IT679 – Post 1: Successful “Counter” Schools?

This is my first post for IT679 in the summer of 2009. I intend to use this blog to just look at some trends in education and in IT. This first one is of great interest or should be to educators. We can talk about “teaching to the test”, but these folks appear to be getting the “job” done. Is this the future?

Hmmmm, what is working in schools may be counter to “common” wisdom with this link on charter Indian schools.

Week 9.0: The Problem with Higher Order Thinking…I’m also Rethinking Thinking

I started to write this 2 weeks ago. I keep getting sidetracked from our main readings as I think about thinking in general. I think Jason has been thinking about thinking. One of my main problems (or maybe it is the problem with the thinkers?) is that the theories that predict higher order thinking (HOT) due to application of constructivism or collaboration based upon Dewey or Vygovtsky (sic) or whoever is popular just don’t seem to work. Last semester in Trena’s class I spent a whole paper examining the lack of HOT in situations when it was predicted that it would occur. Now, the theories propose that very little scaffolding or prodding or “encouraging” should be needed for HOT to occur especially in collaborative online situations. The reality is always different though in study after study.

Blooms Taxonomy for Thinking

Now, we’ve read several papers on design-based research now and I know in at least 2 of them I heard the same problems (wait, let me find them). Ok one is the Reeves et al. article on collaborative learning. The vision is that collaborative learning will yield this HOT but the reality is it doesn’t happen. Now, this occurs over and over and over. The guru of Blended Learning, Garrison, speaks like the Vision portion of Reeves in nearly all of his writings. He speaks glowingly of collaborations and HOT but the reality is that a lot of prodding, facilitating, scaffolding, “prior learning” and whatever else seem to be required to get the neo-marxist theories to yield any HOT at all.

HOT thinking

Now, I always come back to the article Jay had a read a year ago that actually seemed rational entitled: Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. It was written by Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006) in the Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75-86. My brief summary of this paper is that our minds have long term memory similar to a computer hard drive and that the area where problem solving occurs is similar to the working memory. Now, if there is nothing in the long term memory or hard drive for the working memory to draw upon for problem solving or discovery learning (constructivism) the brain just sort of freezes. This is what I think IS happening with the collaborative, problem-solving studies over and over again. Now, if there is enough in the memory bank (in the form of raw data and actually memorized facts in a rational manner) problem-solving can occur and HOT but, if instruction or “prior learning” does not occur first…paralysis and little HOT. My prediction is that Vygotvsky may be in fact the wrong approach, period for HOT to occur. Could it be that instruction is better than experience after all, at least at first?

On the Ball with HOT

And finally, I’m not sure I at all understand, really, the idea the definition for HOT. According to Vygotsvky it seems that HOT must change the basic assumption somehow of the person in order for HOT to have occurred. Now, basic assumptions or presuppositions are always going to be nearly impossible to change in a person IMHO if they are strongly held beliefs unless strong, yes, very strong evidence develops to overturn them. This would take a LOT of prodding, probing and general disruption and I can pretty safely guess or rather, hypothesize, that it will rarely occur in the real world despite what the great educational thinkers might posit, that is, if the accepted definition of HOT is transformation of basic assumptions. Anyway…ramblings are over…

Week 8.0: Bridging the Digital Divide, people get paid for this?

Just a general note first: people get paid for this? For bridging the digital divide? And, it seems that they take tax dollars to do it?? I found this weeks articles quite disturbing to me. I don’t like the idea of “social justice” as I read it in these articles. I don’t like money (taxes) being stolen from one group in order to help another at all. The whole concept irritates me to pieces. So, in one sense I just don’t buy any of the arguments or rather don’t support them.

People get paid for this "work"...???

Take, for instance, the homeless computer piece. I can see, I guess, the need for computers for the temporary homeless truly seeeking jobs, but, once again, not with my money. ALL of these groups should depend upon private contributions not federally or state money taken from hard working people, period. That is just thievery! It may be by law, but it is theft, nonetheless!

