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I have always felt (I know that 'felt' is substantially less rigorous than performing and analyzing studies) that often we don't need technology or anything fancy to improve learning. Just teach kids how to study: 1. Read the chapter before class, and do some assigned review exercises. 2. Go to class, listen, and ask questions. 3. Go home and reread the chapter and do the hard and synthesis exercises. 4. Seek help for whatever you can't do at office hours.
Indeed, here I want to go on a slight tangent and argue (again, without any specialized knowledge or experience; I'm just flapping my fingers here) that the idea that we need expensive electronic, device-oriented (e.g., electronic tables and "Legos kits on steroids") learning environments to support effective learning is profoundly pessimistic. That would suggest that students in resource-rich environments will increase their knowledge gap over those in resource-poor environments at a time when we need that gap to decrease (by lifting the bottom up, of course). I don't believe it. I think reading decent textbooks (even if they are decades old), solving problems, and learning from those who have mastered a subject, combined with a student's desire to learn and strong willingness to work, are all that is needed, and these latter resources are far more widely available than are specialized electronic ones.
IMHO, YOU are correct! Thomas's "Calculus" hasn't changed since 1978. Calculus hasn't changed (it pre-dated Thomas ;o) It is absurd to suggest that a customized, probably over-priced Microsoft Surface be used to teach kindergarten through 12th grade students about neuroscience. That's what this article emphasized. Mathematics and science were acknowledged, as an afterthought. After Jonah Lehrer's neuroscience deception, I suspect that neurologists, psychiatrists and brain surgeons are the only genuine neuroscientists!
For the authors of this post: You (three) shouldn't waste your valuable time with Stanford's department of computer science "by courtesy". You are bona fide professors (and a doctoral student) in the department of education! You contribute much more than the plethora of mobile payment start-up's and social media tools that are Stanford CS's recent output e.g. Clinkle. Your expertise as educators is important, especially now. I truly wish society and capital markets valued you more highly, in status and compensation.
Very nice essay. In a sense, what you discuss here is a version of Whitehead's classic essay on the rhythm of education from 1929. He identified the rhythmic stages as Romance, Precision, and Generalisation. Essentially, first get student interest, next make them go beyond "ooh neat" to precise facts and theory, and then learn how to apply the precise knowledge to broader things. This roughtly maps to the flipped-flipped classroom: get them to pose questions, provide answers to questions, and then engage in using the new understanding. Just a reflection from reading this essay.
I want to believe that the principal researchers will find it in their hearts to take the "flipped, flipped classroom" model in new directions, giving due attention to the plight of the rural poor and inner-city youth as well. Each advance in educational technology challenges the "old school" educational research community to cross disciplinary lines, to work collaboratively, to align itself with inclusive, data-driven approaches to personalized learning, gametization, and embedded remedial education.
Nice essay. But ... I'll go with, "Science is better when you can measure."
It is very difficult to measure 'learning' ... and 'science' in the sense of rigorous quantification of inputs and outputs is not always the best way to assess constructivist learning.
Why Flipped, Flipped Classroom ?
My 2 cents worth - to me, flipped flipped = traditional classroom model !
Anyway, I'm no researcher, so I will stick with Flipped Classroom. It works :)
> Paradoxically, those so-called “innovations” are incorporating none of the
> educational research produced over the past decades.
And that just may be the reason why. What works in real life and what people actually want is not the same as that conjured up in the ivory tower of ideal model students.
> Educational researchers and National Academy Reports have argued for years
> that students aren’t simply vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge.
> Students construct their view of the world using their prior knowledge,
> they actively integrate new information with their existing cognitive
> structures and they think critically about the content taught when given
> opportunities to do so.
Right. Educational researchers and the National Academy have been bastions of the left for years too — no wonder that their output is full of self-enabling, politically correct feel-good stuff. Sorry, but in the real world the idea that students will figure out the solutions themselves is a fantasy. Research is hard. Discovery is slow. Most students do not have the time and many do not have the talent to succeed without direction.
> You cannot have the answers before you think of the questions.
Nonsense! Ninety percent of the students won't even think of the questions before they are pointed out to them. (Research is hard and slow, remember!) Half of students struggle to understand what is presented to them from first principles. How on earth are they supposed to figure it out on their own? That is fundamentally irrational.
> we need less lecturing and more exploration.
Nope. Efficient education means good teaching, and good teaching means good motivation to learn what is being presented to you.
Time costs money. We don't have the luxury to waste both on utopian education systems. Fortunately the market has decided: on-demand lectures and on-demand exercises in a structured support environment are efficient, cheap, and effective.
Outcome-based education has wrecked the quality of education in the US. Thirty years ago the US was a world leader in the quality of its education. Now it is lucky to come in the top quartile. Viva la revolution!