Eight Months In Jail For Teaching People How To Pass A Lie Detector Test

from the for-tests-that-don't-even-work-well dept

Just a few weeks ago, we wrote about how the feds had been directly going after people who claimed to teach others how to pass lie detector tests, claiming that this was part of their war on stopping leakers and security vulnerabilities. What was chilling was that a US official specifically said that they needed to focus their investigative efforts on the people who protested the loudest, which seems like a clear attack on free speech. As we noted at the time, the feds had already filed criminal charges against two people for offering to teach others how to beat lie detector tests, and now one of them has been sentenced to eight months in jail -- for teaching people how to beat a test that many argue has never ever been accurate in the first place.

As we noted last time, TV shows like Mythbusters and Penn & Teller: Bullshit! have both more or less taught people the same thing. While the government sought an even longer sentence, this is still worrisome on a variety of levels. Merely instructing people how to beat an extremely faulty technology should never be a crime. The judge and the DOJ's statements on the case are just bizarre:

O’Grady acknowledged “the gray areas” between the constitutional right to discuss the techniques and the crime of teaching someone to lie while undergoing a government polygraph. “There’s nothing unlawful about maybe 95 percent of the business he conducted,” the judge said.

However, O’Grady added that “a sentence of incarceration is absolutely necessary to deter others.”

Deter others from what? From speaking out about how to trick incredibly unreliable technology that the government probably relies on too much already?

“This crime matters because what he did endangers others,” said Anthony Phillips, a prosecutor with the Justice Department’s division that pursues corrupt public officials.

No it didn't. It doesn't endanger others to show them that a lie detector is faulty and not reliable. What endangers people is the federal government relying on such a dreadful technology that's so easy to "beat."

In many ways, this is similar to discovering a massive security flaw and then blaming the messenger for showing others how that security is flawed. The proper response is to not use the flawed security. But that's not how the government operates, unfortunately.

Filed Under: criminal, lie detector, teaching

DailyDirt: Doing Math In Your Head

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Math might not be the easiest subject for some students, but there might be different ways of teaching it that could make it more tolerable for kids. The more we learn about how our brains process math problems, the better we can teach ourselves how to tackle math education. There's a lot of concern over how Americans can compete in a global economy if our kids don't have some pretty basic math skills. Maybe some of these findings will help students pick up some much needed math skills.

• Learning how to use an abacus could actually be useful. Japanese students have demonstrated that using a mental image of an abacus (no actual abacus needed) can help them perform some incredibly fast mental calculations. [url]
• American kids don't do well on international math tests, but the bright side is that we're slowly learning what might be the best remedies. Understanding *why* kids don't do well on math tests is an important part of coming up with a solution, but looking at the bad test results is pretty scary.... [url]
• Doing a few algebraic word problems before bedtime might help alleviate some math fears in children. Or they could inspire math-related nightmares that haunt kids like Freddie Krueger. You decide. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: abacus, bedtime math, education, math, teaching, tests

The Secret To Better Education... Is Dumb Robots?

from the surprise... dept

A year ago, in writing about innovation in education, I mentioned an observation I had about learning, combined with a prediction about how technology could help revolutionize education in a good way:

One of the other lessons I learned in teaching (and in tutoring before that) was that the best way to truly master a subject is to teach it yourself, and have people asking you to explain it back to them. This is why I'm not joking up above when I talk about the possibilities of having certain subjects taught by other students as well. You might think you fully understand a subject, but just wait until people start asking questions (similarly, despite quite a bit of study in the subject, my full "understanding" of certain aspects of information economics didn't become really clear until I had to explain them repeatedly via this blog). And, of course, it need not be students teaching students -- but you could have software designed to act like a "learning" student, where the student has to "teach" the software.

It appears that others have had the same idea... and been doing some studies about it. Via TechCrunch, we learn of some new research, by Shizuko Matsuzoe and Fumihide Tanaka at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, that found that when students "taught" a "dumb" robot, they learned a subject much better (in this case, it was Japanese students learning English):

Matsuzoe and Tanaka found that the children did best when the robot appeared to learn from them. This also made the children more likely to want to continue learning with the robot.

