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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Equity, OpEducation, Uncategorized

Students Searching for Universal Data

I love looking at the cellular data network coverage maps showing where your phone will be able to connect to the Internet. Every carrier has their own version, spangled in the company colors so you know who to thank. But in a way, these maps aren’t just advertorial: they show the edge of modern civilization.

After all, mobile data is quickly becoming the new standard for Internet access; smart devices are the preferred platform for everyone from doctors and nurses to college students and presidents. It is like a systemic paraphrasing of The Lion King: “Everything the data map covers is our kingdom.”

The kingdom, in the 21st century, means relevance, engagement, access to knowledge and news, having a voice. For students and schools outside the kingdom, opportunity can seem out of reach.

Needs, Dreams, and Rights

While access to the Internet is by no means a guarantee of outcomes, achievements, or even learning, the absence of this access is effectively punitive for students, teachers, and school.

By Obama’s reckoning, “The Internet is not a luxury, but a necessity,” and key to realizing the modern American Dream. In Canada, a similar spirit informed plans to get every citizen connected to high speed internet, officially designating the service as an essential telecommunications service, thereby affording it greater protections and subjecting it to different regulations. The United Nations went even further with its finding that Internet access constitutes a new human right.

But they weren’t all talking about the same Internet.

Mobile data–the stuff of cellular plans as well as ambitious projects out of Silicon Valley to make coverage maps irrelevant–doesn’t provide the exact same connectivity as dedicated high-speed cable or fiber optic lines. Indeed, the very brands working to make global connectivity a reality would also be gatekeepers choosing which sites, services, and data their users accessed. One may safely assume that free global internet provided by Facebook would send users by default to Facebook as a homepage.

But mobile data is easier and cheaper to push out across greater areas, and to upgrade as the technology improves. This is especially true for poor, rural, or extremely remote regions–those few spots on the map devoid of color and coverage. With branded Internet filling the gaps, the range and type of content users see could well become something akin to a class-based feature.

So even as access itself is championed as the sine qua non of modern living (and schooling), different types of access–to different versions and degrees of the Internet–is further complicating the question of how much data is enough.

What Do We Mean by “Internet” ?

Schools don’t necessarily need access to the full unfiltered Internet anyway.

Nearly one quarter of all mobile searches is for porn, and some 90 percent of teenagers today will encounter some form of porn online before they reach adulthood. That is hardly part of the academic mission schools pursue by securing Internet access. But “porn” itself, not unlike “literally,” has undergone a change of definition in the Internet era away from its original, specific meaning to a term of emphasis or hyperbole.

Social media has popularized various hobbies and interest groups as pornography–just search Instagram for “food porn” and take an the epicurean journey around the world; or, to satisfy your wanderlust, find any of the hundreds of “travel porn” blogs to witness entirely lust-free accounts of vacations, road trips, and cruises. And just as each subgroup has its own, personalized version of “porn,” the world has been steadily realigning itself online into isolated pockets of alternative facts.

Long before Kellyanne Conway used the term, politicos and casual browsers alike self-sorted into ideological bubble communities, where challenging ideas and interpretations of science itself were cut off from one another. To go online today is to choose a camp and stay there, insulated from contradiction or contest.

Porn isn’t porn, facts aren’t facts, the Internet isn’t the Internet, and literally is now figurative–so is data really access?

The next shift in what the Internet itself really is may hold answers.

Data, Things, and People

Were Yakov Smirnoff to apply his classic Russian Reversal joke to today’s online culture, he might say, “In Soviet Russia, the Internet uses you!” Except he wouldn’t be wrong–and this role reversal isn’t limited to one place.

The Internet of Things is already making itself known around the world. Rather than users navigating the Internet through user-friendly browsers and screen-based interfaces, smart devices are taking responsibility for creating, exchanging, and accessing information. Wearables ranging from step-tracking fitness bracelets to implantable heart monitors are gaining in both popularity and functionality. In the classroom, silent monitoring systems gauge engagement, performance, and comprehension to automatically alert teachers to individual student needs and opportunities–or simply adjust tests and assignments responsively on their behalf.

In short, people don’t just use passive technology–the technology is active, autonomous, and capable of “making” its own Internet, sharing data among a network of devices, rather than between human users. In the Internet of Things, the devices do in fact use us.

