High Schools at the Tipping Point - The Role of Data May 16, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in 21st-Century, Articles/Videos, Data, Opinion.trackback
Nice article from Educational Leadership on the current state of high schools. Some of the background information is very helpful. I appreciate the historical perspective when trying to understand complex issues.
When the “modern” high school system was established in the early 20th century, only 10 percent of 14- to 17-year-olds attended high school (National Center for Education Statistics, 2006). It wasn’t until 1918 that all states required children to attend elementary school; in that era, a high school education was a luxury afforded only to upper-income families.
The article goes on to describe three approaches for reform, (1) align what schools expect of students with the demands of college and the workforce, (2) offer a rigorous, option-rich curriculum; personalize learning; and provide necessary supports, and (3) improve instruction by mining data and using digital technologies. The article isn’t real clear about what digital technologies are, or how they might improve instruction other than the role played by data. However, data is not information.
In order for data to inform our instruction, many factors have to be in place.
First, time is of the essence. Teachers don’t have enough of it, so asking them to do the data mining work without enough training (also a time issue) is asking a lot.
Second, data alone isn’t enough. The link from data to teaching is complex. The data has to be interpreted in order to be informative and prescriptive. Do we really know enough about how the individual child is learning to say that a specific result on an assessment or observed progress indicator should require a specific intervention?
Third, time is still of the essence. The time between the assessment or observation and the intervention needs to be measured in seconds, not minutes or hours or days or weeks, or in the case of standardized tests, in months. The time to help a student learn is at the point where the learning is not taking place, not at a time after the assessment is taken, the scan sheets are turned in, the assessments are scored, the results are returned, the committee meets to review the results, the plan is formed about intervention, and the instruction is delivered.
I’m all for informing the craft of our teaching, but it has to meet the needs of the instructor in the classroom, and more importantly, it has to meet the needs of the learner.
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?