Adding Value to Student Learning
This blog entry originally appeared on my Byte Speed Blog Site on April 30, 2007. Enjoy.
ADDING VALUE TO STUDENT LEARNING
About a year ago, there were a series of inservices in my district from a company called INOVA. This company was hired to help the district teach teachers how to look at data in a more meaningful way. While the basic statistics of INOVA were not much more than glorified linear regression analysis, it was presented in such a way that the learners walked away with a basic statistics class without realizing that they had actually sat through “Linear Regression in a Nutshell 101.”
Part of the presentation in all of the data analysis was the idea that we as educators should look at our students, at least in this example, as commodities, like stock on the market. When they come to our classrooms at the beginning of the year their knowledge base, their “stock” if you will, is worth so much, say, $50. It is our jobs, as educators, to add value to the students as they progress through the year. When they leave our classes and head into the next year, their stock of knowledge should have grown. That $50 from August should now be worth more. How much more is based on a number of factors of course, but for the most part the stock should now be worth more than it was in August. It certainly should not be less.
Of course, students don’t all come to use with the same knowledge base, so one student may start the year worth $50, another $45, and even some may be penny stock. But the idea is that all students should show growth,the value should be added to their knowledge base as they progress through the years.
This ”Value Added” approach to education is an interesting thought and a natural extension of the long watched trend of how schools should emulate business. Students as commodities to be valued or devalued was something I became aware of in the late 1980’s when business terms like “paradigm shift” found its way into the lexicon of colleges of Ed throughout the country. It wouldn’t be long before we were having “MIssion Statements,” “Data Driven Decision Making,” and principals as managers instead of campus leaders. All of those were derived from some business model and filtered down to districts with businesses leading the way, because they “knew what was best for their students.”
I was thinking this week about how do we as education technology proponents add value to our student’s knowledge base? For the most part, and I know this is a gross generalization, but the kids come into our classes with a technology knowledge base that is far greater than that of the average instructor. It is easy to see growth in the knowledge base of say, a student’s Math knowledge, because the student can easily be tracked from year to year from their test scores, much like stocks can be tracked for performance from year to year. But technology knowledge is a different beast all together. Students may have a far superior technology base on things that we do not even care to know about or have incorporated into our classrooms. Cell phones?Students certainly have a technology knowledge base with them. Our response? Ban them. Digital Cameras? Students know how to use them. Our response? Ban them. Same with iPods, digital recorders, PDAs and on and on. We ban the technology that the students know how to use, and we, for the most part (again a generalization), stick them in front of computers and ask them to learn how to use all of the major programs found in any “Office” suite.
Are we actually adding value to our students technology knowledge base when the teachers are less knowledgeable than the students in many instances? Doubtful. And what about the technology that the students DO know about? We seem to want to shy away from using those in the classroom. Recently, iPods had become the brunt of the attacks as schools looked to ban them because “they could be used for cheating.” Whooooo. Some schools embrace the technology, and others are afraid of it. Go figure. No wonder kids think we lack knowledge when it comes to technology. (Maybe we should try banning pencils too. And what about skin? I seem to remember writing test answers on the palm of my hand a few times back in the day.) So how can we add value for our students in ed tech?
Not surprisingly, if you go to almost any other Ed Tech blog in the blogosphere, you will find that teachers that let students explore with technology, that are embracing new technologies, that let students lead with technology, and are not afraid to fail in using technology are the ones that are the best proponents for it and the best examples. So next year, when the students come to your class with their $50 in Ed Tech stock in their brains, ask yourself:
Will they leave with some value added to the stock?
Or will their stock depreciate?
ADDING VALUE TO STUDENT LEARNING
About a year ago, there were a series of inservices in my district from a company called INOVA. This company was hired to help the district teach teachers how to look at data in a more meaningful way. While the basic statistics of INOVA were not much more than glorified linear regression analysis, it was presented in such a way that the learners walked away with a basic statistics class without realizing that they had actually sat through “Linear Regression in a Nutshell 101.”
Part of the presentation in all of the data analysis was the idea that we as educators should look at our students, at least in this example, as commodities, like stock on the market. When they come to our classrooms at the beginning of the year their knowledge base, their “stock” if you will, is worth so much, say, $50. It is our jobs, as educators, to add value to the students as they progress through the year. When they leave our classes and head into the next year, their stock of knowledge should have grown. That $50 from August should now be worth more. How much more is based on a number of factors of course, but for the most part the stock should now be worth more than it was in August. It certainly should not be less.
Of course, students don’t all come to use with the same knowledge base, so one student may start the year worth $50, another $45, and even some may be penny stock. But the idea is that all students should show growth,the value should be added to their knowledge base as they progress through the years.
This ”Value Added” approach to education is an interesting thought and a natural extension of the long watched trend of how schools should emulate business. Students as commodities to be valued or devalued was something I became aware of in the late 1980’s when business terms like “paradigm shift” found its way into the lexicon of colleges of Ed throughout the country. It wouldn’t be long before we were having “MIssion Statements,” “Data Driven Decision Making,” and principals as managers instead of campus leaders. All of those were derived from some business model and filtered down to districts with businesses leading the way, because they “knew what was best for their students.”
I was thinking this week about how do we as education technology proponents add value to our student’s knowledge base? For the most part, and I know this is a gross generalization, but the kids come into our classes with a technology knowledge base that is far greater than that of the average instructor. It is easy to see growth in the knowledge base of say, a student’s Math knowledge, because the student can easily be tracked from year to year from their test scores, much like stocks can be tracked for performance from year to year. But technology knowledge is a different beast all together. Students may have a far superior technology base on things that we do not even care to know about or have incorporated into our classrooms. Cell phones?Students certainly have a technology knowledge base with them. Our response? Ban them. Digital Cameras? Students know how to use them. Our response? Ban them. Same with iPods, digital recorders, PDAs and on and on. We ban the technology that the students know how to use, and we, for the most part (again a generalization), stick them in front of computers and ask them to learn how to use all of the major programs found in any “Office” suite.
Are we actually adding value to our students technology knowledge base when the teachers are less knowledgeable than the students in many instances? Doubtful. And what about the technology that the students DO know about? We seem to want to shy away from using those in the classroom. Recently, iPods had become the brunt of the attacks as schools looked to ban them because “they could be used for cheating.” Whooooo. Some schools embrace the technology, and others are afraid of it. Go figure. No wonder kids think we lack knowledge when it comes to technology. (Maybe we should try banning pencils too. And what about skin? I seem to remember writing test answers on the palm of my hand a few times back in the day.) So how can we add value for our students in ed tech?
Not surprisingly, if you go to almost any other Ed Tech blog in the blogosphere, you will find that teachers that let students explore with technology, that are embracing new technologies, that let students lead with technology, and are not afraid to fail in using technology are the ones that are the best proponents for it and the best examples. So next year, when the students come to your class with their $50 in Ed Tech stock in their brains, ask yourself:
Will they leave with some value added to the stock?
Or will their stock depreciate?
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