a step back and looking at what is happening around the country. In Montana, it looks like we'll be seeing a bill that requires public schools to teach intelligent design alongside evolution. In Tennessee, teachers can now address intelligent design in their classrooms. In Louisiana, schools that get public money study creationism alongside evolution.

Given the developments that are transpiring on local level, it looks like the line between fiction and nonfiction is becoming increasingly blurred. Fortunately, I'm pretty confident that some of the large companies invited to help create the the Common Core Standards have some products that will help.

But all kidding aside, people who make the incorrect assumption that the requisite critical thinking skills can't be taught or acquired through literature are missing the point. Education isn't linear. The pace of education isn't even, not for a class, and certainly not for individual people. Literature, taught well, lays the foundation for people asking hard questions, and for people uncovering difficult truths. And for those who have the hubris to declare that they have the knowledge and the foresight to identify the knowledge needed for the careers of the future, when many of those careers don't exist yet, I ask you: what were the must-read nonfiction texts of Shakespeare's time? How have they held up? Around the same time that Fitzgerald was writing Gatsby, Hesse was writing Siddhartha, and Joyce was writing Ulysses, what nonfiction works were being written that have even close to a comparable impact in the present day? I say this not to belittle nonfiction, as nonfiction is an essential piece of our literary world. However, the reason that some fiction and poetry stands up over time more than nonfiction is because literature exposes truths that have proven useful over time and across cultures. The idea that college and career readiness requires us to abandon this foundation shows a lack of understanding of both the lessons available through literature and the skills required to excel as a professional.

Image Credit: "Rotten to the Core" taken by Don Shall, published under an Attribution NonCommercial No Derivatives license.

NOTE on January 26, 2013: someone left a great comment about the comparison of fiction and non-fiction. While doing spam cleanup, I accidentally deleted it. Ugh. My apologies to the person who took the time to comment. END NOTE

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