Learn About: 21st Century | Charter Schools | Homework
Home / Edifier


The EDifier

May 3, 2013

Exciting possibilities: Coursera and professional development courses

Coursera, an organization currently facilitating free online access to courses taught by college professors, has announced it will be dipping its toes into the professional development arena.  I have to admit that when I read this headline, I was thrilled.  For teachers to have free, online access to courses offered by experts on education research and teaching methods is a step in the right direction.

First, these courses could allow schools to have resources for teachers to improve their skills that are differentiated for the specific content teachers teach.  Because hiring consultants is expensive, districts often rely on generic workshops that they offer to all teachers.  I’ve sat through my fair share of these: classroom management, assessment, alignment.  However, research shows that teachers aren’t interested in generic professional development, and it doesn’t have an impact on teacher practice or student achievement.  On the other hand, professional development that is tailored to the content one teaches, specifically exploring the elements of the course students struggle with, has been shown to make a real difference in teachers’ practice and students’ learning.  With free online courses, teachers could focus on courses tailored to their content area.

Furthermore, each teacher brings his or her own unique set of strengths and weakness to the profession.  Teaching is a job that demands a lengthy list of skills which are both emotional and cognitive.  Just as some students have more natural talents in certain areas than others, the same is true with teachers.  When I co-taught a class with another teacher, I got to see this full force.  My co-teacher managed the emotional needs of a class flawlessly, while my own strengths were in lesson planning.  Working together, we got to improve our areas of weakness.  Having online courses which are free for teachers allows teachers to think about what areas they need to improve on, taking courses focused on those areas instead of sitting through PD sessions not tailored to their area of need.  Just like we urge teachers to differentiate for students, recognizing that not all students are the same, access to online PD taught by experts allows for differentiation for teachers.

Second, it could save districts lots of professional development money that they can spend more wisely.  There’s a decent amount of evidence to show that districts spend a substantial amount of money on professional development, anywhere from 2 to 7% of their total budget.  Unfortunately, most of that spending is going towards one-shot, generic workshops.  Consultants are expensive, certainly one reason that districts can only afford to have whole-school, generic sessions instead of content-specific sessions.  Nonetheless, by spending copious amounts of money on consultants and staff for workshops, districts often don’t build in professional development support as teachers aim to implement those new skills into the classroom.  The reason that’s problematic is that research studies consistently show that teachers struggle immensely with new skills during implementation of those skills in the classroom, and that without support at this stage, teachers are likely to get frustrated and simply abandon the new skill altogether.  Of course, this makes sense.  Learning how to write is easier than actually writing; learning how to ride a bike is easier than actually riding a bike. Implementation is challenging.  Therefore, schools need to develop support during the implementation stage.   When schools do this, through individual instructional coaches who observe and conference with teachers or through time for collaboration, teachers improve their teaching and students learn more.

However, having teachers meet with coaches or collaborate with colleagues takes time, and teacher time is exceptionally expensive.  School districts either have to buy this time in a teacher’s contract, pay substitutes to cover classes, or hire more staff to reduce teaching loads.  Despite that fact, research on professional development shows that opening up this time and having teachers supported during implementation of new skills is exceptionally important.  In an analysis of over 1,300 studies of professional development programs, researchers found that programs that were less than 14 hours had no impact on student achievement .   But if schools were able to cut down on some of their consultant costs by having teachers participate in free, open Coursera courses, schools might be able to buy more teacher time for deep learning experiences such as coaching or collaboration.

Of course, in all discussions about the role of online courses, it’s important to note that they can never stand alone as one’s only exposure to learning, something that’s been validated repeatedly .  However, there’s good reason to think these courses could be a nice addition to a school’s professional development tool kit.  –Allison Gulamhussein

Filed under: CPE,instruction,online learning,teachers — Tags: , — Allison @ 10:06 am




February 5, 2013

Hard to take new report on Khan academy and flipped classroom seriously

The report’s title caught my eye: One World School House vs. Old World Statehouse, The Khan Academy and California Red Tape. I’d interviewed Sal Khan, the founder of the insanely popular online warehouse of instructional YouTube videos, about a year ago

Khan was one of the general session speakers at NSBA’s 2012 Annual Conference and I found him to be an incredibly smart and down-to-earth individual, who from the start batted down any attempt to label him as an educator to the masses. No, no, no, he was just a regular guy who’d discovered this gift to explain complex concepts like differential equations or mitosis, first to his family and then, to his surprise, growing legions of fans. Khan saw a need and he just wanted to help.

