Debating Education review

Debating Education review by The Wing to Heaven I spent yesterday at the Michaela Community School Debating Education event, which was absolutely brilliant. I spoke against the motion ‘Sir Ken is right: traditional education kills creativity’, and Guy Claxton spoke for it. Here are some of my notes from this debate, and the day. It’s about methods, not aims I agree with Sir Ken Robinson that creativity is the aim of education. However, where we disagree is on how you can best develop such creativity. Sir Ken praises High Tech High’s model of instruction, where instead of memorising, pupils are doing. Guy Claxton recommends, among other things, that to develop the skill of imagining, pupils should lie on the ground, look at the sky and then 'close their eyes to imagine how the sky changes as a storm approaches.' By contrast, I think the best way to develop creativity is through direct instruction, memorisation and deliberate practice (for a specific example of how memorisation leads to creativity in a scheme of work on Midsummer Night's Dream, see here). This might sound counter-intuitive, but actually, such practices are more effective at developing creativity than just asking children to be creative. Robert Bjork has shown that performance isn’t the same as learning. K Anders Ericsson has shown that what matters isn’t just practice, but deliberate practice: ‘mere repetition of an activity will not automatically lead to improvement’. Deliberate practice is when you isolate the component parts of a task and repeatedly practice them instead. So asking pupils to do creative tasks isn’t the best way of developing creativity. Asking them to memorise examples of rhetorical devices might not look creative, but it might be better at developing creativity. The question is not about finding a balance between memory and creativity, or between knowledge and skill. It’s about recognising that memory is the pathway to creativity, and that skill is composed of knowledge. As John Anderson said, ‘All that there is to intelligence is the simple accrual and tuning of many small bits of knowledge which in total make up complex cognition. The whole is no more than the sum of its parts, but it has a lot of parts.’ What we had in yesterday’s debate was not a false dichotomy. There was real disagreement. If Sir Ken and Guy set up a school and I set up a school, they would look very different, even though we both had the same aim. And because we have the same aim, the argument is not about whether I am in favour of creativity or not (I am), or whether Sir Ken is in favour of knowledge or not (I’m prepared to accept he is), or whether we just need a balance between the two. The argument is about whose methods are more successful at delivering our shared aim of creativity. The other debates I’m very grateful to all at Michaela for organising so many good debates. Bruno Reddy and Andrew Old debated the value of mixed ability teaching.  James O’Shaughnessy and Joe Kirby had all the RE & philosophy teachers in the room getting excited  with their discussion of  ethics, character,  and ancient Greek philosophers. Katie Ashford and John Blake argued about the perennially  vexed issue of Ofsted.  Finally, Jonny Porter and Francis Glibert clashed over the reputation of Michael Gove, in front of an audience which may well have included nearly every teacher in England who agreed with him. I particularly liked the way the day was structured as a series of debates. As one of the debaters, I can assure you that preparing for a debate of this type is a lot more hard work than preparing for a panel discussion. But I think it does also result in a better event. At panel discussions, it’s really easy for everyone to speak for five minutes on their pet theme, regardless of what the topic actually is. Even if the chair is good, it’s often hard to really get to the  heart of an issue. But with debates like these, you very quickly get to  the important and controversial issues. There are plenty of false dichotomies in education, certainly. But there are some real ones too, and we shouldn’t be afraid to discuss them. We discussed the hell out of them yesterday!

The app that lets you create Khan Academy-style videos in 60 seconds

How flipped educators can create video tutorials a la Khan in no time flat

Blended learning and flipped learning just got a whole lot easier.

Anyone can now create learning resources for students in little more time that is required for a normal explanation of a topic.

• Recording solutions to math problems — almost as quick as solving the problem on paper.
• Highlighting important text, and explaining concepts along the way — a breeze.
• Sketching, labelling and explaining diagrams with audio annotation — child’s play.
• Providing personal feedback on a student’s work — super simple.
• Taking a photograph of anything – an art work, an experiment, a building – and then drawing on it while explaining concepts — quick and easy.

The recordings can then be played on virtually any device, and are easily placed in a LMS or OLE (Online Learning Environment).

