Tools That Empower Students
From IAE-Pedia
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- "Knowledge is power." (Sir Francis Bacon, 1597)
[edit] Powerful Tools Empower Their Users
It is easy to use terms such as student-centered education and empowering students. When I first encountered these terms quite a few years ago, I thought to my self: "So, what's new. Certainly I focus my courses on the students in my courses. Certainly my students are empowered by what I teach. I think that what is new is that educators are throwing some more educationalize at me."
Over the years, the ideas of student-centered education and empowering students has gradually sunk into my brain. One of the ways that I now think about this is in terms of what the increasingly powerful mind tools do for learners.
Here is a simple example that I like to use when working with elementary school teachers. By the time that students are in the third grade, they are beginning to understand the idea of using a circle diagram to show parts of a whole. They can learn to read a pie chart that represents a "whole" broken into varying sized pieces. However, they have not yet gained the knowledge of how to make a pie chart. This involves working with fractions or percentages of 360 degrees, and use a straight edge and protractor to divide a circle into appropriately-sized wedges.
Of course, software that is easy to learn to use can do the necessary computations and produce a pie chart. Such software, along with many other data graphing options, is built into a modern spreadsheet program. Thus, a third grader can be given the pie-charting power of a fifth grader through a little instruction in use of such software.
For a non mathematical example, consider providing computer access to a student who is just beginning to learn to write. Such a student can recognize letters on a keyboard and can thus produce nicely shaped letters on a computer display. The hand eye coordination and small muscle control needed to do this is simple relative to forming letters using a pencil and paper. Thus, it is feasible to teach students to write using a computer before they learn to write using pencil and paper (BBC, n.d.). (I have a recollection that this was successfully tried using typewriters, many years before the development of computers. If some reader knows a reference, it would be a nice contribution to insert it here.)
Another powerful example is provided by computerized information retrieval. Think about the knowledge and skills needed to go to a library's card catalog, find a card corresponding to a topic or specific document that one wants to read, and then going into the library stacks and actually finding the document. Compare this with learning to use a search engine. A grade school student is greatly empowered through access to the Web and learning how to use a search engine.
The list of examples of ICT-based empowerment is easily expanded. We have computers and computerized tools that can solve or help solve a huge range of problems. In many cases, learners can understand the purpose of solving the problems and how to make use of solutions long before they can gain the knowledge and skills to solve the problems using simpler tools such as paper and pencil.
[edit] Calculator Examples
Reading, writing, and arithmetic (the 3Rs) have long been considered the basics of education. Thomas Jefferson is famous for his contributions to the Declaration of Independence and for being the third President of the United States. He saw the importance of education and an educated citizenry. Thus, he worked in his home state of Virginia to get the legislature to provide free public education up through the third grade. (He was not successful in this endeavor.) His thinking was that this level of grammar school education, focusing mainly on reading, writing, and arithmetic, would suffice for most citizens.
A person is greatly empowered through learning to read and write at a third grade level. Even nowadays, instruction in grade school is designed so that students are expected to be able to read to learn after completing three years of reading instruction. We know, of course, that additional years of instruction and practice can help most students attain a much higher level of expertise as a reader.
Now, think about arithmetic. With a third grade education, an average student can count, read and write numerals and number, do addition and subtraction of multi digit numbers, understand a little bit about simple fractions, and perhaps deal with simple multiplication and division. More years of instruction and practice are needed for a typical student to learn to deal with multiplication and division of multi digit numbers, work with decimal fractions, work with fractions and percentages, and so on.
One of the important ideas in math education is the difference between understanding a concept (for example, that numbers can be multiplied and divided) and learning procedures (such as paper and pencil multiplication and division algorithms.) There are a variety of algorithms that can be taught to students for doing multi digit multiplication and division. In most of these, students gain very little understanding of the concepts we call "multiplication" and "division," or the meaning and usefulness of the results. Most students find that it is a significant mental challenge to memorize the algorithms and gain both speed and accuracy in using the algorithms. Much of the instructional time on these topics in school is spent in helping a child's mind develop "machine-like" speed and accuracy.
