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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Policy & Reform, Trending Topics, Year-Round Schooling

How to Implement a Year Round Schooling System

Do you feel year-round schools would be a good choice for your district? The article that follows offers information on how to transition to a year-round school format, if you choose to go that route.

First, you need to decide what type of year-round school scheduling system you will use. Year-round schools are usually set up as single-track (ST) with unified attendance or multi-track (MT) with staggered attendance programs. Some schools use a combination of the two. The main difference between the two systems is that single-track allows the entire student and staff population to adhere to the same calendar, and multi-track separates students and teachers and places each in one of several staggered instructional blocks and vacation schedules.

To make this even more complicated, the single-track and multi-track systems can have different variations. In the 60-20 schedule, the school year is separated into three sixty-day sessions with three twenty-day vacations. A variation on this schedule is the 60-15, which provides for an additional three- to four-week collective vacation. This plan can be used with either the single-track or multi-track system. Collectively, these calendars are used by a little more than a third of year-round schools in America.

Lastly, let’s talk about two year-round calendars that are used by around 40 percent of year-round schools. In the 45-15 schedule, forty-five days of instruction are followed by fifteen days of vacation time. The related 45-10 schedule provides an additional four-week vacation for staff and students. Again, these plans can be implemented in either a single-track or multi-track system (Quinlan et al. 1987).

Choosing an implementation team

Before attempting to set up a year-round school in your district, it is important to get approval from at least 80 percent of your faculty, staff, and parents. This will require a number of meetings, presentation of literature on the subject, and time for discussion. If you do not get approval, you should strongly reconsider implementing a year-round system in your district. Assuming that you will receive the necessary approval, let’s move on to the next steps.

When transitioning to a year-round school setup, you must first assemble the implementation team. Groups no larger than seven usually work best. The team can be made up of a variety of district personnel and staff. Implementation teams normally consist of a school board member, the superintendent and assistant superintendents, principals, teachers, and other pertinent individuals.

Once the team is created, efforts must be made to assess the district’s capacity for implementing and sustaining year-round schools. The team must ask itself whether the district has all of the resources needed to implement and sustain a year-round system. In extreme cases, when the district feels it is unable to coordinate its own implementation efforts, the team may want to consider hiring an experienced educational consulting firm to oversee the process. There are many well-qualified firms that will be able to either work in conjunction with an implementation team or oversee the process themselves. Note, however, that this can turn into an enormous job with a significant price tag.

The consulting team or team leader must be committed to developing and implementing innovative strategies that have the potential to effectively produce educational change. Simply assembling a top-notch team is not enough, however. All of the major administrators, including the superintendent and school board, must fully support the decisions of the implementation team.

Remember that parents, community leaders, and policymakers must also be included in the process. Many parents are involved in their students’ educational plans and want to be informed of any changes. The implementation team will need to decide if parents and community leaders should be included as formal members of the team, or to simply elicit their advice and expertise as needed. When making decisions concerning which individuals will populate the team, remember to include members that have the expertise to be taken seriously within the district.

Involving parents and community members in the implementation process might provide the restructuring team with a way to engage other members of the community, such as grassroots organizations, local business leaders, and area politicians. Community members can also assist the school in choosing the correct year-round school system and schedule. It is vital for the team to understand the culture of the community, its needs and wants, and the life skills its young people require.

If the school would like to create fundraisers to assist in the efforts to transition to a year-round school system, it is important that the community members understand why the school wants extra money and why they should give the extra money. If the community members disagree with the changes being made, they will be less likely to participate or contribute to the cause.

Having an implementation team is an important component in a successfully transition to a year-round school system. The task of choosing the leader and deciding on the roles of the implementation team should not be taken lightly. In many instances, the leader of the implementation team will be the superintendent or someone he or she appoints. Alternatively, the leader and other members of the team can be voted in. The leader must be held accountable for ensuring the success of the entire team as it moves to implement and sustain year-round schooling. The leader’s roles might include, but are not restricted to, determining the areas of expertise the team members bring to the table and how he or she can utilize that expertise.

Implementing a year-round schooling system

 To ensure the minimum amount of time is spent on implementing the system, the leader will need to establish a standing meeting time and develop an agenda to utilize time to the fullest extent possible. The leader must decide if the team should have mandatory or optional meetings. If the meetings are optional, the leader must decide how information is disseminated to members who do not attend meetings. Prepared agendas are essential for smooth meetings and excellent communication within the team.

Once the year-round system is approved by all team members, the plan will need to be approved by the superintendent before it is presented to the school board. The same rules apply whether implementation is needed by one school or by all the schools in the district.

A concern, alluded to in the comments above, is the need to assess the district’s capacity for implementing and sustaining a year-round schooling system. To appropriately assess the abilities of the district or school, the leader will need to complete an inventory of the pros and cons. If the inventory concludes that the district or school does not have the capacity to implement or sustain the plan, it may be wise to suspend the idea until you have the necessary capacity.

Often, volunteer team members do not understand the dedication and length of time it will take to carry out the transition to a year-round schooling schedule. Before the team starts to implement the necessary changes, the leader will need to stress to all team members the enormity of the task, the number of hours the members will need to dedicate to the project, and what is at stake.

Once the team’s year-round schooling plan has been approved, it is time to implement the approved plan. First, the implementation team will discuss possible impediments to the approved plan and ensure the team has a contingency plan in place to deal with the issues as they arise. Next, they should implement their target goals and timelines. The leader will need to appoint a member of the implementation team to take on the responsibility of collecting, reporting, and evaluating any data collected. The leader will use the data collected to continuously revise and refine the team’s implementation efforts, as well as report their findings to the superintendent and/or the school board.

A useful tool for education specialists considering a move to year-round school years is the “Year-Round Education Program Guide” published by the California Department of Education. The guide takes you through the process of deciding on and implementing a year-round schooling calendar. The steps below are taken from the guide.

Implementation steps

  • Select schools and grade levels.
  • Establish a process for resolving issues.
  • Select and approve a calendar by working with employee groups.
  • Assess the need for facilities modifications, including shade modification and storage areas for off-track teachers.
  • Submit budget requests to district business office.
  • Decide if year-round education will be implemented on a voluntary or mandatory basis for students and employees.
  • Develop and approve a track preference and assignment policy for students, keeping in mind the need for same schedules for family members. Balance tracks by ethnicity, academic ability, socioeconomic level, and educational need.
  • Develop and approve a track assignment policy for teachers and staff.
  • Determine staff in-service schedule.
  • Institute a year-round education informational network for certificated and classified staff members and parents.
  • Send choices of tracks to parents by early spring.
  • Notify parents as soon as possible of track assignment.
  • Develop a policy and system for track-change appeals.
  • Develop a system for delivering services during the summer (e.g., classroom supplies and textbooks).
  • Modify/expand food services according to need.
  • Modify payroll periods.
  • Develop a system for plant maintenance and utilization of empty rooms.
  • Ensure that air conditioning and insulation are able to provide summer comfort.
  • Bargain with all appropriate classified and certificated units.
  • Develop a work schedule for office, custodial, and administrative staff members.
  • Develop a system to deliver electives and special services, such as special day classes, psychological services, resource specialists, and bilingual education.
  • Ensure appropriate cash reserves to meet summer payroll and supply expenses.
  • Modify transportation system as required, including routes, number of buses, and service schedules.
  • Establish a system for teacher room rotation or roving.
  • Develop a community-school communication system for notifying off-track families of important school dates and activities.
  • Provide activities for connecting off-track employees and parents.
  • Reschedule special events such as holiday programs.
  • Design attendance accounting system as required.
  • Modify report card schedule.
  • Coordinate with community services, such as the recreation department, youth organizations, church groups, and the police department.
  • Identify and coordinate with child care providers.
  • Identify intersession instructional programs and schedules.
  • Modify student testing program (California Department of Education 2015).

