The Global Search for Education
“Edmodo has been a platform that can be adapted to any type of classroom in the US and in every part of the world. We already have over 17,000,000 users.” — Crystal Hutter
Social Learning
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Have you done your Edmodo, honey?
Yes that’s right, I said “Edmodo,” not “homework” or even “school work”.
An impressive 17 million plus users worldwide are doing their Edmodo. The company’s mission since it’s beginnings has been to provide a free and safe platform that allows students and teachers to come together to collaborate and learn.
Think Facebook with a big educational vision that focuses on using many unique technology features to augment what’s already happening in the classroom. New ideas are often introduced and expanded by teachers themselves at the company’s annual teacher conferences; the last one brought together 12,000 professionals from 117 countries. Jennifer Bond, a 3rd grade teacher at Walled Lake Consolidated Schools in Walled Lake, Michigan, has been using Edmodo extensively for years and says she likes it because it is “education minded”. Jennifer is actively involved in the Edmodo Global Read Aloud, which she says “can be challenging with time zones and scheduling video conferences, but the pros are that the kids have the opportunity to connect with kids from all over the world and gain new perspectives.”
“We see our opportunity as being able to connect teachers and classrooms around the world to create a powerful network of learners so that all of the best ideas and resources can surface.” — Crystal Hutter
Does Edmodo’s Digital Citizen Starter Kit handle the challenge of educating kids to be good digital citizens? The answer is “Yes!” according to Bianca Hewes, a high school English teacher in Sydney, Australia who’s also been doing awesome things with Edmodo since 2009 (including connecting 30 of her students with registered Edmodo teachers in the US, South America and England to mentor their individual writing projects). “Edmodo is a social network with training wheels,” says Bianca. “By introducing it at a young age, teachers are able to develop the habits of the mind that are essential for students to be good digital citizens. Students learn to use appropriate language, to speak kindly and with compassion, to be supportive rather than critical, and to ask thoughtful questions.”
I had the opportunity to chat further with the Company’s COO, Crystal Hutter.
“Edmodo is a social network with training wheels. By introducing it at a young age, teachers are able to develop the habits of the mind that are essential for students to be good digital citizens.”— Bianca Hewes, English teacher, Sydney, Australia
How is Edmodo helping to address the achievement gap? Isn’t the lack of computers and bandwidth a significant impediment?
We see our opportunity as being able to connect teachers and classrooms around the world to create a powerful network of learners so that all of the best ideas and resources can surface. With Edmodo, teachers can discover content in real time and deliver it in a personalized way to their students. For example, teachers can receive instant feedback on how his/her students perform by giving them a quiz on Edmodo and getting real time analytics to see how each student is grasping the material. She can put students into small groups where each group gets different content or different instructional materials to ensure that every single student in her classroom learns the concept that she is teaching that day.
Have you come across limitations of low-income families in affording good quality computers and satisfactory Internet access to use Edmodo? My concern is that this would be a significant impediment to students in low-income families.
Every district and school handles access to technology differently. Many schools are starting to adopt “BYOD” (Bring Your Own Device) environments, where each student is allowed to bring in their own mobile devices to use in class. Some schools have laptop or iPad carts that teachers share amongst their classrooms. Other schools have computer labs that students can access at specific hours during and after school.
While not every student has access to a computer, most do have access to a mobile device in their household. Edmodo offers a mobile website and native apps for iOS and Android devices.
“Teachers are teachers because they want to change the lives of students, so Edmodo allows them to be able to do that on a whole new scale with students and with their fellow teachers.” — Crystal Hutter
I see Edmodo as a platform with resources that could also be helpful in classrooms where learning has been more challenging. If every poor child in the US had access to Edmodo, what impact could it have on our domestic achievement gap?
The demographics of Edmodo in the US, which is about 75% of our users, mirrors the demographics of the US K-12 system, covering everything from grade level to subject area and from rural to urban, high income to low income as well as public versus private. I think it’s important that Edmodo has been a platform that can be adapted to any type of classroom in the US and in every part of the world. We already have over 17,000,000 users. Teachers have been an important part of creating a real change in their classrooms by being a part of this global network and by engaging their students in it as well.
If students are doing so nicely with Edmodo, why not just home school them?
Every student and family has a different need and approach and we support all of those environments. I was recently talking to a woman who home schools her son. He is extremely gifted and takes a large number of courses. She spends a massive amount of time curating his courses, which involves using many different platforms with varying levels of technology. So she brings all these courses and all of his tutors onto Edmodo and this has made her process much more manageable. She also feels now like she’s not a lonely island because she’s connecting with other teachers who have great ideas. So whether you are a Mom curating your child’s lessons at home or a teacher in a classroom, the idea is to make sure that you don’t feel like you’re on a lonely island but that you are part of a much broader community.
“Kids have the opportunity to connect with kids from all over the world and gain new perspectives.”— Jennifer Bond, 3rd grade teacher, Walled Lake, Michigan
Can social interaction in an online environment ever be quite the same as social interaction in a classroom?
For us it is always about the blend of offline and online. What teachers on Edmodo do so well is combine the best of the tried and true of pedagogy in the classroom with new digital applications and technologies that are coming online. It’s all about making sure the offline and the online worlds are seamless so that you create the best personalized learning experiences for students. We are social creatures and learning is a social experience but we see that every student is different. We hear stories from teachers about students, for example, a student who was not as vocal in class, so the question was, “Is she/he really engaged in the learning process?” The teacher has told us that Edmodo has really taken a leadership role in helping that student to find his/her voice.
Do you find that teachers are happy to share their content with other teachers around the world?
Yes, the vast majority of teachers that we meet are. There are teachers who spend up to 40 hours developing a lesson to teach to students. If a teacher can feel that by sharing that lesson with the Edmodo community she will be able to get amazing feedback from other teachers and that it may have impacted the lives of many more students, that’s important. Teachers are teachers because they want to change the lives of students, so Edmodo allows them to be able to do that on a whole new scale with students and with their fellow teachers.
“Edmodo will continue to be the place where learning happens, connecting teachers and students around the world to the resources and tools that will help them reach their full potential.” — Crystal Hutter
Great to hear that - I know that encouraging more teachers to share their multi-media lessons has been challenging for the Wikiwijs platform in The Netherlands.
I think the difference with our platform is that teachers are on Edmodo every single day teaching their students so it becomes second nature to them to share. For example, while they’re on it they may have a question for the community and another teacher may immediately respond with, “Here’s what I did.” Real-time is much easier and I think it allows for all types of things to be shared. There is an app on Edmodo called NoRedInk (a fun way to practice and master grammar and writing skills). It was built by a language arts teacher at this time last year and it actually went viral on Edmodo.
Edmodo is a free learning platform. Where do the revenues come from in this model?
Edmodo is free for teachers and students and always will be. In March 2012, we opened our API to educational publishers to enable them create web-based apps for the platform. These free and paid apps integrate with the features of Edmodo and enable teachers to streamline all the educational tools and resources they use with their students in one place (Edmodo).
Five to ten years from now - where do you see Edmodo?
Edmodo will continue to be the place where learning happens, connecting teachers and students around the world to the resources and tools that will help them reach their full potential.
Crystal Hutter and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of Edmodo
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“Highly prevalent, specific health problems have powerful effects on students’ motivation and ability to learn, and have not been addressed well in our nation’s schools.” — Chuck Basch
Health and Education
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Today I begin a series of articles to focus on problems that affect our domestic achievement gap, with the objective of identifying solutions for these issues.
Should health disparities be a fundamental part of national school reform to narrow our domestic achievement gap?
Student health problems illustrate a compelling but generally neglected influence on the US domestic achievement gap, according to Dr. Charles (Chuck) Basch, author of Healthier Students Are Better Learners. In Basch’s study, a synthesis of current research, which I recommend every educator and health provider read, he concludes that health issues, which disproportionately plague low-income urban minority youth, play a major role in limiting their motivation and ability to learn.
Basch further believes that intervention would improve both educational and health outcomes. Currently there is no national American school mission or Department of Education initiative to reduce health disparities as part of a strategy to close our domestic achievement gap.
On Tuesday, February 12, Dr. Howell Wechsler of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will address health and education problems at the 2013 Tisch Lecture, Taking Action Now to Address the Missing Link in School Reform, at Teachers College in New York City. I was able to chat recently with both Dr. Wechsler and Dr. Basch about the key issues.
Dr. Howell Wechsler is Director, Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Wechsler’s work with DASH earned him the Milton J. E. Senn Award in 2006 from the American Academy of Pediatrics for achievement in the field of school health. In 2012, he was also awarded the American School Health Association’s highest honor, the William A. Howe Award.
Dr. Charles (Chuck) E. Basch is the Richard March Hoe Professor of Health Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Chuck has provided consultation related to implementing Healthier Students Are Better Learners to state departments of education in Connecticut, Tennessee and Colorado, as well as to public school systems in Chicago, Boston, and Denver.
“People need to look past the test scores or the easy and obvious solutions to dig down and look at the root causes that are really impeding academic achievement.” — Howell Wechsler
I worked on education initiatives in Africa and understand the important connection between healthcare and successful learning outcomes. First you must have healthy students. Then you can educate them — do we think like that here?
