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.