Historically, this was quite important to do in school. The technology of the Information Age opens up alternatives. Solar-powered, hand held, six-function calculators that will last for a number of years can be purchased for well under five dollars. What this simple tool does is to help make more clear the difference between understanding and using arithmetic versus memorizing paper and pencil algorithms and gaining speed and accuracy in their use.
Our educational system has been struggling for more than 25 years about how the simple calculator should be affecting the curriculum. The National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics recommended calculator instruction and use in schools clear back in 1979. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics made a similar recommendation in 1980. Since then, schools and individual teachers have made their own decisions as to what to do about teaching the paper and pencil algorithms and teaching students to effectively and responsibly use calculators. Many of the state and national tests now allow use of calculators.
[edit] Apprenticeships in Education
Historically, some type of apprenticeship was a key aspect of education. The role of apprenticeships gradually declined as our formal schooling system developed.
There are many who believe that this decline should be reversed and that many students should be in apprenticeship programs. (For example, such an approach to education is much more common in Germany than it is in the U.S.)In the U.S., such programs are often called School to Work programs.
Here is an example from Wisconsin. Quoting from the Milwaukee JS Online:
- The lanky 17-year-old is grinding a load of electrical boxes.
- As he's carefully adjusting his machine, he explains what he's doing - and why.
- "It's hard to find opportunities like this, where a company will give you that start," Rewolinski says, loud enough to be heard over the fan that cools him. "A lot of companies now, they want you to have the experience right away. And with a program like this, I can get that start, and then I can move on and maybe move to something better or stay here and just get better at it.
[edit] More to Come: This is a Work in Progress
One of the basic challenges in developing a good, information age educational system is to develop an appropriate balance between historically-based and culturally-based content, and content that appropriately takes into consideration rapidly changing technology. The totality of the collected information and knowledge of the human race is huge and growing quite rapidly. While the amount of time that students spend in school is increasing (for example, many more people go to college now than in the past), the amount that could be learned is growing far faster.
Here is another idea that is worth including. I think that a person is empowered in a learning situation if they get good and relatively frequent feedback on how well they are doing. Feedback can come from oneself and from a variety of other sources.
Thus, when I am playing a pinball game, I get feedback from the game as it keeps track of my score and as it tells me how many balls are left to play in my current game, how many free games I have doing, the high scores during the past few weeks on the machine, and so on.
If I am practicing shooting free throws in basketball, I can figure my percentage of success and compare it with data I remember from past practices.
I have written on this topic in one of my recent books. I'll look it up and add some of the content here.
There is confusion in my mind whether this fits with empowerment. My thought is that helping a student learn to self assess is a way of empowering the student. Providing the student with access to other ways to get formative evaluation/assessment empowers the student. "Look, ma. I can learn on my own! I can tell how well I am doing!" This represents a milestone in moving up an expertise scale is being a learner. So, I think it all ties together.
[edit] This is a Work in Progress
It seems to me that I might want to pursue the formal and informal education paths in this empowerment document. Our formal educational system is very slow to change. Thus, empowerment is apt to occur most rapidly in informal education. That has certainly proven to be the case. A good example is in use of text messaging using a cell phone.
A digital watch provides another interesting example. I face a routine problem of knowing the time, day of the week, day of the month, and month of the year. I wear a wristwatch, have learned how to use it well enough so that at a glance I can retrieve the information to solve this particular information need problem. However, there is a major difference between being able to read and say the numbers, and to understand what the numbers mean. It is a common part of the elementary school (math) curriculum to teach both the reading of a time piece and an understanding of what the numbers mean.
[edit] References
BBC (n.d.). Dance Mat Typing for ages 7 to 11. Retrieved 6/24/08: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/.
Dresang, Joel (August 3, 2007). High school apprenticeship program gives students on-the-job training. Retrieved 8/6/07: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=642369.
[edit] Author or Authors
The initial version of this page was written by Dave Moursund.