Before universal Internet access even became a reality, the nature of the Internet, and data, and access have all been thrown into confusion. More critical thinking than ever is needed to navigate the world’s online troves of knowledge, in order to distinguish fact from opinion, reliable from unreliable sources, even real people from chat bots.

For all the importance we’ve come to place on getting schools and students connected, the most important skills of all remain social, interpersonal, and based in the real, rather than digital, world. Internet access remains a worthy goal, but equally important is ensuring that future generations of students and their instructors are equipped to navigate the web, given the opportunity.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Matthew Lynch, Uncategorized

34 Points on Strategic Leadership in Schools

Modern educational leadership is complex and demanding. Challenges include reestablishing novel national visions, crafting new educational aims for schools, restructuring education systems at different levels, privatization, and diversifying school education, all at the macro-level, and being proactive in facing up to these contextual challenges using various strategies. Strategic leadership is strongly linked to the organization’s vision. Here are 34 points about strategic leadership in the school environment to prompt school administrators to action.

Vision is an essential part of strategic leadership. Without it, school staff and personnel aren’t working towards the same goal and therefore will find themselves at odds, slowing progress and impeding success. The following four points are essential for incorporating leadership vision in the school environment.

  1. Outstanding leaders must have a vision for their organizations.
  2. A school’s vision should be communicated in a way that secures commitment from other members of the organization.
  3. Communication of the vision requires communication of its meaning.
  4. Focus should be given to the institutionalizing of the vision if leadership is to be successful.

The development of strategic direction involves a process in which we don’t just look forward from the present, but we also establish a picture of what we want the school to look like in the future and set guidelines and frameworks on how to move forward to that position. As we have seen above, from the conversations with strategic leaders, there must a clear understanding of the direction the school is headed in. What strategic leaders need to do can be summarized by the strategic leadership points 5-8.

  1. Strategic leaders set the direction of the school.
  2. Strategic leaders challenge and question – they are dissatisfied with the present.
  3. Strategic leaders translate strategy into action.
  4. Strategic leaders prioritize their own strategic thinking and learning by building new mental models to frame their understanding and that of others.

One key characteristic of strategic leaders is their ability to envision the different ways their organization might perform in future. They always have a desire to challenge the status quo and improve for the future. This means that strategic leaders have to deal constantly with their dissatisfaction with present arrangements, while facing the challenge that they are not able to change things as quickly as they might want. Leaders, as change agents in their organizations, constantly ask questions such as:

  1. What are the things taught that have been clearly successful or unsuccessful in the past?
  2. What accounted for the success or failure?
  3. What do we need to do differently in the future?
  4. Which relationships between the school and students, parents, or the wider community have been successful or unsuccessful, and why?
  5. What can be done to change things for the better?
  6. How can we assess what we do to challenge the current understanding and operations?
  7. As a school, are we cruising and strolling or are we challenging and creating?

Wisdom in the context of strategic leadership is defined as the ability to take the right action at the right time. Strategic leaders need this kind of wisdom to successful foster school growth. Here are ten abilities that are central to using wisdom in strategic leadership.

  1. Creative ability to come up with ideas
  2. Analytical ability to decide whether the ideas are good.
  3. Practical ability to make their ideas functional and convince their followers that their ideas are valuable.
  4. To balance the impact of the ideas on themselves, others, and their institutions in the short and long run.
  5. Successful intelligence to adapt to varying situations and challenges.
  6. To balance the interests of various stakeholders in the school setting.
  7. To balance timeframes in a way that allows for optimal work to get done.
  8. To infuse values in a mindful way throughout the school environment.
  9. To align responses to the environment appropriately.
  10. To apply knowledge for the common good.

Strategic leadership is a powerful tool for school reform. These final nine points regarding strategic leadership deal with school reform, and specifically how administrators can create meaningful change within their school environment.

  1. Strategic leaders have a vision of the reformed system and how to achieve it.
  2. Strategic leaders create a broad understanding and support for the reform vision at the highest levels.
  3. Strategic leaders bring commitment of school and district leadership to the reform vision and its implementation.
  4. Strategic leaders rely on the use of interventions to translate the reform vision into practice.
  5. Strategic leaders recognize that, for reform to be achieved, one has to start small, refine activities as needed, and provide evidence that interventions lead to desired outcomes.
  6. Strategic leaders develop system capability and capacity to scale up reform with quality.
  7. Strategic leaders enhance and facilitate development of formal policies that provide guidance and incentives for reform.
  8. Strategic leaders avoid controversy.
  9. Strategic leaders develop capabilities for the next generation of reform leaders.