Howell: What I find fascinating is that when people who work on school health promotion across the world get together, we learn that things are not really all that different. It is perhaps a little more challenging in the United States because local control of education is so strong here. There are so many different places that you have to influence to get practices to change. We don’t do a very good job of getting people to think of the needs of the whole child. We train people in education. We train people in public health. But what is really needed here is a bridge or a mix between the two. That’s not something people do easily.
What health issues affecting learning have you identified in students and what percentage can be found in low income homes?
Chuck: I identified seven. Poor vision, poorly controlled Asthma, aggression and violence, physical inactivity, skipping breakfast and ADHD. These are not necessarily the ones that will be the most important in every locality, but they warrant consideration. Also, while not specifically mentioned, mental and emotional health should be a pervasive underlying theme of any high quality school health initiative. Each of these 7 problems affects or is affected by mental and emotional health. Further, each of these problems has high prevalence and disproportionately affects low-income, urban minority youth that is the same group greatly affected by the academic achievement gap.
“Educational leaders and policy makers have not established strategic, high quality, and well coordinated policies and programs to address these health needs and until we do, the benefits of other school reform efforts will be jeopardized.” — Chuck Basch
If we could combat the health issues you’ve identified, how far could we go towards narrowing our domestic achievement gap?
Chuck: It is difficult to say exactly since a well-conceived effort has never been tried. But there is evidence that very substantive effect sizes can be achieved. Addressing these problems is not a panacea. We need effective teachers, high quality curriculum, standards and assessments, and data systems to track and provide feedback about where progress is and is not being made. But no matter how well these school reforms are implemented, if students are not motivated and able to learn, the educational benefits of all of these efforts will be jeopardized. Highly prevalent, specific health problems have powerful effects on students’ motivation and ability to learn, and have not been addressed well in our nation’s schools.
Health problems can be profound barriers to learning, but is it the job of schools to provide healthcare services?
Howell: Most schools provide some kind of healthcare services to children through the presence of a school nurse; many link students and their families to community-based healthcare providers; and approximately 2,000 schools in the US have school-based health centers to provide at least some critically needed healthcare services to students on campuses.
Chuck: Schools should not be the social institution that is solely or even predominantly responsible for providing healthcare services to youth. But given that schools are the social institution where youth are on a daily basis, they are ideally suited to provide such services, and are in a strong position to provide healthcare services to youth with great needs who are at high risk of not receiving needed services. This is, of course, a value-laden question that does not have a “right” answer. There are many expectations on schools in addition to their primary goal — educating youth.
Although opinions may vary on what schools should or should not direct attention to, the reality is that certain health problems/issues pose powerful barriers to teaching and learning. These problems have persisted for decades and disproportionately affect low-income, urban minority youth. Education leaders and policy makers have not established strategic, high quality, and well-coordinated policies and programs to address these health needs and until we do, the benefits of other school reform efforts will be jeopardized.
“Providing healthcare and, more importantly, promoting wellness and quality of life is not the responsibility of any single social institution. Families, communities, healthcare institutions, faith-based organizations, categorical organizations, governmental agencies, foundations and philanthropists, and yes, schools, all have an important role to play.” — Chuck Basch
If not the job of schools, whose job is health?
Chuck: Providing healthcare and, more importantly, promoting wellness and quality of life is not the responsibility of any single social institution. Families, communities, healthcare institutions, faith-based organizations, categorical organizations, governmental agencies, foundations and philanthropists, and yes, schools, all have an important role to play. And the problems are so large and so challenging among low-income youth that it will take contributions from all of these elements of our society to address these health needs in an efficient and timely way. What is currently lacking and sorely needed is coordination among the different entities investing in health promotion and disease prevention among youth.
What role should schools play in promoting healthcare?
Howell: Schools should work closely with health departments and local healthcare providers. They can facilitate the delivery of healthcare services through agreements with healthcare providers, manage it themselves, or link students and their families to community based providers. Schools also should teach students the knowledge and skills they need to effectively use healthcare services.
“The number of schools that have health centers still remains a small fraction of what the need is.”— Howell Wechsler
What national, state, and local health care reform strategies would you like to see put in place to ensure student health?
Chuck: From my perspective, the question should be a bit broader. Part of a larger problem is that the problems of health disparities, educational disparities and poverty are closely inter-related in causal ways, yet our long-standing infrastructure for addressing these problems, and the policies, programs and funding associated with them, are disconnected in silos. This situation is not only pervasive in government, but in the private sector as well - see for example the Gates Foundation - educational investments are focused domestically and public health investments are focused globally. This is not, from my perspective, a good way to invest social resources to help youth facing many educational and health challenges simultaneously. To break out of a cycle of poverty, which is characterized by intergenerational high risk for educational failure, health problems, and low chances for upward social mobility, these inter-related problems must be addressed through inter-related solutions.
What positive healthcare initiatives have you seen around the country that might inspire more focus on healthcare if we had more funding for low-income schools?
Howell: Well, there was a big increase in the past few years in funding for school based health centers and I think from a public health and education perspective that is a positive development. However, the number of schools that have health centers still remains a small fraction of what the need is. There are a lot of efforts underway to develop linkages between schools and community health centers and other community healthcare providers knowing that sometimes it is just too challenging (there are economic barriers at times) to actually open clinics on school sites. So there are efforts to build awareness for services that are available in the community and make them more accessible to students.
“We don’t do a very good job of getting people to think of the needs of the whole child. We train people in education. We train people in public health. But what is really needed here is a bridge or a mix between the two.” — Howell Wechsler
Imagine you had the job of advocating for better healthcare for poor students. How would you pitch it?
Howell: There are multiple ways to go. First of all, the data and the evidence are growing and that would be important to stress. There is also a very strong common sense argument that obviously young people cannot achieve if they are burdened by health problems.
We are starting to make progress in expanding the evidence base. For many years, when people went into schools and did an education intervention, they only looked at education outcomes and not health outcomes. People who were doing public health interventions in the schools just looked at the health outcomes but did not consider the education results. So that’s one of the main reasons it has taken so long for us to build a body of evidence.
Even though CDC is a public health agency, we also fund education agencies. Most of the funding we give out goes to health departments but my division funds education agencies. In our core programs, for many years we have required the education agencies that we fund to collaborate with health departments. So if you were a state education agency and you wanted funding, it had to be a partnership between the health and the education department and the resources had to be shared.
It was a fascinating exercise trying to bridge these two worlds. We actually found that public health people were fairly ignorant about how to influence schools — and schools were not always clear on how to work with health departments — so we commissioned the National Association of State Boards of Education to write a manual and develop a training program called “How Schools Work and How to Work with Schools.” After that we commissioned a public health organization called the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors to do the sequel, which was “How Health Departments Work and How to Work with Health Departments.”
Getting people to cross sectors is a huge problem in this country. People need to look past the test scores or the easy and obvious solutions to dig down and look at the root causes that are really impeding academic achievement.
Dr. Charles Basch, C. M. Rubin, Dr. Howell Wechsler
Photos courtesy of Healthy Schools Campaign.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“Multiple choice tests have been the dominant type of test in this country since World War I, but that is about to change.” — Roger Benjamin
If not the SAT, What?
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
What if educators were able to assess the 21st century skills that thought leaders in The Global Search for Education series talk about week after week? What if this 21st century replacement for the SAT was able to measure high school students’ critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving, and written communication; in other words, all the essential skills that both educators and employers have said students need to succeed in college and the workplace?
Until we are able to assess critical thinking, it probably won’t get taught. PISA’s international problem-solving standardized test does assess this, but according to Harvard University’s Dr. Tony Wagner, when it comes to the forward thinking model for American schools and colleges to watch, “The College and Work Readiness Assessment (CWRA/CLA) is really in a class by itself.” Wagner sees CWRA as an essential part of what he calls “Accountability 2.0.” But he adds it “should be accompanied by audits of students’ digital portfolios which show evidence of progressive mastery of the skills that matter most, such as critical and creative thinking, communication, and collaboration.”
Naturally, I was curious to learn more about this promising candidate for the gold standard in the future world of assessment. I recently got the opportunity to chat with the President of the New York based CAE (Council for Aid to Education), home of the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), Dr. Roger Benjamin. Prior to his role at CAE, Roger was a senior research scientist at RAND from 1990 to 2005 (director of RAND Education from 1994-1999).
“It is becoming clear that schools, colleges and employers are eager to move beyond reliance only on multiple choice tests.” — Roger Benjamin
Do you think that standardized tests should be used to evaluate the abilities of high school students for admission to college? Do you think that GPA alone would be sufficient?
I do think there is a role for standardized tests because of the grade inflation in high school GPA’s, widely disparate metrics used to evaluate students, and the advantages students from affluent high school districts have compared to students from disadvantaged schools. There are students everywhere in the United States that, when given the chance, demonstrate extraordinary potential. Standardized tests are therefore an important additional tool for admissions officers. However, standardized test protocols must become better aligned with the education reform movement underway, including the common core standards movement which calls for open ended tests instead of the heavy reliance on multiple choice tests, which are not worth teaching to.
In your own words, would you describe for me what you believe the current SAT measures versus your own performance assessments?
