The Inverted Classroom

Robert Talbot
Casting Out Nines

People are talking about it here, and here. This is Robert Talbot, the first person I heard about it from. Here are some of his other articles. Let me throw out a few thoughts and attempt to nail down what I think. ("essay" from Fr. "Essayer", to try.) I'd love to hear what all of y'all have to say, too.

Essentially, Talbot (a university math professor) is reversing the order of his teaching.  He makes a video of his lecture which students are required to watch before class. Class time is then used for doing "homework" and practice, etc.  The theory is that lecture is very one-directional anyway (basically a video) and the students don't do well in lectures, so put the video online and have the kids do that portion of the class themselves. They can rewind, fast forward, review, whatever.  Then class time is reserved for face-to-face tutoring, direct and targeted instruction. Differentiated, if you will.

I'm ambivalent about this for high school. It sounds great in theory but so many great educational theories only work with college students or other adults who have different time pressures and levels of responsibility from the ones in front of me.

Some thoughts that occur to me are

Can 9th grade students learn this way? I'm not convinced. I think education at this level is more than just watching videos (and certainly NOT a lecture) and I'm not sure that the limited amount of time in the classroom the next day will suffice for re-teaching missed concepts or for correcting misunderstandings ... but they can watch the video over and over again, stop it and think. Listen to it again.  There are misunderstandings now and lots of time that homework would have gone much more smoothly with me to help. ("but my father said THIS was the way to do it.")

Really?  Students teach themselves? What am I here for? To teach the students.  They'll get more personalized attention the next day when you are working through the homework with them.

What about time? The college professors who have tried this are dealing with people who come to class every other day, people who have much more control over their lives, who can drive. I remember my college schedule: three to fours hours of class a day and then lots of free time to do this kind of thing. The expectation was one hour in class for every two hours outside of class. I can't see high school students ever fitting this pattern. When my son learned to drive, it immediately freed up a tremendous amount of time for him and for us. That's one huge difference - the amount of "loose time" and non-structured time. Time they can use to go to Office Hours. Our kids aren't allowed to come during free time, can't stay in the building without a teacher, can't meet at off times. But shouldn't they be developing that sense of responsibility? It's simple to require homework and any parent who won't support that shouldn't be surprised if the kid doesn't learn. We don't even allow them to go to Subway for lunch. that's my reality.

I can see a parent getting really annoyed that his daughter needs to use the living room TV every night for 45 minutes per class. I can also see that daughter being embarrassed to ask or simply giving in to the family's "American Idol" viewing habit. See previous comment.

My computer ate my homework.

The technological side bothers me too. Too many possible home configurations, IT issues. I had one set of parents tell me that they couldn't get their son to do a PowerPoint (I'd have accepted Keynote or Google apps, too) because their computer had a problem. For two months. True or not, it was out of my control - that kid would have had no instruction for two months. That kid had plenty of time to do the assignment, had plenty of resources with which to do it (town library, after-school, during class).  What he lacked was the desire. This will clarify matters.  Watch the video or fail.

An issue here in Vermont that the rest of the world hasn't had to deal with for a while is lack of broadband; probably a third of my students can't even get cellphone access at home. Poverty dictates that the school can't require certain things.  Require it and make it work. If there is a student who legitimately cannot, then deal with that issue at that point. Most complaints of this type are bogus. The real-world isn't stopping to wait. Lend him a computer, use a DVD, make a vidcast for the iPod the kid is carrying.

If they don't get the video done, what happens? I assume you'd let them watch it during class? What about the homework then? Does that kid get to re-invert the classroom because he simply won't cooperate? No. The classroom stays inverted.  If he refuses to do his assigned work, then that is the same as refusing to do homework.  If he refuses, he won't learn. If he doesn't learn, he'll fail. That seems a little draconian, but the students will rise to the level of your expectations.

Or not. The parents will bitch, the principal will be called and I'll be told to change. A lawsuit will be threatened. Hell, they do that anyway. Remember that kid and the PowerPoint? Give him some more time, during class, to get the work done.  That's the whole point of this - class time should be for working with a student, not talking at him.

What if YOU don't get the video done?  Well, shit.  You'd better prepare at least two weeks in advance, or just do the whole course over this coming summer.  No more of your "I've been doing this for years, let's just wing it today" bullshit.

Will students who play a sport or have another obligation get progressively farther behind? I can see them doing math problems on the bus (or on the bleachers while they wait for the JV game to finish) but not being able to do much more than placidly listen to a DVD (or podcast). Learning something new from scratch needs focused attention. Doing homework needs focused attention, too.  Would you rather they zoned out while listening to you in class, or zoned out while listening to you on their computer?  It might give them more responsibility because they know they have to get it done.  Slacking off has no upside. And you can help them with the more important part of learning, the reinforcement.

New isn't always better. Old isn't always better, either.

