Cooperative Learning Presentation

Yes I know my presentation is extremely late but I figured better late than never! :)


http://prezi.com/junncrusseb-/cooperative-learning/

#8 Cooperative Learning

Up to this point I have defined cooperative learning, discussed the key elements and types of cooperative learning, how to use it, and techniques of cooperative learning. How now do we use cooperative learning in the science classroom?

Science by nature includes group work so using cooperative learning in science classrooms makes sense. Giving our students the experience of working together to learn science will reinforce the collaborative nature of science. As a result of working in groups students are involved in problem solving together, improving communication skills, and gaining creative and critical thinking skills. These skills help prepare our students for the demands of the work environment and daily living.

I feel that my previous posts give plenty of evidence that cooperative learning can work, especially in science classrooms. It is not an easy teaching strategy to employ and will take time for the teacher and students to master, but it is definitely worth the effort for successful learning to occur.

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http://www.ejmste.com/v3n1/EJMSTEv3n1_Zakaria&Iksan.pdf

Education reform presentation

Go to Prezi! Read, watch, and think about Michelle Rhee, Gene Glass, and Diane Ravitch. Thanks, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

http://prezi.com/xso6tktta_2r/education-reform/

Education Reform - Technology

My last foray into education reform comes from Paul E. Peterson’s Saving Schools: From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning. (2010) This book is more of a history of the American school, and as the title suggests, begins at the beginning and offers a possible vision of the future. As such, it is relevant to the current conversation on reform. Since a good deal of the emphasis in the Methods for Teaching Secondary Science course has been about technology (in part because this is an online class!), I would feel remiss if I didn’t touch on the subject. Although I cite Peterson’s work as a launching point, his work only treats virtual education in the last chapter. He goes into depth with an example from the Florida Virtual School, and proceeds to discuss the business model, pedagogy in the virtual world, accountability, and cost effectiveness. In terms of reform, I can only consider virtual classrooms as a supplementary vision. In the short term – on a public school basis (pK – 12) it is no more realistic than the 100% competency that NCLB demands for 2014. I’m no Luddite, and neither fear technology nor discount its potential to be part of the solution. But it is certainly no panacea either. As Diane Ravitch clearly articulated, the “fundamentals of good education are to be found in the classroom, the home, the community, and the culture.”

Education Reform – Gene Glass

My next expedition into the topic of education reform falls along a trajectory that is not entirely random and finds me feeling a small but satisfying personal vindication on two fronts (to be explained later). I became intensely interested in the topic after seeing Michelle Rhee on Oprah. Although Rhee is a compelling force in education reform, I felt something lacking. With that in mind, I endeavored to give her vision a closer look. Still not satisfied (and not convinced that the course of action she and her colleagues advocated was the definitive answer), I decided to turn to more specific issues that were closer to home. This led me to choose to investigate two reports from the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute which dealt with the state of the Milwaukee Public Schools and with the status of Wisconsin high school education. Although these reports were insightful, I felt they were both biased and fell short of offering any lucid insight. Reading The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch moved me in a direction that felt consistent with a broader vision of both what I consider to be the goals of education and the shortcomings of the loudest voices in the contemporary reform movement.
When I plucked Fertilizers, Pills, and Magnetic Strips: The Fate of Public Education in America by Gene Glass (2008) from the bookshelf, my first thought was the similarity in the title to Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel. Diamond is a geographer, but is widely known (if not always respected) in anthropological and other social science circles. Gene Glass readily acknowledges that this was intentional (my first little vindication) in his preface. Dr. Glass admits his empiricist training (he did early and influential work in statistical meta-analysis), and his shout out to Diamond is grounded in the belief that human actions and choices do not “arise ex nihilo to shape modern society” but that there is “a chain of influences” that move and shape our society. (p.xii) He goes on to say, and this is the crux of his position, that

