The Evolution of Blended and Competency-Based Schooling: What Lies Beyond the Horizon?

transcript

The Evolution of Blended & Competency-Based

Schooling

What Lies Beyond the Horizon?

Tim Hudson, PhDVice President of Learning

DreamBox Learning@DocHudsonMath

Poll: What is your biggest challenge with blended schooling?

- Personalizing learning for every student- Measuring impact- Fidelity of implementations- Getting educators comfortable with blended

learning- Accessing and using actionable data

Poll: What is your level of interest in digital curriculum?

- Just looking at new technologies- Researching possible software solutions for my

school- Interested in grants and funding options for my

school- Interested in pricing- Interested in viewing a demo

studio3architecture.wordpress.com

Today’s GoalsExplore our hidden assumptions and imagine the full implications of blended learning that ensure high achievement and enjoyment for all students.

Surface and reflect upon our own mental models of education, schooling, and learning that inform how we design classrooms, schools, and use educational technology.

“Next Generation” Education?“…one would think that by 2025, age-graded schools and the familiar teaching and learning that occurs today in K-12 and universities would have exited the rear door. Not so. Blended instruction, personalized learning, and flipped classrooms will reinforce the age-graded school, the 19th century organizational innovation that is rock-solid in 2015. That is what I predict for 2025.”

Larry Cuban, 12/2015Stanford University Professor Emeritus of Education

From “Predictions, Dumb and Otherwise, about Technology in Schools in 2025”www.larrycuban.wordpress.com

What is Blended Schooling?

What is Competency-

Based Schooling?

What is Competency-

Based Schooling?

Personalized

Schooling

Personalized

Learning

Industrial

Schooling

Industrial

Learning

Personalized (Relational)

Impersonal (Industrial)

LearningPedagogy

withStudents

SchoolingStructures

fromAdults

School Policies & Structures are Designed for

Students as Unique Individuals.

Strategic & Varied Schedule, Location,

Path, Pace

Empowering Learning

Experiences, Critical Thinking, Creativity,

Exploration.Students “Think &

Do” using Their Own Intuitive Ideas

Efficiency, Economy & Scale.

Fixed Schedule, Location, Path, PaceAge-Based Pacing

Calendars

Traditional Lesson Paradigm of Mass

InstructionTeach, Practice,

TestStudents “Sit &

Get” the Teacher’s Ideas

LearningPedagogy

withStudents

SchoolingStructures

fromAdults

Planning Backwards School

Curriculum

Path, Pace

Empowering Learning

Calendars

LearningPedagogy

withStudents

SchoolingStructures

fromAdults

Plan Curriculum Backwards1. Identify desired

results (for units and lessons)

2. Determine acceptable evidence

3. Plan learning experiences and instruction

Where are decisions about

Blended Learning orCompetency-Based

Models made?

Age-GradingSeat-TimeSchedulesCredits

Mission should drive scheduling. Structures

should not drive Mission.

Plan Schooling Backwards

• “Not schooling by habit or impulse.”

• “Without a commitment to mission, we don’t really have a school; we just have a home for freelance tutors of subjects.”

Mission or Habit?“Our mission is to ensure success

for all our students. We will do whatever it takes to ensure

their success – provided we don’t have to

change the schedule, modify any of our existing practices, or adopt

any new practices.”

What is Competency-

Based Schooling?

Path, Pace

Empowering Learning

Calendars

LearningPedagogy

withStudents

SchoolingStructures

fromAdults

Blended

Is there

an app for

Is there

an app for

Is there

an app for

Is there

an app for

Why don’t we see the term

‘blended’ associated with

other professions?

BLENDEDHOSPITALS

BLENDEDMEDICINE

BLENDEDFARMING

BLENDEDCOOKING

PURPOSE• What are restaurants, farms, hospitals, schools, etc. “in business” to accomplish?

• Regardless of what “school” looks like, what must be accomplished for all students?

Plan Schooling Backwards“Contemporary school reform efforts… typically focus too much on various means: structures, schedules, programs, PD, curriculum, and instructional practices (like cooperative learning)”

[or blended learning][or flipped classrooms][or iPads, hardware, etc][or “gamification”]

Plan Schooling Backwards

“Certainly such reforms serve as the fuel for the school improvement engine, but they must not be mistaken as the destination…[which is] improved learning.”

Blended Learning

online delivery ofcontent & instruction anytime, anywhere

delivery of content & instruction at school

SCHOOLING

Time, Place, Path, Pace

• Path: Learning is no longer restricted to the pedagogy used by the teacher. Interactive and adaptive software allows students to learn [in a method that is customized to their needs].