Crap. What about the time needed? In any recording endeavor, the time to create is at least four - six times the running time. You plan, record, re-record, mix, edit, review.  In the middle of October, that pile of whatever that needs grading is not going to go away and you've got videos to make and these videos can't wait. You don't have the "research" time that Talbot does. He has 3 hours of class a day, you have 6. He has lot more free time and "office hours" than you do. Once created, they stay created.  Sure, you can be replaced next year with a much cheaper TFA teacher and we'll still show your videos, but that's the risk we all take. Did I mention that all of your work is now the property of the school, that you cannot resell it or even give it away for free? Take it off YouTube. It legally belongs to the district because you created it on school time. Thanks for your effort. Now we can give a teacher 60 kids per class and a couple of cheap aides because all the learning has been done by video. Any non-learning will still be your fault. Aren't you thrilled?

Well.  It was a nice discussion.

I think that I will take the safe route this year and wait for other people who have met AYP to do the research. In the meantime, I'll put a few videos online, increase the use of the Moodle, but keep the traditional format for now.

You can't have "improvement"
if you haven't got any data.

Changing seems too much of a crapshoot to me at this point. The most important piece to all this, and one that I'm afraid will be overlooked by almost everyone, is data. I haven't seen anything other than Talbot's anecdotal information to say this works at the high school level.  I am not willing to go through the tremendous amount of time and effort required to change over without something more than pleasant stories.

We have enough trouble in this country with educational fads. An option that MIGHT work? I have seen lots of stupendous, wonderful, groundbreaking ideas come roaring in like lions and then go slinking out embarrassed like a wet toy poodle. The money spent in the meantime is obscene.


Data Questions:

Better bone up.

1. What is your baseline? Have you got someway to measure the effectiveness of the current system before you throw it away?
2. What kind of data will convince you that this works - or doesn't?  You must develop some way to tell if this was effective or if the teacher was effective, or both, or neither.  If you can figure that out, you can sell the idea to New York.
3. When will you decide? You have to nail this point down or run the risk of picking your goalposts to suit a preconceived notion.
4. Is this tent therapy?* Are the gains simply a matter of improved attention on the teacher's part, working harder, being better because you're paying attention for the first time in a while? Is the different format making a difference or is it simply that you've made a change?  Will these gains diminish next year when the kids get used to the new method? If this goes well, will you be able to prove it?
5. Control group? Can students transfer to another class if they really don't like it? How flexible is your school? If you truly want to make this a controlled experiment - and you should - you should do it with only half of your classes and refuse to let the kids switch around.

These questions need to be answered FIRST or you are committing Egregious Research Error #1.  There's been enough of THAT already. Now for the important questions:

1. Will your principal back you up? College professor Talbot has a great deal of professional freedom. If this hits a stubborn kid or obnoxious parent in October, how much influence will be enough to shut this down? (Is 'obnoxious parent' an oxymoron or a regular moron?)
2. Do you have tenure? Is your union willing to stand by you? Do you still have a union?
3. Do you need this job? If the answer is "Yes." then you need to consider whether to take this chance. I know what the current method does. 
4. Do you have the resources to pull this off? Technology, website, bandwidth. Since you're going to be doing some of this from home, how's your home computer?
5. Do you have the time? Better start recording the lessons now.

* Tent therapy was a short-lived psychological treatment fad from early twentieth century. Patients who were brought outside and placed in tents on the lawn of the insane asylum showed improvement. In reality, the improvement came not from the tents or the fresh air but from the increased attention the staff was giving to the patients. As soon as routine settled in, the improvements disappeared.

Vouchers again

Voucher results mixed
Overall, public-school students did better on state tests
By Jennifer Smith Richards / Columbus (OH) Dispatch

On the whole, Ohio students who used tax-funded vouchers to attend private schools last school year did no better on state tests than public-school students.

One commenter wrote:
"That's not the issue, is it? What we want to know is whether private school students did better than they would have in a public school. That's the issue. The only way you can come close to answering that question is with random samples and control groups--neither of which were used here."

Very true. In fact, random samples and control groups would tend to eliminate the selection bias inherent in the voucher system and make the comparisons even worse for the voucher schools. Add to that a size bias - the small voucher school that randomly does well is used as a club over the heads of the public school.  At the same time, the small voucher school that randomly does poorly is ignored .... until next year's random increase means that you can trumpet "Its huge improvement is the result of vouchers."

When the one with all the advantages doesn't win,
there is usually a reason.

Fundamentally, public schools should be the recipients of public school money. They are run by the town for the benefit of its citizens, are controlled by a School Board elected by the citizens, use a budget that is voted on by its citizens, and by and large are staffed by its citizens. Accountability is to the town.  At least in Vermont.

Private schools are not accountable to the town, do not have to make their finances public, do not have to answer to the taxpayers, and are run for the benefit of the school. Private and charter schools do not have to follow federal mandates for the education of all students, can dismiss or expel students for disciplinary or educational reasons without refunding the town, and can send kids back to the public school if their academic performance isn't up to par. Private schools can skim the best students off the top, "recruit" from other districts, include I20 students rather than IEPs or 504s, offer "scholarships," and do many other things to "win."