Track assignment considerations

General axioms

Establish the following priorities in deciding who gets first track preference, of a track:

  • Respect district employees and keep parents on the same track as their children.
  • Respect the terms of divorce settlements by respecting parents visitation schedules.
  • Consider unique family circumstances (e.g., predictable annual visits of families located in different parts of the country or the world).
  • Acknowledge unique educational opportunities (e.g., a cello prodigy who is offered a summer camp).
  • Use a fair, balanced track assignment policy once priorities have been honored. Each track should mirror the ethnic and socioeconomic composition of the entire school population.
  • Minimize ability and/or special education need track segregation. If a special population must be put on one track, isolation and segregation can be minimized by partial day integration of self-selection of track.
  • Develop an appeals process, including:
  • A site administrator.
  • An appeal committee (made up of an administrator, a teacher, and a board member).

Do not:

  • Load tracks by ability level.
  • Load tracks by special groups (e.g., band or football).
  • Move students from track to track each year (unless requested).
  • Wait too long to announce track assignments.

Operational strategies for special services

Special day classes

  • Typically confined to one track (or two if the population warrants).
  • Extended school year days are typically offered during intersessions (California Department of Education 2015)

Evaluation of a year-round schooling system

In order to validate their efforts, the implementation team will need to evaluate the effectiveness of its year-round schooling system. The process of evaluation can be completed in-house, or the district can hire outside consultants to perform the task. Hiring outside consultants is preferable, as it provides an impartial evaluation of the year-round schools. However, this can be costly, so many school districts may have no choice but to do it themselves. If the implementation team is willing to evaluate the success of the year-round school system, they must first develop a plan for evaluation.

The team’s evaluation plan should have been developed before the year-round schooling system was implemented. Performance goals that were created at the beginning of the implementation process should be used to guide the evaluation process. The team will need to decide who will collect, analyze, and interpret the data. In order to avoid biased results, it may be in the best interests of the school to hire an outside consultant who may provide a more objective assessment. The team will also use the results to determine whether the year-round schooling system was effective. The results may indicate that the plan was not a success. In this case, the best solution is to build upon the small successes and learn from the mistakes.

Implementation of a year-round school system is a long-term process. Reform occurs on a continuous cycle that must be sustained in order for improvements to be maintained and furthered. Keep in mind that not every reform effort bears fruit. Even the best schools have to continue to work in order to perfect their year-round schooling system.

References

Adler, Rachel, Rebecca Franckle and Kirsten Davison. 2014. “Accelerated Weight Gain among Children During Summer Versus School Year and Related Racial/Ethnic Disparities: A Systematic Review.” Preventing Chronic Disease 11:130355. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd11.130355.

“Benefits of Year-Round Schools Touted.” n.d. Education News. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://www.educationnews.org/articles/benefits-of-year-round-schools-touted.html.

Breslow, Jason. 2012. “By the Numbers: Dropping Out of High School.” PBS Frontline. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/by-the-numbers-dropping-out-of-high-school/.

Burgess, Matt. 2013. “Mapped: How Many Hours Do Children Spend at School around the World?” Help Me Investigate. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://helpmeinvestigate.com/education/2013/04/mapped-how-many-hours-do-children-spend-at-school-around-the-world/

California Department of Education. 2015. “Year-Round Education Program Guide.” Accessed September 9, 2016. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/fa/yr/guide.asp

Chaika, Gloria. 1999. “Is Year-Round Schooling the Answer?” Education World. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin137.shtml.

Dessoff, Alan. 2011. “Is Year-Round Schooling on Track? Summer Learning Loss and Overcrowding Drive Alternative Schedules.” District Administration. Accessed September 9, 2016. https://www.districtadministration.com/article/year-round-schooling-track

“Education Policy: Advantages.” n.d. K12 Academics. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://www.k12academics.com/education-policy/year-round-school/advantages#.V9VFZ_krLDd.

Fitzgerald, John. 2009. “Minnesota School Year Requirements Too Casual.” Minnesota 2020. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://www.mn2020.org/issues-that-matter/education/minnesota-school-year-requirements-too-casual

Holzman, Seymour. n.d. “Year-Round School: Districts Develop Successful Programs. Education USA. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED062682.

Lederman, Doug. 2009. “The Impact of Student Employment.” Inside Higher Ed. Accessed September 9, 2016. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/08/work.

Mendez, Edgar. 2014. “Congressional Report Highlights Year-Round Schools.” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, July 8, 2014. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://archive.jsonline.com/blogs/news/266264841.html

Morin, Amanda. 2016. “The Pros and Cons of Year-Round Schooling.” Child Parenting. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://childparenting.about.com/od/schoollearning/a/year-round-school-pros-cons.htm.

O’Brien, Daniel M. 1999. “Family and School Effects on the Cognitive Growth of Minority and Disadvantaged Elementary Students.” University of Texas at Dallas. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://www.utdallas.edu/research/tsp-erc/pdf/wp_obrien_1999_family_school_affects.pdf .

“President Obama Wants to Keep Kids in School Longer: Extended Days, Weekend Hours, Shorter Summers.” NY Daily News, September 28, 2009. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/president-obama-kids-school-longer-extended-days-weekend-hours-shorter-summers-article-1.407418

Quinlan, Claire, George, Cathy and Emmett, Terry. 1987. Year-Round Education: Year-Round Opportunities. A Study of Year–Round Education in California. Los Angeles, CA: California State Department of Education.

Rogers, Kate. 2014. “How to Keep Your Electricity Bills Cool This Summer.” Fox Business. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2014/05/27/how-to-keep-your-electricity-bills-cool-this-summer.html

Von Hipple, Paul. 2007. “Save Iowa Summers.” Accessed September 9, 2016. http://www.saveiowasummers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Paul-von-Hipple-Research1.pdf.

Washington, Jessica. 2013. “Year-Round School Could Be the Answer to the Minority Drop-Out Problem.” Politic365. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://politic365.com/2013/05/20/year-round-school-could-be-the-answer-to-the-minority-drop-out-problem/

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. “WatchingTV/Screen Time and Children.” n.d. Accessed September 9, 2016. http://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Children-And-Watching-TV-054.aspx.

 

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

Global academic collaboration: a new form of colonisation?

