Re:The anarchic experimental schools of the 1970s
by pbhjpbhj on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @09:42AM
(#8487246)
Wouldn't the control group get the current standard curriculum and teaching methods. You're not looking for changes wrt non-teaching, you're looking for changes compared to the current pedagogical form.
There's much to learn from non-school based education but I doubt most of it can be applied with the financial constraints we have [in the UK].
[I'm guessing you missed some links there.]
Re:The anarchic experimental schools of the 1970s
by alexhawdon on Tuesday October 21, 2014 @11:07AM
(#8487704)
Comparing children in some new study against the general population of mainstream children is the general approach we use and it's fraught with problems.
The studies are often small sample sizes of children who are often opted-in by their parents and the teaching is done by better than average teachers with lots of support and involvement from the institution who designed the study or otherwise stands to gain from its successful outcome.
All that is generally revealed is that children whose parents are engaged in their education being taught by good teachers and that are aware they are in a 'special' group do better than average. Unsurprisingly the methods don't scale very well.
England has about 17,000 primary schools and about 4,000,000 primary school children. (ages 4 to 11). This group would be amazing for randomised controlled studies of teaching methods. But teachers hate being told how to teach[1]; parents would not like the idea that their child is getting the placaebo teaching method[2]; and governments are not brave enough to try it.