“On a much larger scale, I have come to see the continuous debates and attempts at reform of public education in America as linked to a set of influences largely unseen and unacknowledged, but when pointed out to any intelligent and objective observer strike a note of recognition and acceptance. My analysis is akin to that of the cultural materialist in anthropology, most notably its most influential proponent Marvin Harris, in that it combines elements of both Karl Marx (in the emphasis given to the forces of production in industrialized societies) and Thomas Malthus (in the emphasis given to the implications of expanding human populations). These two forces have much to say about a wide range of phenomena that pass before our eyes in modern society, in particular, how public institutions like education emerge, grow, and recede.” (p.xiii)

In my initial post on Michelle Rhee and company I used a metaphor likening her tone and actions to Chicken Little. Glass echoes this thought (my second small vindication) when he states that

“This book is about debates that never seem to end and why they don’t. It is about people who insist the sky is falling, when in fact things are about the same way they have always been. It is about farms and fertilizers and tractors and how many people it takes to feed a nation; about why nobody lives in the country anymore and why people in the city don’t want as many children as they used to want. It’s about pills that prevent pregnancies and discoveries in medicine that mean we can expect to live about twice as long as our great grandparents did. It is about robots that can build cars better than human hands can, and never ask for time off. It is about how people carry less money with them these days, and how the plastic card in their billfold or purse no longer seems like real money. It’s about people spending themselves into debt and corporations that welcome them there, and about those that retire only to go back to work because they have outlived their savings. It is about a nation growing older and poorer and caring less about the fate of those unlike themselves who were never invited here any way. And this book is about how all of these things are interrelated and under the control of some of the strongest human drives: for material comfort and for feelings of safety, drives that undergo transformations across a lifetime into the need to consume and the wish to segregate oneself from others who are different. And this book is about how all of this plays out in the arena of the public education system, long the pride of a young nation and now in danger of being abandoned” (p.3-4)

Undoubtedly this reveals my own bias, not only as an anthropologist and social scientist, but also as an individual who struggles to see black and white, struggles to see simple fixes to complex problems, and is unwilling to chuck it all. In education reform, we should be willing to step back from politics and slogans and ask ourselves what the underlying causes for our difficulties are. If we know where we need to go, then perhaps we can draw a map. Maybe education reform needs a curriculum.
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Glass, G.V. (2008). Fertilizers, pills, and magnetic strips: the fate of public education in america by . Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing Inc.

Education Reform – Diane Ravitch

Departing from the ideas of both Rhee and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute’s reports, I would like to turn to other print resources. The first of these is The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch. (2010) In eleven chapters, Dr. Ravitch lays out what for me have been the most coherent and reasonable agreements that I have read on education reform.

Highlights include the first chapter, where Ravitch exposes her metaphysical journey from believer to skeptic. Where she had once supported and argued for reforms including “testing, accountability, choice, and markets, I now found myself experiencing some profound doubts about these same ideas.” (p.1) In the following chapters, she goes on to

“explain why I have concluded that most of the reform strategies that school districts, state officials, the Congress, and federal officials are pursuing, that mega-rich foundations are supporting, and that editorial boards are applauding are mistaken.” (p.14)

Dr. Ravitch guides the reader from the genesis of the modern reform movement when A Nation at Risk was published in 1983 (p. 24) to the current environment dominated by No Child Left Behind. She succinctly contrasts the two visions by stating that while

“A Nation at Risk was animated by a vision of a good education as the foundation of a better life for individuals and for our democratic society… No Child Left Behind had no vision other than improving test scores in reading and math.” (p. 29)

Risk is a vision of holistic curriculum, but NCLB is a cul-de-sac of data.