What's the real issue? If the charter and private schools cannot out-do the public schools despite their very real head start, we shouldn't be blaming the public schools.

Common Sense on Drug Stats

Every once in a while we get hit with the workshop that exists only to justify its own existence, while keeping the presenter employed. The drug-scare workshop is the prime candidate.

1. Funny About Money went to one. They said 50% of CC students are coming to class stoned or high on multiple drugs.
2. Our Drug Awareness Dude from the community center showed up with two suitcases of things to look for and police-approved fake samples of paraphernalia. 
3. The ex-cop came in to show us those brain scans of druggies vs non-druggies. "Look at the "holes" in this one and at the nice smooth brain over here."
4. The ex-druggie claimed to have taken this entire list of drugs and abused his kid, and here she is to confirm that he was an asshole. The poor girl stands there looking embarrassed as hell as he lists all the signs of alcoholism and drug use in your students and describes how he used to mistreat his family while under the influence.

All this time, I'm thinking, "Calm down. Scare tactics only work for a few minutes until people start thinking again." It burns me up. Here we are paying this clown a couple thousand to preach bullshit and take up a lot of time. Isn't there a better use of our resources?

The ex-druggie is spouting utter crap, trying to make himself look better in his own eyes. His daughter is still being abused and I have no sympathy for him. He's telling us the signs of alcoholism - slanty eyes in kids - and the admin are eating it up. No one is surprised when the email comes by the next day ... "Please stop asking kids about their parents' alcoholism." He's telling the kids the dangers of drugs and how they'll ruin your life. Most of the kids noticed he's getting paid a couple grand to speak to a gynasium full of kids for an hour. A few also noticed that he "wants to come back a lot because this is the worst school in the whole state and I'd really like to come back often to help you guys." Gee, thanks.

The ex-cop has gotten hold of some pictures that scare the bejeezus out of him, except that he doesn't understand them. "Look at the holes in this kid's brain." then, the best line, "See the awful colors? Those are caused by drugs."

Ahhh, it's a computer generated scan of activity levels, Dude. It's a graph. The colors were chosen for contrast. There are no physical holes, just activity levels below an arbitrary cutoff.

Then, there were the line graphs. No vertical or horizontal scale, no mention of what was actually being measured. "This is a graph of memory for a kid on drugs." Me: "Time in days, months? Number of items, type of items, first 800 digits of pi? What memories, what kind of mental tasks?" Him: "I don't know. I just got these graphs from their website." Me: "...."

But wait, there's more. There's the community anti-drug crusader.

Apparently, according to him, our students are taking any or all of over a hundred different types of drugs. He had displays in the two suitcases so therefore he must be telling the truth. We had problems: meth, heroin, speed, downers, pot, booze, cocaine, peyote, mushrooms, wine coolers and hard lemonade, injectables, glue and other inhalants -- even (this is no shit) "Some girls are soaking their hair scrunchies in gasoline so they can sit in class and sniff the fumes all period." Really? Don't you think someone might notice that? Doesn't this seem a bit far fetched?

So I asked him, "According to what you have seen and found, according to what the Police Chief standing next to you has seen and found, according to what the kids themselves tell you about what they've heard other kids are doing, what is really happening in this town?" "Alcohol, mostly. Marijuana."

What about the other things you're showing us? "Well, there was that one kid three years ago." Here's a little math for you: 100 - 2 = 98% bullshit.

Funny with Money was told by the college people responsible for policing and preventing it, that about fifty percent of students in a community college classroom, at any given time, are likely to be abusing some kind of drug, legally purchased or not, often more than one something.

"Substances" range from meth to over-the-counter cold pills and nostrums. So, the homeopathic "cold medicine" that contains less of anything useful or harmful than does the average placebo is also lumped into the statistic. And probably Hall's and Ricola.

Anyone else wondering why these geniuses are telling us all this? Maybe to justify their own salaries through irony? If this is such a problem, why haven't they done anything about it?

And seriously? Most community college kids are there on borrowed money and many are working fulltime, desperate for an education. They aren't going to class wasted, they're going to class tired. If they were wasted, they wouldn't bother going to class.

Why do I complain? Because overloading the classroom teacher with trivial bullshit that has no bearing on anything in their classroom is a lose-lose situation.


If you have us looking for wraiths that do not exist, then we will find those wraiths anyway and waste time, effort, soul, and most importantly, trust, barking up the wrong trees. Everyone loses.


If you tell us that slanty eyes in kids are a sure sign of parental alcoholism, then that is what the faculty will see. Don't be surprised if parents thus accused do not take it well.

If you tell us that 95% of our students are on drugs right now (via the ex-druggie, with the principal standing right next to him, nodding wisely), then we will misinterpret tired or worried or frustrated as "drugged." If you tell us that we should report everything, then an awful lot of nonsense will get thrown into the system -- parents will be called, kids will be called in, DYS will have to be notified -- because a kid had a fight with his girlfriend and didn't sleep well for the last two weeks.

That's how you lose when you are dealing with students.

You lose. YOU. LOSE.

