Changing the Variables in Learning

We all remember walking into the class and being handed the syllabus. The preprogrammed guide for each course of this is what was being taught when. Often it was two or three pages, identifying the topic of the week or session, the reading, important points of what was being covered, and what assignments or projects being completed. Some were printed on freshly minted paper, some were not. I remember taking a quantitative statistics class during graduate school back in 1997. The syllabus was distributed and the ink was in this odd purple color. The paper was a blanched white held together by a rusted paper clip. In this class apparently once upon a year the professor had mimeographed his syllabus, put them together, and his course had quite frankly not changed since. His advocacy, introductory statistics hadn't changed, why waste the time and resources to change the syllabus.

The professor wasn't wrong, the course hadn't changed. The challenge was that the learners had changed and the expectations of the learners needed to change. For most of us growing up, the variables in learning where when did the teacher teach the concept, when was the test, and how much of the knowledge did I have at the end of the test. Close the book, pack it away, unseal it for the final, and call it a day. Think about it. How many of us can conjugate the verb "ser" in Spanish now? Most of us "learned it" but did we retain it. How about doing stoichiometric calculations? We spent a month in Chemistry working on it, but do you remember stoichiometry now. The list goes on and on of things that we were taught but never learned.

The paradigm and expectations in education are changing. While I may not agree with the methods for changing them from a National perspective, the values that they are going for make sense. The variable of what is taught no longer matters but rather what is learned. Curriculum is no longer about coverage and exposure but engagement and retention of concepts. The second variable in learning is growth. Simply put, you can't just move the low students up to grade level and warehouse the high students. Each student needs to progress and show gains. Each child needs to move forward. With these two simple changes, assessed by "multiple measures" reported on the school report cards, teacher evaluations, and administrator evaluations, the paradigm shifts dramatically.

See going into that statistics class, I knew my "Measures of Central Tendency," and you probably did too: "Mean, Median, and Mode." Quite frankly, we teach that to some students as early as third and fourth grade. I knew "Standard Deviation," I was a former chemistry major. I could do a "T-Test." In the new world of growth expectations, it wouldn't be ok for me simply to partner up with other kids to teach them what the professor was covering or to sit half-asleep in the back. We would have expected pre-assessment, grouping of students based on the data, and learning experiences to move on. For my group, we may have focused on "Chi squares and ANOVAs" while others were working on fundamentals of samples and populations.

The funny thing is, the students haven't changed, we have always come to school with different strengths and growth areas. We have different background knowledges and different capacities to move forward. What has changed are the variables. No longer is the constant when the teacher is teaching it and how long the teacher teaches it and the variable measured how much the student learned but rather in reverse with the variables being measured when is this student or students' ready for it, how much do they need and the constant being the student demonstrates consistent understanding of it.

Focusing on learning instead of teaching, growth instead of amount learned during a given time will truly make our system better. As I said I may not agree with the mechanisms of change: school report cards, teacher evaluations, and administrator evaluations. However the concepts of not warehousing our high students and ensuring learning matter. A simple example comes to mind. Adding and subtracting fractions, a "fourth grade skill." If a student can do this 70, 80, 90% of the time is that enough consistency. Well, not in my Chemistry class, as they are mixing acids and bases. Not in the art class as they are mixing paints. Not in the kitchen putting together dinner. Not in musical composition when they are making measures. Imagine 2 errors every 10 measures. No, the reality is we need the student to learn it, demonstrate it, and retain it. Otherwise the impact across other subjects and life experiences is dramatic. The variables are changing and we need to change with them. It no longer matters what I have taught and when did I teach it but rather how well our students have learned it.

Voo Doo Economics