BUT… Learning IS restricted – and limited by – the pedagogy used by the online teacher, in the online instruction, or in designs of the learning software.

Which blended schooling model is better?

FLIPPED-CLASSROOM ENRICHED-VIRTUAL

Blending is a means to what ends?

What is happening with the teacher?What is happening on the

SchedulesEquipmentFacilitiesBudgetsClass Size

Planning “Forward” based on resources?

Or Planning Backward from

Mission

Blended Learning Models made?

1. Define Learning Principles

2. Establish Curriculum & Assessment

3. Establish Face-to-Face and Online Programs & Practices to Enable Blended Learning

Determine Personnel,

Structures, and Resources

What is Competency-

Based Schooling?

Competency Education (iNACOL)• Advance upon demonstrated mastery• Transferable learning objectives that

empower students• Positive, meaningful assessment• Timely, differentiated support• Application and creation of knowledge,

developing important skills & dispositions

http://www.competencyworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/iNCL_CWIssueBrief_Implementing_v5_web.pdf

• Advance upon demonstrated mastery• Transferable learning objectives that

empower students• Positive, meaningful assessment• Timely, differentiated support• Application and creation of knowledge,

developing important skills & dispositions

http://www.competencyworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/iNCL_CWIssueBrief_Implementing_v5_web.pdf

Competency Education (iNACOL)

Plan Curriculum Backwards

1. Identify desired results (for units and lessons)

Acquire Knowledge and SkillsInformatio

Procedures

Make Meaning

Concepts

Contexts

Situations

Transfer

Independent Use

Unfamiliar Situations

Learning Outcomes A-M-T

“You can learnANYTHING online.”

usually means

“You can acquireANY INFORMATION

online.”

Competency-Based Systems made?

Establish Policies & Structures for

Progressing Based on Competency

Decide on Evidence of Competence

Why “Factory” Model Structures?“…all the rhetoric around how we will shove off the

mantel of “factory education” for the brand new world of “personalized learning” misses a point of

the utmost importance:Factory education was invented as a

form of personalization.”

Mike Caulfield, July 2014Director of Blended and Networked Learning at Washington State University-Vancouver

“The Original Factory Education Was a Personalized Learning Experiment”www.hapgood.us

Will County, Illinois One-Room Schoolhouse, http://polarbearstale.blogspot.com/

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Varied Pace Alone Doesn’t Resultin Learning & Understanding

How we Cause Learning1. Identify desired

results (for units and lessons)

Wiggins on “Mastery”“…the original sin in curriculum design: Take a complex whole, divide it into small pieces, string those together in a rigid sequence of instruction and testing, and call completion of this sequence "mastery."

Learning to Drive?

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

Friday

Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill +Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill + Skill l

≠Transfer, Mastery &

Understanding

What do you remember about math from when you were in middle &

high school?

Experience or Instruction?From a 5th grade teacher in NY:“I had a lot of good people teaching me math when I was a student – earnest and funny and caring. But the math they taught me wasn’t

good math. Every class was the same for eight years:

‘Get out your homework, go over the homework, here’s the new set

of exercises, here’s how to do them. Now get started. I’ll be around.’”

Instruction, Content DeliveryWhole Class or Small Group Instruction

Independent Practice

Whole Class Assessment

Use Data Formatively

to Plan

Use Data Summatively (Competenc

Impersonal by Definition

Let Me Show You How To Do

Now You Go DoX

Can You Independentl

y DoX?

Maybe You Need to Be

Shown X Again

You KnowX

Who is doing the thinking?

School & Home WorkAt School:Explicit

Instruction &

Problem Solving

At Home:Practice

Problems

Maybe you need to be

shown X again

Use Data Summativel

Flipped Classroom?At Home:Explicit

Instructional Videos & Online Practice At

School:Guided Practice

& Problem Solving

Maybe You Need to Watch the Video Again

Use Data Summativel

Learning Outcomes?“They were so concerned with

making sure we knew how to do every single procedure we never

learned how to think mathematically. I did well in math but I never understood what I was doing. I remember hundreds of procedures but not one single

mathematical idea.”p. 55, Teaching What Matters Most, Strong, Silver, & Perini,

Let Me Show You How To Do

Now You Go DoX

Can You Independentl

y DoX?

Maybe You Need to Be

Shown X Again

You KnowX

If it’s believed that learners are merely passive receivers of

information and procedures, then what

would logically follow for the design of schools and

lessons and edtech?

Transmission View of Learning

Pedagogy, not Technology

Earth 2199

“I know kung fu.”The Matrix, 1999, Warner Brothers, Village Roadshow Pictures

Did educators try to simply transmit information from books to passive students en masse in 2000?