The SAT measures the aptitude high school seniors have for doing well in college through reasoning and verbal abilities tests. The CWRA measures high school students’ critical thinking, analytical and quantitative reasoning skills, problem solving, writing mechanics and writing persuasiveness skills that educators and employers believe high school graduates need to have to succeed in college and work.
“There are important soft skills such as creativity and collaboration, but the challenge is how to measure them at the same level of scientific reliability as the skills that we are currently measuring reliably.”— Roger Benjamin
Why is the College and Work Readiness Assessment a better option to the SAT?
I would replace the word “better” with the word “different.” The CWRA is more congruent with the requirements of today’s “Knowledge Economy” in which it is more important to be able to access, structure and use information than to only accumulate facts. Multiple-choice questions require the ability to recognize a painting. In comparison, performance tasks require the student to paint. Definitions of learning have shifted to the ability to apply what one knows to new situations. Performance assessments capture this change. We are not sure whether the CWRA+ will compete directly with the SAT or be thought of as additional important information for college admissions officers. However, it is becoming clear that schools, colleges and employers are eager to move beyond reliance only on multiple-choice tests.
Students learn best when they are being taught to learn as opposed to being taught to pass a test. Can we overcome the problem of teaching to a test?
A strong point of the performance tasks (case studies and realistic problems) of the CWRA+ and CLA+ is that it is very difficult to teach to these tests. There are not simple “right” or “wrong” answers. The focus is on how well the student reasons, not on whether they get the “facts” right. Indeed, all the facts needed to answer the tasks are provided to the students taking the test.
The SAT is a multiple-choice test with the exception of the writing test. Grading of the multiple-choice test is easy. The answers are either right or wrong. The CWRA assessment is more about judgment. How do you assure grading consistency across the exams taken in different locations and at different time periods?
Performance assessments such as CWRA have been around a long time. Teachers have not liked multiple-choice tests but we could never figure out how to take to scale the more complicated problem solving assessments that constitute the CWRA. However, we can now train human scorers to score open-ended essays based on scientifically designed rubrics as reliably as multiple-choice tests. Moreover, computer assisted scoring, built on our human scoring protocols, score these responses at levels that are as reliable as human scoring, which further reduces error and cost.
“Multiple-choice questions require the ability to recognize a painting. In comparison, performance tasks require the student to paint.” — Roger Benjamin
What would be your best argument for keeping the SAT?
It is relatively cheap and easy to administer and score. It has a significant number of reliability and validity studies that corroborate its efficacy in predicting a student’s GPA in the first year of college.
You speak a lot about measuring critical thinking skills. How much do these new CWRA assessments require students to have honed their creative skills?
That’s a good question. We know that students in the arts and sciences at the college level do better than students who are in vocational or applied subjects. We think that is probably because they do more analytic based writing and are involved in more open Q and A sessions. However, there is a lot of work to be done on how creativity plays into doing well on assessments like this. So that is an interesting question.
Do you believe that strong creative skills are important to the process of identifying problems and finding solutions?
There are important soft skills such as creativity and collaboration, but the challenge is how to measure them at the same level of scientific reliability as the skills that we are currently measuring reliably. Hopefully we will succeed in measuring these additional skills that are also very important.
“The CWRA measures high school students’ critical thinking, analytical and quantitative reasoning skills, problem solving, writing mechanics and writing persuasiveness skills that educators and employers believe high school graduates need to have to succeed in college and work.”— Roger Benjamin
How many schools nationally are using the CWRA performance assessment and how many college admissions offices are asking for it? How many will accept it instead of the SAT?
This year, 120 high schools are using it. We are now talking to college admissions officers and leaders of colleges who are aligned with high schools that feed into them, and are also CWRA+ users, about accepting the CWRA+ results in addition to SAT or ACT results. There is much controversy in education at present about standardized testing, with many believing all standardized testing should be eliminated during primary and secondary school, with just one test given at the end of secondary school.
What are the logistical issues you face in getting broader distribution for the CWRA assessment?
We now have a new version of CWRA called CWRA+ to be used in the college admissions space. We have started to market this new assessment through partnerships with colleges who will accept the CWRA+ results as part of admissions’ records. The Obama administration’s Race to the Top program launched the biggest testing educational initiative ever funded by the federal government and we won the right to develop a number of assessments. These newer assessments are becoming mainstream almost overnight. It’s because of the “Knowledge Economy” - content is important but when you can google for facts you’ve got to be able to think about what it is you’re going to be googling for. Multiple-choice tests have been the dominant type of test in this country since World War I, but that is about to change.
Dr. Roger Benjamin and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of Tech Valley High School, Rensselaer NY; New Tech Network and Traverse Bay Area Independent School District, Michigan/Mancelona Public Schools/Joanie Moore.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“We need to establish platforms for teachers to initiate their own changes and make their own judgments on the frontline, to invest more in the change capacities of local districts and communities, and to pursue prudent rather than profligate approaches to testing.”— Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
What is the Fourth Way?
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
The Fourth Way is a powerful new vision to bring about effective educational reform.
Even after one has identified that the old ways of doing things are no longer working, coming up with system-wide comprehensive solutions as to how to develop better schools and school systems is challenging. Professor Andy Hargreaves and Professor Dennis Shirley believe they have found those solutions. They have examined over three decades of research evidence on educational change around the world in some of the leading education systems, and from these global lessons have developed a dynamic new plan for the future of schooling. I was able to catch up with Hargreaves and Shirley to talk about the inspiring ideas laid out in their latest book, The Global Fourth Way: The Quest for Educational Excellence (Corwin, September 2012). Andrew Hargreaves is the Thomas More Brennan Chair at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College, and is the elected Visiting Professor at the Institute of Education, London. Dennis Shirley is Professor at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College.
“Alberta funds almost all its schools and districts to design and evaluate their own innovations. Teachers are the drivers of change, not the driven.” — Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
In your own words, what is the Global Fourth Way?
The “First Way” of the 1960s and 1970s created interesting innovations here and there, but it overprotected teachers’ autonomy and kept them isolated from new research, outside scrutiny, and each other.
The “Second Way” that emerged in the 1980s, and that remains pervasive in the U.S. today, enforced consistency through more testing, standardization and accountability, and introduced competition through school choice. Unfortunately, a one-size-fits-all system of prescribed curriculum programs and teaching-to-the-test led to professional disillusionment and made it difficult to attract and retain excellent teachers.
The “Third Way” added data-driven decision-making to US teachers’ toolkits, but it has skewed attention towards the performance metrics themselves and away from the people and the learning that the numbers are meant to represent.
It’s time to move beyond the limitations of these first three ways of change where there has been too much freedom, too much force, or too much fascination with data and spreadsheets.
Our new book describes a better “Fourth Way” that draws on our first-hand international research to get us beyond those limitations. This includes pursuing an inspiring and inclusive vision for US education rather than simply racing to the top, being committing to education as a common goodwhere schools work together for the benefit of all children, and promoting the innovation and creativity that leads to modern economic success. To become more successful innovators, we need to establish platforms for teachers to initiate their own changes and make their own judgments on the frontline, to invest more in the change capacities of local districts and communities, and to pursue prudent rather than profligate approaches to testing. The Fourth Way is about reforming rather than destroying teacher associations, and it integrates technology with high quality teaching instead of replacing teachers with iPads and online learning at every opportunity.
“In Finland, within very broad government guidelines, teachers create their own curricula together across schools in every community and district. They don’t confine collaboration to their own individual schools and to just implementing other people’s ideas.” — Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
We need high quality teachers and high quality school principals and leadership. What can we learn from your global research about developing school principals and leadership?
Three things are critical. First, in high performing countries, principals are working with highly qualified teachers who come from the top tiers of the graduation range, who have been rigorously prepared in universities and through supervised practice in schools, and who remain in education for all of their careers. The job of principals there is to get the best out of these highly capable teachers, sharpen their collective focus, and keep moving them forward. In the U.S., teachers are less well qualified, less well prepared because they are trained in short programs that occur outside of universities, and they turn over more quickly. This means that principals have to spend excessive amounts of time plugging holes and repairing deficits in the teaching force.
Second, high performing systems know their teachers well long before they even aspire to become principals. District and Government administrators spend a lot of time in schools. They develop, select and certify their leaders over long periods of time, instead of certifying them first, selecting them later and developing them as an afterthought.
Singapore’s performance management process systematically identifies and supports those teachers who have the potential to be future principals.
Finland’s principals are usually selected from and promoted within their own schools where their success is proven, and where their role is to be first among equals in “a society of experts.”
Canadian principals also normally move up within their own district, where, as teachers, they have been known by district staff who get out and about in the schools.
Third, principals spend more time working with their teachers and in classrooms. How can they do this? Because, as Finnish principals told us, they are not spending vast amounts of time constantly reacting to government initiatives or filling out evaluation checklists.
“We disagree with the assertion that great teachers can be replaced by online alternatives. The futuristic claim that technology will triumph over teachers ignores all the social and relational dimensions of teaching and learning.” — Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
Teamwork and teacher collaboration at school level are important to successful outcomes. What inspiring examples of collaboration have you seen around the world?
Singapore gives 10% “white space” time to all of its teachers to come up with their own innovations outside of the official curriculum. This encourages teachers to turn to their colleagues for inspiration and ideas.
