From Roger Shanks The Pulse blog.
Roger Schank : An Invitation to Participate in a Groundbreaking New Online Learning Experience:
In our attempt to build an alternative to the 1892 curriculum and the idea that education means learning to pass tests about what you have temporarily memorized, we have completed construction of our first full year of what is to eventually become the Virtual International Science and Technology Academy. We are looking to start a small group of students in our first year of this curriculum, Health Sciences.[1] The curriculum takes an entire year and takes up all day every day of that year. Candidates would be those who are too smart for the school system and need something to keep them interested, those who are so tired of school that they were going to drop out anyway, or anyone who has a passion for learning about health sciences.
The curriculum was designed to fit in place of 10th grade, but it would work as a replacement for 12th grade as well as serve as an alternative to 8th grade. The curriculum is delivered entirely on line. It consists of nine projects with regular deliverables.[2] Students work in groups with an on line mentor to solve complex real world problems that come up in the health sciences. No previous knowledge of anything is assumed. Students will be grouped together with students of similar abilities. If some groups go slower than others that is fine.
I find this very interesting, and I urge you to read Roger Shank’s entire post. Are we seeing the rise of a new and dramatically expanded system of education, where educators develop their own curriculum, hang their shingles, advertise their service, enroll students, provide learning opportunities (virtually and in real life), and make a living at it.
- Is this a good thing?
- Shall we let go and allow vouchers?
- If government did pay for this, what would accountability look like?
- How will public education compete?
What do you think?
Image Citation:
“MacMillan Library Interior 3.” UBC Library Graphics’ Photostream. 7 Mar 2007. 7 Jul 2007 <http://flickr.com/photos/ubclibrary/413925751/>.
Hmmm…teachers as hired guns. That would certainly separate the good from the bad. But I suppose that may also circle back to the kind of parent appeasement that we have today. Your kid likes me, who cares what he/she is learning.
With any model the question still remains how do we get our culture to value education? I am not grubbing for money, but you have to show today’s students that 18 years of school gets you somewhere. Right now the choice is, run into a fence, record it and get a tv development deal worth millions, or bust your butt for 18 years, owe 100,000 and drive a 86 bronco. Tough choice
That’s good for today, I feel cleansed.
Okay you have got my attention and while my cautious nature woould let others respond first this is a subject I am passionate about.
I am a private sector administrator and that predisposes me to like vouchers, especially given the equity issue and the fact that our population is 63% free or reduced price lunch.
The issue that I want to address is accountability. Let me start by saying that quality and accountability in some form are important. What often ( at least in my area) is argued however is that if we have vouchers parents will get hoodwinked by all the start up schools and the children will suffer. In my opinion this is just another version of “we” know what is good for your children and you do not.
Accountability comes from two sectors- The accreditation process which is a matter of public record and parental evaluation. ( Please do not misunderstand..I do not mean parents run the school- but that in all schools a good administrator listens to parent voices about their childrens education and also provides parents with inservices and information to help tham make informed decisions)
I think this new school sounds like a great opportunity to try something new and because in the private sector we do not have the same restraints as in the public sector I think you can expect to see more innovation from us.
Sounds like a return to the old English university system where students would get four years to study in the university and report back at the end of their stay what they have learned or discovered.
There isn’t enough information to evaluate the program. Everyone can spin stuff…Here are a few of my first thoughts about it:
1) What does it mean “there will be a lot of science” in the science curriculum? I’d like to know specifically what the objectives and outcomes are.
2)Where are the labs? Is this a “science writing” course or a science course? Lab work isn’t optional for a good science curriculum.
3) All day every day of the school year? What about other subject areas? What about geometry and algebra? History? Art? Music? PhysEd? Tech? etc. Assuming a basically sound curriculum..he’s stacking the deck… a limited curriculum,aimed at a homogeneous population program. All science all the time to homogeneous groups… of course it would be successful in a limited way.
4) I question the tone of his advertisement. “Candidates would be those who are too smart for the school system and need something to keep them interested, those who are so tired of school that they were going to drop out anyway, or anyone who has a passion for learning about health sciences” Hmmmm…
I wouldn’t really call it an advertisement. There is probably more material elsewhere. But these are good questions anyway, Audrey, and certainly part of this conversation…
Hope this thought isn’t too radical, and I will say that I agree with Audrey that more information is needed to really determine where this program is going, BUT….