Kids won't open up when they really need help. They will fall into the patterns you accuse them of. The parents will learn to NEVER trust the faculty or the school. The kids will withdraw from all of the possible support. Your school will take on a whole new feel and no one will like it.

If you try and tell students that the brain doesn't stop growing until the age of 25, so "Students shouldn't drink until then," you will come off as loony and hypocritical. Kids watch TV on Sunday for the football. We shouldn't expect the other messages to magically disappear: Alcohol is cool and very desirable and the perfect home has hundreds of cans in the fridge, strength and power are all-important (steroids and other PEDS), and women are supposed to dress like that.

If your presentation is mostly hyperbole and loaded with graphs you don't understand, your rhetoric will pass right on by. Kids are good at ignoring adult exaggeration and they hate hypocrisy.

Kids laugh at the lameness of the "Eggs on Drugs" commercials. They don't listen to teachers who bullshit them.

Is there a problem in my school? Yep.
Should the school discuss it? Yep.
Should we do something? Absolutely.

If you have information for us in the school, we will gladly listen to it and do our best to act on it.  Just follow one simple rule:

"Tell me the truth without exaggerating and stop wasting my time."

What Teachers Need from Administrators.

Dangerously Irrelevant has the beginning post of a series on what teachers want from administrators. Though I agree with some of this gentleman's points, there is some contradiction in what Brian Crosby says.

I agree with him when he wants teachers to have more say in professional development. No wasted meetings. This should be obvious, but isn't. Admin who haven't taught in years should temper their advice. Schools should hire teachers and then expect them to be teachers - stop second guessing all the time. Accountability is good if you allow the teachers to teach. If you require they follow a script, then hold the script accountable.

Absolutely: Change for its own sake is stupid. Adopting the gee-whiz Fad of the Month from a summer admin workshop while instituting a new math curriculum, new science curriculum, and new Common Core Standards only ruins any chance of knowing whether any reforms were successful. Maybe it's a science mindset, but you should only change one variable at a time if you want to isolate cause.

"Research" in education is often inapplicable to the school. Apply with care. Read the damn paper before you try to implement the hype in the newspaper report of the University press release of the heavily hedged Executive Summary. Don't expect the 150 college students in the study to behave in the same way as your high-schoolers.

When you make changes, you should be "experimenting" properly. Measure before and after. Have a control group. Add your data to that of the study. Isolate variables. Either track the proposed change scientifically or accept the fact that you are playing Russian Roulette with kids who won't get another chance at a high school education.

I'm not so thrilled with the idea of 2 weeks in the beginning of the year for planning - seems like too much and wouldn't be well used by the faculty. It's a nice idea in theory, but details go out the window at first contact with students. Besides, I like having the summer.

A big sticking point for me is the reform contradiction and I felt that his message lost its way.

Saying "Changing course constantly is very bad," he wants to stay away from the Summertime Fad and avoid jumping on the research-based fad. Then he wants to explore non-research-based pedagogies (i.e., fads), change to 21st century tech and wants his admin to "BEG for creativity and innovation." Which is it?

"Creativity and innovation" are euphemisms for "summer workshop fad" except for frame of reference. Is it always a fad if your admin proposes it but realistic and wonderful if it came from your own 6-hour workshop? Brian is tripping down this staircase.

RTTT contenders hoist with their own petard

In his article, Why I'm Feeling Sorry for Sec. Duncan, Rick Hess laid out a few of the problems with the process.

I'm going to snip some.

program design was not equal to the weight it was being asked to bear (what with its murky criteria for judge selection, ambiguous scoring system, focus on promises and grant-writing rather than accomplishment, and the remarkable emphasis that Secretary Duncan placed on union "buy-in" in round one).

This led to "bizarre round two RTT results" and Duncan could "take the scores at face value or he could override them." There were conflicting results when it came to ranking state data systems, clarity and strength of charter laws, teacher furlough policy, with the RTTT "winners" running close to last nationally.

Then there's New Jersey. They "finished out of the money by three points due to [paperwork mistake] and [being] savaged by a reviewer who repeatedly fixated on NJEA opposition." That's funny. Hidebound bureaucratic nit-picking. Who'd a thunk it?

Gov. Christie's take? "The first part of it is the mistake of putting the wrong piece of paper in," he said. "But the second part is, does anybody in Washington, D.C. have a lick of common sense? Pick up the phone and ask us for the number."  Oh, Governor.  I feel your pain. Do you feel mine?

"Louisiana and Colorado had set the standard when it came to walking the walk on teacher quality: 'Unlike top contenders Colorado and Louisiana, California did not pass statewide legislation that would mandate a complete redesign of teacher evaluation systems.'" The judges' verdict? Two reviewers trashed Colorado on teacher quality. Whoops. And less than a month ago, Duncan described Louisiana as "leading the way" with data systems that monitor teacher preparation programs and student performance. Double whoops.

Other words and phrases: "furious" "they've been steamrolled" "winners made empty promises" "played fast-and-loose with the facts." "can't fathom how the judges made their determinations."

