DailyDirt: Ready Or Not... Back To School

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Schools in the US vary quite a bit by location. A school in one neighborhood could be vastly better than another school just on the other side of town. There are obvious factors that play into this situation, and unsurprisingly, some political campaigns can cloud the progress towards solutions that might improve lagging schools. Clearly, not all schools can be created equal, but there could be some ways to close the "achievement gap" without simply knocking down the higher-performing schools.

• Education research shows that there are specific things that have been tried in the past and that have failed to really improve education: smaller classes, higher standards, more money... do not provide guaranteed results. Some alternative strategies may be better. Instead of creating standards that penalize poor schools and reward good schools, the performance of each student could be tracked to monitor actual individual progress, avoiding the use of an average score over many students. Instead of more tests, better tests could give teachers actionable feedback on how/where to improve. Instead of choosing which school to go to, parents and students might be better off being able to choose which teachers are best. Throwing more money at education without targeting it at effective programs just wastes valuable resources. [url]
• This American Life has a fascinating series on how de-segregation has affected some school districts. According to some observers, de-segregation is a solution that works, but that it's so politically unpopular, it's hardly ever given a chance. [url]
• Digital education tools are coming. There's a lot of venture capital going towards "big data" approaches to developing better teaching tools. Online classes are still working out the bugs, but presumably, digital degrees (or nano-degrees?) may provide some advantages over traditional classrooms in the future. [url]
• Segregation (or re-segregation as the case may be) is not so good for elementary schools. A study of five elementary schools in Florida that re-segregated performed horribly as the schools failed to get money and resources. Statistically, these schools were about average for a variety of socio-economic metrics, but after the school boards voted to effectively begin re-segregation plans, student and teacher performance plummeted. [url]

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Filed Under: achievement gap, big data, certification, classes, education, moocs, nano-degrees, school, segregation, teachers, this american life

DailyDirt: Making The Grade...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Technology can be very useful for helping teachers reach out to more students and for spreading information efficiently among schools. Some grading can be automated, but obviously not all grading can be done with heuristics and strict rules. Here are just a few examples of grading challenges that teachers are already facing that might need some technological improvement.

• Grading on a curve can backfire if all of your students scheme to get the same grade: a zero. Grading policies have adapted to account for this boundary condition, so students beware.... [url]
• Some startups are collecting as much grading data as they can, in hopes of obtaining some of the millions of venture capital directed at the education sector. Now when teachers threaten that students' actions will go on a permanent record, they actually have a database that will back them up. [url]
• Massive open online courses (MOOCs) need to watch out for massive cheating schemes. Test proctoring software is getting more sophisticated, but presumably some students are always trying new ways to cheat. [url]

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

Filed Under: cheating, classes, education, grading, moocs, online courses, proctoring, software, tests

DailyDirt: Can Education Ever Be One-Size-Fits-All?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The national debate over education in the US seems to be gaining more steam. Part of the issue is that funding for education is at a crossroads, and decisions about how to best allocate funds need to be made soon. There don't seem to be any clear solutions so far, but there are plenty of opinions. Here are just a few.

• No Child Left Behind is about to be ousted, as many states are facing far less than 100% proficiency in math and reading skills by 2014. I can haz education, 2? [url]
• "The best thing you can do is get children in front of an extraordinary teacher." There might be a ceteris paribus missing from that statement. [url]
• Smaller class sizes don't seem to necessarily mean kids will learn more... But that doesn't mean class size doesn't matter at all. [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: classes, education, no child left behind, schools, students, teachers

I've Decided To Major In YouTube Watching

from the and-minor-in-digg dept

Lots of colleges have random "light weight" classes that people always seem to joke about. When I was in school I remember the jokes about "Physics for Poets" and "Rocks for Jocks" (though, I think that second one had a more formal name). However, with a new generation of internet services, there can now be a new generation of odd classes that people will make fun of, such as the new class being offered by Pitzer College which is all about YouTube. The class seems to involve watching YouTube videos, commenting on them, discussing them and creating your own YouTube videos. To be honest about it, this is really sounds like a typical class in popular culture -- which are found at universities around the world -- but with a slight YouTube twist, which helps it generate news and become part of the pop culture itself. Now, if someone would just offer a class in using Digg... that would get some attention.

Filed Under: classes, education
Companies: google, youtube