Alberta funds almost all its schools and districts to design and evaluate their own innovations. Teachers are the drivers of change, not the driven. One condition of funding is that schools must have explicit plans to share what they are learning with others.
In Ontario, teachers come together to look at charts of how well all students are progressing in every class. All achievement in every class is completely transparent. This isn’t a strategy to shame poorly performing teachers or even a prompt to come up with quick fixes that will get rapid gains in test scores. Instead, teachers look at the faces behind the numbers and develop a strategy for each child. Across all grades, all teachers take collective responsibility for all students’ success.
In Finland, within very broad government guidelines, teachers create their own curriculum together across schools in every community and district. They don’t confine collaboration to their own individual schools and to just implementing other people’s ideas.
“In high performing countries, principals are working with highly qualified teachers who come from the top tiers of the graduation range, who have been rigorously prepared in universities and through supervised practice in schools, and who remain in education for all of their careers.”— Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
What did you learn from studying the California education system (CTA) example?
In 2005, the California Teachers’ Association sued Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for taking more than $5 billion out of the state’s education budget and thereby violating state legislation that provided a minimal funding ratio for the schools. The Governor settled the lawsuit in 2006 and the CTA used the restored funds to create a new “Quality Education Investment Act” (QEIA) that concentrated on working with close to 500 schools serving the state’s most needy students. QEIA schools receive special funding for reduced class sizes, professional development, leadership training, and, in the high schools, more guidance counselors. In every QEIA school, teacher leaders are responsible for the resources and the strategy. Early results indicate that QEIA schools are performing better than non-QEIA schools in similar circumstances. This is especially true for students of color and in poverty.
The CTA example challenges everyone to understand that all teachers’ unions must undergo the kind of internal transformation that has been occurring within the CTA. What teacher unions now need is the same as schools and school systems: greater collective professionalism focused on teaching and learning across the spectrum.
“Singapore gives 10 percent ‘white space’ time to all of its teachers to come up with their own innovations outside of the official curriculum. This encourages teachers to turn to their colleagues for inspiration and ideas.” — Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
I was interested in what you say about professional development in Singapore in terms of the systematic approach to teachers’ professional growth. Can you explain how they approach PD?
Teacher assessment is very rigorous in Singapore and is closely tied to teachers’ professional development. After completing their first years of teaching, all teachers are invited to a periodic “tea time” with their principal or a Ministry of Education official to go over their evaluations, discuss their current aspirations, and explore possibilities for continuing learning and professional growth in the years to come. Singaporean teachers move along one of three tracks (master teacher, administrator, curriculum leadership) and switch between them as they reflect on their progress. Singaporean teachers also move back and forth between their teaching roles and positions in the Ministry of Education or the National Institute of Education, where all teachers and principals are trained to develop and contribute to a greater understanding of the profession as a whole.
Clayton Christensen has stated that “online learning is entering the system in a way that could eventually disrupt the classroom.” What are your thoughts on this?
There is much to admire in Christensen’s prediction, which we discuss in detail in our book. But we disagree with his assertion that great teachers can be replaced by online alternatives. The futuristic claim that technology will triumph over teachers ignores all the social and relational dimensions of teaching and learning. These include inspiration, impulse control, being part of an inclusive and diverse community, finding different ways to be engaged with your learning, and receiving adult guidance in making judgments and decisions, including those that occur online. Neglect of these dimensions has defeated the champions of television, video and teaching machines throughout history.
However, technology does have a role to play in today’s schools if it is effectively yet judiciously integrated in the culture of our schools. In Singapore, we have seen teachers use Twitter to collect real-time feedback from their students. In Ontario, assistive technologies help students with learning disabilities to make great strides forwards, especially when new technologies are part of all students’ learning. In these cases innovative technologies and effective teaching are working together, rather than at cross-purposes.
The Second and Third Ways of U.S. education reform are giving us more markets, more mandates, and more machines as answers to all our ills. This is the opposite of what high performers are doing everywhere. America will not achieve high-performance if it replaces teachers with machines or turns teachers into machines. It will only improve its schools when it, too, embraces an inspiring vision for the common good that rests upon the high quality and effective collaboration of its teachers and leaders.
Dennis Shirley, C. M. Rubin, Andy Hargreaves
Photos courtesy of Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“The strength of the Wikiwijs platform is that we are now able to make all learning materials available for all teachers in the entire country to share. Everyone can access the materials through one port of entry.” — Robert Schuwer
Internet Sharing Programs
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
The goal of the Netherlands Wikiwijs program, when it was launched by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science five years ago, was to mainstream the use of open education resources (“OERs”) through an Internet-based portal. The Wikiwijs program enables all teachers in the Netherlands education system (primary, secondary and higher education) to search, find, create, develop and share all forms of multimedia learning materials. The program, as its current project leader Robert Schuwer recently explained to me, has two components. The first enables teachers to find and access resources from educational and cultural institutions. The second component is open education resources (“OERs”) available under creative commons licenses where the sources of those resources are the teachers themselves. Hence, Dutch teachers are able to share their learning examples and best practices with their colleagues around the country. I asked Robert Schuwer, Associate Professor at the Open University Netherlands and a Project Leader of the Wikiwijs program, to discuss the successes and ongoing challenges of building Wikiwijs into a vibrant and enduring community based platform for all Dutch educators. Professor Schuwer is also Chairman of the Special Interest Group OER for Higher Education and Chairman of the Nominating Committee for the Open Courseware Consortium.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Wikiwijs program?
We now have an agenda of management of institutions for education, including higher education. Some teachers in the Netherlands had already been creating their own materials and learning tools before Wikiwijs. They had been sharing these resources in small communities of known colleagues. The strength of the Wikiwijs platform is that we are now able to make all learning materials available for all teachers in the entire country to share. Everyone can access the materials through one port of entry.
The weakness of the program is that teachers need extra time to properly develop and upload their independently created materials. Teachers have heavy workloads in the Netherlands, especially in primary and secondary education. They don’t always have time to create additional learning materials in such a way that they can be shared.
“We are trying to create more awareness of the advantages of OERs. For example, familiarizing teachers (educators, principals) with the value of these kinds of materials in terms of efficiency for educational institutions and for all teachers in providing access to quality learning materials.”— Robert Schuwer
What about quality control? Can you just let teachers upload their programs without some kind of editing process?
Wikiwijs does not have an editorial board that checks materials uploaded by teachers. We have the opinion that teachers are the most capable to judge whether learning materials are of sufficient quality or not. What we do offer are opportunities for other users to add opinions about the materials such as ratings and reviews. Furthermore, we have introduced the concept of quality marks. An organization or a community that uses a quality model for its purposes can look at the materials it finds in Wikiwijs and when in accordance with its quality model, add a quality mark to it. So, this whole system is built on trust. When you trust the other users or when you trust the group that adds quality marks, then you will trust the materials.
Could you comment on any issues you face related to classifying or cataloging materials so that they can be found easily?
For describing the learning materials (metadata), we use a LOM (learning object metadata) application profile that is the standard for Dutch education. One of the metadata elements is to describe what kind of learning materials it is (source of information, closed questions, open questions, manual, tool) and its level of aggregation (e.g. lesson or series of lessons). Other mandatory metadata elements are title, description, intended end user (student, teacher) and age range.
What are you doing to ensure teachers have more time to upload resources?
We are trying to create more awareness of the advantages of OERs. For example, familiarizing teachers (educators, principals) with the value of these kinds of materials in terms of efficiency for education institutions and for all teachers in providing access to quality learning materials from other teachers nationwide. It could provide learning resources that are more up to date and materials that are helpful for specific target groups, e.g. gifted children.
“Teachers have heavy workloads in the Netherlands, especially in primary and secondary education. They don’t always have time to create additional learning materials in such a way that it can be shared.” — Robert Schuwer
But you are still dependent on the teachers engaging with the program and uploading their independently created learning materials so these can be shared. Has that been easy?
Yes, we are dependent on the management of those teachers. They have to provide the teachers with both the time and the resources to do this. However, we have had the on-going economic crisis. Since that occurred, there have been budget cuts in education in the Netherlands. Schools have to do more with less money. The benefits of what OER materials can do for teaching in this new situation is not their biggest priority.
What other programs like Wikiwijs have you been inspired by around the world?
I do not know of another example of a program that is doing this nationally for all education sectors, i.e. primary, secondary and higher education. In terms of community-based platforms for higher education, we have looked at Merlot (Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching). We have looked at Connections from Rice University. We’ve also looked at the Belgium Klascement platform. These are all examples of communities of people sharing their learning materials with others.
“This whole system is built on trust. When you trust the other users or when you trust the group that adds quality marks, then you will trust the materials.” — Robert Schuwer
What feedback have you had from teachers who use the Wikiwijs program?
We get both positive and negative feedback. The positive feedback is that the teachers generally find what they are looking for. One of the components of the Wikiwijs platform that teachers like is a user friendly remix tool, which enables teachers to take the OERs they find and put them in a structure that enables them to create a new OER with other teachers.
Of course, we also get negative feedback from teachers who don’t find what they are looking for or find something that has poor quality. Quality is naturally a very subjective thing. Teachers have the opportunity to rate and review materials on the site.
We also have teachers who tell us they have created learning materials that they believe should belong to them, so they are not willing to share. But I believe that something paid for by taxpayers should be available for everyone. In addition, there are schools that provide teachers with the proper resources to enable them to create learning materials, and I believe these learning examples should be shared with all teachers. That should not be for discussion.
