Interesting story from Inside HigherEd about one professor’s approach to “punishing” students caught text messaging during class time.  This debate won’t go away for a while, and I hope it actually leads to productive discussions on the topic.

My first reaction was that if the students are not “fully” paying attention, the professor is not fostering active learning.  But, then I read some of the finer print…THERE ARE 400 STUDENTS IN THE CLASS!  No wonder the students are disengaged.  Sheesh.

Originally posted on Flickr by Monroviabill

Tags: class, policy, text message

I firmly believe that the single greatest obstacle to digitally-based educational reform is fear.  Fear of change, the unkown, loss of control, etc.  I wish we/I could document my belief empirically. 

The other day, I had an opportunity to be at a meeting of a dozen or so school superintendents.  The meeting was not at all about technology (actually, I’m not entirely sure what it WAS about, but anyway…), but two short discussions took place that I found interesting.  On one occasion, after announcing my budding idea for the Virginia Institute On Leadership in/for Educational Technology (VIOLET), one of the superintendents suggested that any conversations about leadership and technology need to include discussions of “management.”  When I asked what he meant, he said that in his district, they had to block Wikispaces in three schools because students found a way around the system and were instant messaging when they weren’t supposed to be.

Here’s what I said:  (something like) “Yes, those are real issues and I look forward to engaging school leaders in those sorts of conversations…”

Here’s what I should have said: “What’s wrong with instant messaging?  How do you know those students weren’t successfully multi-tasking?  How is instant messaging any different from passing notes in class?  If they’re not different, would you discipline the kids who pass paper-based notes by taking away all of their paper?”

Later, there was a discussion about cell phones and how schools can/should respond to the “growing problem” of cell phones in schools.  I was mostly silent here; I hope I didn’t make too many pained faces.  I did ultimately offer to send resources on the issue to the superintendents.  I’ve been collecting some good blog posts by Will Richardson and others.  But, if anybody has any good information about cell phones in schools and how schools can both deal with potential disruptions and embrace the benefits of digital communication, I’d love to see them.

Tags: education, fear, policy, superintendents, technology

[THIS IS THE SECOND ENTRY IN MY WEEKLY SERIES]

I’m not alone in my concerns over the achievement gap and educational equity more generally.  I have, however, felt for a while now that among the many articles and reports I’ve read on these matters, the most convincing is this one.  Schools, Achievement, and Inequality: A Seasonal Perspective, written by Alexander, Entwistle & Olsen in 2001, tells a compelling empirical tale of the cumulative effects of two phenomena:  differences in school readiness and summer learning loss.  As the simple chart below shows (the data are made up), by the time low income students reach school age, they trail their higher income counterparts with respect to student achievement.  Over the course of subsequent school years, the schools serve all students equally well (i.e. the slopes of the achievement lines are equivalent from Fall to Spring).  Then, over the summer, higher income students demonstrate slight achievement gains (not nearly as much as during the school year) while low income students make no gains (nor do they necessarily suffer learning loss).  The result, over time, is that the achievement gap between low- and high-income students expands over time, though that widening can be attributed mostly to “out-of-school” factors.

So, the policy implications are fairly clear: if we are serious about narrowing the achievement gap, we need to fund universal pre-K programs, and seriously consider either funding summer programs for low-income students or, more radically, think about year-round schooling.  Schooling according to the agrarian calendar has run its course?

 [click for larger image]

Tags: achievement, education, equity, policy