I noticed that some of the groups if not all were non-profit but it looked like most, if not all, were also getting “public” funds! And then, in the article they talk about democracy, something I’m getting quite weary of. I guess today’s post is a vent. If what they are talking about is democracy then I’m against it all the way.

Also, I can’t believe how these people can go on and on in their articles such as Moser’s 35 pagers of chatter. Moser also is not always necessarily logical she states on page 5 that the effects of technology may be underestimated while the data seems to indicate it might be overestimated. Moser is also surprised that there is a homeless hierarchy? I thought she was a zoologist? Hasn’t she heard of a pecking order?

I found her work to be interesting in that she did a lot of interviews and visited 3 places. She put a lot of work into her observations. Her quoting of “conservative” David Stoez was an interesting choice, first in that he was a making an inaccurate comment concerning market economics “generating” poverty and inequality, but that is another subject (i guess).

All in all I felt this was the worst group of readings for the semester as you can tell. I don’t see the point at all.

Week 7.0: Is Google making us …stupider…reprise…

Well, if you read my earlier post you saw that my hypothesis was  Google is not making us stupid but, rather, stupider. Our stupidity started with Gutenberg’s evil invention and has only worsened with the centuries and, now, accelerated with all of these newfangled contraptions, especially with the internet web thingy. And, even this week,  further evidence supports that what I’ve hypothesized is truly true.

Just this week we have found out that, like several of the papers we’ve read on human cognition have pointed out, our brains are changing. They are basically turning into mush. Here is some of the evidence to back up my earlier hypothesis:

1. Social websites harm children’s brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist

   Experts are concerned children’s online social interactions can ‘rewire’ the brain

2. Too much PlayStation may cause painful lumps

I’m not sure how bad the brain changes from social networking are but the painful lumps sound bad to me. It appears that Twitter, Facebook, and Bebo are expecially eregious instances of brain drain and decay. These new communication devices are making it unable for kids (and I presume us) to communicate. Evidently, if we are not glued to our screens we just can NOT communicate. Even though the sites are extremely popular they, once again, evidently are “rewiring” our brains. The article did point out that we at least know now that we exist due to the above 3 programs. So, I guess we must be thinking enough to know that we now, at least, are??

The emminent Dr., Susan Greenfield is “concerned” the article points out. And, if any of you graduate students think this is NOT serious beware, some of the commenters will warn you of being an ignorant fool or worse. Which, if that is the case, makes my point that we are just getting stupider…

It is a scientifically proven fact that the brains of children (and that includes those of high school age) are neurologically “soft,” meaning they are still quite vulnerable to developmental disruptions due to environmental factors such as the presence or absence, or even the super-abundance, of selected stimuli. A large body of evidence (dating back to Maslow) shows that sensory disruptions such as a lack of touch, absence of of a mother or father (and the developmental sensory stimulation they provide for the developing brain) can and indeed do result in neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADD, ADHD, as well as personality disorders, antisocial and criminogenic behavior, and so on. These are not matters be ignored in a civilized society. Computer games train children to practice violence through a scientifically proven process called systematic desensitization, used to in video games to train soldiers to kill. Those who scoff at these issues are either ignorant fools or worse.

- Dr Max Hatchoat, Denver, CO, USA, 24/2/2009 08:12

Now I will have to say that Dr. Susan and others do actually lump in playstation and video games as well. So, maybe the second story is even more dangerous about lumps. At least second life is not one of the big 3, so maybe I am safe?

While English scientists talk about the dangers of stupidification by social networking, the Swiss one up them with the dangers of playstation which can give us painful skin disorders WHILE rotting the brain….eewwwww, or as Ernest would say POISON!

Swiss scientists said on Tuesday. Called “PlayStation palmar hidradentitis” by the scientists, the skin disorder can cause painful lesions on the palms similar to patches found on the soles of children’s feet after taking part in heavy physical activity, they said.

