Solving Problems for Real World

After reading Rachel’s blog entry, Celebrate the Season of Giving, one phrase which particularly stood out to me was: “We need to make schools more relevant to life”.  I couldn’t agree more with this statement. This led me to do some research on more unorthodox, “real-world” classrooms. While quite a few articles and papers within education science have discussed the pros and cons of “problem-based learning”, the New York Times article, Solving Problems for Real World, Using Design provides a good example of the success of problem based learning within the classroom. 

If the name doesn’t already give it away, problem-based learning focuses on designing solutions for particular technological and social problems, with a single course asking students to come up for a solution to address a particular narrow problem. The article focuses on Stanford’s Hasso Platter Institute of Design, or as it’s called, the D.school. Not only are the courses within this school extremely popular with Stanford students, but they have also yielded start-up companies and products that combat issues ranging from clubbed feet, infant mortality, to even improving the hair-cutting process.

While I thought this article focused too much on the products created from the D.school, and not enough on the actual educational practices that went into designing these courses, I whole heartedly think that redesigning classes around real-world application and social innovation is going to better prepare not only college students, but also K-12 students for increasingly unstable job market. More importantly, I think that problem based learning facilitates innovation, and the type of self-guided learning that will not only motivate learning, but will also eradicate the sort of “parrot learned classes”, where a semester’s worth of information is crammed down’s one throat, regurgitated, and then forgotten two weeks after the final exam.

However, I am not saying that every single class should be reconfigured into this kind of format, because that is neither useful nor effective, but I am saying that both K-12 and higher education should consider including more practicum style classes that would not replace, but rather cooperate with the classes in which one learns facts, figures, and principles. It is definitely a mistake to believe that you can just give students a problem, set them loose, and expect them to solve it perfectly. Problem-based learning needs to complement traditional classes where we learn things like the Pythagorean theorem, Spanish, and the mechanics of cell communication.

Of course, I don’t have too much of an idea of the price tags of designing and implementing these types of classes, but rationalizing the cost in terms of the long term value of problem-based learning doesn’t seem unreasonable. Going back to Rachel’s blog entry, I liked her solution of the Capstone Research Project. As someone doing a thesis, I can personally attest that it exercises a completely different set of skills than the regular lecture-based course.

However, I would like to suggest that schools should integrate projects and problems based on solving an existing or future social problem that could certainly captivate the attention of willing students. It’s a principle within psychology that we remember and learn information that we deem personally salient, and so it makes sense to allow students to tackle problems that they find personally important, and can create a visible product or solution from.

This type of narrow-problem focus isn’t as narrow as it sounds, because although it looks like you are only solving one particular problem, you are using classroom knowledge to innovate a solution, and those skills are transferable to new problems. With practice and experience, once students repeatedly apply the formulas, principles, and facts they are learning to one social problem after another, it is becomes a question of where can I implement this knowledge, and not why.

A few final points: 1. I don’t think problem based learning has been entirely absent from the classroom, but I do think it’s an underutilized phenomenon. I have had classes at UVA besides my thesis research where we have been asked to write policy memos on certain political issues, and design a game that uses our knowledge of coding. 2. Isn’t it a valuable selling point that these types of classes will output solutions and skills that are marketable and resume-worthy? Not that this should be the ultimate goal of a class, but it’s probably for employers to evaluate someone in terms of what they have created, and not only standardized testing scores.

~Mona Azadi

What's Up with High Stakes Testing?

High stakes testing was mandated to assess both teachers and students performance. However, for many school districts, high stakes testing has become the sole determinant for the quality of a teacher's performance. Consequently, this causes teachers to "teach to the test." Therefore, “we have a misalignment, ... because testing has now replaced instruction and that’s a bad place for us to be.” according to NBC News journalist, Daniella Silva, in her article "Education Experts Debate High Stakes Testing in Public Schools". Learning has become confined to standards that are assessed on these high stakes testing. High stakes testing has become the new curriculum mold. It is explained that, "when testing becomes the center piece of a teacher evaluation, people are focusing on rote memorization." I find this to be exceptionally true. As a student who has gone though various high stakes test, I have many times crammed information through memorization for my exam. This information never made it to my long term memory and I honestly did not really learn the information.  I learned to pass the exam.