Thus, almost anything that I would normally write on paper to explain to a student I now do on my computer (a pen-based Windows tablet — in my case a Surface Pro 3). The time overhead is minimal, and students can replay the explanation whenever and wherever is needed, as many times as is needed.

It makes blended and flipped learning much easier, as these types of learning resources are now easy for anyone to make.

A Microsoft Garage project called Snip (not to be confused with the Snipping Tool) has been released. While still in the “preview” stage, it is stable and works well. It is quick and simple, and is effective for a large percentage of learning and teaching situations.

Download and install the app. The app then sits as a thin line at the top of the screen.

Tap or hover a mouse on this line and it opens to reveal a set of three tools. You can use the built in “whiteboard” (middle icon) or take a photo (icon on the right).

The initial recording choices offered by Snip.

The majority of the time I annotate a clip of my computer screen (Note that the area that can be annotated in the Snip app is fixed). Click on the icon on the left to do this, and select an area of your screen. This can be a web page, a document, a worksheet, or anything that can be displayed on your screen. When writing an explanation, such as a Math problem or some text, I use OneNote to create colored, lined “paper.”

The Snip screen with ruled lines for writing.

The Snip screen with annotations on an image.

The area of the screen selected then appears as an image inside a window with some basic tools — pens of various colors, erasers and a record button.

Simply press the record icon and start writing and explaining. You can pause if you wish, and press the stop icon when you are done.

The simplicity of the tool is one of its major attractions. The functions provided make it easy for even a technology-wary teacher to understand and use effectively, and its capabilities are enough for a large percentage of teaching scenarios. (There are many more complex tools available that provide greater functionality and editing capabilities. This is not meant to compete with these tools.)

Once complete, you can share the recording in a number of ways.

I normally click the “Save” icon (at the top right of the window) and a .mp4 video file is produced. Other options are available, as shown in the screen shot.

The interface when a Snip has been recorded showing the save and sharing options.

I then load the video into the appropriate course in our OLE, where it can be used by all students wherever and whenever they wish.

How much extra time is needed to do this?

• Opening the app – 1 second.
• Selecting an area of the screen or taking a photo – 5 seconds.
• Explaining the concept – This is time I would have spent anyway. This will also vary depending upon the task.
• Pressing the “Stop” icon and saving the video as a .mp4 file – The amount of time varies. On my i5 Surface Pro 3, a 49 second “snip” took 12 seconds to convert and save as a .mp4 file. (If necessary, the resulting .mp4 video file can be converted using free conversion software to a smaller file.)
• Loading the video into a page in my OLE – This depends on the speed of the internet connection. In this case it was 11 seconds.

The total time is less than 60 seconds. However, students now have another resource available online to assist learning, potentially providing hours of replays over coming semesters.

This combination of this Snip app and a digital ink-capable tablet with a fine-grained pressure sensitive digital pen has the potential to make the lives of teachers and students much better.

It also provides another valuable tool for teachers to transition to blended and flipped learning. It is a wonderful example of a simple technology dramatically enhancing learning.

common OER repositories:

list of web links to common OER repositories:

• Jorum - free learning and teaching resources, created and contributed by teaching staff from UK FE and HE institutions
• Merlot - MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.
• Open University’s OpenLearn - The Open University’s range of free educational courses and resources.
• MIT’s Open Courseware - Free online educational resources from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• XPERT - repository of e-learning resources created through the open source e-learning development tool called Xerte Online Toolkits
• Khan academy - 3600 videos from across many disciplines
• TES - shared teaching resources of all kinds, mainly for schools, but also for the VET sector.
• OER COMMONS - open educational resources for all sectors.

Progressing teaching from 'good' to 'outstanding': special schools

How can a special school progress teaching from 'good' to 'outstanding'? We relay advice from the headteacher of an 'outstanding' special school and one of our associate education experts. We also look at Ofsted inspection reports containing advice to improve teaching from 'good' to 'outstanding'.

