I’ve been continuing to develop my dissertation study about teaching English in online environments.  I begin the study by telling the story of Boss Tweed and how he had certain textbooks tossed out of NYC schools in 1871.  The textbooks were all published by Harper’s Brothers, whose popular Harper’s Weekly featured the political cartoonist Thomas Nast.  Nast had some nasty things to say about Tweed and Tweed sought his revenge through Harper’s.

At the time, Harper’s published a textbook on English composition, from which I’ve lifted the excerpt below.  To see more of the original publication, click here.  Otherwise, here’s how composition was taught in NYC back in the day:

TechCrunch culled this infographic from Newsweek.  When speaking with a friend this weekend, I expressed my own hope that it doesn’t come down to an either/or.  Surely the reading public won’t have to choose one over the other.  (I say that, of course, as someone who carries an iPad in his bag, an iPhone in his pocket, a BlackBerry on his belt, and a book in his hand when commuting in the morning.)

Online learning needs to go social.  So says the founder of Einztein.com, a free course search engine, which is well worth a visit and a browse.  In his piece on Mashable! recently, Marco Masoni writes:

What’s required are innovative approaches to course design that set aside old models of instruction where theory often trumps actuality. Online course providers must embrace the web’s potential to match students with the kinds of timely knowledge and skills that address current issues head-on, and enable them to thrive in the global marketplace.

Yes, the web’s potential to make learning experiences dynamic and real-time is seemingly limitless.  And exciting.  Still, when I search through what’s out there using Einztein’s site, I’m disappointed.  Like iTunes U, Einztein allows users to connect with myriad courses and online instructional videos.  I did a search for Milton, for instance, and it linked me to Yale’s Open Course on the poet.  That’s not what disappoints me.  In fact, it’s incredible that these kinds of courses are available for free to anyone with internet access.  What does disappoint me is that for Masoni (and Apple, for that matter) learning still resembles one-way communication from an expert to unknowing students.  Students are empty vessels whose minds are to be filled with factoids and figures.  He skips scrutinizing this point and jumps eagerly to the use of “real-time” lessons:

It’s not enough for a course to be accessible online, it must also be designed in a way that keys into the digital pulse of current events, trending topics and insider knowledge endemic to the web.

No.  It’s not enough for a course to be accessible online if it used as a way to perpetuate the kinds of monolithic teaching that are iconic of traditional means of instruction.  I think the merits of real-time learning are not talked about enough.  Still, it is what students do with the information they learn that matters.  If all a student does is watch a professor lecture on Milton for nine hours and take an exam (which I myself might enjoy immensely) have we really innovated teaching and learning?  The medium is not enough, not without equal attention paid to pedagogy.

David Brooks wrote a piece called “The Medium is the Medium” in the NY Times recently about a study that shows giving “disadvantaged students” books to take home to read improves test scores.  Brooks is quick to point out that other studies suggest that Internet-reading and activity is linked to slumps in test scores. A dichotomy, Mr. Brooks? Really? The Big Bad Computer against the Tried and True Book?

Three Cheerleaders in the Tomes vs. Technology Battle

Brooks then uses these two studies to set up Nicholas Carr’s new book about the dangerous effects the Internet is having on our brains.  Brooks writes:

These two studies feed into the debate that is now surrounding Nicholas Carr’s book, “The Shallows.” Carr argues that the Internet is leading to a short-attention-span culture. He cites a pile of research showing that the multidistraction, hyperlink world degrades people’s abilities to engage in deep thought or serious contemplation. Carr’s argument has been challenged. His critics point to evidence that suggests that playing computer games and performing Internet searches actually improves a person’s ability to process information and focus attention. The Internet, they say, is a boon to schooling, not a threat.

Carr and Brooks might have in mind here the work of scholars like James Paul Gee, whose writings on the positive effects of video games on literacy have been widely cited.  So to review up to this point: Brooks is cheering for the victory of books, Carr is warning of the dangers of digital literacy, and Gee et al. are championing video games and online media as the new literacy that seems to transcend traditional approaches to reading and writing.