They note that most traditional "educational" robots tend to work in the other direction... acting as "teachers" for the kids. But those appear to not be nearly as effective as when you flip the relationship. As I found back when I taught, having people continually ask you questions to clarify their own understanding forces you to truly understand the subject yourself at a much deeper level than if you're just a "student."

You can take a look at the full study over here (which, it's great to see, is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License). And there are some really interesting findings. First, the difference in performance with and without the robot is pretty significant: But perhaps even more interesting is that "3 to 5 weeks later" result. This actually went against the researchers' hypothesis going into the research (I'm always a fan of research that rejects researchers' initial hypothesis!). They expected that after a few weeks had passed, students would gradually forget some of what they learned. But what they found was really encouraging. It seems that the experience itself made them even more interested in continuing the learning process, and those who learned with the robot really seemed to figure out how to "teach themselves" much better:

Contrary to our initial assumption, the average percentage of questions answered correctly was in fact higher than the results obtained on the day of the experiment (we predicted that it would have been lower because the children might have forgotten the learned verbs). Subsequent interviews with parents (details in Section 6.3.3) provided us with some clues for this result. Most parents told us that their children appeared to enjoy the experience of teaching the care-receiving robot so much that he or she continued to play the game at home, even after several days, weeks, and wherever similar objects were found.

While this is still early research, it's definitely encouraging, and hopefully more people will start to explore similar ideas. Teaching kids by having them teach others could be a really effective way to create a much deeper level of understanding within students, rather than just teaching them to learn by rote.

Filed Under: education, learning, robots, teaching

DailyDirt: Teachers, Pay Attention

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Great teachers aren't exactly a plentiful resource, but the market for teachers hasn't quite minted many millionaires from the scarcity. But maybe that will change soon. There are a bunch of projects that are aiming to create innovative educational tools, and some of these efforts could be hugely profitable in the future. Perhaps those who can, will teach.

• Peter Diamandis is planning to create an education X Prize. This prize is still in the planning stages, so this project hasn't settled on what kind of effort to promote -- an educational video game or some kind of crowdsourced classes... but whatever it is, it can't be solely a technological solution. [url]
• Game developers are creating some entertaining apps that also try to educate or improve the lives of gamers. Edutainment could be the way to get more students engaged in learning... as long as the games are actually fun. [url]
• The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation sponsored a competition to create an automated scoring algorithm for grading student-written essays. This grading software is only the first phase of a larger plan, and there will be follow-up challenges for grading shorter answers and math/logic problems. [url]
• To discover more interesting education-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: education, edutainment, essays, games, peter diamandis, teaching, x prize
Companies: hewlett foundation, kaggle

Parent Claims 'Ender's Game' Is Pornographic; Teacher Who Read It To Students Put On Temporary Leave

from the all-those-buggers dept

Like many kids, I read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game around the time I was in middle school (where I was from, it was junior high school) -- which is about when it came out. I don't remember exactly when I got the book, but I do remember that the reason I read it was because my father had heard about it and after reading it himself thought I'd like it. He was right. As the next two books in the series came out, I read those too. About five years ago I reread the whole series (including the additional "Shadow" books that came out later) and it's still an enjoyable set of books, even if the first book is by far the best of the bunch. So it's a bit crazy to hear that a middle school teacher in South Carolina was put on paid administrative leave for reading part of the book in class, after a parent argued that the book is "pornographic." I have to admit, I can't remember anything about the book being even remotely "pornographic," though, as Julian Sanchez joked, the book is full of "buggers."

As Reason points out, the police were even called in to investigate, though (thankfully) they quickly determined that no criminal charges should be filed. But, seriously, what is wrong with people that they'd claim that such a popular book, and one that so many young teenagers read, is pornographic, and that a teacher should be investigated for reading it? Since when did we become so fearful of words and stories? Ender's Game is widely considered a good book for teens to read, and with very good reason.