Contents [Hide]

1. 1  Guidance from an 'outstanding' special school
2. 2  Suggested areas of focus: expert advice
3. 3  Ofsted: ‘outstanding’ teaching in a special school
4. 4  Sources and further reading

Guidance from an 'outstanding' special school

We spoke to Alan Black, headteacher of Beatrice Tate School, a special school in Tower Hamlets. Beatrice Tate was graded ‘outstanding’ at its most recent inspection.

Alan said that special schools looking to improve the quality of teaching from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’ should consider the following steps:

Find priorities from the most recent inspection report

Alan said that special schools, like mainstream schools rated ‘good’, will be given reasons in the inspection report as to why they are not yet ‘outstanding’. Schools should use these, along with the comments in the inspection report on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment (or, for inspections prior to September 2015, the quality of teaching and learning), and Ofsted’s grade descriptors for ‘outstanding’ teaching, to identify specific priorities for improvement.

We look at examples from Ofsted reports in section 3 in this article. The grade descriptors for the quality of teaching, learning and assessment are set out in a KeyDoc in another article from The Key:

Inspection judgements: grade descriptors from September 2015
https://schoolleaders.thekeysupport.com/school-evaluation-and-improvement/inspection/after-inspection/inspection-judgements-grade-descriptors-for-use-from-september-2015

Make the priorities specific

The school may decide that teaching methods are not suitably differentiated ... and focus on this as one priority

Alan emphasised the need to be analytical about these areas of focus as much as possible. They should be specific areas of teaching practice that the school can identify for improvement, rather than a target to just improve teaching. For example, the school may decide that teaching methods are not suitably differentiated to suit the variety of needs within each class, and focus on this as one priority.

Build these priorities into self-evaluation and improvement planning

Alan also stressed the importance of taking a methodical approach to these identified priorities. This means, he said, building them strategically into school improvement plans and self-evaluation.

He said this is important because there are not necessarily quick fixes. They need to build these in strategically, because it may take two or three terms to measure the impact of any actions on the quality of teaching. The timescales should therefore be realistic.

It is also important, Alan said, because the datasets available to special schools are more limited. Pupil outcomes are a sensible measure for whether changes to teaching practice are having a positive impact, but special schools may not measure progress and achievement in the same way as mainstream schools. Therefore, it may take longer to demonstrate a significant impact on pupil achievement.

... while you may be able to learn from ‘outstanding’ special schools, you should only do so if what they are doing matches your identified priorities for improvement

If looking to learn from other schools, be focused

Alan said that, while you may be able to learn from ‘outstanding’ special schools, you should only do so if what they are doing matches your identified priorities for improvement. So, for example, if you are looking to improve on multi-sensory teaching methods to help differentiate teaching processes, only look to schools who are doing this well. Don’t just find other special schools that are graded as ‘outstanding’ for the quality of teaching and arrange a visit without a specific focus in mind.

Home, Beatrice Tate School
http://www.beatricetate.towerhamlets.sch.uk/

Suggested areas of focus: expert advice

We also spoke to one of our associate education experts, Gulshan Kayembe. Gulshan advised on the following areas of focus for improving teaching from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’.

Assessment in special schools

The Key has a collection of articles dedicated to assessment and curriculum information, with guidance and examples specific to special schools.

Assessment

Gulshan emphasised the importance of focusing on the personalisation of teaching methods in special schools, because of the specific pupil needs. She said that, because of this, schools need to ensure their assessment systems identify the gaps in pupils’ knowledge.

This will allow resources to be directed to these areas. Gulshan suggested that making good use of questioning and feedback will help the assessment system uncover these gaps in knowledge.

The assessment systems in place should also allow teachers to measure ‘small steps’ of progress, because of the needs and potential learning difficulties of pupils. Gulshan said that the progress pupils make may be in smaller increments than in mainstream schools, and the difference between ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ teaching may be in displaying these smaller steps of progress. Therefore, the assessment system needs to be able to reflect that.

Use of teaching assistants

Gulshan said that it is crucial for special schools to ensure strong partnerships between the teaching staff and teaching assistants (TAs). The TAs need to be well briefed and have the right resources to assist classroom teachers.