I still think that’s who Khan is, but boy, you wouldn’t get that from this “report” published by the free-market think tank, Pacific Research Institute. To begin with, to call it qualitative would be kind; the study reads more like a love letter to Khan, heavily citing his 2012 book The One World School House— or even worse, the Washington Times book review written by none other than Andrew Coulson, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom.

I’m sensing a theme here, which frankly made it difficult to take this report seriously. But I tried. I read through each of the 36 pages and while I can’t disagree with some of the findings— awarding a student course credit should be based on content mastery and not seat time—- some of them are conditional and others downright ludicrous.

Yes, the “flipped classroom” model, which Khan sees his academy dovetailing with, is one of the hottest trends in education because it makes sense. Why wouldn’t you want all classroom time to be cerebral and interactive and outsource all that boring, lecture-hall, rote memorization stuff to kids at home, where they can learn at their own pace thanks to technology?

Because not every home has a computer or Internet access, which is why I suppose one of the charter school’s profiled in the report has groups of students taking virtual courses from online provider K-12 (that’s another story) on campus … which kind of negates the purpose of a flipped classroom, no?

Sort of the final straw in this report for me was the great leap it made by positing that the integration of programs like Khan Academy into school’s instructional model could save them tons of money because it wouldn’t have to hire and retain as many teachers. I found this fascinating not only because it sounds preposterous— it surely can’t be easier to deliver thought-provoking and participatory lessons to a class of 60 than it is to a class of 30—- but because Khan himself described his own volunteer stint at teaching as preposterous because he couldn’t manage the class.

Don’t get me wrong, I have much respect for Mr. Khan and his obvious passion for helping those who have struggled with learning one subject or another, much of which has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the poor way in which that material is handled and presented. I guess, you could say, that’s the same problem I have with this report.

Filed under: 21st century education,online learning,teachers — Tags: , , , , — NDillon @ 1:51 pm




January 25, 2013

The future is still the future?

Honestly, I’m not a Luddite. But sometimes I feel like I’m playing one here at CPE.

Last year we examined what was known — or more accurately what was not known — about online courses and cyberschools, and their overall impact on student learning. The report, Searching for the Reality of Virtual Schools, found that despite some very exciting things happening in online education, the overall impact of virtual courses and schools on elementary and secondary students is either undocumented or bleak.  We also found that the fault is mostly with inadequate monitoring systems for students working online, with the result that many of them appeared to be dropping in and out of the cyberworld unnoticed and often untaught.

Recent news from Pennsylvania isn’t making us any more hopeful. Earlier this week, an independent education news service in Philadelphia reported on allegations by former employees that a major virtual charter school provider, K12 Inc.

“aggressively recruited children who were ill-suited for the company’s model of online education. They say the schools then manipulated enrollment, attendance, and performance data to maximize tax-subsidized, per-pupil funding.”

K12 operates the Agora cyber charter which enrolls 8,000 of the state’s 32,000 full-time cyber students.  In addition to actively seeking students who are most likely to do poorly online, the former K12 employees further described the company’s practice of skirting attendance requirements while continuing to bill the state for students who are clearly not participating in the instruction.

The charges are part of a class action suit filed by investors in K12 which reported $522 million earnings in 2011. According to the article, most of K12’s revenue was generated by managing public virtual charter schools.  While the investors have their reasons to be unhappy, the real victims here, of course, are the students.

Then yesterday, the Pennsylvania Department of Education released recalculated AYP numbers for all charter schools in the state. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the recalculations were called for after it was revealed that AYP requirements for charter schools were more lenient than those for traditional public schools. The new numbers show that 43 charters met AYP, down from 77 under the former rules.