Now the great lesson here is that yes we are getting stupider, and our brains are changing…for the worse…but 1) second life is not on the list and 2) if you stay away from video games you will not get a painful new skin disorder only the brain drain!! Now, I don’t know about you but while I figure that my brain is too far gone I can still save myself from painful lumps!!

You can avoid them!

Week 6.02: Distibuted Cognition > PDL

OK, so the guy down in Texas says that distributed cognition must now be physically distributed learning (PDL). So, what does this mean and why? Well evidently children’s ideas and actions change together through time by affecting each other. They are said to develop each other. He calls this co-evolution which he gathers from the biological world. I, as a biologist, prefer to say that it is change occuring together through time. Anyway,Martin describes this change through time as one that can include the actions and ideas breaking down or emerging.

One question I have based upon Shirky’s insistence on the decreased to no cost of failure is if the internet can allow for far more breakdown without consequence to the negative as in times past. IOW, if we use the power of groups on the internet can we not “afford” more breakdown and failure than in the past????

Breakdowns or failures CAN, if cost not too high, lead toward emergence of new ideas and, thus, progress.

Week 6.01: Mutual Adaptation and the Fourth Quadrant

So, according to Martin and Schwartz (2005), there are 4 types of DC for learning: induction, symbiotic tuning (I like that one), repurposing and mutual adaptation. They can be placed into 4 quadrants that are similar to a genetics table.

Punnett square

In this case one parent of the genetics table is the Individual and the other parent is the physical/social environment.

Individual	Stable (A)	AA (Symbiotic Tuning)	Aa (Repurposing)
	Adaptable (a)	Aa (Induction)	aa (MA)
		Stable (A)	Adaptable (a)
		Physical and Social Environments

When they “breed” they produce progeny that fit into one of four quadrants mentioned above. The “parents” can either give stable traits or adaptable traits (I’m not sure which is dominant or recessive). Actually, the chart would make more sense to me if each “parent” listed adaptable first, therefore adaptable would be dominant or stable first. Anyway, the “pure” states sould be either adaptable-adaptable (mutual adaptation, Quadrant 4) and/or stable-stable (Quadrant 2, symbiotic tuning).

Oh, sorry, all the above is my mind wandering, and wondering about which is dominant or recessive. Needless to say I think the chart could have been made better!

So, mutual adaptation is what the authors concentrate on. This quadrant is not stable at all either for the individual or the environment BUT it is the place where changes can occur to both through time. The authors contend that this is the Quadrant or state which is very beneficial for transfer of knowledge and for PDL.

An interesting aspect of the experiment set up by these fellows is that teaching and then observing students is valuable enough that teachable agents might be of use for knowledge transfer???

Confused?

Confused?

Week 6.0: Cognitive What?? Can we rest for a moment? Can we reflect?

This week we go from distributed cognition to mutual adaptation to physically distributed learning and then to a reconsideration of prior knowledge.

So the formula is something like:

DC > MA > PDL > PFL = Confusion???

My biggest question or rather, concern, is if Jay’s group can just stop at one point and take a deep breath for just a second?? The rest of us, and maybe they, need to gather their wits from wherever they’ve been distributed and maybe, just rest!!

Let me catch my breath!

I will say that this bunch from CTGV sort of wear me out mentally! I know a lot of it has to do with the field of cognitive psychology (whatever that is), but I get the feeling that as soon as a target has finally been set, that these guys move it before any of us can take aim. Is that the idea?

It just seems like these guys move the cognition target!!

Last week with the Google article and cockpit article I could make some sense of distributed cognition and then this!!! OK, I will go on after this sitting down to rest in this blog to try and pick at each blog in my further Week 6.0 but folks I had to rest just a sec!!

Maybe you all have more wits about you all than me but I have to find where my brain has been distributed and gather a few pieces back (at least long enough to try to blog semi-intelligently).

John Cummins