Hanne Kirstine Adriansen, Aarhus University

Higher education in Africa is as old as the pyramids in Egypt. But the continent’s ancient institutions have long disappeared. The type of higher education that’s delivered in Africa today, from curriculum to degree structure and the languages of instruction, is rooted in colonialism. This has led many to question whether African universities are still suffering from a sort of colonisation – of the mind.

The story of renowned climate change researcher Cheikh Mbow is an example. Mbow was born in Senegal in 1969 and studied there. Looking back at his experiences during his first years of university, Mbow observes: “I knew all about the geography and biology of France but nothing about that of Senegal.”

Mbow also happens to be my friend, and together with one of his colleagues we wrote a book chapter about the production of scientific knowledge in Africa today. The chapter is based on Mbow’s life story – which I’ll return to shortly.

In recent years a new consciousness has emerged about higher education’s historical roots. People are calling strongly for a decolonised academy. This feeds into a broader debate about the role of modern universities.

There’s little doubt that Africa’s universities need to be locally relevant – focusing their teaching and research on local needs. Unavoidably, though, they’re simultaneously expected to internationalise and participate in the heated global higher education competition. Standardisation is the name of the game here. Universities compete to feature on global ranking lists, mimicking each other.

Internationalisation also sees African researchers like Mbow travelling North in search of research environments with better resources. These international collaborations can be hugely beneficial. But all too often it’s organisations, universities and researchers in the global North that call the shots.

So how can the continent’s universities manage the tricky balance between local relevance and internationalisation? How can they participate in international collaboration without being “recolonised” by subjecting themselves to the standards of curriculum and quality derived in the North? How can they avoid collaborative programmes with the North that become mere tick-box exercises that only benefit the Northern researchers and organisations?

International collaboration grows

Over the past 20 years, international interest in African higher education has intensified. Aid agencies in the North have developed policies that are designed to strengthen Africa’s research capacity. Scandinavian countries were among the first to do so: Denmark has the Building Stronger Universities programme. Norway and Sweden have similar collaborative programmes.

Such initiatives are important. Research funding is very limited at African universities. National higher education budgets are quite low, especially compared with universities in the North. In their bid to educate rapidly growing populations, African universities tend to emphasise teaching rather than research. So these institutions rely heavily on external funding for research and depend on support from development agencies via so-called capacity building projects. These projects engage researchers from the North and South in joint activities within teaching and research, ideally to create partnerships based on mutual respect.

Many researchers from universities in the North and South are involved in these collaborative projects, usually as practitioners. Only rarely do we turn these collaborative projects into a research field, turning the microscope on ourselves and our own practice. After participating in a capacity building project in Africa, some colleagues and I became interested in understanding the geography and power of scientific knowledge.

We wanted to know how this power and geography is negotiated through capacity building projects. We also sought to understand whether such projects functioned as quality assurance or a type of neo-imperialism.

Simply put, our research explored whether capacity building and the tendency towards increased international collaboration in higher education is helping or hindering African universities. The answer? Both.

‘Monocultures of the mind’

The problem with such projects is that they might create what Indian activist Vandana Shiva calls “monocultures of the mind”. Shiva argues that these make diversity disappear from perception and consequently from the world. People all end up thinking in the same ways.

International collaboration can cause African universities to become more dependent on the North. Their dependence is on funding; through publication in journals from the North; and through technology that only exists in the North. It also manifests in thinking mainly using concepts and solutions developed in the North.

Another problem is that this international collaboration may draw African universities into the competition fetish that dominates higher education today. This may help them to become globally competitive. But they risk losing their local relevance in the process.

Capacity building projects risk creating Shiva’s monocultures of the mind. But they can also have the opposite effect: they can empower African researchers and help them to become more independent.

Empowerment through capacity building

Renowned climate scientist Cheikh Mbow in action.

For Cheikh Mbow, the North represented both an imposed curriculum through colonial heritage and the chance to acquire the skills needed to become an
emancipated academic capable of creating new knowledge.

His PhD project explored natural resource management in Senegal “but using methods designed in the global North, in particular from France”. During his project he travelled from Senegal to Denmark and was exposed to another way of behaving. At his home institution, the Université de Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, questioning the knowledge and methods of older professors was perceived as misbehaviour. In Denmark he experienced a different system. There he was asked to question what was taken for granted even if it meant questioning older professors.

Paradoxically, the Danish system enabled Mbow to become an independent researcher. He became aware of how knowledge and methods inherited from the North were used in an African context without being questioned.

Mbow explains:

After several years of research, I began challenging some of
the received knowledge and managed to specify what is particular to Africa.
After being able to contextualise knowledge, I was able to create knowledge
that concerned and responded to societal needs and local realities in Africa.

This is precisely what the African academy – and its societies more broadly – require.

Collaboration to decolonise

I would argue that collaborative projects such as capacity building programmes can be a means to assist African universities in producing contextualised knowledge. These projects can even lead to some sort of decolonisation of the academy if they are based on long-term partnerships, a close understanding of historical, political and geographical context, and not least a common exploration of knowledge diversity.

This article is based on a blog that originally appeared here.

The Conversation

Hanne Kirstine Adriansen, Associate Professor, School of Education, Aarhus University

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

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education

How The Competency-Based Model Will Revolutionize Higher Education

By: Laura Seuschek, Chief Creative Officer at Wisewire

Higher education across the globe is in a state of transition. Online learning has become commonplace and the opportunities to present and teach can be handled literally without borders. The result is an industry at a crossroads. Particularly in the United States, the cost of traditional college and graduate school continues to rise while competency-based education (CBE) emerges as a new pedagogical approach.

CBE focuses on outcomes, or the mastery of specific skills. CBE programs range in execution, but most are developed as online programs that cater to very specific needs. Rather than attempt a broad range of topics in the traditional education model, CBE allows students to select topics relevant to their career goals and focus intensely on those topics until mastery is achieved. In many cases, CBE courses interweave a variety of workplace related competencies, and the result is often program graduates who are immediately hirable, all without the cost of a traditional four-year degree.

The idea that the college experience does not have to be limited to four years of balancing a strict timeline of education with a dynamic social is somewhat counterintuitive to ideas ingrained in education culture. However, as the economics of higher education grow more costly, affordable alternatives are growing in popularity, particularly because of these new ideas:

#1: Skills, Not Time

The traditional educational model is based on blocks of time tied to topics. Semesters, quarters, years, –they are all arbitrarily assigned finish lines and require students to balance their studies and their lives. Organizing one’s life around a traditional college timeline is even more difficult for those students older than the stereotypical college age of 18 to 22. CBE offers students a way to be efficient learners, bypassing areas of strength and focusing instead on career-specific skills and subject areas. This model allows students to forego redundant pre-requisites or topical breadth requirements and instead dive directly into content that is truly important: the skills needed to thrive in a competitive job environment.

#2: Start at the Right Place

Traditional education has become so routine that students do not question if the material is necessary to set them up for success. If students are forced to learn the history of accounting or take a course on subject matters that  they are already well-versed on, then they may shrug it off as an “easy A”. CBE flips that on its ear with assessments that demonstrate when students have mastered a skill and give credit for prior learning, allowing students to skip past unnecessary and redundant pre-requisites. The investment of both time and money into training and learning is thus optimized, breaking the mentality of an “easy A” and instead focusing purely on pushing the student forward. Not only does this shift to targeted learning make greater use of resources, it transforms the educational culture from one of “have to do” to “want to do.”