Another article from The Key includes further guidance from Gulshan, and other sources, on how to ensure strong partnerships between teachers and TAs in special schools.

Partnership working between teachers and TAs in special schools
https://schoolleaders.thekeysupport.com/staff/staff-ratios-and-qualification-requirements/teaching-roles/partnership-working-between-teachers-and-tas-in-special-schools

Behaviour management

... as some pupils in special schools may have behavioural difficulties, it is important to ensure teachers and TAs are equipped with the right behaviour management techniques

Gulshan also mentioned the need for a consistent behaviour management strategy, which should be reflected in the school's behaviour policy. She said that, as some pupils in special schools may have behavioural difficulties, it is important to ensure teachers and TAs are equipped with the right behaviour management techniques.

The following articles from The Key look at behaviour management advice for special schools.

Behaviour management: pupils with emotional and learning needs
https://schoolleaders.thekeysupport.com/pupils-and-parents/behaviour-and-attendance/strategies/behaviour-management-case-studies

Using seclusion and time out in special schools
https://schoolleaders.thekeysupport.com/pupils-and-parents/behaviour-and-attendance/strategies/time-out-and-seclusion-approach-special-schools

Tips on behaviour management

An article published by SEN Magazine includes tips for managing young people with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BESD):

Six ways to manage BESD, SEN Magazine
https://senmagazine.co.uk/articles/articles/senarticles/six-ways-to-manage-besd

Ofsted: ‘outstanding’ teaching in a special school

Kilton Thorpe Specialist Academy in North Yorkshire was graded ‘outstanding’ in all areas when inspected in July 2015. Pages 5-6 of the inspection report include the following comments about the ‘outstanding’ teaching:

A particular strength of the teaching in the school is teachers’ knowledge of the needs of each individual pupil

A particular strength of the teaching in the school is teachers’ knowledge of the needs of each individual pupil. They use this information expertly to ensure that what they plan for pupils to do has a very effective impact on learning …

Teachers are very skilled in a wide range of communication techniques, for example, through objects, symbols or photographs or signed communication. They observe pupils and listen carefully to ensure that they have understood exactly what the pupil is asking or saying so that they always give a thoughtful response.

It adds:

Staff frequently reflect on the quality and impact of their teaching alongside other staff. As a result, teaching is improving continuously and pupils learn and achieve outstandingly well during their time at school.

The inspection report is available here:

Kilton Thorpe Specialist Academy, Ofsted
http://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/ELS/139110

Sources and further reading

Gulshan Kayembe is an independent consultant who has experience of inspecting schools. As a consultant, she provides mentoring for senior leaders and has worked as an external adviser on headteachers’ performance management.

Top Ofsted rating for many SEN schools – so why aren’t we trumpeting success?, The Guardian, 20 January 2015
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/20/ofsted-sen-schools-outstanding

The headteacher of Channel 4’s Jamie’s Dream School offers nuggets of wisdom about classroom behaviour

John d’Abbro, the headteacher in Channel 4’s popular TV show Jamie’s Dream School and recipient of an OBE for services to special education, has no doubts about what’s important when it comes to behaviour management. It is vital, he says, to develop a good relationship with students by being “fair, trustworthy and honest”.

 ‘You must respect kids for them to respect you.’ Photograph: PR

The head of New Rush Hall Group, an organisation that works with children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties, says: “Learning is an exploratory and uncertain process so children have to trust you to learn from and with you. A big part of it is about making children feel that you care about them.

“That’s not to say we should be all lovey-dovey; and it’s not about getting children to like you either, you can respect someone without liking them. We need to go into class confident, and work to gain the respect of our students, making them realise we want to be there.”

So, with his extensive background in handling students with complex needs, what wisdom does d’Abbro have to offer around behaviour management? Last week he came to the Guardian’s offices to give us his five top tips. Here’s what he said: 

Start the lesson well

I always try to greet children as they come in. You need to respect them if you want them to respect you. If you came to my house I’d greet you as you came in, it’s just good manners.