Teach the Battle, the Argument

Dichotomies are of little use if they aren’t used to dig into the nuances of issues.  This is no different.  While I respect the work of Brooks, Carr, and Gee, I can’t understand why such smart people get so comfortable in their either/or positions.  Wouldn’t we all benefit from a discussion about when we read digitally and when we read on paper?  Wouldn’t our students benefit from the conversation concerning how they read for different purposes at different times rather than the pontification that “Books are better for you!” or “The Internet is rotting your mind!” or “Video games are inherently educational”?  The only reason I can think of that such thoughtful men would become so comfortable slinging their ideas to one side of a dichotomy is this: it sells and the media eats it up.

The Validity of Heaviness

A few years ago I had a student who was clearly not reading for class.  I asked to speak with her after class.  When I posed the question to her–”It seems like you haven’t been reading the assignments. Is that true?”–she didn’t hesitate to say that she hadn’t read a page.  “Why haven’t you read?” I asked.  She looked down at the floor where her book bag was resting.  She pulled out the book.  “I can’t carry this home with me,” she added, “it’s too heavy.” It’s easy to say that she was making up silly excuses for not wanting to read and that I should have told her exactly that right there and then.  I did.  And she apologized, promised to read, and left. She didn’t read the next assignment.  Or the one after that. What did I gain by ignoring her complaint–that the physicality, the texture, and the weight of a book was too much for her to manage?  I wished I had engaged her further–do you read online? do you find other books more readable?  do you need glasses? I didn’t ask these questions, though.  I found a comfortable corner in a two-sided room and I ensconced myself there.  Quite happily.

Get Beyond the Dichotomy

Surely there is more to be learned by probing into initial dichotomies than by stubbornly claiming a side of one.  For instance, what would the above authors think about the fact that I read their texts online?  Or, to phrase it as one of my favorite question types, What was lost and what was gained when I read their pieces online rather than on paper?  Think about that.  By asking that question–a question that uses a dichotomy and pushes through it–I’m left asking about my own relationship to reading and encouraged to question, not to make staunch and flashy claims. It’s worth noting a small and significant moment in David Brooks’ opening.  He writes:

Recently, book publishers got some good news. Researchers gave 852 disadvantaged students 12 books (of their own choosing) to take home at the end of the school year. They did this for three successive years.

Notice the parentheses.  Perhaps there is significance in students’ choosing.  Perhaps we, as adults in their lives, should guide them in better understanding their choices–to read or not to read, to read online or to read on paper, to read a serious text or to read a humorous one.  (Perhaps the medium is not the medium. Perhaps the reader is.)

A quick and fantastic collection of links on the topic here.

I came across this piece recently about the rise of digital textbooks.  In it, two experts on the topic take questions in a chat setting.  For instance:

Moderator: Katie Ash: Brian – do you want to go into a bit more detail about what exactly is going on in California, and what the different phases are?
Brian Bridges: @Katie. digital textbooks can be as simple as an electronic version of a print book, which is exactly what we’re reviewing right now. College professors and CK-12 have created a number of excellent books which can be printed out or can be read on devices. Digital books can also be web sites or interactive.
Neeru Khosla: @Caryn. Digital Textbooks is not just text, but it is next generation textbooks leveraging technology to make content available in various formats
Brian Bridges: Phase One of the Free Digital Textbook Initiative focused on downloadable PDF textbooks in math and science.
Neeru Khosla: including print on paper, as well as on web and mobile devices

Granted, this is “phase one” of the digitization of textbooks.  Still, I’m left asking myself: why are the adults still the ones writing textbooks here?  It’s a fair inference from the whole transcript that adults remain in the role of expert.  But, why?  Wouldn’t students learn mountains of knowledge and skills if their only task for the year was to write a textbook for other students on, say, an introduction to chemistry or English literature?  They could then share it with other students and schools and update it collaboratively.  For free. The role of the teacher, then, is that of editor: verify accuracy, project manage, and stay out of the way when needed to.

