I read an article this morning which had a theme I am always interested in: The Blacklash Against Screen Time at School. I want to never be afraid to delve into an article or research that challenges the pedagogy we are implementing at our school. Within this article are red flags/warnings that are extremely important to consider when implementing technology and personalised learning in schools.
It began by discussing the Mark Zuckerberg experient called AltSchool. If you remember back to Hekia Parata's CoolSchool model then this was' like that, just with way less funding. AltSchool were in practicality labs opening up around the States where students would use a device to walk at their own pace through a learning playlist which was personalised, somewhat, to them. Teachers were in attendance to be coaches and provide support. There's been a load of criticism over this model and these schools. Much of it surrounds how much it costs and the lack of data proving that it works better. Now here's the key question of most articles that challenge digital tech, and I would say also a critique that many teachers have when visiting schools with digital tech: how do you know it works better? I think it's important to add the word "better" here, because there's no point it working the same. Effective teachers do amazing things with students regardless of tech and have been doing so for ions. But how is the use of a digital device making it better: more targeted, more efficient, more engaging. If it's not, then why use it? At our school we are continuing to ask: what can this _______App, technology, method do better that we couldn't do before in a traditional mode and how will we know and track that it is working better?
What does this article question? Here are a few snippets.
"But in the midst of all the excitement, there’s little strong evidence that classroom technology, including personalized learning, is improving educational outcomes. A 2015 report from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development found that countries that invested heavily in computer technology for schools showed “no appreciable improvements” in reading, math or science, and that technology “is of little help in bridging the skills divide between advantaged and disadvantaged students.”
"A recent Rand study evaluating the use of personalized learning found emerging signs of promise, but with plenty of caveats. Students in 40 schools with personalized-learning programs funded by the Gates Foundation scored a bit higher on standardized English and math tests over the course of one school year, with only the math gains reaching statistical significance. A “slight majority” of schools had positive gains, the report found. But because it didn’t have a randomized control group, “our study is not able to make a very strong statement about whether the personalized learning approaches actually caused the improvement,” Elizabeth Steiner, a study co-leader and an associate policy researcher at the think tank, told me."
Now this " on control group" puzzled me. Our schools have years of data from students from when digital devices were not in use. That to me is an adequate "control" group. As our school was implementing our digital ed model, we used the data from the previous two years to check when our pedagogy was doing better. We found that 80% of students in our class made significantly more progress than years before. There is also the informal assessing of a strategy, which great teachers should be doing regularly. Are we seeing gains? What are those gains? They're not always linked with "data". Some are simply seeing increased executive functioning from the student or seeing heightened engagement.
This quote is also important to think about:
Another review of the Gates-funded effort, by the Center for Reinventing Public Education, concluded that: “At the end of two years, despite some pockets of innovation, few schools had developed replicable strategies for personalized learning.”
Schools that don't focus on pedagogy around personalised learning, will not be sustainable and not see the accelerated progress in students, year on year. It is vital that schools have a model of how the device will be used and how teachers will "be" in the classroom. What does it look like to teach in this environment now? When should devices not be used? When should they? Are you pushing out games and off the shelf "playlist" type products, or are you using apps that require the student to engage with the learning? Are students verbalising their learning? What tracking does the teacher do: daily, weekly, termly and yearly to ensure that what they're doing works?
We cannot ask parents to fork out money for devices and trust us with the children and not expect to put in the work on proving what we are doing is working... better. This is accountability. This is what makes our job as teachers a highly regarded profession. This is why this job cannot be done by a tech-whizz or a developer.
Finally, we have to ensure that this critique is kept at the foreground of what we do in schools:
As time went on, France started questioning what he and his colleagues were doing. “The vision was a curriculum that catered to every child so they’re learning at their level all the time,” he said. “But when every child is working on something different, you’re taking away the most human component in the learning process, which is social interaction—learning from one another and collaborating to solve problems. They’re developing a relationship with their tablet but not with each other.”
For France, the turning point came one morning when he looked around a kindergarten classroom, “and the kids were staring at their tablets, engrossed by them. And I’m thinking to myself, ‘They could be building with blocks, they could be doing a number of different things that are more meaningful that also build social and emotional skills but they’re choosing not to. Why? Because the tool is so addictive, that’s all they want to do.’”
It is vital to know how to use the device in a way that does not look like students sitting on their own with headphones on. Sure, there is a small amount of time when this can be effective. But teachers need to prompt when to put the device away. Teachers also need to evaluate their use of the device: how much time is the device being used in a way that is collaborative and interactive. We use iPads in our classes. In science, these iPads make great time lapse videos. Students are still working together, doing science, but one iPad is set up to record. They forget it's there, most of the time. But it allows them to go back and look at what they were doing and to verbalise their learning overtop of their video. We use iPads in PE: students can video one another doing a particular skill and then evaluate it, improving as they go. Our students still play, still make mess, still read actual books, still write in books, they play outside - with no technology allowed during break times, even wet ones. Technology is embedded in our lives. It's our job to teach kids how to interact with it in a healthy, positive way. But turning our backs on the gains that can be made by using it effectively, is ignoring the benefits it has. It's not the golden ticket, the one solution, it's always part of the package. An effective, highly trained and professional teacher should never be replaced.
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