I’d also say, as a general strategy, don’t be noisy at the start of class because often a noisy teacher leads to a noisy class. I’ll get in trouble for saying that, but in my experience, it tends to be the case. At the start of a lesson the children have to take up their places as learners and, if they are coming in straight from the playground, you need a bridge – something to ease the transition from being switched off to being switched on. If children come in still sweaty and buzzing I might give them a starter activity that lets them talk for two minutes, but then it’s their turn to listen.

Plan, plan and plan again

As the old adage goes: failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Of course, there have been times when I’ve walked into a class to cover a lesson not knowing exactly what I am supposed to be doing, but I always have about three or four pre-planned lessons in the bag. If you have a relationship with children you can get away with being less prepared, but if not, it can result in chaos. So, always cover the basics to ensure you have a well-behaved lesson, including having the right equipment and a plan B for when things don’t go as you thought they would.

Use a range of teaching strategies

In some lessons I use a whiteboard and in others I talk to the children or adopt a kinaesthetic approach. This works because we all learn differently. One student might not respond well to the particular strategy you are using and become distracted and/or disruptive. So, if you use a range of techniques chances are that most of them will get on well with at least one of them, and you minimise the potential for disruptive behaviour.

Mean what you say and say what you mean

Never threaten to do something if you’re not going to do it. Kids need consistency and security. For example, with one child recently I said that if he directed inappaopriate language at me he’d get 30 minutes in detention. He did, and I made him stay to the minute. It sends the message that if I say something then it happens.

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Having said that, you can always be flexible once you have a framework. About six months ago, for example, I had a kid in detention and as part of his bail conditions he had regular meetings with his youth offending team. He told me he couldn’t do detention because if he did he’d be late to meet them and be in breach. I said, “I am happy to ring the officer up and tell them” but he said it was his last chance and he’d been late all week. He said he would do the detention the next day and in the end I decided to meet him halfway. Sometimes I think you just need to adopt a more human approach. 

In that circumstance we’d built up a relationship – it was later in the year. At the beginning of the school year it is important that you set your stall out, and make the pupils clear of your expectations and the consequences of inappropriate behavior. To quote that great Bill Rogers line (I wish I had said it): “The certainty of the consequence is more important than the severity.”

Be confident

There are days when you go in and you are not feeling a million dollars but you have to act as though you are. It’s not about being disingenuous – kids have a right to the best lesson you can give them.

Confidence also goes a long way in terms of classroom management. I was running a PRU [pupil referral unit] a few years ago and we were really short staffed one day. I’d never advocate doing this, but I took 15 really hard and challenging kids out to play football on my own in the mini bus. It could have all gone off badly – these were really tough kids: two of them were tagged. Looking back perhaps that was my ego running wild but I was feeling confident and I had by this time in the term established a relationship with them. I thought, I am going to get them/me through this. I wouldn’t have done it earlier in my career but now I’m more experienced I don’t mind (occassionally) taking a gamble.

For more advice from John d’Abbro and Stephen Drew, who shot to fame after starring in Channel 4’s Educating Essex, sign up for their masterclasses on the links below:

• Behaviour management in the classroom: A masterclass with Educating Essex’s Mr Drew
• How to manage difficult behaviour in the classroom with John D’Abbro, headteacher from Jamie’s Dream School