‘At School in the Year 2000’ Image Source via Wikimedia Commons

http://www.sociology.com/2012/11/jobs-and-careers

What’s Different? What’s Similar?

https://medium.com/bright/ipads-teachers-e51896af3930

What’s Different? What’s Similar?

Path, Pace

Empowering Learning

Calendars

LearningPedagogy

withStudents

SchoolingStructures

fromAdults

Blended

Is there

an app for

Is there

an app for

Is there

an app for

Is there

an app for

Curse of the Familiar“If our problems are mere

inefficiencies – if we need students doing basically

exactly what they've been doing before but faster – then the gambit of building apps that

mirror typical classroom practices will work out great.”

Justin Reich on EdWeekNovember 20, 2013

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/edtechresearcher/2013/11/edtech_start-ups_and_the_curse_of_the_familar.html

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)“Each MOOC varies in content, requirements, prerequisites and length,” Tarte said. “Some will contain video lectures, some might have selected readings, and some courses provide quizzes periodically so students can test their understanding of the material.”

High School to Offer College Courses Onlinewww.emissourian.com, November 27, 2013

Thoughtful vs. Thoughtless Blended Learning

… night school instruction was questionable … I heard over and over again about students who never watched or read through any of the instruction material. They simply clicked through screens until they got to assessments and Googled to find answers. Even in rooms where teachers did not allow that practice, instruction from the computer relied on basic “read this” followed by “now answer these questions” approach no different than many textbook-style education methods. Students never had the chance to engage in any activities, projects, or even class discussions to augment their learning. It was all basic regurgitation…”

http://prwhite213.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/thoughtless-vs-thoughtful-blended-learning/

-Patrick White

Fullan: Alive in the Swamp

“Technology–enabled innovations have a different problem, mainly pedagogy and outcomes. Many of the innovations, particularly those that provide online content and learning materials, use basic pedagogy – most often in the form of introducing concepts by video instruction and following up with a series of progression exercises and tests. Other digital innovations are simply tools that allow teachers to do the same age-old practices but in a digital format.” (p. 25)

Fullan & Donnelly, Alive in the SwampScorecard: Innovation Index

Sample: Assessment Platform

Data inform the

Adaptive Engine

Common “Adaptive” Design

Explicit Input, Video Lecture,

Textbook Reading,

Dependent Practice,

“Worksheet” Problems

Digitized Quiz/Test

Mistakes on the Quiz or Test Items

Wiggins on “Mastery”“Indeed, many modern software solutions now exist to help educators track endless small objectives, in the name of "mastery," "proficiency," or "competency." In some units, students cannot advance to the next level until they test out on interim assessments of such bits of knowledge.”

1989• “The notion that learning comes about by

the accretion of little bits is outmoded learning theory.

• “Current models of learning based on cognitive psychology contend that learners gain understanding when they construct their own knowledge and develop their own cognitive maps of the interconnections among facts and concepts.” (pp. 5–6)

Where do we get this notion?

Why does it persist?

Transmission via Print“If, by a miracle of mechanical ingenuity, a book could be so arranged that only to him who had done what was directed on page one would page two become visible, and so on, much that now requires personal instruction could be managed by print.”

Edward Thorndike 1912

Transmission via Print“If, by a miracle of mechanical ingenuity, a book could be so arranged that only to him who had done what was directed on page one would page two become visible, and so on, much that now requires personal instruction could be managed by print.”

Edward Thorndike 1912

What’s the alternative?

What other notions are there?

Curse of the Familiar“If you think that the problems in classrooms are not just about kids

doing things a little faster, but doing different things than is current practice, then you need

to build things that will be unfamiliar.”

Justin Reich on EdWeekNovember 20, 2013

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/edtechresearcher/2013/11/edtech_start-ups_and_the_curse_of_the_familar.html

Learning Principle“Understandings cannot be given; they have to be engineered so that learners see for themselves the power of an idea for making sense of things.”

Don’t Start by Telling

“Providing students with opportunities to first grapple with specific

information relevant to a topic has been shown to create a ‘time for telling’ that enables them to learn much more

from an organizing lecture.”

How People Learn, p. 58

Engineered for RealizationsEngage with & Make

Sense of a Situation

or Context

Student’s Own

Ideas & Intuition

Specific, Instant, Custom

Feedback

Engine Adapts & Differentiate

Student Independently Transfers

“Offline,” Too

The Quality of Digital Learning Experiences is

just as important as the Quality of

Classroom Learning

Experiences

Whitepaper

Best Practices for Evaluating

Digital Curricula

Thank youtimh@dreambox.co

mwww.dreambox.co

m@DocHudsonMath

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