Forward thinking — five or 10 years from now — what are your goals for Wikiwijs?
My long-term goal is that open educational resources should be the default choice. In other words, when someone is creating learning materials, it should be understood that they will be shared. We should have a process to ensure that. We should also have materials of better quality that can be shared with teachers. There is still a lot to be done.
“My long term goal is that open educational resources should be the default choice. In other words, when someone is creating learning materials, it should be understood that they will be shared.”— Robert Schuwer
What’s the usage of Wikiwijs currently?
We are now in our fifth year; in 2012 we had 650,000 downloads from the Wikiwijs platform and we had approximately 1300 uploads directly to the platform. I do not know how many uploads there have been to other repositories that are harvested by Wikiwijs. I am pleased with the number of downloads but not as pleased with the uploads as I would like to see contributions be higher. That’s a problem that all community-sharing platforms have, including Wikipedia.
Teachers can learn so much from each other. It would be wonderful if all were able to share their knowledge with their peers. Am I simplifying it too much?
No, you are not. However, Wikiwijs itself needs to continue to improve its product, which it has done over the last four years. We use the feedback we get from teachers to improve the platform. For example, when users share materials with Wikiwijs, we don’t always get feedback through the platform from other users. The majority is not using our features, so a lot of shared materials remain unrated.
When people come to the Wikiwijs platform, they need to feel it is a vibrant community, and we need to keep working on this. Other feedback we have received from teachers is that some kind of system which rewards teachers for doing things on the platform would be good. As an example, when a teacher is rating or reviewing learning materials, she/he can be recognized for this action with the use of badges. This would encourage more teachers to share and become part of the community. Those are things we must continue to work on.
Professor Robert Schuwer and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of the Wikiwijs program.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“Finnish schools are fear-free places where children don’t need to worry about competition, failure or performance that in many countries are fueled by standardized testing.” — Pasi SahlbergPhoto courtesy of Elvi Rista
What Will Finland Do Next?
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Systematic pursuit of children’s wellbeing and happiness in secure environments takes precedence over measured academic achievements in Finnish schools, according to Pasi Sahlberg, author of the 2013 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award winning book, Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? It was the book many educators turned to last year to find ways to make their own schools better. Sahlberg explained to me that Finland will continue to work on the same mission it has had for over 40 years: to give access to high quality and safe schools for all children regardless of their family backgrounds, domiciles, mother tongues, or abilities. Thinking forward, what can we learn from the newer strategies being pursued by Finland’s education reformers to stay at the top? I asked Pasi to discuss this further in The Global Search for Education.
“Today nearly 45 percent of Finnish 16-year-olds choose to study in vocational upper secondary schools and 50 percent in academic high schools. I am an advocate of flexible learning pathways that provide individuals personalized options to study what they believe will help them to be successful in life.”— Pasi SahlbergPhoto courtesy of Liisa Takala
There are significant factors beyond the classroom that ensure Finnish children thrive in school. Can you summarize the support services provided currently and what you think needs to be improved?
Most Finnish children go to optional pre-school at age 6 and compulsory education begins at age of 7. I belong to those who don’t believe that starting school earlier would actually be beneficial to children’s cognitive or social development. Finland has a universal heavily subsidized public childcare service that gives all children a right to daycare and offers them an environment to develop and grow as individuals without any pressure of academic or other performance. Play, music and learning to be with other children are common modes of children’s lives in daycare.
Another important aspect of Finnish schools is systematic pursuit of wellbeing and happiness, especially during the early years of primary school. Finnish schools are fear-free places where children don’t need to worry about competition, failure or performance that in many countries are fueled by standardized testing. Every school in Finland has a Pupil Welfare Team that monitors and processes issues related to behavior, health and progress of children. It consists of the school head, a special education teacher, school nurse or doctor, psychologist and social worker. The main aim of this team is to prevent problems that might jeopardize wellbeing. Primary school teachers put wellbeing and happiness of their pupils before measured academic progress.
Despite this, there is a growing concern among psychologists and pediatricians that the quality of children’s lives outside of school is declining. Some argue that parents increasingly leave upbringing of their children to schools. Teachers continue to urge parents to take more responsibility for their children e.g. giving more time and attention to them at home. What Finland needs first and foremost is better alignment of responsibilities between homes and schools and perhaps a national program that would help mothers and fathers to take better care of the young ones and simply love them more. In this worrying situation it is paramount that Finnish politicians secure sufficient funding for child wellbeing services in all schools.
“What Finland needs first and foremost is better alignment of responsibilities between homes and schools and perhaps a national program that would help mothers and fathers to take better care of the young ones and simply love them more.” — Pasi SahlbergPhoto courtesy of Finnish Ministry for Education and Culture
Is the problem for some OECD countries about catching up with global college graduation rates or is the problem about improving options for learning pathways so graduates are equipped with the skills they need to find jobs in the real world?
I am an advocate of flexible learning pathways that provide individuals personalized options to study what they believe will help them to be successful in life. For example, I think that the U.S. school system would benefit from a dual system in high school where young people who are interested in doing or making things with their hands, for instance, could have high quality vocational programs or schools that would equip them with the skills they need to find jobs or employ themselves. There are many education systems around the world, including Finland, where upper secondary education has distinct tracks for classical academic studies and professional learning. Higher education will become more easily accessible through digital learning very soon, and I believe college graduation rates as a proxy for the advancement of an education system will lose part of their meaning.
“A universal standard for financing schools, so that resources are channeled to schools according to real needs: this is essential in order to enhance equity and quality in American education.” — Pasi Sahlberg Photo courtesy of Finnish Ministry for Education and Culture
Can you talk about Finland’s forward thinking goals in vocational education?
As I mentioned earlier, Finland is one of several European countries with a competitive option for 16-year-olds to choose technical and vocational studies rather than to continue academic learning in high school that is predominantly a road to liberal arts degrees. Some people argue that vocational schools are second or even third options for young people and therefore motivation and discipline are often issues in these schools. But it doesn’t need to be so. Barely 20 years ago, vocational education was a bad word among parents and many students in Finland. About one third of lower secondary school leavers at that time entered vocational schools, some because the bar to academic high school was too high. Drop out from these schools was a chronic problem. Systematic polishing of the image of vocational education started in the 1990’s in Finland.
First, curriculum in vocational schools was adjusted closer to the standards of academic high school. This brought more general subjects accessible to all students in vocational schools. Second, a significant proportion of vocational studies was shifted to real work places where students are able to learn in practice the knowledge and skills they need in their future jobs. Third, vocational and academic high schools were required to design and provide instruction that enabled students more flexibility and choice. This has led to an increasing number of double diplomas when vocational school students also matriculate from academic high school and thereby earn a license to apply to academic universities. Finally, newly established non-university higher education systems opened doors to vocational school graduates to further learning.
I would also like to emphasize the important role that career guidance plays in Finnish basic school (grades 1 to 9). All students have weekly lesson time with qualified career counselors in upper grades of basic school. Students also spend a two-week period in a workplace to learn about the world of work and test their own perceptions of different occupations. The aim of career guidance is to minimize wrong choices by making available individualized information and help before young people make their decisions for further studies.
Today nearly 45 percent of Finnish 16-year-olds choose to study in vocational upper secondary schools and 50 percent in academic high schools. Competition to some vocational programs has become fierce. Much of the negative stigma that vocational schools had in Finland 20 years ago is gone.
“I would like to see more educating children [around the world] to feel empathy and as Sir Ken Robinson says, finding their talents through music, arts and physical education in tandem with traditional academic curriculum.” — Pasi SahlbergPhoto courtesy of Finnish Ministry for Education and Culture
“Online learning stands a much better chance to improve over time and eventually become good enough to offer a competitive value proposition even for mainstream students. That’s when the classroom system will really change. Parents will start demanding it.” - Clayton Christensen. What is your response to Clayton’s argument?
I think Clayton is a visionary and his view to how technology will change schools will probably be pretty close to his prediction. But there are different scenarios for how this will play out.
One scenario is that schools will race after technology and align core instructional operations to rely on digital and other technological solutions. This will certainly change classrooms and what goes on in them. Learning would still primarily take place in schools supported by homework as it is now.
A second scenario views schools merely as places for facilitation of study and checking of achievement. Learning could be from any place. Personalized digital learning would be the most common mode of study.
A third scenario would be to elevate schools as places for social learning and developmental skills. Cooperative learning, problem solving and cultivating the habits of mind would be at the heart of school life.
I am already seeing signs of the third scenario around the world. There are parents who have started to demand it because they think that their children spend too much time with technology and that schools should help them to learn to be with other people. I would like to see more schools educating children to feel empathy and as Sir Ken Robinson says, finding their talents through music, arts and physical education in tandem with traditional academic curriculum.
“The Finnish school system cannot be transferred anywhere else in the world. Many of the successful aspects of Finland’s education system are rooted deep in our culture and values.” — Pasi SahlbergPhoto courtesy of Finnish Ministry for Education and Culture
Jack Buckley, Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, said he“has always been a little puzzled by the high level of attention trained on Finland. Finland captured the world’s attention for a variety of reasons but there are other places to look for case studies.” How do you see this?