Comparative judgment: 21st century assessment

Comparative judgment: 21st century assessment by The Wing to Heaven In my previous posts I have looked at some of the flaws in traditional teacher assessment and assessments of character. This post is much more positive: it's about an assessment innovation that really works. One of the good things about multiple-choice and short answer questions is that they offer very high levels of reliability. They have clear right and wrong answers; one marker will give you exactly the same mark as another; and you can cover large chunks of the syllabus in a short amount of time, reducing the chance that a high or low score is down to a student getting lucky or unlucky with the questions that came up. One of the bad things about MCQs is that they often do not reflect the more realistic and real-world problems pupils might go on to encounter, such as essays and projects. The problem with real-world tasks, however, is that they are fiendishly hard to mark reliably: it is much less likely that two markers will always agree on the grades they award. So you end up with a bit of a trade-off:  MCQs give you high reliability, but sacrifice a bit of validity. Essays allow you to make valid inferences about things you are really interested in, but you trade off reliability. And you have to be careful: trade off too much validity and you have highly reliable scores that don’t tell you anything anyone is interested in.  Trade off too much reliability and the inferences you make are no longer valid either. One way of dealing with this problem has been to keep the real world tasks, and to write quite prescriptive mark schemes. However, this runs into problems of its own: it reduces the real-world aspect of the task, and ends up stereotyping pupils’ responses to the task. Genuinely brilliant and original responses to the task fail because they don’t meet the rubric, while responses that have been heavily coached achieve top grades because they tick all the boxes. Again, we achieve a higher degree of reliability, but the reliable scores we have do not allow us to make valid inferences about the things we really care about (see the Esse Quam Videri blog on this here).  I have seen this problem a lot in national exams, and I think that these kinds of exams are actually more flawed than the often-maligned multiple choice questions. Real world tasks with highly prescriptive mark schemes are incredibly easy to game. Multiple-choice and short answer questions are actually not as easy to game, and do have high levels of predictive validity. I think the problem people have with MCQs is that they just ‘look’ wrong. Because they look so artificial, people have a hard time believing that they really can tell you something about how pupils will do on authentic tasks. But they can, and they do, and I would prefer them to authentic tasks that either don’t deliver reliability, or deliver reliability in such a way that compromises their validity. Still, even a supporter of MCQs like me has to acknowledge – as I always have – that in subjects like English and history, you would not want an entire exam to be composed of MCQs and short answer questions. You would want some extended writing too. In the past, I have always accepted that the marking of such extended writing has to involve some of the trade-offs and difficult decisions outlined above. I’ve also always accepted that it has to be a relatively time-consuming process, involving human markers, extensive training, and frequent moderation. However, a couple of years ago I heard about a new method of assessment called comparative judgment which offers an elegant solution to the problem of assessing tasks such as essays and projects. Instead of writing prescriptive mark schemes, training markers in their use, getting them to mark a batch of essays or tasks and then come back together to moderate, comparative judgment simply asks an examiner to make a series of judgments about pairs of tasks. Take the example of an essay on Romeo and Juliet: with comparative judgment, the examiner looks at two essays, and decides which one is better. Then they look at another pair, and decide which one is better. And so on. It is relatively quick and easy to make such judgments – much easier and quicker than marking one individual essay.  The organisation No More Marking offer their comparative judgment engine online here for free. You can upload essays or tasks to it, and set up the judging process according to your needs. Let’s suppose you have 100 essays that need marking, and five teachers to do the marking. If each teacher commits to making 100 pairs of judgments, you will have a total of 500 pairs of judgments. These judgments are enough for the comparative judgment engine to work out the rank order of all of the essays, and associate a score with each one. In the words of the No More Marking CJ guide here: ‘when many such pairings are shown to many assessors the decision data can be statistically modelled to generate a score for each student.’ If you want your score to be a GCSE grade or other kind of national benchmark, then you can include a handful of pre-graded essays in your original 100. You will then be able to see how many essays did better than the C-grade sample, how many better than the B-grade sample, and so on. This method of marking also allows you to see how accurate each marker is. Again, in the words of the guide: ‘the statistical modelling also produces quality control measures, such as checking the consistency of the assessors. Research has shown the comparative judgement approach produces reliable and valid outcomes for assessing the open-ended mathematical work of primary, secondary and even undergraduate students.’ I have done some trial judging with No More Marking, and at first, it feels a bit like voodoo. If, like most English teachers, you are used to laboriously marking dozens of essays against reams of criteria, then looking at two essays and answering the question ‘which is the better essay?’ feels a bit wrong – and far too easy. But it works. Part of the reason why it works is that it offers a way of measuring tacit knowledge. It takes advantage of the fact that amongst most experts in a subject, there is agreement on what quality looks like, even if it is not possible to define such quality in words. It eliminates the rubric and essentially replaces it with an algorithm. The advantage of this is that it also eliminates the problem of teaching to the rubric: to go back to our examples at the start, if a pupil produced a brilliant but completely unexpected response, they wouldn’t be penalised, and if a pupil produced a mediocre essay that ticked all the boxes, they wouldn’t get the top mark. And instead of teaching pupils by sharing the rubric with them, we can teach pupils by sharing other pupils’ essays with them – far more effective, as generally examples define quality more clearly than rubrics. Ofqual have already used this method of assessment for a big piece of research on the relative difficulty of maths questions. The No More Marking website has case studies of how schools and other organisations are using it.  I think it has huge potential at primary school, where it could reduce a lot of the burden and administration around moderating writing assessments at KS1 & KS2.  On the No More Marking website, it says that 'Comparative Judgement is the 21st Century alternative to the 18th Century practice of marking.' I am generally sceptical of anything in education describing itself as '21st century', but in this case, it's justified. I really think CJ is the future, and in 10 or 15 years' time, we will look back at rubrics the way Marty McFly looks at Reagan's acting.