If there is a subject that could roll the practice of all subjects into one, it would be Science. I’ve always felt that Science and Social Studies are undervalued in today’s test-taking world, because these two subjects can roll English, Math, Art, Music, PE, and Tech into them fairly easily if the curriculum is done right. Math and English alone can’t really claim this, yet they seem to get all the attention.
On a side note, I have to comment on the the two words that I have to type in below to post this message (you know, those words that keep people from spamming blogs?). Well, my two words are “welfare” and “great”. Is this significant? 🙂
Something brand new is happening and has been for some time. I teach in a 7 -12 public charter school in Wisconsin. Wea are a small school of 45 students. We are a project based school using standards based assessement. That doesn’t even begin to describe what we’re all about.
If you were to walk into our school, you would find yourself in something that looks more like a business offiice than a traditional school. Each student has their own work station similar to a cubicle, their own computer and filing cabinet. Students decide what they want to learn, how they will learn it and how they will communicate what they have learned. Using state standards as a guidepost, students develop projects of interest to them. Assessment is based on the extent to which completed projects meet state standards at the advanced or proficient level.
We have no bell schedule. We have no scheduled courses. We have no assignments and we have no tests. Students organize their day in a way that works best for them. They are responsible for planning their learning goals, setting deallines and benchmarks, and evaluating progress. We teachers have many roles. We help in project design and the develpment of thoughtful, meaningful questions, We help in locating resources. We help students discover who they are as learners and what they believe in. We help them assess their work honestly and regularly. Sometimes we’re mentors. Sometimes we’re counselors. Sometimes we’re parents.
When we opened five years ago there was a great deal of concern about how this new, innovative kind of school would work and if students, given to their own devices, would be capable enough and responsible enough to take charge of their educational goals.
There’s no question about that now. It’s amazing what happens when you remove the contraints that traditional education imposes on students. When students choose what they want to learn about they’re willing to tackle much more complex material and be more tenacious as learners. Blogs, wikis, websites, and podcasts are important part of student learning, and we have seen how these tools can hlep students develop the communication skills they will need to be contributing members of the communitiy. In addtion, they are encouraged to collaborate with other students both in school and around the world. They are encouraged to seek out resources beyond school – experts in the field of investigation. And the results are wonderful and meaningful and relevant.
Because we are a public school, our students are required to take the same district and state assessments as every other student in our district. Our students score as well as or better than their counterparts. That’s been an eye opener for many teachers and adminstrators within the district. Parents regularly tell us that their children are happier, more respectful and more responsible at home. That was a pleasant unintended consequence.
All our success would not have been possible without support from our principal, our superintendent, our school board and our parents. Our success would not have been possible without realiziing the important connection between the social development of chilren and the academic achievement of children. Our success would not have been possible without a firm committment to the belief that all children can succeed and produce quality work.
I’ve gone on much too long, but this is a topic I am passionate about. So, Dave, something brand new is happening. And it’s happening in the most unexpected places and in unexpected ways.
Curt, your school sounds very interesting. I would love to hear more about how your system works and be able to think about whether it is adaptable to larger structures (say 3000 students in a racially, culturally and economically diverse middle school) If you read this, please send along a link to your school’s website.
I am a strong advocate for project based learning when the projects are demanding, engrossing, intrinsically motivating and skill driven. Students learn more doing than in any “traditional” structure. And they learn more when they can care about what they are making. The factory model doesn’t work because it’s hard to care about a product you can’t see yourself making (whether it’s a car or yourself)
I think apprenticeship and internship have a lot in common with project based learning, both traditional structures that are only available to the few in a system that educates by volume a population that is not universally expected to have craft or accomplishment.)
I also believe in metacognition (using all the buzz words I can in one post 🙂 The more students articulate the skills needed to be mastered and identify where they’ve mastered them, the more established those skills will be for later evaluation (including state tests). I did some action research around a project based learning unit on magazine production that I did in my 7th grade classroom. I evaluated my students prior to the project’s outset, had them self evaluate and then tested them on criteria directly related to concrete writing skills: assertion and support, grammar, syntax, integrating quotations, paragraph development, leads and conclusions, essay structures, voice, and research skills. But they also learned about a lot of other things, media literacy and consumer choice, team work, meeting deadlines, graphic design, computer literacy, leadership.
If I could, I’d run my entire course this way every year. (a powerpoint I use to talk about this particular project is here: http://www.stonepooch.com/MagazineProject/MagazineProject/MagazineProject.swf )