The article states, “The problem is today we are using [high stakes testing] only solely for accountability purposes, linking student test scores to teacher performances". It is difficult to base a teachers capabilities on the student preparedness and performance. Teachers are being validated by the actions of others, their students. I find this to be very unfair because teachers do not have any real control over how their students implement information taught to them. In addition, there is no other profession that is validated by the performance of someone secondary to the actual employee. Why is it that the teaching profession not treated as all other professions?

I believe that learning should involve discovery and application. Teachers should teach students a wide variety of knowledge and essential skills that can be applied to testing. Therefore, instructors wouldn't be teaching to the test but would teach students to implement their information correctly. This will allow students to actually learn information for long term uses.

~Ejana Bennet

Understanding the Achievement Gap

Given the recent Supreme Court case, Fisher v. University of Texas, the concept of “achievement gap” has surfaced in politics. “Achievement gap” has become a vaguely common phrase in our normal discourse. Education Week refers to the achievement gap as, “the disparity in academic performance between groups of students.” This achievement gap primarily refers to groups of different socioeconomic status, races and gender. There is a significant gap between African-American and Hispanic students who perform at the lower end of the scale and Caucasian students, who perform at the higher end of the scale. There is a similar disparity between students from lower socioeconomic status and those from a higher one. To no one’s surprise, race and socioeconomic status goes hand in hand with this scale. We can either choose to hold the social groups accountable or our broken system. I choose to blame the latter. In order to fully understand the complexities of the achievement gap, one ought to know the influence of race and socioeconomic status in the American society, especially, in the field of education.

Having had the Civil Rights Movement less than only 50 years ago, racism and racial discrimination are still prevalent in our society. Because of the years of inequality, minorities today are not starting on an equal level playing field and this disparity is reflected in our education system. The American dream is not as readily accessible for minorities and citizens of the lower and middle class due to the opportunity gap. The system is still corrupt and discriminates against minorities. Given the recent economic conditions and the scarcity of jobs, education is the only ladder up for lower and middle-class citizens. The quality of public education one receives is dependent upon his/her residence and socio-economic factors. High-poverty areas tend to have less funds and resources for schools. According to the US Department of Education, being raised in a low-income family also means having fewer education resources and poor health care and nutrition at home. Certain racial and ethnic groups are disadvantaged because they are frequently in lower income brackets. These minorities tend to be populated in high-poverty areas. According to the 2009 data from the Census Bureau, “one in three black and Hispanic children, at 4 million and 5.6 million, respective live in poverty.” This is also because of discrimination for housing. Even after the passage of The Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the execution of the Fair Housing Act, The National Fair Housing Alliance estimates that there are estimated 4 million cases of housing discrimination per year, mostly for African-Americans and Latinos. This system has been affecting generations of minority groups that are restricted by their race and socio-economic status.

The cycle of the quality of education one gets is dependent upon ones residence, which is further affected by race and class. This vicious cycle leads to the evident achievement gap present in our nation today. The National Assessment of Education Progress found in a study that, “By the end of the fourth grade, African American, Hispanic and low-income students are already two years behind grade level on average… by the time they reach the twelfth grade, they are four years behind.” Graduation rates are also lower for African American and Hispanic students than for White students. By attending under-resourced and failing schools, we have fewer minority students who are able to attend higher education, as compared to White and Asian students. The consequences of this are monumental and ones that are hindering the true potential and caliber of our nation. This leads us to question, what are some ways to help diminish the achievement gap and fix our education system?

~Namrata Kang

Celebrate the Season of Giving: Helping the Gifted Means Giving Opportunities to All

“When do I need use this?”

In my 5+ years as a math tutor, this is the most common question asked. Not about functions of equations or how to find the area of a triangle, but when they are going to be given the opportunity to use the material they are learning.  

In the New York Times editorial “Even Gifted Students Can’t Keep Up: In Math and Science, the Best Fend for Themselves”, the author states that these opportunities need to be provided to the gifted and how the United States needs to spend more time and energy on our top students.  I do not want to waste too much space discussing the faults in this argument because I believe there is a more important part of the article.  However, I cannot simply ignore the goal of the piece. 