Character assessment: a middle-class ramp?

Character assessment: a middle-class ramp? by The Wing to Heaven My last two posts (here and here) have looked at how teacher assessments can be biased, and how tests can help to offset some of these biases. I’ve been quite sceptical of the possibility of improving teacher assessment so that it can become less biased: the more you try to reduce the bias in teacher assessment, the less it looks like teacher assessment.  Still, that’s not to say I am against all alternative forms of assessment. I think exams have many strengths, and are often unfairly maligned, but they have weaknesses too and we should always be looking to innovate to try and address such weaknesses. In this post and the next, I will look at two recent innovations in educational assessment: one which I think is hugely promising, and one which is less so. First, the less promising method. Assessing character Teaching character, or non-cognitive skills, is very popular at the moment, and for good reason. Children don’t just need academic skills to succeed in life; they need good character too. As E.D. Hirsch says here, character development has rightly been one of the major focuses of education from classical times. Whilst we can probably all agree on the importance of teaching character in some form, assessing it is far more fraught. Angela Duckworth, whose research focusses on ‘grit’, or perseverance for long-term goals, has created a very simple 12 and 8 item ‘grit scale’which ask you to answer a series of questions like this one: Setbacks don’t discourage me. a) Very much like me b) Mostly like me c) Somewhat like me d) Not much like me e) Not like me at all Duckworth et al discuss the development, validation and limitations of the grit scale here. It’s obviously a self-report scale, with all of the problems they entail, but despite this limitation it can tell us some useful information about how ‘gritty’ individuals are, and the impact this will have on their success in other areas. However, a self-report scale like this one is very obviously going to be of much less use in any more sophisticated or high-stakes assessments.  For example, if you wanted to measure the success of a particular ‘character’ intervention, this scale is not going to allow you to measure whether a cohort’s grit has increased over time. Similarly, if anyone wanted to use a measure of grit or character for accountability purposes, the grit scale is not going to be able to do that either. As the teaching of character has become more popular, more people clearly want a grit scale that is capable of carrying out these kinds of functions. As a result, Duckworth has actually written a paper here outlining in detail why the grit scale is not capable of these kinds of functions, and why it shouldn’t be used like this. Of course, this doesn’t mean we should stop teaching character. And nor does it mean we have no way of measuring how effective our character education is. As Dan Willingham says here, we could always use measures of academic achievement to see how effective our character education is. The disadvantage is that of course other things will impact on academic achievement, not just the character education, but the advantage is that we are actually measuring one of the things we care about: 'Indeed, there would not be much point in crowing about my ability to improve my psychometrically sound measure of resilience if such improvement meant nothing to education.' However, whilst we shouldn't stop teaching character, I think Duckworth's paper and the problems surrounding the measurement of character mean we do have to be careful about how we assess it. To return to the theme of my previous posts, we know that teacher assessment is biased against pupils with poor behaviour, with SEN, from low-income backgrounds, and from ethnic minorities. There is every risk that subjective assessments of character might suffer from the same flaws.  In fact, I would argue that there is more of a risk. School-level maths is a fairly well-defined concept, and yet teacher assessments of it are biased. I don't think 'character' or 'grit' are nearly as well-defined as school maths, so the risk of bias is even greater. Whilst Duckworth's work on 'grit' is clearly defined, in general the recent interest in character education has served to expand the concept rather than define it more precisely. I am often struck by the number of different meanings 'character' seems to have, and how often people seem to use the term to mean 'personal qualities that I have and/or approve of'. Given this, there is a real risk that subjective assessments of character would inadvertently tend to reinforce stereotypes about social classes, gender and ethnic groups, and end up disadvantaging pupils who are already disadvantaged. Not only that, but if we loaded high-stakes outcomes onto character assessments - for example, giving assessments of character weight in university admissions - then there would be an incentive to game such assessments and again, it is not too far a stretch to think that it would be middle-class parents who would be adept at gaming such assessments for their children, and that students from less privileged backgrounds might be disadvantaged by such assessments. To put it bluntly, I'd worry that character assessments would become a middle-class ramp, a way for underachieving middle-class children to use their nice manners to compensate for their poor grades. Character assessments need a lot of improvement before they can be relied on in the same way as traditional academic exams.