Of particular interest was that not one — zero — virtual charter schools made AYP.  As we reported last year, Stanford University researchers had earlier looked at Pennsylvania virtual charter schools over the period 2007 and 2010. They found that they consistently performed worse in terms of student gains than the traditional public school the students would have otherwise attended. Obviously, nothing has changed.

A now legendary 1955 documentary heralded the approach of a new technological age, proclaiming that “the future is now.”  I have seen how technology is transforming classrooms for the better, especially when blended with face-to-face instruction with a teacher. But for the idea there will be a brave new cyber world of schooling, the future still seems to be in the future.

Filed under: 21st century education,Charter Schools,CPE,online learning — Tags: , , , — Patte Barth @ 8:00 am




July 17, 2012

Anyone Can Take Courses From the Best Professors in the World…For Free

There are several exciting new ways that anyone can take courses from some of the best universities and professors in the United States.  Best of all, they are free!  An article in today’s New York Times reports that Tuesday, a dozen major research universities are joining Coursera, a one year old company founded by two Stanford University computer scientists.  They will offer over 100 free, open online courses that are expected to draw millions of users. 

Even before the announcement of this expansion, Coursera had registered 680,000 students in over 63 courses.  One University of Michigan professor reported that 40,000 students downloaded his video, saying, “By my calculations, I had about 200 years worth of students in my class.”  This is just the beginning in the new wave of open-source courses.  Stanford University has offered free courses on artificial intelligence and computer sciences that has attracted over 190,000 users.  Massachusetts institute of Technology (MIT) has its own online learning initiative called MITx, and they have teamed up with Harvard University to offer an initiative called EDx.  Another notable addition to these new, free open-courses is the Open Learning Initiative (OLI) by Carnegie Melon University who offer up their online courses to students or teachers who would like to use them.  They also do research  to test the effectiveness of their courses.

This is an indication of a promising future for public education.  Right now institutions are not concerned with making revenue, but in the future these courses could be linked together and used to gain a traditional degree.  The value of these initiatives is that they offer high quality college courses to high school students, college-bound students, mid-career students, and foreign students at no charge.  I think it is one of the most exciting things in education today. – Kasey Klepfer

Filed under: 21st century education,college,Course taking,online learning,Public education,technology — KKlepfer @ 10:22 am




May 22, 2012

Why virtual schools receive less funding

Our recent report on virtual schools has created a lot of buzz. By and large, the report has been well-received from the likes of respected media outlets such as EdWeek. Yet some advocates of virtual schools are not as keen on our findings. While they found little to dispute in terms of our findings on achievement, or (often) lack of achievement , there has been the consistent line from advocates that most virtual schools receive less money per student than traditional brick and mortar schools — as if that were unfair.

But I ask, isn’t that to be expected? Virtual schools typically don’t have the same costs as traditional brick and mortar schools. For example, virtual schools don’t have to pay for a building and all the utilities that go along with running it.

And it’s not just about the capital costs. Virtual schools typically don’t provide the same services as brick and mortar schools. This is why Pennsylvania provides less funding to virtual schools. As a matter of fact, virtual schools in PA receive the same funding as brick and mortar schools minus the funding for services virtual schools don’t provide, such as:

  • Adult education programs
  • Transportation
  • Junior/community college programs

Not only that, but brick and mortar schools provide a number of extracurricular activities that virtual schools typically do not such as athletics, theater, band, and community service clubs, all of which add significant costs to brick and mortar schools’ budgets.

So when advocates of virtual schools point out that they receive less funding than brick and mortar schools, you now know this is not because of unfair funding practices but because they are not providing the same services as brick and mortar schools.

This is why there needs to be better accounting for how much it actually costs virtual schools to educate students. Virtual schools deserve the funds needed to adequately educate their students just as brick and mortar schools do. Not knowing what that amount is hampers everyone’s efforts. How much does not having a building, extracurricular activities, or other functions affect the bottom line? Are we over- or under-paying these schools? Let’s find out. —Jim Hull

Filed under: funding,online learning,technology — Jim Hull @ 3:34 pm




Older Posts »
RSS Feed