"Duncan strategically skipped over Hawaii's current lack of a permanent state chief, a reliable statewide data system, or any substantial record of accomplishment on teacher quality--and the fact that a new governor will take office in January."

Isn't that ironic? There seems to be a problem with evaluations of states and their worthiness for federal money.

States that overhauled their systems (for the good? No one knows.) lost out to other states that didn't. In the graphic at right, you can see a few of these reforms. Were any of them successful? We don't really know. In education, success is measured in longer terms than one or two years. There isn't a good way to know jack diddly squat about a reform until the dust has had time to settle. Merit pay, charter schools, new standards like Common Core (which some are already decrying before they've even been implemented) - will they work?

"Who knows? Who cares? They're not OUR kids. Our kids go to private school."

One of the big criticisms is that the states haven't developed an evaluation system for teachers and that teachers should be happy to accept merit pay and bet as much as $10,000 on the results of state tests that kids don't really care about. How's the state evaluation system working?

The same people are now complaining that the "program design was not equal to the task", "murky criteria", "ambiguous scoring system," "focus on promises and grant-writing rather than accomplishment." Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

It's similar to the way a lot of administrators reach conclusions about the worthiness of faculty. Ambiguous, murky criteria. Skip over important details. Fixate on unimportant ones. Lacking common sense. Poor evaluation design. But I'm supposed to wager my paycheck on that?

States are complaining that judges make mistakes, unfairly fixate on meaningless stats, slam imperfect paperwork, ignore their own metrics, and give money to the wrong people by any measurement. Duncan could "take the results at face value or override them?" Based on what -- his vast experience as a teacher? Minutes or hours?

There's so much irony here, I could just ... , well ... , hoist.

Weight of the Argument

from Scott Macleod (Dangerously Irrelevant) comes this angst-filled twitter post:

and he asks: "Hmmm… What’s in there that’s not available in at least a dozen places on the Web for free?"

Well, organization, for one thing -- it's one book instead of "a dozen places on the Web" for each topic. Location, for another. Accuracy, for a third. Fourth, cost. Lastly, bias.

I'm all for free textbooks for the school, but those who write them occasionally want to get paid for their work. If the school buys a textbook, they have similar editions for all the students in the class and assurance that someone has vetted them for accuracy, minimal bias, and clarity for the level of student. It's also free to the student. The cost to the school is spread over several years. Online resources are currently too expensive or scattered and useless.

Bias is similarly easier with a book - Howard Zinn was a socialist. Knowing that meant you could easily work around it or extol it but you'd always be dealing with a known quantity. Websites change too often for you to trust them without verifying.

Hoo boy, trust. What if that website you linked to in August is kaput and serving ads in December when the parent tries to follow it -- or worse, gets squatted on by Stormfront -- and that parent hits martinlutherking.org (NSFW) instead of the main page for the King Center (the real one). A textbook gets vetted once.

Accurate? Accuracy matters: Read here:
Technology might be the Answer but not ... for the story of the definition of Radian.

I think the iPad (or similar) will be the textbook of the future, as soon as Apple drops the ridiculous iTunes Store file limitations and opens up the platform to flash. It would be wonderful. It's the right size, has color, can run video, touch screen and type, has everything except openness. We're close but until Steve Jobs realizes the goldmine he could be sitting on, we'll still have books. He'll charge for the convenience, but it would beat paper.

Free online doesn't necessarily mean free to the student. I've noticed that free materials invariably are better and easier to use when printed - that's a cost for the student, especially if we're talking about inkjets. It always amuses me when conference people make a big noise about "saving money, paper and the environment by not printing out notes and handouts" and then you look around at all the attendees who printed everything out themselves at their expense on less efficient inkjets. 

Then, there's readability. Those textbooks that are free on the web -- I'm thinking the California initiative -- are not easily read. I'm reminded of the study comparing ease of reading of Kindle, iPad, paper and computer screen (including laptop). "iPad, Kindle, and the printed book all scored fairly high at 5.8, 5.7, and 5.6, respectively. The PC, however, scored an abysmal 3.6." Imagine if they had been working with a math book? Again, I have hopes for the iPad or a similar, but it's not quite worth it yet.

Let's pretend that we're not printing out material, just accessing it.  How trustworthy is it?  Is it "Wikipedia good?" Has it been edited recently by someone who knows the truth or is the urban legend version of history taking hold here?  Just because everyone knows that "tea partiers" are the only true patriots doesn't mean that it's a true fact. I have confidence in that printed book.

Why is the online textbook free? Is it free because it's the pdf version of the second edition, copyright 1990?

Organization is another big issue for me. The material for a typical history or even math course would be so widespread over the internet, it would be a tremendous pain to find and collate. Why should I spend that time and effort finding and verifying what the book publisher is willing to do for me? Nothing will be free but I think that iPad (click above to enlarge) holds the most promise.

Then there's linkrot. I took an online thing this summer and 1 of the links had expired and was serving ads - less than a month after the link was created. You would have to recheck everything every year to be sure that the page hadn't changed nor had any others on the same site.