The 4 models of blended learning in action

New report explores main blended models and their use

A new paper by advocacy and policy org iNacol explores how blended learning is being used in practice and traces its history from 2008 to today. In particular, it takes a close look at the four major blended models and, through case studies, how specific schools have fared in implementing them.

According to iNacol, the paper also delves into the evolution of blended learning, the use of digital content and curricula, and the engagement of students toward higher levels of academic success. The case studies profiled illustrate a variety of blended learning implementations, providing insights for increasing program effectiveness.

Drawing from research from Clayton Christensen, the report outlines four blended learning models: rotation, Flex, A La Carte, and/or Enriched Virtual.

Rotation is defined as, “Any course or subject in which students rotate—either on a fixed schedule or at the teacher’s discretion—among learning modalities, at least one of which is online learning.” The teacher, or the clock, determines when students move from one activity or modality to the next. Students might rotate in the same physical classroom space, move to a computer lab, or independently switch activities based on personal learning goals. Flipped learning might also be used to help students rotate.
In action: New York’s Randolph Central School District, where students in grades K–6 are placed in “fluid ability groups” relative to grade level, and rotate between online learning, small-group print materials, and teacher-led instruction for math and ELA instruction.

Flex models make use of a brick and mortar campus but most of students’ time is spent in an online environment, although a teacher is present on-site. Some programs, the report notes, make ample use of face-to-face time, such as facilitating group discussions away from computer screens, while others take a more hands-off approach.
In action: Innovations Early College High School, in Salt Lake City, which lets students help create their own learning plan by setting career goals and choosing online or face-to-face courses offered by other high schools or a local community college. For Innovations offered courses, students work through district-developed curricula with on-site teachers who provide individual and small-group instruction, and facilitate group projects. Students are even free to arrive and leave at their leisure between 7 am and 5 pm.

A La Carte, as a model, is exactly what it sounds like: students take a typical class load at their campus but supplement with personally-selected online courses, much like choosing platters off an a la carte menu. The report notes that it does not even have to be a whole school experience.
In action: Washington’s Spokane Public Schools, a district with two blended programs in place: one, a credit recovery program called ICAN, features special on-site classrooms at various campuses where students work through online courses with an instructor present; On Track Academy also serves at-risk students but with the purpose of moving them toward a technical or two- or four-year college degree. Students there have access to various skill centers staffed by qualified teachers who are on hand to work with students toward their set goals.

Enriched Virtual refers to models where students spend some time in a face-to-face environment but then are responsible for completing their work individually, either on-site or at home. “Many Enriched Virtual programs began as full-time online schools,” according to the report, “and then developed blended programs to provide students with brick-and-mortar school experiences.”
In action: Commonwealth Connections Academy, a Pennsylvania virtual public charter, uses drop-in centers to allow its virtual — and often at-risk — students to receive face-to-face instruction while they move through online courses. Workshops in STEM and humanities fields are also offered at the drop-in sites.

For more information about the case studies, read the full report online.