Strategic leadership consists not only of the vision element in leadership ability, but also encompasses other wide-ranging factors. The question thus remains how we can develop a coherent model that informs us about what strategic leadership truly entails. These 34 points offer administrators a powerful place to start exploring strategic leadership, or to deepen their practice of it in an effort to continue to improve their school’s ability to success.

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform, Teachers, Uncategorized

What gets students motivated to work harder? Not money

Matthew G Springer, Vanderbilt University

Rewarding teachers financially for student achievement is an increasingly common practice, despite mixed evidence as to whether it improves results. Some scholars have instead suggested paying students.

But giving kids cash for grades and scores hasn’t proved straightforward either. So maybe the answer isn’t monetary.

Could students be better motivated by something as simple as a little formal recognition?

While I was serving as director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, my colleagues and I sought answers in the decisions of various actors in American public schools.

The results may surprise you.

Which incentives encourage positive behavior?

Much of public policy can be characterized as attempts to influence individual behavior and decision-making in organizations.

Those who design and evaluate incentives typically operate under the crude assumption that the “target” is a rational actor (processing all available information and quickly identifying the behavior most likely to be the best one for his or her well-being).

So, policymakers end up offering seemingly beneficial public services at little or no cost. But they still meet with disappointment.

Our recent study attempted to better understand the response to a different kind of incentive – for one of the arguably more imperfectly rationale segment of our population: early adolescents.

We explored how incentives – monetary and nonmonetary – might encourage behaviors that lead to increased student learning, such as daily attendance and afterschool tutoring services (free but chronically underutilized).

We found that adolescents do not respond to incentives in ways that can be easily predicted by economic theory. But the right kinds of incentives could well lead adolescents to engage in behaviors likely to enhance their learning.

Money makes no difference

Here’s how we did our study.

We selected 300 fifth to eighth grade students in a large southern urban school district who were eligible for free, afterschool tutoring services.

Prior research had shown that these particular tutoring services were relatively high quality and had, in fact, increased student’s test score performance. We then randomly assigned these students to one of three groups:

  • a reward of US$100 (distributed via an online platform) for consistent attendance
  • certificates of recognition, signed by the school’s district superintendent, mailed to the student’s home, again for consistent attendance
  • a control group, which received no experimental incentives.

Offering students money made no difference.
Howard County Library System, CC BY-NC-ND

We found that the students who were offered up to $100 for regular attendance were no more likely to attend sessions than if they were offered nothing at all.

In other words, money made no difference.

Alternatively, when students received a certificate of recognition for attending tutoring sessions regularly, the differences were dramatic. The students in the certificate group attended 42.5% more of their allotted tutoring hours than those assigned to the control group.

Gender, parents and peers

Gender also played a role. Girls were significantly more responsive to the certificate of recognition than their male counterparts.

On average, girls in the control group attended only 11% of the tutoring hours assigned to them. However, girls receiving the certificate attended 67% of their allocated hours, representing a six-fold increase.

What’s more, the boys that received certificates attended more than two times as many of their allocated tutoring sessions in comparison to the male control-group students. But the girls in the group that received the certificates attended nearly twice as many of their allocated tutoring sessions than the boys who were eligible for certificates of recognition.

Overall, sending certificates directly to the parents seemed to have been effective. One reason for this could be that parents were more likely to reinforce the child’s extra effort when the certificate was received at home.

Often in school settings, parents are not hearing positive news when they are contacted by their child’s school – and this might be especially true of these students who qualified for tutoring services.

This is one time where the parent heard: “way to go, keep it up.” And they heard it directly from the district superintendent.

In addition, a student’s effort was not necessarily observable to peers, which could have helped facilitate the positive response.

Prior research suggests that the promise of certificates and trophies presented in a class or at a school assembly in front of peers might not necessarily act as a positive incentive. Academic achievement can often result in diminished social status among peers, especially for minority students.

Human behavior and education policy

Indeed, a recent study of a performance leaderboard system that publicly ranked students in a computer-based high school course in Los Angeles Unified School District was associated with a 24% performance decline.

The authors attributed this to students trying to avoid social penalties by conforming to prevailing norms.