In my book, I raise two points of warning. First, I am not saying that Finland has the best education system in the world and that others should imitate what we have done. This global fame has actually been quite embarrassing for us Finns. Finnish educators are not thrilled about PISA, TIMSS, or any other international comparisons. We would rather hope Finland is seen as a country where four out of five taxpayers trust our public school system, and where three out of four citizens think that our publicly funded education system is our most significant accomplishment since independence in 1917. We celebrate these achievements rather than high rankings in global education league tables.
Second, I make it very clear that the Finnish school system cannot be transferred anywhere else in the world. Many of the successful aspects of Finland’s education system are rooted deep in our culture and values, which are different from those in the U.S. For example, high levels of trust in people and institutions, pursuit of equality and fairness in society and life, and willingness to pay taxes for common good are some of the Finnish conditions that don’t exist everywhere. What we can do, as Jack Buckley and others suggest, is take a global look and learn from one another.
There are some concrete lessons that American educators and policy-makers could learn from Finland. Since standardization has become one of the principles in American education policy, I would suggest that rather than over-standardize teaching and learning in schools by prescribed curricula and frequent high-stakes testing, three other aspects of education should be standardized instead.
First, a universal standard for financing schools, so that resources are channelled to schools according to real needs. This is essential in order to enhance equity and quality in American education.
Second, a universal standard for time allocation in schools, allowing pupils to have a proper recess between classes and a balanced curriculum among academic learning, the arts and physical education.
Third, a universal standard for teacher preparation that follows standards in other top professions. Initiating a bar exam for teachers is a step towards higher professional standards in teaching.
Pasi Sahlberg and C. M. Rubin
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“The English Baccalaureate has the merits of strengthening the general academic education of lower achieving students and removing useless, mostly quasi-vocational subjects.” — Michael Young
UK on Testing
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
“It is time for the race to the bottom to end. We believe it is time to tackle grade inflation and dumbing down.” — Michael Gove
In the fall of 2012, the British Education Secretary, Michael Gove, outlined proposals for new qualifications in core academic subjects called English Baccalaureate Certificates. Mr. Gove stated that these new reforms would prepare British students for the 21st century and allow them to compete with the best performing education systems around the world.
Are the new performance measures proposed by Michael Gove a solution to “teaching to a test,” improving standards and the overall quality of learning for all students in the UK education system? I asked Michael Young, Emeritus Professor of Education with the School of Lifelong Education & International Development at the Institute of Education, University of London, to share his perspectives.
In 2004, Michael Young was commissioned to write a report on the implications of National Qualifications Frameworks for developing countries (ILO 2005). He has been an adviser to countries in Europe, Africa and Asia on their policies on qualifications. His book, Bringing Knowledge Back In (2010), won second prize as UK Education Book of the Year.
“The performance tables, which rank schools with implications for resources and student intakes, shape all school decisions, so few of the educational benefits of the E Bacc will be realized as long as they are in place.” — Michael Young
What do you believe are the best and weakest arguments for having the English Baccalaureate Certificates replace the GCSE’s? What would be your best arguments for keeping the GCSE exams?
The main reason why none of the main political parties will risk supporting the widely held view that GCSEs (the 16+ examination) should be abolished is that they are used as the basis of performance tables which enable government to assert a degree of control over schools at a time when they are weakening the existing controls of local government over schools.
GCSEs are a relic of two earlier initiatives. GCE O levels were established in 1951 to cater for at most 20-30 percent of each cohort (each class of students). At that time, the majority of pupils left school at 15 (with no certificates) for unskilled factory and office work. This youth labour market disappeared in the 1970s, so these kids were staying on in school with no certificate to aim for. A new certificate, the Certificate for Secondary Education (CSE), was created for the low achievers. GCE’s and CSE’s were then merged in the 1980s to create the existing GCSE’s, with five grades (A - E); A, B, C being equivalent to the old O levels and D, E, F, and G replacing the CSE’s. The latter became largely worthless for either employment or progression to higher levels and the focus of schools was on grade C or above.
At the same time, assessment for exams was changed from being norm referenced to criterion referenced, with no limits on the numbers being awarded any grade. The proportion of A - C’s increased every year and this led to a demand for an A* grade to differentiate the A’s. The government feared that if they scrapped GCSE’s (most other European countries do not have a 16+ examination), England would drop in the international performance tables (e.g. PISA), and that this might cost them votes. Also, there is no tradition for trusting teachers to maintain standards without tests and tables. The problem is that students are increasingly ‘trained for the tests’ and, according to employers and university teachers, know less and less.
The English Baccalaureate (the E Bacc) is a performance measure not an examination. Until it was introduced, performance tables were based on 5 subjects, but only three were compulsory (English, maths and general science). The E Bacc merely extends the number of compulsory subjects to include two sciences, a foreign language and a humanities subject. This has had two consequences: First, schools are dropping many non E Bacc subjects with much opposition from sports and arts communities. Second, schools with, say 30 percent of pupils achieving 5 A-Cs on the GCSE subjects, only achieved 5 percent (or less) on the E Bacc, primarily because they had dropped foreign language when it stopped being compulsory.
The English Baccalaureate has the merits of strengthening the general academic education of lower achieving students and removing useless, mostly quasi-vocational subjects. The government claims that the E Bacc subjects take up 70 percent of the school timetable, leaving adequate time for arts and sports. However, the performance tables, which rank schools with implications for resources and student intakes, shape all school decisions, so few of the educational benefits of the E Bacc will be realized as long as they are in place.
The English Baccalaureate is an ill thought out, off the cuff scheme. A better approach would be something along the French Baccalaureate lines, i.e. a three pathway (general/technological/vocational) Baccalaureate with 20+ percent of the curriculum in common, which students can take at different ages and for which there is no external examination at 16.
“A better approach would be something along the French Baccalaureate lines, i.e. a three pathway (general/technological/vocational) Baccalaureate with 20+ percent of the curriculum in common, which students can take at different ages and for which there is no external examination at 16.”
— Michael Young
What about taking an approach similar to the International Baccalaureate that measures student’s performance against global peers?
I am a great admirer of the IB, but as an 18+ exam it cannot include more than about 30-40 percent of each cohort without a more applied pathway. I would have a single external examination taken at different ages and abolish performance tables. The key issue is to develop a system in which assessment does not drive curriculum. I am not against the English Baccalaureate in principle. What worries me is its inevitable link to performance tables.
Students learn best when they are being taught to learn as opposed to being taught just to pass a test. Agree?
I agree as long as ‘teaching to learn’ is through specialist subjects. You can only teach or learn something. Teaching to learn and learning to learn are the products of good subject teaching.
As I said earlier, we have standardized tests for social control reasons. However, if you don’t have standardized tests, the social control issues remain. Finland is a good example. They always score high on PISA rankings but they have no external tests and no inspections. How do they do it?
First, Finns put a high value on education for all - originally out of fear of ‘big brother’ - the Soviet Union.
Second, teaching is a high status profession in Finland. Education faculties in Finland have the highest number of applications for each place.
Third, the richest, most powerful, and most successful parents use the state schools, i.e. less than 1 percent of children go to private schools. They have a stake in the quality of schools. In England, 7 percent of schools are private (fee paying). The political pressure is not to improve state schools but to control them. The rich have no stake in the state schools!
Fourth, a society has to control schools either by a consensus valuing education for all, or through tests and inspections. If you abolish the latter without establishing the former, you face chaos.
“In England, 7 percent of schools are private (fee paying). The political pressure is not to improve state schools but to control them. The rich have no stake in the state schools!” — Michael Young
What role should the British government play in education?
Up until the 1980’s and Margaret Thatcher, public education was managed as a relatively inefficient system by a troika of central government, local government, and teacher unions. Thatcher broke all of that up as she thought local government and unions (the providers) had too much power, and parents and employers (consumers) not enough. So she used government to replace ‘provider control’ by a ‘market.’
Why not allow local governments to determine their cities’ or towns’ own educational standards?
It is the rational but not politically realistic option. It’s a view largely shared by the Labour party since Blair.
“A society has to control schools either by a consensus valuing education for all, or through tests and inspections. If you abolish the latter without establishing the former, you face chaos.” — Michael Young
Surveys indicate that parents want to see the arts included in the new Baccalaureate. What are your best arguments for keeping the arts in this new assessment?
As I said before with regard to other subjects, if they keep the performance tables and bring arts into the E Bacc, it will destroy the arts, as schools will be under pressure to teach to the test! A better but unlikely solution would be to abolish the performance tables and broaden the E Bacc.
Since not every child will pass these new exams, what else can be done to prepare children for the real world and make them more competitive in the job market?
In the last decade, lower achieving students have been encouraged to obtain certificates which have no value outside the tables themselves, as they provide no progress to higher level study and employers do not rate them for jobs. The fact that the students get certificates masks the reality that they are not learning anything. At least the E Bacc’s base curriculum will highlight rather than mask low achievement. The problem is that many schools lack specialist subject teachers in the E Bacc subjects, so unless something is done about teacher supply, nothing will improve.