That’s exactly what students at one NYC school did a couple years ago when they created a rap album review for the NYS chemistry Regents exam.  They rapped a review and the teacher made sure the right topics were covered and that the information was clearly and accurately conveyed.  Then she got out of the way.

I am re-reading a book by education professor Sheridan Blau about teaching literature.  He describes a profound realization he had four decades ago: the work he did assembling content to teach his students was precisely the work the students themselves needed to be doing.  And, they couldn’t ever do that work because Professor Blau would walk in to his classes prepared to teach what he had learned.  The paradox is this: so long as adults prepare the content for students, students can’t prepare it for themselves.  It is the preparation of content–or, the curation, perhaps–that effects learning.

I do indeed think that the textbook industry is undergoing a major transformation.  Between online textbooks, the influx of devices like the iPad, and the surge in Apps for sale, there is little direction for this to go but up.  But, transformations in technology do not mean transformations in pedagogy.  A transformation in pedagogy would have students writing the textbooks for other students, sharing those online, and even voting on which ones were most effective.  That would be transformative.  Downloading PDFs of adults’ own learning of the content? Hardly.

NYC’s iZone and Huff’s Oversimplification

As NYC creates its virtual school, there have been many articles that have begun cropping up about online learning versus offline learning.  Huffington Post’s Scott Olster wrote about it most recently:

New York City’s Department of Education launched the NYC Innovation Zone in April, a $10 million initiative in which 81 schools plan to test a variety of education methods, from expanding the hours of the school day, to using virtual education for advanced placement and credit recovery courses. Approximately $1.5 million of the $10 million budget is slated to be devoted exclusively to purchasing virtual credit recovery programs, according to school spokesperson Matthew Mittenthal.

The Innovation Zone is the city’s first major investment in virtual education. Until now, the city has lagged behind a national expansion of virtual schools and online learning programs.

Other cities have dabbled in virtual learning and the city seems to have learned from their lessons by diversifying their approaches to what virtual schooling could look like.  Olster’s article makes it seem like the city is focusing on AP and credit recovery, though.  He leaves out of his post the city’s pilot with blended schools, for instance, where up to one third of the teaching and learning will take place online while operating withing current brick-and-mortar parameters of the school day.  Oddly, Olster focuses much of his attention on schools that are not actually part of the iZone.  For a clearer representation of the work, see Gotham Schools or the DOE’s iZone site.  The piece also falls into the pitfall of presenting virtual schooling as an offline/online dichotomy.

The Dichotomy Problem

“Dichotomy” is a useful word here.  Business consultant Stephen J Gill uses the word when he writes about those who argue that online learning is more economically efficient and therefore necessarily better than face-to-face instruction.  In his words:

The problem with this argument is that it implies that all Web-based training and conferences are superior to all in-person events. The important question is not, “Is online better (or cheaper) than in-person?” The important question is, “What types of learning interventions for what results and under what circumstances are more effective?”This could include Web-based only, in-person only, blended or a multitude of variations within and among each of these broad categories.

For him, to think of it as online versus offline presents a “false dichotomy” and limits innovation.

What “Dichotomy” Teaches Us about Dichotomies

I’d like to tap into my love of words and literary theory here to offer another take on dichotomies.  In fact, the history of the word “dichotomy” brings much to the current discussion.  Most familiar is the definition of dichotomy that denotes the splitting of a whole into two parts.  Its etymological ancestor, diakoptos, breaks down into “dia” being Greek for two or across and “koptos” meaning to cut:  To cut in two or through.

Another definition of dichotomy, also stemming from the ancient Greek, is to break through.  In this sense, dichotomy means something very different from the creative splitting of a whole.  Here, quite different than above, dichotomy means to rupture a surface.  While not denotatively a negative action, it does connote destruction with little sign of affirmative generation.  This destructive meaning is furthered by others, including “to receive a deep cut” and “to cut off”.  In these definitions, dichotomy is very dark indeed.  And bloody too.

And yet in another definition, this one less bloody, dichotomy extends more metaphorically into social acts like conversation.  Rather than the fleshy slicing and lacerating above, Aristotle in his Rhetoric uses the word in reference to poor conversants who interrupt and cut short conversation.