Filed Under: children, ender's game, kids, orson scott card, pornography, teaching

Teaching Style, Not Computers, Appears To Be Biggest Factor In Classroom Distraction

from the let's-go-to-the-data dept

For many years, we've covered various stories of professors struggling with the idea of students having their laptops open in the classroom. Our argument has always been that the computers themselves are neutral, and it's up to the professors to adapt and make sure their teaching strategies either do a good job incorporating the computers, or come up with ways to keep students' attention. Some have argued that this is an impossible task. A few years back, we even wrote about professors looking to ban computers in classrooms -- which won't do much to actually make boring professors any more interesting. Meanwhile, other professors found that, with a little education, students could learn to pay more attention.

Eric Goldman points us to an interesting discussion of a new empirical study that looked at how law students used computers in the classroom, and the data suggests that there clearly are teaching strategies that can overcome any issues. It also found that, even with laptops, not every student was off surfing celebrity gossip sites while they were supposed to be learning about the law. The study itself is by Kim Novak Morse.

The results from the study reveal that indeed students are off task in class; however, it is not as extensive as we thought, nor is it the population of students we thought it was (of course, this depends on whether you are an optimist or pessimist). Second-year students were off task the most time, at 42% of the entire semester. First-years were off task approximately 35% of the time for the semester while third-years spent approximately 28% of their class time off task. Regarding how many individual students were ON-task at a given instant, roughly 82% of third-years, 69% of first years, and 50% of second-years were NOT misusing their laptops (chart 1).

Another tidbit? Students who had higher LSAT scores tended to be more off-task. I would imagine there are a few possible interpretations of that factoid, including the idea that those who did well on the LSAT are able to grasp some of these topics more quickly (or picked them up elsewhere) and quickly move on to "other tasks," when a professor hits topics they're already familiar with or know they can teach themselves.

There is a rather stunning result on the question of how being off task impacts grades:

While the numbers indicate that students are off-task, my second research question sought to answer whether more off-task behavior might correlate to lower final course grade. Through statistical analysis, the results indicate that there is no correlation between high off-task behavior and lower final course grade (chart 4). Nor is there a correlation between low off-task behavior and higher final course grade. Such results support the idea that students learn outside of class as well as in class and, though they may miss ideas in class due to off-task behavior, they often learn or supplement it through readings, study groups, clinics, etc.

Shorter version: sorry, professor, the relevance of your actual lecture to a student's ability to learn the material might not be that big.

That said, the study also found that certain actions "promoted off-task behavior":

1. Student laptop users tend to go off-task when X-(anything) occurs for 4 minutes or more...
2. When professor is engaged in Socratic method with one student, there is a an increase in off-task behavior by other students
3. When a classmate engages with professor, there is an increase in off-task behavior by other students.
4. When professor is monotone, or, overly uses one linguistic intonation style, students tend to increase off-task behavior
5. Approximately 40 minutes into class, off-task behavior increases.
6. When professor calls on students in expected order, off-task behavior increases.

That shows what to avoid. What about strategies to get people to pay attention? The report has some answers there as well:

1)    “Announcing-the-Good-Stuff” Strategy: Students redirect attention away from off-task behavior when professor provides big-point-summaries, rule formations, definitions, and conclusions. 

“Ultimately, courts look at X...”;  “The upshot is...”

 2)    Using the “Rupture Strategy”: Students decrease off-task behavior when directed to an item in a book, chalkboard, digital presentation, in-class task, etc.

“Look at page X...”;   “On the chalkboard you see...”; 

“On the screen, notice X...”, “Write a brief X...”

3)    “Changing-up-the-Voice” Strategy: Students redirect attention away from off-task behavior when the professor prefaces content with signal phrases like:

“This would be a good exam question...”

“ I want to flag for you...” , “The critical idea here is...”

Or, by using linguistic mannerisms like intonation, especially rising intonation found in questions:

“And, how would you know   X     ?”;  “Because........?”

4)    “Problem-Posing” Strategy: Students redirect attention when the professor asks a problem-solving question to the class (less so than targeting one student).

“How might we determine X...?”

“If we alter X, what might Y?”

5)“Keep-the-Show-Moving” Strategy:

Students redirect attention away from off-task behavior when the professor manages “the duration of any X” so it doesn’t exceed 4-5 minutes. For example, the professor   1) may present info (5 min or less) switch 2) ask a question to the class (5 min or less)  switch 3) direct students to book (5 min or less) switch 4) ask an individual a question and have student respond (5 min or less). switch, etc.  6)“Moving-into-student’s-space” Strategy: Students redirect attention when professor moves toward off-task individuals (but surprisingly only for a short time).