For these reasons, working with the family to encourage and reward academic behaviors may hold more promise, compared to working directly through school settings where peer pressures and norms play an important role.

Policymakers and philanthropists in New York and Memphis are currently trying to interrupt a cycle of generational poverty through the Family Rewards Program. It is providing cash rewards to families who improve their short-term health care, education, and labor market participation and outcomes.

The impact results of this program are still awaited. This program doesn’t test other forms of incentives such as certificates.

But there are important implications for education policy discussions and whether cash should be the primary driver of human behavior, particularly for adolescents.

The results of our study show that children’s learning behaviors to incentives change in unpredictable ways. And these behaviors aren’t easily accounted for by models of individuals as rational decision-makers.

Our study provides evidence that for policies to influence adolescent behavior, they may need to draw from research and theory beyond classical economics or behavioral psychology, including what we are learning about the teenage brain and it’s sociocultural environment.

In short, we need to look at policies that are less Adam Smith and little more Friday Night Lights.

The Conversation

Matthew G Springer, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Education, Vanderbilt University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in list, Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform, Teachers, Uncategorized

3 Tips to Keeping Teacher Jobs in the Midst of School Reform

School reform is never easy. When sweeping changes are decided upon and implemented, everyone must fully participate in order for students to benefit from the changes and certainly not to suffer during the transition. Part of providing that stability for students is through a strong front of teachers that remain at the school during the sometimes turbulent reform process.

Here are some useful tips that will help you preserve teaching jobs while reforming schools:

  1. Remember – a high teacher turnover is expensive. It is a simple fact of life that high staff turnover can create instability and have a negative impact on efforts to establish a consistent learning environment for students. High staff turnover is also quite costly, particularly when the recruitment of teachers, and then the training of new teachers in the intricacies of the reform effort are considered.
  2. Pay attention to who you hire so that you can reduce teacher attrition. More effort and support needs to be given to the recruitment process for teachers at the outset as schools and districts initiate reform efforts. Hiring teachers who “fit” reform goals will likely reduce teacher attrition.  Still, more support needs to be available for new teachers. Even teachers who ostensibly have the skills and attitudes that align with reform goals will need mentoring and other supports as they begin their jobs. Every attempt must be made to reduce the debilitating rate of turnover.
  3. Become creative with spending on new resources. Inevitably, a major factor for sustaining reform is having the money to do so. Most efforts now are centered on how to make the most of current funding and utilizing money effectively in order to maximize the positive impact of reforms, rather than how to access untapped resources. Despite the dearth of new money, it is possible to free up cash through alternative means of spending.

An extreme proposal to accomplish this is to reduce staffing to the absolute minimum. For example, a school with 500 students would have 20 teachers and 1 principal. Approximately $1 million could become available, depending on how many education specialists (regular and categorical) and instructional aides worked within the school. This is radical option, and there are other, less extreme ways to change the way money is spent, to include increasing class sizes, spending less on upgrading technology, and eliminating some programs.

The key however is to look in detail at all financial outlays, measure them according to the extent to which they contribute to the goals of the school reform, and rank them according to how well they do this. This will enable schools to break down spending into its core components and work out what is necessary and what can be cut during the process of change in order to better implement their improvement strategy. This is particularly important in times of austerity, when elements that are not essential may have to be reduced or cut in order to help drive reform, no matter how popular or long-standing they may be.

Spending money on non-essential areas does support school reform efforts. Prioritizing what money is spent on does not automatically mean cutting all non-academic projects. What gets cut will depend on the goals of individual schools. This should be a workable situation, as long as the school is still accountable to the state and the district for shifts in expenditures. An understanding that cutting teaching jobs can actually be detrimental to reform is important though, instead of just looking at the numbers on a piece of paper.

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Matthew Lynch published in list, Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform, Teachers, Uncategorized

4 Factors to Consider about Teaching Jobs and School Reform

School reform is never easy. When sweeping changes are decided upon and implemented, everyone must fully participate in order for students to benefit from the changes and certainly not to suffer during the transition. Part of providing that stability for students is through a strong front of teachers that remain at the school during the sometimes turbulent reform process.

