...the latest Freakonomics podcast.
As a teacher, I was immediately intrigued by this idea. One of the buzzwords in our School division these days is DI - Differentiated Instruction. The goal of DI is to accommode each student's learning modality. While this is clearly the ideal, is it ever possible in practice? Can one teacher really provide individualized instruction to 20-25 students? Probably not. Can a school provide customized education to each and every student? I don't know but the School of One seems to think so.
It goes back to the question--how is a bad radio station like the public school system? Basically, they are the same because as a user, you have no control over the content or delivery. If you've ever been on a long road trip and have been forced to listen local radio stations for entertainment, you will relate to this. For every song you enjoy and connect with, you have to suffer through ten that either bore you or aggravate you. And God help you if you don't even like music and so the radio does nothing for you. What then?
Students in the school system are in very much the same situation. Students who attend the public school system have limited choices when it comes to content and delivery. The model for education is still 1 teacher and 20-25 students in a box. The teacher instructs the students in the same traditional subjects. Same old radio, same old songs.
But according to School of One, there's a better way: Customizable education.
Have you ever listened to Pandora Radio? If you're in Canada, this isn't likely. So, maybe you're an iTunes user and you've made use of the Genius to customize your listening experience? For the initiated, Pandora and Genius are two examples of a not-so-new trend of customizable content provider. How do they work? Algorithms.
An algorithm, like I taught my 14 Psychology 20 students in my little box, is a method of finding a solution to a problem. Pandora and the iTunes Genius use algorithms to track your musical taste in order to customize your musical experience. The more you listen and make choices in your music, the more personalized your playlists will become. And so, School of One asks the question, "If we can customize playlists for music listeners, why can't we customize 'playlists' for students?"
The driving force behind School of One are algorithms that track students' learning and learning modalities and subsequently customize their learning on a daily basis. The more students learn and make choices, the more personalized their educational programming, or "playlist", becomes. On the surface, this sounds revolutionary. I'm all for it. I'd love to see a school where students arrive in the morning, log onto their workstations, check their customized learning schedule for the day and then work through the day in their most optimized modality (be it small group instruction, group projects and old-fashioned group direct instruction). But...
I don't know too much about the program, and it is only in the pilot stage (I believe they are piloting it with roughly 200 students and only one subject, math), but I am skeptical about a few things.
First, how do you customize the totality of the school experience? That is, today's technology makes it possible to customize most subjects, but how could School of One accommodate subjects like Phys.Ed, Drama, Art, Music, or Outdoor Education?
And what about role models? I realize that the job of the teacher is changing, and that learning should be and is becoming more and more student-centered but are you able to retain the presence of teachers and coaches as positive role models?
And finally, how accessible is this model? It might work in New York City Schools where they have access to an enormous budget and pervasive infrastructure. Perhaps their technology is sound and dependable. But my experience with technology has taught me that you always need to have a plan B once the power goes out or the network is interrupted.
Personally, I think School of One is a revolutionary idea. Imagine a school system that really and truly centers around the student, addressing his or her personal needs and learning styles. Where a student's educational programming gets fine-tuned with each and every class and test? Imagine how much we could affect achievement.
Finally, isn't it ironic that we've used technology to customize our personal entertainment with an accuracy that is almost eerie, but only now have we even begun to think about how to use it to customize the education of our children?
Well, maybe it's not so ironic.
Great reflections Paul, thanks for posting. I'm with on this one but the thing about the School of One, and I admit I don't know any more than you about it, is that I worry about too heavy a focus on computer based instruction. Computers and technology, without a human component, the opportunity to learn with others might not be the best thing. The challenge is to provide students with choice and yet appreciate and learn diversity and even learn things they didn't think they liked.
ReplyDeleteYour Pandora example is excellent. The problem with Pandora, other than we can't use it in Canada, is that it perpetuates my own taste in music and doesn't invite me to try something else. Particularly with students, how do they know what they don't know? What is our role as schools to provide diverse experiences that may fall outside student's interests and likes? I guess the balance question is still the most important one here. I've not see too many models out there that get that right. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough.
This question gets at the heart of it. "First, how do you customize the totality of the school experience?"
ReplyDeleteI like thinking about the question you pose.
My reaction is that we start by accepting that students already do this. They tune out lectures and get excited during engaging discussion. They ditch one class and show up after school for help in the next. They blow off some homework assignments and spend all night on a discussion board debating.
As a teacher, I try to plan for it and definitely allow for it.
My goal is to design curriculum to allow for the individual's choice, interest and opinion. I always know a unit is going well when the students start to steer it one way or another, or when some individual kid gets excited about one aspect and his work accelerates on something I would have called a tangent.
We start to individualize instruction when we make student opinions, interpretations and interests a cornerstone in the classroom. If the teacher thinks it is impossible with pencil and paper, technology may not help much. If instruction is student centered to begin with, technology accelerates things.
At first it does not seem so different from some "self education" programs that have been tried and failed. The premise with them was a comprehensive personality and IQ test and materials being issued and run through a software program that would engineer best materials that would accomplish the requirements for educational standards. But, only data I taught in this method. I was in fact a part of that experimentation in the school system! I read further on it, and there is some merit... but...
ReplyDeleteThere are four types of learning this, if I understand the premise, often works well with Type 2 and a “little” with the others. Using the VARK model, I think Kinaesthetic learners will lose out. That said, in your article you do note that different modalities are addressed, and technology is much more adaptive... it is hard to say with out knowing how the software is engineered.
The program will need to go through testing’s and will likely succeed with positive value if properly perused and improved.
While statistically the common model of educations systems adopted at grade and high school truly only do true justice for 30-80% of students (dependant on demographics), it is the most ‘affordable’ by perception. The reality is, if this works marginally, it will be bought by the industry endorsed by governments and possibly become main stream.
The greatest thought I have in all of this, to which you allude to, is the experience of education. As I note, there is some merit from a business perspective, but I am convinced every student must have an education experience that teaches the soul. Some are blessed with frequent interaction with a key teacher or system that touched the soul, some only once. In any case, this is the heart of a successful education.
As an artist, a student (yes still) I also am a teacher of science and practical methodologies for various fields, mainly that of constructive thinking and action; so I know that there is a great deal about the student and the teacher relationship that a complex A.I. can’t replace entirely. If it ever does, we will have slipped menacingly into losing the warmth of our humanity and it will not be an issue anyway!
http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/152279
Cheers,
Robert Leonardo