I'm sure it's easy for professors to want to ban computers because they think it's a bad thing that students aren't paying attention to them. However, this study suggests something different: that the students already know they can get a better grasp on the material elsewhere, or they're just not that interested in what's happening in the classroom. The first point means that professors probably shouldn't worry so much about this issue. The second, however is something where many professors might want to focus on improving...

Filed Under: attention, computers, students, teaching

Teachers In Missouri Sue For The Right To 'Friend' Their Students On Facebook

from the good-for-them dept

We recently wrote about a very questionable new state law in Missouri that made it illegal for teachers to friend "current or former students" on various social networks. This broad prohibition was targeted at the misuse of social networking by some teachers to have extremely inappropriate relationships with students. It's understandable why such situations get people upset, but overreacting by making it illegal for teachers to friend students is just ridiculous. Thankfully, a group of teachers have filed a lawsuit saying that the law violates their First Amendment rights, as well as some other rights. The teachers are saying that online communication has become an invaluable tool for helping students -- especially shy ones, and that this law will turn teachers into law-breakers to continue using useful communication services. Hopefully the law gets struck down, though the main sponsor of the bill continues to defend it.

Filed Under: education, friends, missouri, social networks, teaching

The Changing Way That Math Is Taught To Children

from the carry-the-1 dept

NPR has a fascinating story about how the methods for teaching basic mathematics have been changing in schools. For example, they show the following comparison for teaching multiplication:

The Way We Used To Multiply

The old way to multiply required a student to add the products of 36 x 4 and 36 x 2. The trick is to add that 0 at the end of the second product. How Kids Learn To Multiply Now

These days, students add four products to get the answer.

This fascinates me because I was definitely taught that first method as a kid, but what really gets me is that I ended up teaching myself the second method, because it seemed like a fun trick that made it easier to multiply larger numbers in my head (shocking news: I was a bit of a nerd). But once I had taught myself the latter method, I could never figure out why that wasn't more common. Apparently, I was just ahead of my time.

The other interesting thing that hit me was the article's explanation for why things have shifted:

"That's largely to reflect the different needs of society," he says. "No one ever in their real life anymore needs to -- and in most cases never does -- do the calculations themselves."

Computers do arithmetic for us, Devlin says, but making computers do the things we want them to do requires algebraic thinking. For instance, take a computer spreadsheet. The computer does all the calculations for you automatically. But you have to write the macros that tell it what calculations to do -- and that is algebraic thinking.

"You cannot become good at algebra without a mastery of arithmetic," Devlin says, "but arithmetic itself is no longer the ultimate goal." Thus the emphasis in teaching mathematics today is on getting people to be sophisticated, algebraic thinkers.

So for all the times kids claim that they shouldn't need to learn mathematics because they'll never need aspects of it in real life, it's nice to see that the education system is actually adapting to make the process of how you think about math much more practical in today's world.

Filed Under: education, math, teaching

What If We Gave Toddlers An 'F' In Walking?

from the rethinking-education dept

theodp writes "To improve math and science education, Physics prof Dr. Yung Tae Kim thinks professors and teachers should take a page from skateboarding. 'The persistence and the dedication needed in skateboarding — that's what we need to be teaching,' explains Kim. 'No one says to a toddler, 'You have ten weeks to walk, and if you can't, you get an F and you're not allowed to try to walk anymore.' It's absurd, right? But the same thing is true with math and science education. If you want to learn trig or calculus, it's set at such a pace in schools that it guarantees that only the absolutely best students will learn it.' Kim says it's possible to 'polish the turd' of high school and college education, and lays out his plan for doing so in Building A New Culture Of Teaching And Learning (YouTube: parts 1-2-3), a video drawn from a farewell talk he gave to his Northwestern students. There's more on The Way of Dr. Tae at DrTae.org and PhysicsOfSkateboarding.com."

Filed Under: education, learning, teaching