Michael Young and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of the Institute of Education, University of London.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“Providing college tuition-free without getting the money back through taxes for the better educated means that the poor end up subsidizing the education of the rich.” — Andreas Schleicher
On US Education Problems
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
According to Andreas Schleicher of OECD, the United States is unique among countries in that the generation of workers entering the US workforce does not have higher college attainment levels than the generation about to leave the workforce. He further believes a key strategy to addressing this problem is improving equitable access to education across the board and that good examples of how to achieve this can be found in other education systems such as Finland, Canada, Japan or Korea. None of this sounds particularly new, but I wondered if Andreas were making the big picture education decisions, how would he address some of our key issues? We recently had the opportunity to discuss this further.
Andreas Schleicher is Special Advisor on Education Policy to OECD’s Secretary-General, and is Deputy Director for Education. He also provides strategic oversight over OECD’s work on the development and utilization of skills and their social and economic outcomes. This includes the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), and the development and analysis of benchmarks on the performance of education systems (INES).
“Spending in the US is regressive in that schools in disadvantaged areas end up with less resources than schools in socially advantaged areas (in virtually all other industrialized countries it is the other way round).” — Andreas Schleicher
Should government provide tuition free education from pre-school through college?
There is no free education; someone has to pay. If governments provide free education from pre-school through college, they need to back that up with a steeply progressive tax system so that the better qualified people end up paying the bill eventually. The Nordic countries in Europe show that this can work, and work well. The other good option is to ask students to pay tuition and to back that up with a universal student support system that provides an income-contingent loan system complemented with a scheme of means-tested grants. In that way you minimize risks for students, avoid that they end up with huge debt that they cannot pay back, and you provide special assistance to those students who would otherwise be prevented from attending university. The UK shows how this can work. Providing college tuition-free without getting the money back through taxes for the better-educated means that the poor end up subsidizing the education of the rich.
Are you in favor of privatizing public schools?
Results from PISA show no performance advantage of private schools, once you account for social background. However, cross-country analysis of PISA suggests that the prevalence of schools’ autonomy to define and elaborate their curricula and assessments relates positively to the performance of school systems, even after accounting for national income. School systems that provide schools with greater discretion in deciding student assessment policies, the courses offered, the course content and the textbooks used are also school systems that perform at higher levels. So perhaps the question for countries is not how many private or charter schools they have, but how they enable every public school to assume charter-type responsibility.
“Perhaps the question for countries is not how many private or charter schools they have, but how they enable every public school to assume charter-type responsibility.” — Andreas Schleicher
Since every child is probably not meant to pursue a liberal arts education, what would you do to make our children more competitive in the skilled trade jobs market?
Our data show that when employers are involved in designing curricula and delivering education programs at the post-secondary level, students seem to have a smoother transition from education into the labor market. Compared to purely government-designed curricula taught in school-based systems, learning in the workplace offers several advantages: it allows trainees to develop “hard” skills on modern equipment, and “soft” skills, such as teamwork, communication and negotiation, through real-world experience. Hands-on workplace training can also help to motivate disengaged youth to stay in or re-engage with the education system. Workplace training also facilitates recruitment by allowing employers and potential employees to get to know each other, while trainees contribute to the output of the training firm. Workplace learning opportunities are also a direct expression of employers’ needs, as employers will be ready to offer opportunities in areas where there is a skills shortage.
“Our data show that when employers are involved in designing curricula and delivering education programs at the post-secondary level, students seem to have a smoother transition from education into the labor market.” — Andreas Schleicher
Do you think that the United States needs to do more in the area of early childhood education, and if so, what?
One the one hand, the US falls well behind most countries in the industrialized world when it comes to early childhood education, and this is clearly a key lever to raise quality and equity in learning outcomes. At the same time, the US does really well when you look at student performance in primary education, so-so when it comes to performance in middle school, and not very well when it comes to performance in high school. This suggests that students actually get quite a strong start, but the school system adds less year after year than what children in other countries learn. That is something you don’t address with better early childhood education but with a better school system.
What do you think is the best way to fund our public schools?
The US spends plenty of money on public schools, but our data show three things. First of all, a disproportionally high share of that spending does not make it into the classroom. Secondly, spending is regressive in that schools in disadvantaged areas end up with less resources than schools in socially advantaged areas (in virtually all other industrialized countries it is the other way around). This does not allow the US to attract the most talented teachers into the most challenging classrooms, which would make public spending most effective. Third, high performing countries tend to prioritize the quality of teachers and the size of classes. The trend in the US over the last decade has gone the other way around.
Andreas Schleicher and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of OECD
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“Teach For America exists to address the incredible gaps in educational outcomes that persist along racial and socio-economic lines in our country. We believe this is the greatest civil rights issue of our generation.” — Wendy Kopp
Teach All
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Since Teach For America was proposed by Wendy Kopp in 1989, the organization’s nearly 33,000 participants have reached more than 3 million children nationwide during their two-year teaching commitments. In 2007, Kopp co-founded Teach For All, a global network of independent nonprofit organizations that are applying the model pioneered by Teach For America around the world.
This week in the Global Search for Education, I asked Wendy Kopp, founder and CEO of Teach For America and of Teach For All to share her perspectives on some of the key issues that currently challenge the teaching profession, and on the contributions her organizations continue to make.
Kopp is the author of the Washington Post bestseller, A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All, and of One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way.
Ban Ki-moon’s Education First initiative states two million more teachers are needed for the world’s poorest countries. Is there a role for Teach For America in this initiative?
I am excited about this initiative for all the obvious reasons. It represents such an important first ever recognition that we have to put education at the center of our global agenda. The mission that unites all of the programs of the Teach For All global network is that of cultivating the leadership capacity critical to ultimately ensuring educational opportunity for all. Each of these organizations recruits their own countries’ most promising future leaders to channel their energy towards teaching in high-need areas, invests in their success and development, and fosters their ongoing leadership as a force for change in education. I do think there is a role for some organization to play in channeling the volunteer service energy from some of the western world countries into countries with more critical education needs, but we will stay the course on our mission, as we think that it plays a fundamental role in the overall puzzle.
“If we could reach the point where many of our nation’s future leaders know what teachers know after teaching successfully in our highest need schools, we would have a very different situation.”— Wendy Kopp
Teacher retention. Would you speak a little bit about what you’ve learned about the challenges of this problem from your own experience with Teach For America?
I want to step back first and be clear about what we want to accomplish, and then talk about teacher retention as one of a number of critical issues facing the overall effort to ensure educational opportunity for all. Teach For America exists to address the incredible gaps in educational outcomes that persist along racial and socio-economic lines in our country. We believe this is the greatest civil rights issue of our generation, and that it’s a problem that exists for many systemic reasons. Kids who live in low income areas face extra challenges and show up at schools that were not designed to meet their extra needs. Considering the complexity of the root problem, we believe that one fundamental piece of the solution is to build a leadership force for fundamental change. The kids growing up today who are stuck in this cycle need access to as many teachers as possible who are willing to go above and beyond traditional expectations to move them ahead. Our folks are one small pipeline of people working alongside many other teachers to try to make a positive impact for today’s kids. At the same time, we know that teachers alone won’t solve the problem. Ultimately, we need people working to change things at every level of the education system - in classrooms, as school principals, in district leadership - and also outside of it, from policy, law, and other sectors. If we could reach the point where many of our nation’s future leaders know what teachers know after teaching successfully in our highest need schools, we would have a very different situation. And so our mission is not just to keep our people in teaching, although we are delighted that many of them stay.
“Looking at what’s happening in communities across the country, we’re encouraged to see that our alumni are at the center of a growing effort to effect fundamental change - 700 of them in school principalships, growing numbers of them leading change from within school districts and state departments of education.” — Wendy Kopp
How many of them stay?
We currently have approximately 28,000 Teach For America alumni in the US. A third are teaching and a third are working in other areas related to education, so about two thirds (65 percent) are working full time in education. Of the third who have left, about half have jobs related to schools or low income communities. Remember, these weren’t folks who came in saying teaching was going to be their profession, and so clearly they are deeply influenced by the experience.
On average, our corps members stay in the classroom for eight years. But again, given the systemic nature of educational inequity, we know it is vital that some of our alumni take their experience outside the classroom. Looking at what’s happening in communities across the country, we’re encouraged to see that our alumni are at the center of a growing effort to effect fundamental change — 700 of them in school principalships, growing numbers of them leading change from within school districts and state departments of education (for example they’re leading the Newark and D.C. school districts, and the state departments of education in Louisiana and Tennessee), others who are providing leadership for supporting organizations like The New Teacher Project and the KIPP Network, and still others effecting change as school board members and state legislators and community advocates and organizers. The first-hand experience of teaching in low-income classrooms gives all of them, whether they remain in the classroom or not, a deep understanding of the extent of the problem, and also of the truth that it is solvable and that we have it within our power to give every child an excellent education. They are committed to a lifetime of leadership for solving this problem.
“One of the significant factors in whether teachers stay or not is their level of satisfaction with the team and culture of the school they are a part of. We need to ensure that school principals become stronger.”— Wendy Kopp
If someone handed you the problem of the teacher attrition rate in the US, how would you solve it?