Finally, the word has also been used to refer to the counterfeiting of Greek coins.  The creation of something that has the likeness of the original.  In this case, it merits unpacking what both the original and the duplicate represent.  The original coin serves as a common currency, a promise of an individual to both another person and a society that a debt would be honored.  The duplicate, however, endangers both the individual relationship between debtor and debtee, but also it is a selfish act that threatens the economic well-being of the whole.  Though at first this meaning of dichotomy seems a far cry from the others, it is, perhaps, a combination of these others.  It is both the creation of two from one and it is the a destructive disruption to all.

Advice for Mr. Olster of Huffington Post

Despite its etymological ambivalence, the use of dichotomies continues all around us today.  Even if it’s not explicitly used–or, especially when it’s not explicitly used–it is an effective rhetorical device to make a compelling point.  For example, pitting online learning against offline learning.  Or, as Scott Olster does (perhaps unintentionally), suggesting that virtual learning is gaining traction solely in opposition to the brick-and-mortar realities of schooling.  (For a rounder sense of what is possible in blended learning environments, t check out this op-ed by two iZone principals. Or, read postings by someone who works with teachers to use technology innovatively in their work.)  I would argue, along with Aristotle, that what Olster achieves when using a quiet and untroubled dichotomy is an interruption, an aborted dialogue, a rhetorical shout or barbaric yawp that in turn issues a deep intellectual cut to others.

Last week I posted about how ineffective the Convenience Argument is in defending e-learning: emphasizing that students-can-learn-anytime-from-any where while ignoring other crucial aspects of learning, like content quality, sells short the possibilities of online learning.  Nevertheless, here it is again.  This time, in Education Week, it marauds under the guise of Flexibility:

Just as the model of blended learning is pulling the worlds of  virtual and brick-and-mortar schools together, new theories within virtual learning are bridging the divide between synchronous and asynchronous instructional methods.

Online educators say they once debated whether to deliver courses synchronously, by allowing access to instruction during a given time, or asynchronously, by allowing access anytime and anywhere. Now, they are designing approaches that meld both methods.

“The online model is really designed to be flexible for the individual student,” said Pam Birtolo, the chief learning officer of the Orlando-based Florida Virtual School, or FLVS, which is seen as a trendsetter in virtual education. “I don’t know that you can separate the two anymore.”

It took three paragraphs to get there, but there it is: really designed to be flexible for the individual student.  Flexible and individual.  That might be true (but, it also hinges on how you define “flexible”).  What concerns me more is how rhetorical words like “flexible” and “convenience” are used.  It’s a sales pitch.

Show me flexibility and convenience in a curricular context, with rigorous content that pushes students to make meaning.  Then, you’ve got me.

Online models really designed to be flexible for individual students?  Not interested.

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Michael Horn recently wrote about the value of for-profit educational companies in improving education.  His lead-in sets the stage:

If President Obama wants to achieve his goal of returning the United States to its former place atop all countries in higher education attainment by 2020, he is going to need the help of for-profit universities like the University of Phoenix, Kaplan, Corinthian and DeVry, as his own Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, said recently.

He goes on to argue that those in education who would exclude for-profit companies from informing education reform are missing something. Yes, he says, there are good and “bad actors” in the for-profit sector; the same is true in the non-profit sector.  (I agree completely.)  He then cautions the reader that we must take the opportunity to learn from these organizations about what it means to teach and to learn innovatively.  (I agree again. Proponents of Pure Public Schooling like Alfie Kohn or the recently 180′d Diane Ravitch might well get uncomfortable the moment we allow schools and businesses to get too close…)

One main point Horn makes is that online learning opportunities “allow [students] to learn anytime and anywhere, many of these students would have no alternative to gain a formal education given the demands of work and family.”  He says this in response to critics who say that online learning is a poor substitute for the “real” kind of learning that happens in schools.