#3: Cost

When most people reflect on their college experience, they often focus on the social aspect, the transition from living with parents or guardians to adult independence. However, not everyone needs this level of social interaction. Some traditional college age students simply want to enter the workforce as quickly as possible while many older students are looking to open up job options or further their education. CBE is an effective option for students looking for targeted instruction without the need for the campus experience, which makes up a significant part of the tuition. CBE focuses on mastery of needed skills, which allows for a greater individual cost savings, particularly for students who are able to receive credit for previous work or place out of pre-requisites through assessments.

Note: Federal Student Aid does not currently cover non-traditional models, though the Department of Education is beginning to offer Title IV aid for innovative models.

#4: Maintaining the Cutting Edge

The best designed CBE programs are informed by learning science, student outcomes data, as well as program effectiveness data including alignment to workplace. Advanced analytics track metrics regarding mastery, adapting programs for maximum effectiveness. The analytics associated with CBE optimizes the program for current students and provides data to content developers for future programs. Through the use of smart reporting and predictive algorithms, programs can be improved at both macro and micro levels on a regular basis.

CBE is a developing field, one that is advancing in distribution and interaction as technology evolves.  In the past decade, online learning has grown from mere slideshow presentations and PDF workbooks to truly interactive and optimized modules, and this evolution will only continue to advance. The result? More access to higher education, leading to a stronger and more-skilled workforce and thus faster growth of the global economy and innovation. The CBE journey is truly just beginning.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Policy & Reform

How companies learn what children secretly want

Faith Boninger, University of Colorado and Alex Molnar, University of Colorado

If you have children, you are likely to worry about their safety – you show them safe places in your neighborhood and you teach them to watch out for lurking dangers.

But you may not be aware of some online dangers to which they are exposed through their schools.

There is a good chance that people and organizations you don’t know are collecting information about them while they are doing their schoolwork. And they may be using this information for purposes that you know nothing about.

In the U.S. and around the world, millions of digital data points are collected daily from children by private companies that provide educational technologies to teachers and schools. Once data are collected, there is little in law or policy that prevents companies from using the information for almost any purpose they wish.

Our research explores how corporate entities use their involvement with schools to gather and use data about students. We find that often these companies use the data they collect to market products, such as junk food, to children.

Here’s how student data are being collected

Almost all U.S. middle and high school students use mobile devices. A third of such devices are issued by their schools. Even when using their own devices for their schoolwork, students are being encouraged to use applications and software, such as those with which they can create multimedia presentations, do research, learn to type or communicate with each other and with their teachers.

When children work on their assignments, unknown to them, the software and sites they use are busy collecting data.

Ads target children as they do their homework. Girl image via www.shutterstock.com

For example, “Adaptive learning” technologies record students’ keystrokes, answers and response times. On-line surveys collect information about students’ personalities. Communication software stores the communications between students, parents and teachers; and presentation software stores students’ work and their communications about it.

In addition, teachers and schools may direct children to work on branded apps or websites that may collect, or allow third parties to collect, IP addresses and other information from students. This could include the ads children click on, what they download, what games they play, and so on.

How student data are used

When “screen time” is required for school, parents cannot limit or control it. Companies use this time to find out more about children’s preferences, so they they can target children with advertising and other content with a personalized appeal.

Children might see ads while they are working in educational apps. In other cases, data might be collected while students complete their assignments. Information might also be stored and used to better target them later.

For instance, a website might allow a third party to collect information, including the type of browser used, the time and date, and the subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over by a child. The third party could then use that information to target the child with advertisements later.

We have found that companies use the data to serve ads (for food, clothing, games, etc.) to the children via their computers. This repeated, personalized advertising is designed specifically to manipulate children to want and buy more things.

Indeed, over time this kind of advertising can threaten children’s physical and psychological well-being.

Consequences of targeted advertising

Food is the most heavily advertised class of products to children. The heavy digital promotion of “junk” food is associated with negative health outcomes such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

Additionally, advertising, regardless of the particular product it may sell, also “sells” to children the idea that products can make them happy.

Research shows that children who buy into this materialist worldview are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression and other psychological distress.

Teenagers who adopt this worldview are more likely to smoke, drink and skip school. One set of studies showed that advertising makes children feel far from their ideals for themselves in terms of how good a life they lead and what their bodies look like.

The insecurity and dissatisfaction may lead to negative behaviors such as compulsive buying and disordered eating.

Aren’t there laws to protect children’s privacy?

Many bills bearing on student privacy have been introduced in the past several years in Congress and state legislatures. Several of them have been enacted into laws.

Additionally, nearly 300 software companies signed a self-regulatory Student Privacy Pledge to safeguard student privacy regarding the collection, maintenance and use of student personal information.

However, they aren’t sufficient. And here’s why:

Student privacy laws are not adequate.Mary Woodard, CC BY-NC-ND

First of all, most laws, including the Student Privacy Pledge, focus on Personally Identifiable Information (PII). PII includes information that can be used to determine a person’s identity, such as that person’s name, social security number or biometric information.

Companies can address privacy concerns by making digital data anonymous (i.e., not including PII in the data that are collected, stored or shared). However, data can easily be “de-anonymized.” And, children don’t need to be identified with PII in order for their online behavior to be tracked.

Second, bills designed to protect student privacy sometimes expressly preserve the ability of an operator to use student information for adaptive or personalized learning purposes. In order to personalize the assignments that a program gives a student, it must by necessity track that student’s behavior.

This weakens the privacy protections the bills otherwise offer. Although it protects companies that collect data for adaptive learning purposes only, it also provides a loophole that enables data collection.

Finally, the Student Privacy Pledge has no real enforcement mechanism. As it is a voluntary pledge, many companies may scrupulously abide by the promises in the pledge, but many others may not.

What to do?

While education technologies show promise in some areas, they also hold the potential to harm students profoundly if they are not properly understood, thoughtfully managed and carefully controlled.

Parents, teachers and administrators, who serve as the closest protectors of children’s privacy at their schools, and legislators responsible for enacting relevant policy, need to recognize the threats of such data tracking.

The first step toward protecting children is to know that that such targeted marketing is going on while children do their schoolwork. And that it is powerful.

The Conversation

Faith Boninger, Research Associate in Education Policy, University of Colorado and Alex Molnar, Research Professor, University of Colorado

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education

What causes mind blanks during exams?

This article was written by  Jared Cooney Horvath and Jason M Lodge

In our five-part series, Making Sense of Exams, we’ll discuss the purpose of exams, whether they can be done online, overcoming exam anxiety, and effective revision techniques.

It’s a pattern many of us have likely experienced in the past.

You prep for an exam and all the information seems coherent and simple. Then you sit for an exam and suddenly all the information you learned is gone. You struggle to pull something up – anything – but the harder you fight, the further away the information feels. The dreaded mind blank.

So what is going on?

To understand what’s happening during a mind blank, there are three brain regions we have to become familiar with.