One thing that we’ve seen over time is that the teacher retention rate varies widely from school to school. That’s telling. One of the significant factors in whether teachers stay or not is their level of satisfaction with the team and culture of the school they are a part of. We need to ensure that school principals become stronger and put a lot of energy into building positive school cultures and investing in the development of their teachers. I think that’s one of the most critical pieces I’ve learned from the Teach For America alums when it comes to making a decision to stay or leave. Another thing is that we could be more strategic about teacher compensation. We see teachers leaving the classroom in huge numbers in years 3 through 8. An informal study we did a couple of years ago showed that if we increased compensation an average of $10,000 per year to the highest performing new teachers in years 3 through 7, it would make a significant difference in their choices. Once teachers stay on through years 7 or 8, they begin to think differently about their careers and are more likely to stay long term.
Finland turned teaching into a respected and prestigious profession. From your experience with TFA, what are your thoughts on ways to make our teaching profession better than it is now in the US?
When I think of our alums who are still in the classroom and who are just incredibly passionate about their work, typically they are working as part of a team of teachers in a school that is on a mission to produce incredible outcomes for its students. Typically those schools are led by a school principal who is empowered with both the responsibility and the flexibility to do whatever it takes. I also think the teachers in those schools feel a tremendous amount of responsibility for the success of the overall school and the success of the teachers in the school; they feel challenged and supported by their teammates and by their school administration. The degree to which we empower school level teams is important to successful outcomes, and I believe we see the same thing in Finland. All of this leads me back to thinking that if we are going to have a teaching profession we all aspire towards, we are going to need to do some work to rethink the way the system is structured and to strengthen our schools.
“If we are going to have a teaching profession we all aspire towards, we are going to need to do some work to rethink the way the system is structured and to strengthen our schools.” — Wendy Kopp
Any other policy changes based on your TFA experience that you would recommend for our education system?
I’ve been so encouraged to see growing numbers of schools in the U.S.’s urban and rural areas that are putting children on the trajectory to different educational and life outcomes. I think we should be asking ourselves how to create a policy environment that fosters the proliferation of such schools. Based on what I’ve seen, this would entail two things. First, it would take a totally different level of investment in recruiting and developing extraordinary teaching and school leadership talent. Second, it would take empowering our teachers and school leaders with the responsibility for attaining strong results and the flexibility to do whatever it takes to attain them. I think we should spend our policy energy thinking about how to generate those changes
Where would you like to see Teach For America five years from now?
We’re working to become bigger and better — to grow the scale and diversity of our corps, to increase our teachers’ impact with their students while ensuring the teachers themselves are learning the powerful lessons that come from success, and to accelerate the impact of our alumni as a force for the systemic changes necessary to realize educational excellence and equity. I’m excited about the future because we’ve already learned so much about what it will take to realize this vision, and the effort to dramatically improve student outcomes is gaining momentum each day. Increasingly, Teach For America is one part of a growing global movement, and as we move ahead we’ll be learning more and more from colleagues all around the world who are pursuing the same mission and innovating around new solutions.
Wendy Kopp and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of Teach For America
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“The focus is on using technology as a tool for teaching and learning, rather than on technology in itself.” — Dr. Pak Tee Ng
Singapore on Technology
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Singapore’s education institutions are considered among the most advanced in the world with regard to information technology. This week in The Global Search for Education, I invited Dr. Pak Tee Ng in Singapore to update us on how Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE) continues to support its public school system with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
Dr. Pak Tee Ng is Associate Dean, Leadership Learning, Office of Graduate Studies and Professional Learning, and Head and Associate Professor, Policy and Leadership Studies Academic Group, at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Republic of Singapore.
“In the future, all Singapore schools will be connected to the Next Generation Broadband Network (NGBN), which will provide ultra-high speed wireless connectivity.” — Dr. Pak Tee Ng
Can you give us the background to Singapore’s Information Technology plan for its school system and also tell us what one would expect to find in primary and secondary public school classrooms currently?
Singapore has been faithfully implementing a master plan since 1997 for integrating technology into education. Masterplan One (1997-2002) started out by aiming to allow students to have computer usage for 30 percent of their curriculum time in fully networked schools and at a computer to pupil ratio of 1:2. Masterplan Two moved beyond the provision of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) resources to encourage teachers to use ICT profitably in teaching and learning. The current Masterplan Three (2009-2014) builds on the platform laid by the first two Masterplans to transform the learning environments of the students through ICT and equip the students with the critical competencies to succeed in a knowledge economy.
Currently, one could expect wireless internet connectivity in the school compound and at least a computer with projection equipment in the classroom. But most teachers and students have their own laptops or other mobile ICT devices. In the future, all Singapore schools will be connected to the Next Generation Broadband Network (NGBN), which will provide ultra-high speed wireless connectivity. This is an example of how the MOE has supported schools in using ICT in education. The MOE also provides a training program to develop a group of competent practitioners in their ICT-related pedagogies and coaching competencies. With an average of about 4 such ICT mentors in each school, these ICT mentors champion and mentor teachers on the effective use of ICT in their respective disciplines.
“Other than professional development, we use the strategy of exposing our teachers to the technological possibilities and supporting them in exploring new pedagogies with technology.” — Dr. Pak Tee Ng
How have you handled the challenges of educating teachers to use blended technology systems in the classroom? What additional ongoing professional development is given to teachers to ensure they integrate technology effectively in their classrooms?
The MOE provides our teachers with many professional development opportunities regarding the use of ICT in classrooms. Schools also have many Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), and some of these PLCs explore how teachers can use blended technology in teaching and learning.
However, changing pedagogy is a very personal matter. Therefore, other than professional development, we use the strategy of exposing our teachers to the technological possibilities and supporting them in exploring new pedagogies with technology. The focus is not on technology. It is on using technology to enhance teaching and learning. Two examples of this strategy are the eduLab programme initiated by the MOE, and the Classroom of the Future (COTF) at the National Institute of Education (NIE). The eduLab showcases experiments trialed in schools. Educators who visit eduLab can learn more about how certain local schools have infused innovative ICT practices into lessons and classroom activities. The COTF showcases what classrooms and learning environments (including homes and public places) can look like in the future to trigger the imagination of the teacher. Through such exposure, we hope to spread mature ICT innovations and successful practices and generate interest among teachers.
“In 5 years time, there will possibly be an increase in the proportion of online learning compared to face-to-face classroom contact.” — Dr. Pak Tee Ng
What are some of the best hands-on examples of teachers successfully integrating technology in their teaching practice?
It is difficult to say which hands-on usage of ICT is considered as a best example. This is because teaching and learning is a contextual activity, and ICT is not an end but a means to enhance teaching and learning outcomes. However, there are a few examples. One is the use of GroupScribbles (GS) technology to support generalized coordination among students and the teacher through the convenient feature of sticky paper notes in a virtual medium. Another is the use of the online virtual world of Second Life, where students can role-play and deal with legal and moral issues in the ‘safety’ of the virtual world. The use of e-discussion forums to generate discussions among students is also gaining popularity.
Many believe technology is helping to level the playing field for different types of learners. Do you think so in the light of Singapore’s experiences?
Yes and no. From a certain perspective, it does somewhat level the playing field. Students who need more time to learn have the opportunity to review lessons and study at their own pace with the availability of online lecture notes and discussion boards. This allows them to catch up with those who learn more quickly. However, technology, like any other learning approaches, favors students who enjoy using it. Learning comes easier to those who are good with technology and, conversely, becomes more challenging for those who are not.
We also have to ask what we mean by “leveling the playing field.” Technology comes at a cost. Computers, other ICT gadgets, and Internet access can be costly. Therefore, those who can afford ICT equipment and services will definitely have better access to technologically-driven education, compared to those who are not as financially well-off. Therefore, ICT creates an equalizing effect on some aspects of learning and widens the gap on others. Regarding this issue, what has been done in Singapore is that the government funds schools so that students will have access to computers in school. There are also subsidy schemes to help students buy their own computers. Further, the focus is on using technology as a tool for teaching and learning, rather than on technology in itself. In this way, the potentially uneven playing field is made more even.
“In the future, the role of the teacher is to learn how ICT can be wrapped around students in their natural activities, not fit them into fixed technologies and processes, so that the students may be brought directly into the dynamics of ICT teaching and learning in school.” — Dr. Pak Tee Ng
With the technology revolution showing no signs of slowing down, the teacher’s role and the nature of the classroom is changing. What might learning look like 5 years from now in terms of the balance between the nature of the teacher’s role and online learning?
In 5 years time, there will possibly be an increase in the proportion of online learning compared to face-to-face classroom contact. However, precisely because of that, the teacher’s role will become more important than ever. Firstly, teachers must be able to facilitate e-discussion and help students make sense of the large volume of data and discourses in these e-forums. This requires a high level of facilitative and synthesizing skills. Secondly, face-to-face contact, which is reduced, becomes more valued and will be reserved for higher order thinking and learning, rather than mere information transmission.
Moreover, in years to come, educators will realize that it is essential to tap on students as a source of ICT intelligence. At this moment, teachers tailor pedagogies for their students because students are treated as ‘minors’ to be taught. However, students are born in the digital age, unlike many of their teachers. Therefore, in the future, the role of the teacher is to learn how ICT can be wrapped around students in their natural activities, not fit them into fixed technologies and processes, so that the students may be brought directly into the dynamics of ICT teaching and learning in school.
Dr. Pak Tee Ng and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of Dr. Pak Tee Ng
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
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C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
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