Horn’s defense is a problematic line of thought, I think.  It lauds the convenience of taking courses online without even so much as winking at other very crucial questions: especially the quality of the courses online.  Convenience for convenience’s sake is hardly a hardy argument for education reform.  What good is being able to take courses anywhere, anytime, if the course quality is shite?

This is not to say that all online courses are of poor quality.  Far from it.  It is to say, however, that to defend for-profit online educational companies on the grounds that are convenient–without equal attention to the quality of content that is conveniently accessed– is a weak defense indeed.  Convenience without quality is not compelling.

Horn could, for example, have discussed how some for-profit companies go to great lengths to ensure rigorous content.  Or, how some companies craft questions that challenge learners to go well beyond the simple multiple-choice blotting that naysayers claim makes up non-brick-and-mortar schooling.  Doing so, Horn could have then launched into a highly defensible tirade about the shaky quality of many “real thing” curricula.  How many teachers, he might have asked, fail to assess their students’ learning with a frequency that even comes close to online courses, which are constantly giving formative assessments?  Or, how many schools have purchased out-of-the-box curricula that denies teachers the opportunity to design curriculum and forces entire classrooms of students to move in step?

These questions aren’t asked.  It was a missed opportunity.  I myself can’t buy in to the idea that for-profit educational companies are good because they are convenient for students.  It is itself an all too convenient argument that avoids a crucial discussion we ought to be having: Are students getting quality courses at their convenience?

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Facebook and Google have been the subject of prying eyes lately as concerns about their handling of users’ private information. Google’s Buzz, remember, broadcasted user contacts without consent.  As learning goes virtual in NYC and around the world, it’s worth asking:  is learning a private act?

To some extent, school is a very public space.  Teachers address many students at once, students inevitably know each others’ grades, and reading aloud is as likely to reveal much about a reader’s fluency, or lack thereof. Still, when is learning private and when is privacy essential for learning?

It seems to me that there isn’t a straight answer to this question. That might make it even more important. What if we have this unspoken assumption that public and social learning is always a good thing? (Not much of a stretch, in my experience.)  I think we might gain much insight from posing these kinds of questions to our students.  How might they respond?

I blogged a few weeks ago about the return of super-lecturers. Though I meant it only half in jest, I now think that balancing the public kinds of learning with a new focus on private learning could give us greater insight into students’ learning habits.

Another side of the issue has to do with the kinds of information learning management systems gather about kids. Could students argue that software which tracks how long they take to answer a question a breech of their pedagogical privacy?   What can online course providers learn from the missteps of Google and Facebook? That is, aside from “don’t get caught”!

I’ve become rather fixated on the claim that our 21st century schools are encumbered by a 19th century “industrial model”.  On a certain level, I understand it: large comprehensive high schools, compartmentalized courses like cogs in a cognitive machine and the like.  The danger of this presupposition, I think, is that it can leave the quality of 21st century “advancements” gone unchecked.

The Quotations

Here are some of the quotations I’ve found (and I’ll ask for yours, too, if you know of any)!  They are:

“Just as in the early stages of other industries’ histories, society’s expectations and behaviours actually conformed to the standardization; Americans no longer expected customized learning. Much of the support behind this standardization–categorizing students by age into grades and then teaching batches of them with batches of material–was inspired by the efficient factory system that had emerged in industrial America.” – p. 66, Disrupting Class by Clay Christensen et al.

“As we transitioned to a more urban, industrial era at the turn of the twentieth century, however, effective teaching and learning consisted of “bath-process” large numbers of students in assembly-line schools to teach the Three R’s–and so to assimilate rural workers and immigrants into the new requirements of work and citizenship.  For the most part, these are still the schools we have today.” – p. 256, The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner

“Businesslike efficiency and vocational education in secondary schools and colleges were seen as critical to preparing students for work in an industrial economy that was then competing with Great Britain and Germany.” -p. 9, Oversold and Underused by Larry Cuban

Each of these books argue, in part, that certain technological progress, like Web 2.0 tools, hold the key to breaking with this antiquated model.  While I’m not saying that what these authors are saying is false, it would be facile to say that simply because something is more recently technological–like, say, the digitization of academic content–it is necessarily better.