Finally, there's cost. You can't carry a desktop computer. Laptops and netbooks have a serious distraction issue, they're delicate and they're tough to read because of that vertical screen. iPad shows the most promise but, starting at $499, isn't affordable by every student. With an initiative, we could supply them to every student -- cheaper than a laptop -- and escape the problems with laptops in the classroom, damage, viruses, etc.

In sum, we're close. I can taste it already. We just need a little push.

Teacher Quality Study

Via Joanne Jacobs, via Reuters, from Science comes a twin study on teacher effectiveness.

I’d be interested in the criteria for “strong” teacher and “weak” teacher. If the “strong” one is defined (as the linked article seems to imply) as someone whose 20 students did well on a single reading test, then perhaps it isn’t surprising that one of those students did better on a test.

At least this study seems to be comparing teachers within the same building, using twins. That’ll help control for income and such. I’m not as convinced that a single measure of just one skill is a particularly good way to differentiate, however, though my expertise is certainly not at the k-3 level. Assuming that you can even separate the discipline at this level I have to wonder: if one teacher is better at science or math while the first is only good at teaching the reading skills needed for that one test, the differences could be enough to label one or the other as “deficient” and that’s not a good way to do this.

I’d also like to know how the kids were placed in the various classes. If it’s random, then this study has more credibility, but if the placements are done for reasons of ability or behavior, then that test is measuring too many variables to definitively say one teacher is better than the other.

I'm sure the researchers tried to control for this, but schools do tend to separate kids on purpose and that will skew the study. If a weaker student is intentionally placed with teacher #1, then it shouldn't be surprising if the teachers show a difference.

All in all, a good study. Hopefully it's not taken directly to the Congress as the article suggests - it's way too early for that and the Congress would probably try to apply its lessons to high or middle schools and it's way to specific for that.

BTW, the photo that accompanied the article showed a child using an abacus during a national math test in India. If one of our teachers used an abacus during teaching and the other used a calculator, that would definitely change the results.

Article below the jump

Poor teachers may hamper good students: U.S. study
Thu Apr 22, 2010 4:45pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An unusual genetic study supports the argument that good teachers make a difference and shows that poor teachers may do damage, even to gifted students, researchers said on Thursday.
The study, published in the journal Science, showed that effective teachers help kids with the best genes read better, while poor teachers brought down all the children in a classroom to the same mediocre level.
The findings by behavioral geneticist Jeanette Taylor at Florida State University and colleagues could influence the debate in Congress, the White House and school districts across the United States about measuring the quality in schools.
"In circumstances where the teachers are all excellent, the variability in student reading achievement may appear to be largely due to genetics. However, poor teaching impedes the ability of children to reach their potential," Taylor and colleagues concluded.
To tease out the effects of genes and environment, the researchers turned to the time-tested model of twins. Identical twins share all their DNA, while fraternal twins share about half, or as much as any brother or sister.
Their theory: if one identical twin does better than his or her sibling in a different classroom, much of the difference must be due to the teacher.
They studied 280 identical twin pairs and 526 fraternal twin pairs in the first and second grades from a diverse selection of Florida schools.
To determine teacher quality, they used Oral Reading Fluency test scored for the entire classroom of each twin.
"(It's) a timed measure of how many words children can read in a passage," Taylor said in a Science podcast.
They checked to see how many more words children could read at the end of the year compared to the beginning.
"We felt that was a reasonable estimate of teacher effectiveness," Taylor said.
When teachers were good, the genes really mattered. If one identical twin excelled with a good teacher, the other did too. But if one twin had a strong teacher and the other twin had a weak teacher, twins with strong genetic potential did just so-so in the poor teacher's class.
"Better teachers provide an environment that allows children to reach their potential," Taylor said.
"As state and national policy increasingly focuses on teacher quality, the effect that teachers have on the strong documented genetic foundation of reading is an important question," the researchers wrote.
While great teachers do not guarantee success, they said, policymakers need to realize that good teaching is important, even for gifted children.
One weakness of the study -- the researchers threw out data from identical twins who happened to be in the same classroom who scored differently from one another on the reading test. Taylor said she did not know how many such cases there were.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Stacey Joyce)

Not just for Global Warming

EUGENE VOLOKH ON DATA SHARING AND CLIMATE RESEARCH, though this sentiment applies to all research. This is how peer review works. It is why we know that fusion power is not yet commercially viable, that perpetual motion machines don't and that certain medicines are dangerous or effective.

My inclination would be to say that data should nearly always be shared. If you share your data, this lets others check the conclusions you draw from the data, as well as verifying the accuracy of the data against other available sources. They might disprove your arguments, or lead you to improve your arguments, or, if they reproduce your results, they might help prove the validity of your arguments. But in either case, science progresses better, and the decisions made based on the science are more reliable, than if you keep the data secret.
I can see some possible exceptions, for instance where there are concerns about the privacy of research subjects, or where the data was gathered as part of a commercial endeavor that requires that the data be kept proprietary for the commercial project to be viable, or some such. Even there I stress that the exceptions are merely possible; perhaps on balance the data should be shared even then, and in any event, even if there’s a good reason for the data not to be shared, people should view the research skeptically because of the lack of sharing.