The first is the hypothalamus. For all intents and purposes, we can conceive of the hypothalamus as the bridge between your emotions and your physical sensations. In short, this part of the brain has strong connections to the endocrine system, which, in turn, is responsible for the type and amount of hormones flowing throughout your body.

The second is the hippocampus. A subcortical structure, the hippocampus plays an incredibly important role in both the learning and retrieval of facts and concepts. We can conceive of the hippocampus as a sort of memory door through which all information must pass in order to enter and exit the brain.

The third is the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Located behind your eyes, this is the calm, cool, rational part of your brain. All the things that suggest you, as a human being, are in control are largely mediated here: things like working memory (the ability to hold and manipulate information in your mind), impulse control (the ability to dampen unwanted behavioural responses), decision making (the ability to select a proper response between competing possibilities), etc.

How a mind blank happens

When you are preparing for an exam in a setting that is predictable and relatively low-stakes, you are able to engage in cold cognition. This is the term given to logical and rational thinking processes.

In our particular instance, when you are studying at home, seated in your comfortable bed, listening to your favourite music, the hypothalamus slows down the production and release of key stress hormones (outlined below) while the PFC and hippocampus are confidently chugging along unimpeded.

However, when you enter a somewhat unpredictable and high-stakes exam situation, you enter the realm of hot cognition. This is the term given to non-logical and emotionally driven thinking processes. Hot cognition is typically triggered in response to a clear threat or otherwise highly stressful situation.

So an exam can serve to trigger a cascade of unique thoughts – for instance,

If I fail this exam I may not get into a good university or graduate program. Then I may not get a good job. Then I may perish alone and penniless.

With this type of loaded thinking, it’s no wonder that those taking tests sometimes perceive an exam as a threat.

When a threat is detected, the hypothalamus stimulates the generation of several key stress hormones, including norepinephrine and cortisol.

Large levels of norepinephrine enter the PFC and serve to dampen neuronal firing and impair effective communication. This impairment essentially clears out your working memory (whatever you were thinking about is now gone) and stops the rational, logical PFC from influencing other brain regions.

At the same time, large levels of cortisol enter the hippocampus and not only disrupt activation patterns there, but also (with prolonged exposure) kill hippocampal neurons. This serves to impede the ability to access old memories and skews the perception and storage of new memories.

In short, when an exam is interpreted as a threat and a stress response is triggered, working memory is wiped clean, recall mechanisms are disrupted, and emotionally laden hot cognition driven by the hypothalamus (and other subcortical regions) overrides the normally rational cold cognition driven by the PFC.

Taken together, this process leads to a mind blank, making logical cognitive activity difficult to undertake.

Is there any way to avoid this?

The good news – there are some things you can do to stave off mind blanks.

The first concerns de-stressing. Through concerted practice and application of cognitive-behavioural and/or relaxation techniques aimed at reframing any perceived threat during an exam situation, those taking tests can potentially abate the stress response and re-enter a more rational thinking process.

Another concerns preparation. The reason the armed forces train new recruits in stressful situations that simulate active combat scenarios is to ensure cold cognition during future engagements.

The more a person experiences a particular situation, the less likely he or she is to perceive such a situation as threatening.

So when preparing for an exam, try not to do so in a highly relaxed soothing environment – rather, try to push yourself in ways that will mimic the final testing scenario you are preparing for.

• Read more from the series.

The Conversation

Jared Cooney Horvath, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Melbourne and Jason M Lodge, Senior Lecturer, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education & ARC-SRI Science of Learning Research Centre, University of Melbourne

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education

Campuses aren’t safe. Are universities doing enough?

Kalpana Jain, The Conversation

In January 2015, a young woman was sexually assaulted while unconscious behind a dumpster on the campus of Stanford University. The victim was visiting campus to attend a fraternity party.

Last week, the perpetrator, Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, was sentenced to six months in jail and three years of probation. The lenient sentencing of the star athlete has provoked public outrage – on the Stanford campus and nationwide.

An analysis published June 7 by The Washington Post shows that nearly 100 colleges and universities reported at least 10 cases of rape on their campuses in 2014.

Scholars writing for The Conversation have been pointing to the enormous risks students face on campus. They have raised questions about whether universities are doing enough to protect students.

Students at risk

Over 20 percent of all women students surveyed experienced unwanted sexual contact while attending college in 2015, wrote Georgia State University Professor of Law Andrea A. Curcio.

The most vulnerable time is the first two months of the freshman year. In fact, to symbolize the danger, the first few months of the fall freshman semester are now commonly called the sexual assault “red zone.”

A public awareness campaign regarding sexual assault on campus. Wolfram Burner, CC BY-NC

Sarah Cook, professor and associate dean at Georgia State University, wrote about President Obama’s efforts in 2014 at convening a White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. She pointed out how the 2013 Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (SaVE Act), which “requires colleges to report more crimes” in their annual Clery Act reports, could have led to the “upsurge” in campus investigations.

Scholars also pointed out how like most other problems, campus assault does not exist in isolation. Leah Daigle, associate professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia State University, noted that it is, above all, the party culture on campuses that puts students at risk.

About 65 percent of college students consume alcohol and just under half engage in binge drinking. Her research looks at which students are most vulnerable.

Lack of information

Knowing that students are at risk, are universities and colleges doing enough?

Elizabeth Englander, professor of psychology at Bridgewater State University and director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center (MARC), observed,

Only one-third or fewer of the websites had any information that might be useful to a victim of sexual assault, such as a hotline number, the importance of preserving evidence or how to report sexual assault to police.

To make campuses safer, Georgia State’s Curcio emphasized that studies should be conducted that examine the locations where sexual assaults were more likely to occur.

And, as Englander said, schools need to make sure everyone has access to quality information. However,

only 15 percent of university websites offered any information about how to file an anonymous report.

The Conversation

Kalpana Jain, Editor, Education, The Conversation

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert

Has the library outlived its usefulness in the age of Internet? You’d be surprised

Donald A. Barclay, University of California, Merced

U.S. institutions of higher education and U.S. local governments are under extraordinary pressure to cut costs and eliminate from institutional or governmental ledgers any expenses whose absence would cause little or no pain.

In this political climate, academic and public libraries may be in danger. The existence of vast amounts of information – a lot of it free – on the Internet might suggest that the library has outlived its usefulness.

But has it? The numbers tell a very different story.

In spite of the findings of a survey in which Americans say they are using public libraries less, the usage numbers reported by libraries indicate the opposite.

Some upward trends

In the last two decades, the total number of U.S. public libraries slightly increased – inching up from 8,921 in 1994 to 9,082 in 2012 (a gain of 2.14 percent). Over the same period, the data also show that use of public libraries in the U.S went up as well.

U.S. public library usage statistics: 1993-2012. Chart created by Donald A. Barclay, using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, CC BY

Here’s what data on circulation (books and other items checked out to library users) and annual visits to public libraries reveal.

The number of books and other items borrowed from U.S. public libraries increased from 6.5 items per capita in 1993 to 8.0 items per capita in 2012 (up 23 percent). Over the same time span, the number of visits to U.S. public libraries rose 22.5 percent.