Here are a few things to think about when evaluating school reform:

  1. Reform just isn’t possible without a united front of educators and administrators. A shared vision is challenging to create and maintain without stable leadership, and a supportive culture from the staff.  It is a simple fact of life that high staff turnover can create instability and have a negative impact on efforts to establish a consistent learning environment for students. High staff turnover is also quite costly, particularly when the recruitment of teachers, and then the training of new teachers in the intricacies of the reform effort are considered.
  2. More effort and support needs to be given to the recruitment process for teachers at the outset as schools and districts initiate reform efforts. Hiring teachers who “fit” reform goals will likely reduce teacher attrition.  Still, more support needs to be available for new teachers. Even teachers who ostensibly have the skills and attitudes that align with reform goals will need mentoring and other supports as they begin their jobs. Every attempt must be made to reduce the debilitating rate of turnover.
  3. Most efforts now are centered on how to make the most of current funding and utilizing money effectively in order to maximize the positive impact of reforms, rather than how to access untapped resources. Despite the dearth of new money, it is possible to free up cash through alternative means of spending. An extreme proposal to accomplish this is to reduce staffing to the absolute minimum. For example, a school with 500 students would have 20 teachers and 1 principal. Approximately $1 million could become available, depending on how many education specialists (regular and categorical) and instructional aides worked within the school. This is radical option, and there are other, less extreme ways to change the way money is spent, to include increasing class sizes, spending less on upgrading technology, and eliminating some programs.
  4. Sometimes, spending money on non-essential areas does support school reform efforts. Prioritizing what money is spent on does not automatically mean cutting all non-academic projects. What gets cut will depend on the goals of individual schools. This should be a workable situation, as long as the school is still accountable to the state and the district for shifts in expenditures. An understanding that cutting teaching jobs can actually be detrimental to reform is important though, instead of just looking at the numbers on a piece of paper.

What do you think? Is an austerity approach (trying to have as few teachers as possible) better than one that places a higher importance on the teachers than on the budget?

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Matthew Lynch published in International Education, Uncategorized

6 things students forget to bring when they study abroad

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest column by Brooke Chaplan

It’s always tough to prepare yourself for a study abroad trip. In most cases, this will be the first time you’ve left the country, and despite your months of preparation, there are going to be unexpected differences. Until you understand your new living conditions, it’s best to be prepared and bring the basic items you need to survive well in a foreign country. Don’t be like the others who have gone before you and forget these essential items on your study abroad.

Personal Hygiene
Depending on where you go, you may find the personal hygiene products available don’t work quite the same way as your favorites back home. To tide you over while you find replacements, it’s a good idea to bring a three-month supply of any cosmetics, bath products, and deodorant that you use regularly. This includes a brush, shampoo, toothbrush, soap, contact lenses and solution, and razors.

Getting Money
In most instances, you’re going to do better exchanging your money when you get to the country in question. In the U.S., Forex fees are charged in addition to the fee charged by the establishment. If you go to a country like Japan, you will pay very close to the exchange rate. The best places to get money in a foreign country are usually at the local post offices, or by withdrawing money from your bank account at an ATM. However, you should bring at least $300 in local currency to help you get started

Portable Charger
Purchasing a portable charger in your home country is a great way to make sure your electronics work when you arrive. A portable charger can keep your cell phone alive, and then you won’t get lost without some way to communicate. Even if you don’t have a cell phone contract in your new country, you can typically find a Wi-Fi network you can use to communicate online.

Hair Dryer
Look for a hair dryer that uses dual-voltage. This is much better than plugging your dryer into a converter. You may think the country you’re visiting will have the same electronics as your home country, but this isn’t always true.

Favorite Snacks
You’re likely excited about trying out new foods, but it’s important to bring a cache of your favorites for emergencies. You’ll thank yourself when culture shock begins to set in, or when you find yourself alone in a foreign country and your stomach is upset from new water, living conditions, and foods.

Bottle with Filter
Bring a bottle that contains a built-in filter. You may find yourself stuck in the airport with little to no money. If you fill up your bottle with water, you can at least stave off dehydration and avoid much of the jet lag associated with long flights.

Many of the items you need can be found at your local stores like Target or Kohl’s. Use coupons from site like discountrue to save even more money, and make sure you purchase the lightest luggage possible. This will ensure you’re able to take as much with you as possible, without exceeding airline baggage limits.

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Brooke Chaplan is a freelance writer and blogger. She lives and works out of her home in Los Lunas, New Mexico. She loves the outdoors and spends most her time hiking, biking and gardening.

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