Are there other quotations you’ve come across yourself that might fit well with the ones above?  Please, pass them on!

19th Century NYC Textbooks

I was elated to learn recently from my friend that if I was on the move to identify popularly used English literature textbooks from 19th century NYC, I need look no further than across the street.  Standing on the steps of Tweed Courthouse (the current home of the NYC DOE) you can see the Municipal Archives.  There, I will find volumes of documents for review.  Specifically, there are Board of Education Annual Reports that might well have, among many other things, a listing of the textbooks ordered in schools.  (Many thanks to David Ment of the Municipal Archives for his clear and quick direction!)

Once certain textbooks have been identified and acquired, I’ll begin the study to better understand just what is so different (and the same) about the old textbooks and the new online courses.

Herman Melville, the Teacher?

While immersing myself in New York of the 1800s, I’ve learned that one New Yorker and author–Herman Melville–did himself teach in a school upstate.  It’s not clear what he taught, though he did focus on the classics, we do know that he had on his person an introductory book to teaching called The District School.  In it, John Orville Taylor makes many direct arguments about what good education is and is not: he holds no punches in telling parents they need to do their part and painting a picture of new teachers who have no ideas what they’ve gotten into.  Melville did only a couple years teaching; then he did other things: like write Moby Dick.

Still, for your amusement and edification, here is The District School, in its entirety.

Lectures get a bad rap.  Sure, learning should be constructed and not delivered; students should create understanding and not absorb the understandings of another.  Still, nothing beats a good lecture.  A good lecture puts the intellectual onus on the listener.  A good lecturer creates a performance environment where those present are not only entertained or engaged, but they are are challenged to imagine the ideas of the lecturer as their own. 

The New York Times discusses how universities are currently using cyberspace to transmit great courses and lecturers to the world, often for free. Interestingly, what seems to be all the latest rage is in many ways a throw-back to an earlier day.  Since this ideas is the focus of my newest study, let me elaborate.

In the teaching of literature, this is nothing new.  As literature was gaining traction as a serious academic discipline, it was this kind of super-lecturing–part intelligentsia, part rock concert–that pervaded the countries major universities.  One really well known figure was Billy Phelps.  Education professors Robert Scholes and Gerald Graff discuss at length in their respective histories of teaching literature that Phelps brought the fervor of the preacher to the earliest literature classrooms in the US.  Students packed into lecture halls to hear Phelps interpret great literary works.  What was it that drew them then as students today are drawn to the courses of the professors in the Times piece? 

Sometimes, I think, there is something more intimate, more sincere, about one person performing his or her passion for a subject than group work and what-do-you-think pedagogies can offer.  I might even go so far as to say that a well-crafted and -performed lecture on a timely topic is precisely what many students want.  And if a particular lecturer isn’t hacking it, well, they need go no further than their computers and phones to catch a glimpse of others who are. 

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Over the next few weeks, I’ll be beginning to put a hypothesis to the test.  We often hear that our current schools are stuck using 19th century models of teaching and learning, that the 21st century student must be prepared for a new globalized economy.  I myself have nodded my head to these claims.  I might even have made them.  And I might make them again.  Before I do, however, I’d like to put them to a test.

What if I closely read and analyzed 19th century textbooks for teaching literature?  Then, what if I conducted a similarly rigorous content analysis of popular online content companies who provide English literature content to schools?  What would be new–or innovative, rigorous, 21st century–and what not? 

My suspicion is that the 19th century textbooks and the 21st century online courses will prove to be remarkably similar.  I’m open, though, to the contrary. 

Are there other questions I’m missing?  What might you yourself expect to see in such a comparison?

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This recent speech was posted on ED’s web site.  In it, Secretary Duncan criticizes teacher preparation programs.  He spoke:

In a speech last fall at the Teachers College at Columbia, I noted that education schools have long been treated as the Rodney Dangerfield of higher education. Colleges of education have traditionally been the institution that got no respect—yet still they are described as cash cows for other, more academically-prestigious departments of the university.

