Sounds like a worthy approach to me. The problem is, how can you get a school board to adopt something like this? Who leads the effort? How can you implement changes to such an entrenched system?
[1]: https://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_rei...
We show up to class. Teacher talked for maybe 5 minutes. Then we would sit down in groups of 4 and work on exercises. These exercises were very socratic method. Ex:
- Measure some right triangles
- calculate the squares of the lengths of the sides
- Do you notice anything?
- Here's some non-right triangles, does your hypothesis still stand?
Then some application of the introduced concepts.
Kids would help each other within the group, and a teacher would come in to help facilitate this.
This was all the math classes for about 3 years, and was great at helping kids learn to do math, explain solutions to others, and build basic social skills.
I've had a couple programming workshops like this as well, and they're invariably successful. Even the worst people can find help from either the teachers/coordinators or people who aren't having difficulties.
Part of the issue is the subject matter experts (teachers and instructors) are not up to speed on the capabilities of technology, some even fear being replaced, when the real goal is having the same teachers reach more students more effectively.
Education budgets rarely increase.
No they won't. Some may value that opportunity, but I wouldn't say "many". I've seen the word "scale" tossed around in the comments. I'll add two more: economics and politics. Until we as a voting people elect leaders who value education, we will continue to see stagnant or falling education budgets.
EdTech will remove some teaching jobs. As a principal, if I can rely on the Internet educators to do a significant portion of the instruction, I don't necessarily need the best teachers in every classroom. In some class rooms I can simply use the bachelors-bearing teacher rather than the masters-bearing teacher. Some teachers recognize this, which is why they are anti-tech. They see how technology helped their community members in manufacturing and other industries, and want to avoid it.
And that is exactly why educators need education about edtech.
Edtech exists in many forms. The YC list will give you a snapshot of that. Most of it are actually supportive rather than replacing the teaching role itself. You cannot compare to other industries like manufacturing because they are vastly different.
IMO it's a bit unhealthy for educators to be technophobic. The current students are from the tech generation, and most likely appreciate if their teachers could show more digital fluency. And yes, there are so many good and bad edtech tools out there, but the point is they can be pick-n-mixed to make their jobs easier.
> In some class rooms I can simply use the bachelors-bearing teacher rather than the masters-bearing teacher.
All the good teachers I know are not defined by their qualification, rather the passion, idealism and talent that they give. I had a high school physics teacher with a doctorate and he was not too great at explaining concepts. I also have a maths teacher friend with 3rd class honours in her degree, but is currently one of the most popular teachers in her school.
Other than Montessori's, most teachers are actually not that adverse to tech. But I think a basic digital training is needed. At the very least, learn how to find resources and pull them together. Learn how to use basic software, like rudimentary game-makers. Learn how flipped classrooms work, to design better homeworks and classroom sessions. Learn how peer-learning works, to encourage sharing ideas and working as teams.
There's so many ideas to make learning more exciting, with more meaningful interactions. Edtech is not a major threat, it can be a sort of freedom.
Edit language.
Once LP records and movies came out then these performance were more accessible to more people. And some performers became superstars. Not everyone would be superstars but a huge industry was born that really didn't exist before.
It seems to me we may be on the cusp of something similar with education. I don't think we've figured out how to do it yet, but at some point there will be easy access to quality education, just like now there's easy access to quality entertainment. I think the revolution will be in the replication and distribution at low cost, not in a change of educational methodology or in-classroom technology.
I'm not disagreeing that it's a good idea to always look for ways to improve schools. But i'd like to point out that you're framing these issues in almost exclusively economic terms.
I fear a future where we've reduced schools to one or two easy-to-measure metrics. In fact that's almost exactly what No Child Left Behind's obsession with standardised testing has already done: measuring each teachers' and schools' individual performance and incentivising "high performers". Those tests are even standardised across regions, or even nation-wide, just as you're asking for.
I also don't think the problems you point are real, or new, or relevant: yes, a good teacher doesn't usually "scale". But why does everything have to scale? Good teachers create a connection to their students that usually cannot be carried over TCP/IP, and i have never seen technology used in schools that came close to the effect of an outstanding teacher.
The only realistic path to "scaling" their skills is by understanding the factors that allowed them to become role models inspiring their students, and trying to replicate them.
Well, I don't think that's the only problem with education.
Scaling good teaching, huh. Tackling this with direct technology is difficult, things like message boards for teachers are a bit crude.
So perhaps another way of approaching it is better training and support for teachers - and this is where tech can be used as support. Example, shadow a well-respected teacher with a camera, and post regularly on YouTube while encouraging open discussion.
Actually there is a lot of this content already (check out "Blended Learning" on Coursera, for example) so perhaps the real problem is actually aggregation and distribution.
It requires a lot more self organisation on the students side (that might be seen positive or negative) and overall the student success is similar to "classic" classes (but we've just started the second year, so we hope that get's better with experience - on the students and the teachers side).
The downside is that the preparation of the learning materials is much more work for the teacher than for a classic lecture in front of the class (but that also might get better with the years ...)
I think the model also doesn't scale well for assessment, which prompts the creation of few, ineffective, but highly scalable assessments upon which the functioning of the entire system rest, which in turn prompts practices like teaching to the test. This creates even more messed up incentives but this time facing students and teachers as opposed to institutional practices.
I think that assessment, when decoupled, can't be done with an institution or institutions. Instead we need social networks that use a consensus process to define knowledge and who has it.
College Board owns SAT, AP, and (essentially) Common Core so there's been a trend to tighter coupling. I like the idea of an AP Test that anyone can and be assessed separate from the teacher. Same for SAT. I think we need more of that model, not less.
I don't think this is just because the SATs are bad tests but fundamentally emerges from the institutional single source of truth model, where the incentive is for the institution to make their test as general/broad as possible and the most broadly accepted , as to capture the most students and hence fees.
I believe this would take the form of a dedicated assessment tool that allows teachers to create individualized assessments JIT based on - or in concert with - their planning and performance workflow. If I'm teaching a structured lesson on polynomials, I should be able to create a valid assessment simply be requesting that one is made. My students should be able to take that assessment on the spot and the results should be immediately available.
I will take assessments with 80% confidence of validity 10x/week over assessments with 100% validity once per year every. single. time.
There's more to be said here - but that's the gist.
If students need to be prepared for the real world, this will need to increasingly become reflected in the amount of time spent in real-world learning vs in-classroom.
The question becomes - how will real world learning get to the classroom to reach the student, and how can the classroom meaningfully be with the student when they are with the real-world?
It does show that it's possible to teach a large class effectively. Teaching talent makes all the difference, with technology to support it.
I think we need to separate instruction, student work, and assessment. Students should be able to receive instruction in multiple ways (1on1, group, watch videos), do their work with something like TAs, and be assessed at their own pace.
Japan is starting to see to super-star teachers that parent pay for. Why do we always need a teacher to provide direct instruction in the classroom? Why can't we reward the best instructors, like Kahn, by having kids be instructed that way? The reason is because instruction, work, and assessment are not separated now.
I wish there were more experimentation in education, but since everything is a big ball of wax paid for with property taxes, there's a lot of reluctance for anyone to experiment with their kid, and since it's all or nothing, there just are minor experiments in the classroom
We need tech to find a way to scale the classroom and deliver it cheaply to students, and I think we need a separation of concerns in order for that to happen.