Vaccines do not cause autism.

I'm not a fan of those such as Jenny McCarthy who run around trying to scare people into forsaking vaccines and known cures in favor of holistic medicine and other proven-to-be-pointless non-working treatments. The polio vaccine has saved countless children but Jenny is certain that it caused autism in her child so she campaigns against it. Not that she has any scientific evidence for that, of course. Not that she doesn't constantly rail against "scientific evidence" as if repeating the words will somehow turn them into blasphemy.

“I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it's their fucking fault that the diseases are coming back. They're making a product that's shit. If you give us a safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio versus autism.”
Jenny McCarthy in Time Magazine, April 2009

Learn science, people. Do proper research. Trust logic.

I have had students tell me that the government is just trying to make money off the swine flu vaccine, that it'll just make you sick, that it'll cause all kinds of things. Then, of course, they get in a car and drive like idiots so I'm not terribly surprised that they can't take this seriously. At least the vast majority of the students in our school have gotten the shot a couple weeks ago.

Preventable Illnesses	Preventable Deaths

You can keep up to date with the Jenny McCarthy Body Count.

You can check this data at the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Reports, if you trust those **scientists**

Libraries are changing.

Joanne Jacobs writes of The bookless campus — with cappucino

For $44,000 a year, parents can send their sons and daughters to Cushing Academy, a Massachusetts boarding school that boasts a “bookless campus.” ... snip ...
Cushing is disburdening itself of its library’s 20,000 books and spending $500,000 to establish a “learning center” ...snip...
spending $42,000 for some large flat-screen monitors ...snip...
$20,000 for “laptop-friendly” study carrels. ...snip...
In place of the reference desk, “a $50,000 coffee shop with a $12,000 cappuccino machine.”

When I was in high school in the ’60s, our library was renamed the “Instructional Materials Center.” I got in trouble with the library staff for making fun of the change in the school newspaper. But we still had books.

Stacy felt "It’s idiotic. Throwing the baby out with the bath water. Why not leave the library as is and add additional resources? The students will use what is useful." Richard wondered if they had a copy of Fahrenheit 451 in their library.

Neither of these commenters or Joanne seem to get what is happening here. This private school is running an experiment and we all need to pay very close attention to the results. The world is changing and this is but one of the avenues ahead of us. We need information so we can choose correctly and wisely.

Joanne says "But we still had books." Sure, Joanne, but in the 60s, that is all we had. I remember. I was there, too. School libraries are being deserted. Their old ways of operation need to change or we're going to be hiring a librarian to sit alone amid piles of fire hazard instead of helping kids research, which is what she should be doing.

Should we spend money on computers or more books or a third option I haven't thought of? Which type of books, software, bandwidth? Should they bother with an encyclopedia if no one opens it EVER? Should they purchase the OED for $995 (leather bound, 20volumes) or for $198 on 2 CDs or tell the kids a link to an on-line resource? With every student having a computer and a campus-wide wifi, where would you spend YOUR money?

Without knowing the specifics but having been in public and private schools for years, I would point out that the books in the Cushing were probably great when bought but weren’t being replaced as needed. New books that were purchased remained unused. Somebody made the leap to "Kindle is cheaper."

“The students will use what is useful.” Obviously, Stacy has not been in education recently if she thinks that students will find books useful. There isn’t a student alive who would voluntarily use a book when Google is at hand. The library was most likely devolving into a place for computer stations and tables, with books stored “over there behind the SmartBoard.” Richard has it equally wrong - no one is getting rid of the story, just the paper it's written on.

They probably had several encyclopediae, too — how’s that working out for a library in this age of Wikipedia and Google? I’m not saying that the Internet is preferable but it’s the resource chosen by the students.

If librarians are honest with themselves, they have to admit that their job descriptions are rapidly changing and their collections are becoming outdated and ignored.

I applaud the gamble. At least the experiment is being done with private money in a voluntary setting — anyone who can afford Cushing can afford another, equally desperate for tuition, private school.

It is now up to the public school community to let this experiment to run its course, for the data to be crunched as to its effectiveness and for the surveys to be compiled detailing how the educational experience changed as a result. Did the teachers notice a drop-off that can be correlated to the library changes?

I for one, would like to know. Our library is rapidly changing, too. The librarian is putting in more workstations and the shelves are gradually moving back to the wall and closer together so they take up less space. As she retires books, the ones she purchases are less likely to be subject-oriented and more likely fiction, magazines, and other light-reading material.

While I’m sure I don’t like it, I have no evidence that the kids will miss the books. I also can’t see that the faculty can or will do much about it and don't seem to miss them either. The English department’s been building “classroom sets” for years for all the books they need – they rarely visit the library anymore. History uses the computer labs more than anyone, even science, and neither group has much in the way of “Books that aren’t Textbooks.” Heck, for most classes, the library is the “overflow” computer room rather than a reading resource.