Yes, it is true that the middle and lower performing students have been the focus of recent legislation, there is a reason for this: top performing students don’t need us.  The best way I believe I can support this statement is by looking at the teaching method of cooperative learning. Cooperative learning is the teaching practice where all types of students are placed in the same classroom.  The main purpose of this is to have the higher performing students help the lower performing students learn the material being taught.  The primary issue raised within cooperative learning is whether this method would decrease the performance of “gifted” students.  The answer, found by multiple studies for the past fifty years, is no.  In fact, many of the studies, such as Patrick, Bangel, Jeon, and Townsend or Adams and Rotondi, suggest that cooperative learning increases the performance of these students.  Gifted students are going to benefit if our focus toward middle and lower performing students entails quality teaching methods.

So while, in my opinion, the writer places too much focus on high-performing students, an important underlying point is made: creating opportunities.  Many students in math classes have no idea why they are learning the Pythagorean Theorem, and until we provide them the real-world opportunity, they are not going to care to learn.  We need to make school more relevant to life.  Although, I think standardized testing is a good way to see if students are on track in education, if we want the United States to create a better educated society, we have to make education more relatable to society.

As someone who is unable to state a problem without offering some type of solution, I will provide an option that has already been enacted in many colleges and some high schools: The Capstone Research Project.   For those interested, here is the Virginia framework for math, though entirely less incredible than the potential of this course. One day we will turn “When do I need to use this?” to “What do I need to use to solve this?”

~Rachel Drescher

Looking Internationally For Reforms

11 Foreign Education Policies That Could Transform American Education

For the most part I agree with the overall statement of the article: the US needs to change their education policies. Considering that we are part of Students for Education Reform that shouldn't be surprising. The gist of the article is that the US should mimic education policies seen in other countries. It acknowledges the achievements of countries such as Finland, Singapore, South Korea, China, New Zealand and Japan. The main emphasis is that US education stresses too much on just the student and doesn't acknowledge external factors, such as the amount of time given to teachers for planning lessons and the average amount of parent involvement in a student's academic performance. One of the biggest points that they stress is that students should have a positive outlook on school derived from each other and their teachers. However, how do you make students feel more involved in school?

I think that one of the best ways is that teachers provide an encouraging environment for all students to participate and provide their opinion. In elementary school I participated in the Montessori program which allows for the teacher to cater a curriculum to each student. Each day we were assigned specific tasks by the teacher and then we got to choose what we wanted to do during free time. The assigned tasks made sure that we were keeping up to date with the designated curriculum for that grade and the elective free time allowed the student to pursue their academic interests. Montessori focused on hands on learning which allowed the student to directly interact with the material that they were learning. This inspired the kind of passion for education in me that the article was talking about. Although I am not suggesting that everyone shift to Montessori style teaching, the idea of active interaction between the teacher and the student is a way to implement what the article is talking about. 

Another interesting point stated in the article is the number of hours students spend in class. Many people think that increases the number of hours forced upon student's to work will help improve test results but, as the article points out, this can wear a student down. Focusing more on quality than quantity is important and should take the spotlight of modern US education. 

Overall, US education is lacking worldwide and instead of trying to continue digging into the hole we are already in we should look to other counties in what they are doing. We need to push aside the idea that we are the superpower that we were in the 20th century and accept that we need to look to others to help us in our current academic crisis. 

~Daniel Mulrow

Do We Really Need Those Reports?

Parents say they don’t need state test results…and I concur.

Many U.S. schools will be switching over to annual tests that reflect the new Common Core standards. Washington Post educational columnist Jay Matthews suggest that instead of sending out scores the first year, we take a a year off from reporting schools and his article received a lot of warm praise from readers. Matthews suggest that “Schools can give the new tests but use the results only for improving teaching methods, not for assessing students and teachers,”. 

While U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan disagrees with the idea of pushing back score reports for a year, I think it's a great idea. Implementing new teaching standards comes with a lot of risks. There's a lot of room for misinterpretation as teachers begin to unravel and understand the sometimes-vague new standards. Students may also be unfamiliar with possible new test formats. And as with any new test, there will undoubtedly be some problems with the first batch of test. 

Delaying using the test reports for evaluation purposes would allow for students, teachers and test administrators to breathe easily through the first year that the Common Core standards are implemented. There is a heavy focus on standardized testing that could probably use a break. As one Loudon county parent and substitute teacher succinctly put it, "It seems that we are testing for the sake of testing and that the results are not showing what kids know". 

~Andre Sanabia