The one major public library usage measure that did decrease was the number of times library users asked questions of reference librarians, dropping 18 percent from 1993 to 2012.

The popularity of U.S. public libraries is, it seems, at least as strong as it was before the web became a household word (much less a household necessity).

Rise of the e-book

For academic libraries, the data are more mixed. Circulation of physical items (books, DVDs, etc.) in U.S. academic libraries has been on a steady decline throughout the web era, falling 29 percent from 1997 to 2011.

Total circulations (in 1000s) by U.S. degree-granting post-secondary institution libraries: 1997 through 2011. Chart created by Donald A. Barclay, using data from the National Center for Education Statistics., CC BY

More tellingly, over the same time span and among the same academic libraries, the annual number of circulations (of books, DVDs, etc.) per full-time student dropped from 20 circulations to 10 (down 50 percent).

Number of circulation transactions per full-time student in U.S. degree-granting post-secondary institution libraries: 1997 through 2011. Chart created by Donald A. Barclay, using data from the National Center for Education Statistics., CC BY

That fewer books are circulating is hardly a surprise given the vast amount of scholarly information (the bulk of it purchased with academic library budget dollars) that is now available to students via their electronic device of choice.

Electronic scholarly journals have driven their print-format predecessors to obsolescence, if not quite extinction, while e-books have become increasingly plentiful.

In 2012, U.S. academic libraries collectively held 252,599,161 e-books. This means that over the course of about a decade, U.S. academic libraries have acquired e-books equal to about one-fourth the total number of physical books, bound volumes of old journals, government documents and other paper materials acquired by those same libraries since 1638 – the year Harvard College established the first academic library in what is now the United States.

E-books are not only plentiful, they are popular with academic users (in spite of some shortcomings in usability). For example, data provided to the author show that when the University of California, San Diego made a collection of academic e-books available to students and faculty through the popular JSTOR interface, the usage numbers proved impressive.

In just under a year, UCSD students and faculty used 11,992 JSTOR e-books, racking up 59,120 views and 34,258 downloads. In response to user demand, the UCSD Library outright purchased over 3,100 of the titles offered via JSTOR, making those e-books a permanent part of the UCSD library collection.

Who needs the encyclopedia?

As with circulation numbers, reference questions asked of librarians in U.S. academic libraries have undergone a sharp decline – standing now at 56,000,000 per year, down 28.4 percent from 16 years ago. For the 60 largest U.S. academic libraries, the average number of reference transactions dropped from 6,056 per week in 1994 to 1,294 per week in 2012 (down 79 percent).

Average number of reference transactions per week for the 60 largest U.S. academic libraries: 1994-2012. Chart created by Donald A. Barclay, using data from the National Center for Education Statistics., CC BY

There’s not much mystery behind the drop in reference transactions. When I first began working as an academic reference librarian in 1990, hardly a day went by when I didn’t put my hands on such reference works as Places Rated Almanac, The Statistical Abstract of the United States and College Catalogs on Microfiche to answer reference questions.

Today, students access information digitally. The Google app on their smartphones allows students to look up information they once would have found only in analog, library-owned reference sources. And as for that old reference warhorse, the printed encyclopedia – Britannica churned out its final set in 2010.

Further contributing to the decline of in-person reference service is the fact that students are increasingly able to consult with academic librarians via the Internet.

By 2012, 77 percent of U.S. academic libraries were offering reference services via email or web chat. Currently, over 400 academic libraries provide around-the-clock, chat-based reference service as members of OCLC’s 24/7 Reference Cooperative, a global library cooperative that provides shared technology services.

Given only the above numbers, the hasty conclusion would seem to be that everything is online and nobody uses academic libraries any more.

But not so fast.

Even while circulation and reference transaction numbers were tanking, the data show a steady increase in the number of people actually setting foot in academic libraries.

The cumulative weekly gate count for the 60 largest U.S. academic libraries increased nearly 39 percent from 2000 to 2012. Library gate count data for all U.S. institutions of higher education show a similar (38 percent) increase from 1998 to 2012.

Cumulative weekly gate count for the 60 largest U.S. academic libraries: 2000-2012. Chart created by Donald A. Barclay, using data from the National Center for Education Statistics., CC BY

So if students are not going to the academic library to access print collections or ask reference questions, why are they going at all?

The lure of the academic library

I believe that students are trekking to academic libraries because academic libraries have been actively reinventing themselves to meet the needs of today’s students.

Academic library square footage is increasingly being converted from space to house printed books to space for students to study, collaborate, learn and, yes, socialize.

Libraries are no longer cold, forbidding spaces. Howard County Library System Follow, CC BY-NC-ND

Besides providing some of the last refuges of quiet in a noisy, distraction-filled world, academic libraries have taken such student-friendly steps as relaxing (or eliminating) longstanding prohibitions on food and drink, providing 24/7 study spaces and generally recreating themselves to be comfortable and friendly rather than cold and forbidding.

Examples of how forward-leaning academic libraries are attracting students include:

The Grand Valley State University Library’s Knowledge Market provides students with peer consultation services for research, writing, public speaking, graphic design, and analyzing quantitative data. Among a number of specialized spaces, the library offers rooms devoted to media preparation, digital collaboration, and presentation practice.

Library space is changing: three girls using a computer at San Jose library. San José Library, CC BY-SA

The libraries of North Carolina State University (NCSU) offer Makerspace areas where students get hands-on practice with electronics, 3D printing and scanning, cutting and milling, creating wearables, and connecting objects to the Internet of Things. In addition, NCSU students can visit campus libraries to make use of digital media labs, media production studios, music practice rooms, visualization spaces and presentation rooms, among other specialized spaces.

The Ohio State University Library Research Commons offers not only a Writing Center but also consultation services for copyright, data management plans, funding opportunities and human subjects research. Specialized spaces in the library include conference and project rooms, digital visualization and brainstorming rooms, and colloquia and classroom spaces.

Reimagining libraries

By thinking beyond the book as they reimagine libraries, academic librarians are adding onto and broadening a long learning tradition rather than turning their backs on it. In the words of Sam Demas, college librarian emeritus of Carleton College:

For several generations, academic librarians were primarily preoccupied with the role of their library buildings as portals to information, print and later digital. In recent years, we have reawakened to the fact that libraries are fundamentally about people – how they learn, how they use information and how they participate in the life of a learning community. As a result, we are beginning to design libraries that seek to restore parts of the library’s historic role as an institution of learning, culture and intellectual community.

Any library, public or academic, able to live up to so important a role will never outlive its usefulness.

The Conversation

Donald A. Barclay, Deputy University Librarian, University of California, Merced

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Teachers

Kindergartners get little time to play. Why does it matter?

Christopher Brown, University of Texas at Austin

Being a kindergartner today is very different from being a kindergartner 20 years ago. In fact it is more like first grade.

Researchers have demonstrated that five-year-olds are spending more time engaged in teacher-led academic learning activities than play-based learning opportunities that facilitate child-initiated investigations and foster social development among peers.

As a former kindergarten teacher, a father of three girls who’ve recently gone through kindergarten, and as researcher and teacher-educator in early childhood education, I have had kindergarten as a part of my adult life for almost 20 years.