Once teachers finish their preparation program, they enter a profession that continues to treat them as something less than highly-skilled professionals. Smart induction policies and well-designed mentoring for new teachers is the exception, rather than the rule. Professional development is generally of poor quality. Pay is based not on your performance in the classroom or your impact on student learning but rather on your credentials and time spent in the job. Performance evaluations of teachers are largely a sham.

So, how do we explain this paradox of on the one hand revering teachers, yet on the other hand, failing to elevate the teaching profession?

In the context of the current political climate, it seems like these questions fit conveniently with hot topics like of teacher tenure, teacher training, and the use of online courses and blended learning models to broaden the school day.  The iZone work I am a part of in NYC is one example of a major city trying to better understand how new approaches to teaching and learning might be used in over 1500 schools.

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I saw this posting this morning in an Education Week email update.  “Really?” I thought.  It’s that explicit?  How is an educator supposed to attend this webinar and not feel like they are being pitched to the whole time to buy Lenovo’s computers? Will Lenovo list fairly what its computers can and can’t do so education technology leaders can make an informed decision? Check it out:

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I was in the hospital with my new son one night a few weeks when I saw that one of the authors of Disrupting Class, Michael Horn, replied to my previous blog posting.  My son is three weeks today; his father finally has a chance to reply to Horn.  Horn wrote a comment to my posting that begins:

While I appreciated the kudos, a “good catch” does not adequately respond to my point.  Even Horn’s later series of rebuttals do nothing more than dodge the core of the critique.  At the heart of the posting is the concern that the authors of Disrupting Class knowingly misrepresent and dismiss research and scholarship in the field of education.  As a result, the Disruption Theory they create is inherently groundless.  Though it is compelling–no one would argue that the book has had great effects on education policy and reform–it neglects to seriously consider what is going on in actual schools with actual students, and it doesn’t consider what experts in education have to say about those realities.

I agree with Horn that much of educational research doesn’t prove causal relationships (if you do X students will ace their exams).  But that doesn’t mean you disregard it completely.  The weakness of Disrupting Class‘s stance toward educational research is that it finds value only in the answers to questions, not the questions themselves.  What questions would have been raised in their book if the authors had seriously considered educational research? What questions, then, would policy-makers and educational leadership have asked?  Questions, after all, are far more disruptive. 

Here’s an example.  One of the gaps I point out is that the authors make “the hasty assumption that adolescents’ use of technology means they can simply learn from it.”  Horn replied to this critique (which was the third in a list) that “we pointedly don’t rely on point #3 that you cite. Others write about this, but we ourselves don’t hinge our argument on this point.”  I’m sorry, but Horn and his colleagues pointedly do rely on students’ use of technology to learn.  If you remove students-using-technology-to-learn from Disrupting Class there is no book.  Who uses the online courses they speak of?  How do the authors imagine students sharing content they create?  And let’s not ignore the fact that not all students learn well in online courses; not all students have any interest or natural skill in posting materials for classmates to learn from. 

If the authors had consulted–just as one example–Donald Leu’s study in which he compares students’ offline and online literacy skills they might have disclaimed that research shows students’ offline and online literacy abilities have no direct relationship.  Great online readers might be shoddy offline readers.  And vice versa.  If they had considered even just studies that compare students online and offline lives, they might have explored certain realities of applying their theory to a school system: not all students are digitally literate; students’ social digital literacies don’t simply apply to online schoolwork; not all traditionally successful students’ talents translate to the online world; not all students even have equitable access to online worlds and therefore to those crucial online skills. 

The above response, I might add, says nothing about the authors’ disregard for the roles of teachers in student-learning.  While they do compliment educators for their hard work, they don’t seriously consider what it means, for instance, to disrupt teacher education using their framework.  Nor do they consider the setbacks and advances being made in the professional development of educators.  Their solution is to take a master teacher like Jaime Escalante and broadcast him to as many students as possible.  I wonder what kind of relationship Escalante would form with his students in such a scenario.  After all, wasn’t it his ability to connect with his classes that made his success possible? 

