If you had unlimited funds for a philanthropic big bet in education - a real game-changer - money is not object - what would it be?
About a week ago a friend posed the question. I asked about the scope .. American education and a few examples were given. The requirements are daunting. People need to be able to reason and solve challenging problems rather than just recall information in a narrow space. They need to identify and handle false and biased information. To be flexible and creative. Schools around here are doubling down on the basics and increasing their emphasis on science and math. They're using technologically updated, but old techniques -- steam engines to run the sails up and down on sailing ships.1 Many of the approaches I've seen aren't up to the task.
Some thoughts came to mind, but they were too specific to my experience. I took a walk and let my mind wander. There was this undergrad course that made a real difference in my life and it was completed unexpected.
Friends recognize me as a maladroit with the additional feature of not being terrible at sprinting and jumping. I hated gym class in Jr and Sr High school. The focus was on those with athletic ability - high school football and basketball are big deals in Montana. I showed up and came away with my gentleman's grade of C. So I was let down when I learned I'd have a year and a half of PE in college.. pass/fail, but still...
The first day of class saw a physical assessment that even included treadmill workouts. I learned that I'm not very good at team sports or anything that required running and jumping. My hand-eye coordination was in the bottom quintile. The tests suggested I might have a high percentage of slow-twitch muscle. I was assigned an instructor who knew quite a bit about rowing and cycling. In a few months I was doing the one hundred mile round trip from Pasadena to Irvine - a century.
The program was all about creating self-motivation. The magic was clueful coaching. People with a knowledge of motivation and kinesiology took the time to give me something I would enjoy for decades. I can't say that for every class I took.
The medical profession now recognizes exercise as a very powerful medicine with almost no side effects. Finding ways to instill the habit may be an extremely cost effective form of education. Denmark and the Netherlands partly justify bicycle infrastructure as a mechanism to reduce healthcare costs. I know of one high school that does it - there are probably more. This is low hanging fruit, but the philanthropy is probably focused on academics.
I've written too much on what I think should be taught. Some of it is controversial - my suggestion that middle and high school science and math cater to pre-professional students attracted some criticism. We need to sort out what should be taught - I've certainly written about that at length. But rather than talk about that now I'll move to how teaching is done.
Well - not yet. There's more low-hanging fruit in middle and high schools. Art, music and shop. All of these can be fantastic aids to help you learn how to think and solve problems. I'm a terrible artist and a worse musician, but I couldn't do math or physics without the visual abilities that came with learning these -they help make me think the way I do. And shop, properly taught, is pure lean-forward problem solving with an end goal and a bit of delicious danger. Ok -- back to the matter at hand.
The name of the college is no guarantee of quality instruction. Until recently very little has been done to measure the ability to solve real problems. It turns out traditional lecturing in non-major science courses, even at the best schools, leaves much to be desired. Moving to other forms of teaching may be the way to go, but just what?
I'll plug a form of instruction that has seen a good deal of serious measurement - active learning. Students prepare for class, but rather than lecturing the professor engages them to think by framing questions. Here an example from a neuroscientist:
The same is true for active learning in first-year courses, in which the teachers often do supply the questions — but frame them in a way that asks for more than a rote recitation of facts. It is the difference between 'name the sensory nerves of the leg', and this:
You're innocently walking down the street when aliens zap away the sensory neurons in your legs. What happens?
a) Your walking movements show no significant change.
b) You can no longer walk.
c) You can walk, but the pace changes.
d) You can walk, but clumsily.
We usually get lots of vigorous debate on this one, it's lovely to experience.
The Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia and the University of Colorado had excellent results. It has been replicated at other physics, chemistry and biology departments around North America. An excellent summary is Improving How Universities Teach Science: Lessons from the Science Initiative by Carl Wieman. KQED has a good interview.
The SEI flavor of active learning has been shown to work in science classes and is spreading. It seems likely it would work for engineering, the humanities and other subjects, but that is an open question. Measured trials need to happen and that takes money, people and a good dose of pride swallowing, but the potential reward is high.
What about K12? That is probably even more difficult. A workable curriculum, the status of teaching, money and so on,... This takes serious will. I have ideas, but again they're probably not worth much. It would be lovely to have a larger conversation with those of you with expertise.
Circling back to the original question. I think the best a philanthropy might do is fund the expensive search for answers. The teacher as a coach may be part of it and perhaps there are computational tools to help. The optimist in me tells me it should be possible to find the right mixes and approaches for most people at an individual level, but we need to understand how to teach effectively first. Trying to find the game changer at this point is an underpants gnomes business plan.
This is worth thinking and talking about ... and for those in a position to try things, maybe a bit of experimentation is in order.
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1 The Kahn Academy strikes me as a steam powered sail winch. It is great for today's schools. The execution is excellent, but it is 19th century training on 19th century math when deeper problem solving skills are required.
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