As a parent, I have seen how student-led projects, sensory tables (that include sand or water) and dramatic play areas have been replaced with teacher-led instructional time, writing centers and sight words lists that children need to memorize. And as a researcher, I found, along with my colleague Yi Chin Lan, that early childhood teachers expect children to have academic knowledge, social skills and the ability to control themselves when they enter kindergarten.

So, why does this matter?

All work, and almost no play

First, let’s look at what kindergarten looks like today.

As part of my ongoing research, I have been conducting interviews with a range of kindergarten stakeholders – children, teachers, parents – about what they think kindergarten is and what it should be. During the interviews, I share a 23-minute film that I made last spring about a typical day in a public school kindergarten classroom.

Learning for tests? MJGDSLibrary, CC BY-NC-ND

The classroom I filmed had 22 kindergartners and one teacher. They were together for almost the entire school day. During that time, they engaged in about 15 different academic activities, which included decoding word drills, practicing sight words, reading to themselves and then to a buddy, counting up to 100 by 1’s, 5’s and 10’s, practicing simple addition, counting money, completing science activities about living things and writing in journals on multiple occasions. Recess did not occur until last hour of the day, and that too for about 15 minutes.

For children between the ages of five and six, this is tremendous amount of work. Teachers too are under pressure to cover the material.

When I asked the teacher, who I interviewed for the short film, why she covered so much material in a few hours, she stated,

There’s pressure on me and the kids to perform at a higher level academically.

So even though the teacher admitted that the workload on kindergartners was an awful lot, she also said she was unable to do anything about changing it.

She was required to assess her students continuously, not only for her own instruction, but also for multiple assessments such as quarterly report cards, school-based reading assessments, district-based literacy and math assessments, as well as state-mandated literacy assessments.

In turn, when I asked the kindergartners what they were learning, their replies reflected two things: one, they were learning to follow rules; two, learning was for the sake of getting to the next grade and eventually to find a job. Almost all of them said to me that they wanted more time to play. One boy said:

I wish we had more recess.

These findings mirror the findings of researchers Daphna Bassok, Scott Latham and Anna Rorem that kindergarten now focuses on literacy and math instruction. They also echo the statements of other kindergarten teachers that kids are being prepared for high-stakes tests as early as kindergarten.

Here’s how play helps children

Research has consistently shown classrooms that offer children the opportunities to engage in play-based and child-centered learning activities help children grow academically, socially and emotionally. Furthermore, recess in particular helps children restore their attention for learning in the classroom.

Focus on rules can diminish children’s willingness to take academic risks and curiosity as well as impede their self-confidence and motivation as learners – all of which can negatively impact their performance in school and in later life.

Giving children a chance to play and engage in hands-on learning activities helps them internalize new information as well as compare and contrast what they’re learning with what they already know. It also provides them with the chance to interact with their peers in a more natural setting and to solve problems on their own. Lastly, it allows kindergartners to make sense of their emotional experiences in and out of school.

Children learn through play. woodleywonderworks, CC BY

So children asking for more time to play are not trying to get out of work. They know they have to work in school. Rather, they’re asking for a chance to recharge as well as be themselves.

As another kindergarten boy in my study told me,

We learn about stuff we need to learn, because if we don’t learn stuff, then we don’t know anything.

Learning by exploring

So what can we do to help kindergartners?

I am not advocating for the elimination of academics in kindergarten. All of the stakeholders I’ve talked with up to this point, even the children, know and recognize that kindergartners need to learn academic skills so that they can succeed in school.

However, it is the free exploration that is missing. As a kindergarten teacher I filmed noted,

Free and exploratory learning has been replaced with sit, focus, learn, get it done and maybe you can have time to play later.

Policymakers, schools systems and schools need to recognize that the standards and tests they mandate have altered the kindergarten classroom in significant ways. Families need to be more proactive as well. They can help their children’s teachers by being their advocates for a more balanced approach to instruction.

Kindergartners deserve learning experiences in school that nurtures their development as well as their desire to learn and interact with others. Doing so will assist them in seeing school as a place that will help them and their friends be better people.

The Conversation

Christopher Brown, Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in Early Childhood Education, University of Texas at Austin

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

Ineffective assessments, part VII: Better cultural and learning understanding

 Click here to read all of the articles in our Ineffective Assessments series.

Not all students are natural-born test takers. Any educator who has spent even a small amount of time in classrooms knows this – much in the way that different students have different learning styles. Most times, teachers can account for this in their classrooms based on the students they serve. Even if the teachers do not adjust the tests or assignments from one year to the next, their general demographic remains the same from one year to the next based on location. An inner city math teacher, for example, could tweak his tests with word problems that best relate to the students entering his classroom and not use obscure references that make the material seem even more disconnected from the real life of the students. A science teacher at an elite prep school could do the same, using references that strike a chord with the students who walk through the door and grounding the material.

Statewide assessments don’t have that level of customization. They are created for one set of students and then applied to the rest. A student who feels isolated from the material in front of her will not be as successful in answering the questions, plain and simple. English as a second language learners, for example, may not perform as well on assessment tests as their peers. Standardized assessments make many assumptions about those who are taking them and to the detriment of the students. For assessments to be effective, the student answering the questions should always be considered.

So what sorts of cultural differences should be considered when assessments are created?

  • Socioeconomic status. Students from homes where one or both parents have a college education tend to have more advanced linguistic capabilities and accomplishing school tasks comes more easily than students from economically disadvantaged homes. This is not to say that test questions should be easier or in any way “dumbed down” based on the income of a family in question, but assessments should be carefully written with these factors in mind. Perhaps there is a reason beyond basic comprehension that white students from middle and high-class homes tend to perform better on standardized tests. Perhaps it is not the actual material that they have more effectively mastered, but the actual tests that have put them at an advantage. If every student had the chance to take a test that played on his socioeconomic strengths and avoided pitfalls that made that student feel isolated from the material, perhaps we would see a drastic change in test scores. Considering the socioeconomic status of students is a very important part of the assessment process that needs to be addressed for all students to succeed.
  • What is spoken at home should play into the type of assessment students receive. Students who speak English as a second language, even fluently, should have the option to take their assessments in whatever language makes them the most comfortable. There should never be a debate about whether a student knows “enough” of the English language to perform well on an assessment. If there is even a question, the student should be given the test in his native language or at least asked for the preference. If we are truly trying to gauge what these students know, we should not force them to battle the language barrier to present that knowledge. Students should be allowed to request tests in whatever language makes them the most comfortable – no questions asked, and no hoops to jump through.
  • Learning style. This one is a little more complicated to implement and possibly a pipe dream at this point in the assessment reform process. BUT a perfect assessment system would allow students to answers questions in such a way that complemented their personalities and learning styles. Teachers could help determine this through their observations of the students. The trick would be to ensure that all the material was equally difficult and that the students were placed with the right test based on their true learning style. A student who did well in traditional test taking, for example, may perform worse in a testing environment that was tailored to visual or hands-on learners. This type of assessing would need some trial and error to get right but could end up yielding big results in student test success. It’s something that would need a lot more research and testing before implementation, but I believe it is worth the effort to reach a point of truly fair and accurate assessments.