In sum, we need a real series of exchanges in which the educational research community dialogues with the authors of Disrupting Class.  Ideally, there would be a think tank in which some organization (a university, consulting group, a city) would invite the book’s authors and an array of educational scholars to the same table to talk about ways to ground so influential a book.  The authors of the book might dismiss educational research, but researchers are also quick to categorically dismiss the book.  Disrupting Class has been incredibly influential and is shaping education reform around the world.  Scholars who ignore that simple truth are too tangled in their own academic robes to see that real principals, teachers, students, and parents are and will be affected by this book.  Time to disrobe, if need be, and to seriously consider what it means to disrupt.

NB: There are other critiques of the book as well. One especially thoughtful review is by John Sener.

I was speaking with a teacher recently at a school where she has been using netbooks with students in class.  It was a planning meeting.  As we started to discuss the possibility of using Google Maps for part of the project, the teacher expressed that she’d love to–but she didn’t trust most of her students to stay online in class. 

Is this a technology or a pedagogy issue? 

I watched this video by a company that allows the teacher to control the computers in the classroom and, well, I wasn’t irate or indignant. I was torn.  Are student computer monitoring systems the best way to help students focus on computers?  Isn’t the real lesson here that schools need to teach into students’ behaviors and help them make better decisions? 

These questions make me think about the digital v. non-digital debate.  I think of Lisa Nielsen‘s recent posting about embracing digital books in schools is a case in point.  She endorses the use of digital tools saying that

Until educators see the value of conducting our reading and writing digitally, I believe our students will continue to drown in the paper. I am not promoting that we go out and purchase kindles or other eReaders for our schools either. The real opportunity is to embrace the technology our students already have access to and harness the power of the fourth screen to engage in their reading, writing, and thinking 21st century style.

I agree that digital means of reading and writing are necessary, but I would add that a hybrid model is far more likely to be embraced by non-technophilic teachers.

On an other end of the spectrum are those who vilify digital learning by building a paper castle: I give you Emory English professor, Mark Bauerlein. His idea that students aren’t necessarily learning better–nor are they smarter–because they can whiz around various web sites or occasionally organize themselves into productive social action.  Don Tapscott‘s glorification of the Net Generation, as he calls it, is, for Bauerlein, absurd.

Where do we draw the line–or how do we better understand the line–between technology itself and actual learning?  How do we understand the role of teachers in wireless classrooms?  Fortunately the answer to those questions is easy: just buy software to let teachers control the kids.

Pearson Evaluation Systems has created a totally computer-based test to license teachers. 

I’m all for experimentation in new ways of teaching and learning.  I have a hard time buying the idea that Pearson “developed the NES program to help states make sure the educators they certify are prepared to teach effectively in 21-st century classrooms.”  That’s an absurd notion–that because someone sits at a computer to take a series of content-heavy lessons and exams that they are then ready to be in a room with live students.  It’s especially strange when much research–and the Secretary of Education–calls for pre-service teachers to spend more time in classrooms with students working on craft.  An Ed Week article adds that NCATE is taking Pearson’s work very seriously:

James Cibulka, president of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), agreed that NES, as well as other teacher-certification tests, should be aligned with rigorous standards. But he also said it should be just one of multiple measures of a candidate’s effectiveness.

“NCATE welcomes innovative approaches to assessing teaching candidates in pre-service programs, those seeking licensure, and recently licensed teachers, such as NEC is developing,” he said. “Raising the bar for those entering the teaching profession is one important strategy if America is to succeed in raising K-12 student achievement and closing the achievement gap.”

I am befuddled and bewildered.  But I’m also open to learning more.  So, Pearson, let’s hear it.

A new survey reports that online learning courses are growing quickly and does a state-by-state comparison.  Ed Week notes that

Most of the 26 states that have online programs have seen significant growth in enrollments in recent years, with a dozen of them reporting jumps of 25 percent or more since 2007.

The full report is more thorough than others I’ve seen, providing background context and sample survey questions (though my quick read of it didn’t find all the questions).  It’s also worth noting that the report is underwritten in part by Blackboard, a world leader in online learning.