Ravitch devotes entire chapters to different reform models, including the business model, NCLB, accountability, and privately funded foundations (Gates, Walton, Broad). She considers each of these to be “fads” which “threaten to destroy public education.” (p. 222). The reason (other than that the data to supports these methods is spotty) is simple. The “constant reform churn is not the approach typically found in countries with successful schools.” (p. 224) While reformers “continue to look for short cuts and quick answers” Ravitch maintains that the “fundamentals of good education are to be found in the classroom, the home, the community, and the culture.” (p.225) To me, this makes perfect sense. A robust curriculum “road map” in every discipline can lead the way. (p. 236) “To paraphrase the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland ,” she writes “if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
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Ravitch, D. (2010). The death and life of the great american school system: how testing and choice are undermining education . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Education Reform - The Status of High School Education in Wisconsin

Following my last post on the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute’s analysis of the Milwaukee Publics Schools, I decided to go back to the well and read their report on The Status of High School Education in Wisconsin:A Tale of Two Wisconsins. (2006) But before I move ahead, I have another self-reflective confession to make. I am reading hard copies of WPRI’s reports, which look and feel legitimate and by all appearances are well researched, written, and documented. That said, I thought it might be prudent to think a little deeper about my source. To begin with, the WPRI report is a not peer reviewed material. Second, it only takes a quick trip to their web page to read their mission statement, which I only partially reported in my last post.

“The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute Inc., established in 1987, is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit Institute working to engage and energize Wisconsinites and others in discussions and timely action on key public policy issues critical to the State’s future, its growth and prosperity. The Institute’s research and public education activities are directed to identify and promote public policies in Wisconsin which are fair, accountable and cost effective. The Institute is guided by a belief that competitive free markets, limited government, private initiative, and personal responsibility are essential to our democratic way of life.”

This expanded version reveals a far more conservative slant, verified by Wikipedia’s entry

“Wisconsin Policy Research Institute is a non-profit conservative think tank advocating free market economics in the state of Wisconsin. It has played a prominent role in the development of the State's school voucher program and has formulated recommendations for state prison policy.”

So, with full disclosure concerning the possible bias of the research, what does the WPRI have to say about secondary education in Wisconsin? As the second half of the report title suggests the state is experiencing an achievement gap, an obvious area for reform. What is not obvious is what the solutions are. The paper readily acknowledges a “picture of two Wisconsins” where in

“Wisconsin’s top tier high schools 86% of the students score proficient or higher on the tenth grade test. This contrasts sharply with the lowest tier high schools, where only 60% score proficient or better. The averages of this lower tier are affected by the disturbing performance of the state’s two lowest-performing districts—Menominee and Milwaukee—in which approximately 30% of the students score proficient or higher. However, when data from these two districts are excluded, only 62% of students in the lower tier districts score proficient or higher on standardized tests.”

This performance gap is widening. The study finds “that the gap between high- and low-achieving high schools is getting worse rather than better.” (McDade, p.1) In most respect, this should come as no surprise. The real surprise is this statement:

“the unexpected finding is that the growing gap between the performance of top and bottom tier high schools occurred during a time when the spending gap between these two groups of schools remained relatively constant. In fact, during the seven years studied, spending in low-tier districts actually got closer to spending in high-tier districts. Yet, during that period, the achievement gap widened. The performance gap seems to be unaffected by spending.
Further, the study also includes a statistical analysis of the relationship between high school test scores and spending for all districts in Wisconsin. This analysis found there to be an insignificant relationship between spending and student test scores. In short, money cannot close the performance gap. Therefore, policy makers looking to close the performance gap need not consider spending as a primary solution.” (McDade, p.11)

How do we account for a narrowing spending gap but a widening performance gap? The WPRI concludes that the largest factors influencing school performance are socioeconomic – property wealth, race, and poverty.
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Wikipedia. Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. Wikipedia. Retrieved November 19, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Policy_Research_Institute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Policy_Research_Institute
McDade, P.J. (2006). The status of high school education in wisconsin. Wisconsin Research Institute Report, 19(1), Retrieved from http://www.wpri.org/Reports/Volume19/Vol19no1.pdf
http://www.wpri.org/pages/about.html