One of the largest arguments against standardized assessments is that they are just that – standardized. To give a full picture of what students are learning, assessments need to be customized to fit those students’ life circumstances and personalities. It is contradictory to say that American public schools embrace students from all backgrounds, and at all learning levels, and with every personality type but then to test one model student that is not an accurate representation of any of them. This doesn’t further our educational pursuits, and it certainly does not further the academic success of the students who take the tests. Blanket assessments are not even an accurate representation of a teacher’s strengths. By trying to accommodate the masses, assessments have left behind the individuals and the result is a system of testing that does nothing to help anyone in the process and contributes little to what we truly know about actual student progress.

As they exist today, standardized assessments are ineffective, misleading and not helpful to public school culture. By adjusting these tests to meet the individual needs of the students taking them, the assessments would at least stand a chance of mattering in the lives of the students who take them.

It may be impossible to tailor each test to the needs of the student who will take it, but as technology improves, I believe the tools will exist to make this at least partially a reality. Consider an assessment future where teachers can type in a few short answers about a student and then receive a customized test based on the responses. We have the technology through our smartphones that tell us right down to the grocery store aisle what is for sale – surely there is a developer out there who can do the same targeting for test making. We should be able to create the tests that will most benefit our students and give educators the most accurate picture of what is being learned and comprehended.

As assessment makers become more technologically sophisticated, so too should the tests. States should demand these types of options of their test makers in the best interest of their students. There is no reason not to pursue more advanced forms of test delivery that take the backgrounds and learning styles of students into account. At this point, that type of test reform is necessary to understand what is being taught and learned in our K-12 classrooms.

Assessments of the future

It’s time to tear apart the traditional way our K-12 students have been tested and look for a more targeted approach that implements technology, focuses on information gathering and accounts for the differences between the students who take the assessments. It will take a lot of work, and it will cost some money, but the result will be effective assessments that tell us something about the progress of individual students. If we want to make our public schools places that deliver the brightest minds of their generations, then we owe it to these students to make testing fair and beneficial to them. It should not simply be a process of measuring sticks and statistics; assessments should give us a wider, detailed perspective on what our students have learned so far, how they’ve learned it and what their learning outlook is for the future.   

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Diversity, Education Leadership, Equity, Teachers

English Language Learners and Music Go Together Like Peanut Butter and Jelly

A professor shares her tuneful tips for helping ELLs learn what to expect from English.

Dr. Nancy Drescher is a professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, and has taught both children and adult English language learners (ELLs) in the U.S. and abroad. In this interview, she offers best practices for teaching these students to read, understand structure, and gain background knowledge.

The Edvocate: You believe that simply teaching English vocabulary words and grammar is not the best way to go about teaching ELL students. If that’s not the best way, then what is?

Dr. Nancy Drescher: When it comes to teaching English to a non-native speaker, you first have to build context for the words in the learner’s mind. Rather than teaching a list of standalone words, it is more effective to teach vocabulary using collocations, idioms, and other common phrases. Being a good reader comes from knowing what to expect.

For instance, you would never ask someone for a jelly-and-peanut butter sandwich. It has all the right words, but a native speaker would never phase it that way. It would go against their expectations.

Since ELLs have no pre-built expectations for the language they’re learning, reading becomes a much longer process. They have to stop and process each word and its context individually instead of being able to view a text as a whole. Learning phrasing and how words fit within context helps ELLs build these expectations and facilitate their reading experience.

The Edvocate: So you’re saying this is necessary for reading, too, not just for speaking?

Dr. Drescher: Yes. Students coming from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds can have difficulty with reading because they are used to a different set of expectations, both in terms of how words go together and background experiences. Students who have grown up using standard English (that is the English expected in school) at home and who have experience similar to what teachers expect and naturally build on in their classrooms are at a distinct advantage when it comes to learning to read.

Building these expectations is a normal process of learning to read for any child, not just language learners. Adults often groan when their child asks to read the same book over and over again, but doing this is actually an important part of the process of building these language expectations. Hearing the same book over and over is comforting when children are in the midst of figuring out those expectations. Teachers then build on that initial experience with language structures, but when students come to school with different initial experiences (whether that is a completely different language or a non-standard variety) and their previously learned language doesn’t match that of the classroom and of books, it is much harder for teachers to make those connections and for students to make that transition.

One way teachers and students can make that transition a little easier is narrow reading. Narrow reading involves reading many books on one topic or in a series. The repetition builds expectations by way of building vocabulary and structures in context. This concept is applicable for language learners and for struggling readers in general. If a person reads 10 different books on a topic or in a series, each one will get progressively easier as students gain familiarity with the language and conceptual expectations related to that topic. Another way to build this language repetition is through music.

The Edvocate: Tell us a little more about how using music can help build these expectations you’re talking about.

Dr. Drescher: Educators have been using music in language teaching for years. Music can enhance a student’s ability to read, understand structure, and gain background knowledge. It also adds another learning style, which broadens the reach of the lesson being taught.

The Edvocate: How can music help enhance reading?

Dr. Drescher: Connecting music, language, and books makes language easier to remember. The repetitive nature of songs helps set linguistic expectations. An especially catchy song will remain in students’ heads long after the lesson has ended, enabling them to hold on to the information in an enjoyable format.

Music and songs can also make language learning enjoyable. This is especially helpful for younger children, but also true for adult learners. Songs don’t feel like a grammar drill. Music is something people do for fun, and every culture and group has its own songs. Music brings people together in a fun and engaging way.

The Edvocate: What sort of curriculum is necessary for teaching ELLs?

Dr. Drescher: A lot of times there isn’t a curriculum already in place for ELLs. The current push is to have inclusive classrooms, where ELL students and teachers integrate with mainstream classrooms. This makes it all the more important to find additional scaffolds and supports for students in these types of classrooms. These scaffolds will help everybody, but they are completely necessary for language learners.

The Edvocate: Are there any particular scaffolds you’d recommend?

Dr. Drescher: A few years ago, I started working with Cantata Learning. They create picture books and corresponding songs with educational content for pre-K–3 students. Cantata’s materials benefit language learners, but also mainstream students. Inspired by Cantata, I wrote a few connected lessons geared towards English language learners. The songs integrated well into lessons, and it was easy to find a song about a particular unit. That is the sort of thing I recommend.  If we can bring in multiple ways for students to engage with the language we hope they will be able to use and the content we want them to learn without drilling and killing their love of books and learning, I think we will find the most success for all kids.

The Edvocate: What do you think is the key to teaching English language learners?

Dr. Drescher: You have to keep in mind, learning any language is challenging, but our culture sometimes treats these challenges differently depending on the language being learned. For instance, a child learning English as a second language is often seen as having a deficit when compared to other children. However, when a native English speaker is learning a second language, or is enrolled in a second language emersion school, this is often viewed as an impressive feat.

It’s important to remember that English language learners do have knowledge and experience in their own language and in the world. By learning English, they are taking on a second language in addition to the one they already know. They are used to a different set of expectations, and so ELL lessons need to meet learners where they are in order to build on what they already have.

 

 

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