That last paragraph is probably what bothers me the most. The librarian's JOB is to help the kids research. Why is all of that research being done in the computer lab without her? Is this why we're having a bigger problem with plagiarism? I know many of our teachers drop the kids off and "let them go for it" when they never would have done so in the library. Are they really learning how to research from the teachers? Should we ban the teachers from sending their kids to the computer room to do research? Does the librarian know how to really use the Internet or is she just going to sit there at her desk and wait for the kids to ask questions? Maybe the librarians need to take a hard look at their profession and this experiment.

So many rhetorical questions, so little time.

SAT scores are linked to Family income. So what?

Just a warning ... I'm going there.

Flypaper, the edExcellence Blog, has commentary on the SAT scores that refuse to go up.

"Gaps widening a bit by race, income, parental education. Indeed, the tidiest relationships and smoothest curves are those that continue—as they have for as long as anyone can remember—to show the steady upward progression of average SAT scores (pdf) as family incomes and parents’ education rise."

Chester then goes on to show some details and to say,

What does this say about 26 years of education reforming since A Nation at Risk? For starters, it says the reform efforts haven’t seriously penetrated our high schools. Then it says that current moves (e.g., the “Common Core” national standards project of the governors and chiefs) to align high-school exit expectations to college and workforce readiness are urgently needed, indeed long overdue.

That's an interesting take. If you can't get results in 26 years of trying reform after reform, let's try another reform! (Insert sound of Bells and Whistles). Then there is the sentiment that "Reforms are obviously urgently needed."

It's true. The only correlated data that ETS has with an R-value greater than 0.1 or so is between scores and family income. The NYTimes has this:

Everyone, of course, dismisses that income-scores correlation as silly, saying "You can't just give the family more money and raise the scores, ha, ha." That's right, but I don't think that money causes good scores, although there is a lot to be said for SAT prep courses, which are really a total review of math and basic grammar and that's good no matter what.

I think the problem is an incorrect correlation, a confounding factor. It's not that A (money) causes B (scores). It's that C causes D which affects B. Simultaneously D causes A.

Parents are the confounding factor.

As I see it, smart parents are likely to have smart children. More importantly, motivated, dedicated, educated and intelligent parents are likely to have M, D, E, and I children. They are also more likely to have money because they work harder for it and are more capable of holding the job and moving up the ladder to the big bucks and higher family income. Simultaneously, their M,D,I, and E children are more likely to have better scores.

Children whose parents were poor because of misfortune or some other external factor don't tend to fit this pattern. They're the Horatio Algers of the world, the kid who worked his way up from the mailroom to CEO. There's no reason to assume the black or Hispanic kid can't be doctor, lawyer, etc. In fact, the kids of those successful (and higher income) blacks and Hispanics are likewise high-scoring and successful. The single mother who instills dedication, motivation, and a healthy respect for education into her kids might not have money but her kids will.

Children whose parents were not motivated, etc., always fit the income-score correlation. Race has rarely been a factor in determining motivation and dedication (simply look at KIPP schools to see that), but it has been an indicator of income due to longstanding segregation and migration patterns. Money doesn't seem to drive scores, but it does correlate.

The constant desire for improvement and reform and reform and change and reform again is doomed to repeat its cycle of failure.

Are reforms necessary? Sure, if you can point to a definitive improvement that will result. I'd appreciate it if you'd define "improvement," first. Improve what and by how much? Student satisfaction, tech-toys, test scores, athletic titles, graduation rates, future wages? Fundamentally, is "success" as defined by "average scores increasing yearly" or "adequate yearly progress" possible? I don't believe so.

I think we should stop looking for the perfect reform because it doesn't exist. We should instead focus our attention on doing the best we can each year with those we have in front of us.

Just sayin'.

Online Learning is in the News

Some people are linking to a new study and claiming that it says that a blend of online learning and face-to-face teaching is better than strictly face-to-face teaching. The study specifically warns against that. Take this post, for example. (Note: this is taken from a different site, which probably edited it somewhat. They might not have missed the caveats.)

Meta-Analysis Shows Online Learning Benefits
by ASCD Bloggers, Aug. 24, 2009
A recent meta-analysis of research comparing online learning with traditional classroom learning [pdf] showed that, on average, students performed better in online learning conditions as opposed to exclusively face-to-face instruction. Researchers found this effect was larger in situations that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face.

So I went to that study, helpfully linked and found the caveats in the abstract: "the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se." and "the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical training, higher education."

A glimpse at the executive summary shows: "The most unexpected finding was that an extensive initial search of the published literature from 1996 through 2006 found no experimental or controlled quasi-experimental studies that both compared the learning effectiveness of online and face-to-face instruction for K–12 students and provided sufficient data for inclusion in a meta-analysis. Extending the search through July 2008 identified just five published studies meeting meta-analysis criteria."

Well, that doesn't really fit the headline all that well, does it?