A Learners’ View Is Of Choices On The Shortest And Fastest Path To Learning, The Oxygen Of Social life.
This seventh conversation with Dr. W.E. Doynit extends a series of descriptions of how to accelerate learning dramatically by increasing learning efficiency rates with and without Tablet and other mobile PCs.
Dr. Doynit, Superintendent of Normsville Unified School District, Normsville, CA, represents people trying to accelerate learning dramatically and promptly. He also has an affiliation with the University in Normsville.
The Normsville school district Board of Education approved the opening of the New Era School Initiative (NESI), charter school, what Doynit calls a decisive school. This conversation addresses that school and its implications for education.
Topics: Responses to Robert Reed’s question about the status of mobile PC research addressed in NESI Conversation 2: Doynit on School Reform; research program purpose; research program progress; A Learning Efficiency Analysis Paradigm (aLEAP); learning efficiency; learning analyst; rationed learning.
Tablet PC Education: Welcome back to this blog, Dr. Doynit. This is our eighth interview and conversation.
I want to continue asking you about Robert Reed’s comments to your March 30th post about the New Era School Initiative (NESI) and school reform. you told me privately that today’s conversation supplements our most recent talk on May 10.
What’s the status of your call for a group to collaborate on your research proposal and your proposed Childrens Research Center for Mobile Learning? Has anything developed since you issued a call for participants at the 2009 Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education (WIPTE)? What responses have you received?
And, say again why you think this research should happen.’
Doynit: Thanks for asking. And, yes, I greatly appreciate Reed’s comments. They address key reasons for the proposed research center.
Tablet PC Education: Tell me what time we’re using. Are you describing activities in 2009 or of the fictitious NESI charter school in 2013? And, how are these time differences relevant?
Doynit: In short, we’re discussing real 2009 activities. They provide an initial organization of existing empirical, experimental behavioral science research results that describe how people learn.
Educators may use these data now to increase learning rates. They may use the organized database for a real NESI charter school at least by the time of the fictitious one in 2013.
Tablet PC Education: Do you continue to call for participants?
Doynit: Yes, I’m open to reviewing the proposed research about learning efficiency with individuals as well as potential research hosts and sponsors. And, in answer to an inference in your question, no, I’m not seeking another academic appointment.
Rather, perhaps behavioral research oriented scientists will find this proposal useful to fulfill their ambitions to increase learning rates with and without Tablet and other mobile PCs.
Tablet PC Education: What’s your reasoning for this research?
Doynit: Let me start by describing my rationale. Then, I’ll describe three parts of progress to date.
The purpose of this research center is to examine the likelihood of a person learning something intended with or without a Tablet or other mobile PC. This examination includes calculating risks of not learning the intended information or skill.
In turn, educators may use these data to adjust what they do to increase learning. I don’t know of another research program that examines learning rates and risks of learning failure at this fundamental level.
I’ve started by developing a proof-of-concept of a tool to assess the fit between what’s known about observable behavior called learning and its uses when people learn with mobile PCs. I call that tool ALEAP or A Learning Efficiency Analysis Paradigm. I presented an early draft of portions of this proof at WIPTE in October, 2008.
Empirical, experimental behavioral researchers have described over more than a century many elements of what observers can see about how people learn. Yet, teachers, content writers, and education software developers continue to use these descriptions irregularly in most lessons and assignments.
On average, standardized test results indicate that less than 15 percent of students learn lessons more than adequately. We argue from the ALEAP view that this low percentage results in part from this irregularity. We also don’t know how much of a part irregularities contribute to learning or risks of failure.
Therefore, the center’s research program results in ways to establish empirically based technical levels of validity and confidence for using existing behavioral descriptions to increase learning with and without mobile PCs. Educators and developers can refer to these data when constructing lessons and assignments. In turn, these data will indicate where voids exist in what we know about how people learn with and without mobile PCs.
Tablet PC Education: Do you mean that only a tool will result from this research? I want you to clarify what results you plan.
Doynit: In short, development of ALEAP will require empirical behavioral studies. We will publish these results. In turn, educators may use these data to adjust schooling promptly to whatever level they decide to increase student learning rates.
As with any databased tool (such as standardized tests), refinements will continue, even when others use it to increase learning rates. For example, graduate students could use the tool to consult with educators and collect data at the same time. That will contribute to refinements of ALEAP. This is conventional practice at Tier One research institutions.
Tablet PC Education: Now, tell us about your progress to establish this center.
Doynit: I’ve had two conversations about the proposed research center and its’ potential. One conversation was with faculty and administration of a Big 10 university before issuing the call in October. Their college of education faculty decided to give priority to adjusting public schooling, especially teaching, rather than to address learning directly and uses of advancing technologies to increasing learning.
Tablet PC Education: Why do you say “rather than addressing learning directly”?
Doynit: These words represent a fundamental difference between conventional educational research practices and the proposed research. Educators and education policy makers have addressed these differences with various “Yes, but …” reasons. Their reasons make sense in some contexts, but differ from the rationale for the proposed research.
Tablet PC Education: Then, say specifically what differences you propose.
Doynit: In short, the first premise of ALEAP is to assume the view of a learner when considering learning. This view is also the independent variable in behavioral research about learning. It represents results of the empirical, experimental behavioral research about learning. This view also includes by inference learners who use mobile PCs in and out of school.
By contrast, the first premise of most educators is to assume the view of a teacher who instructs students who are to learn from that instruction. Results of teaching is the dependent research variable. Note the rhetorical distance this logic imposes between learners, what they will learn, and how they learn. With ALEAP, we call this distance farther sourcing than necessary in an information supply chain with more links than necessary.
The proposed research will identify empirical consequences that variations in distances have for learning efficiency with and without mobile PCs.
Tablet PC Education: Of course the emphasis from both views is on teaching. That’s why schools exist, to provide instruction so students can learn what others know. Yes?
Doynit: Yes, to provide that instruction. And therein rests a difference in hypothesized results from different starting assumptions with the use of aLEAP from those used with conventional K12 school practice.
The proposed research offers a way to test differences in learning efficiency that results to an as yet undetermined part from these two assumptions. Results of the existing research about how people learn indicate ways to increase learning efficiency by up to 100 percent. That is, to reduce up to six years from K12 schooling to obtain the same measured academic results.
The proposed research will test these indications and examine how variations in their uses affect learning rates.
Tablet PC Education: In an earlier post you described ways teachers ration learning. Does that term refer to this rhetorical distance? If so, aren’t you just using different words to describe philosophical and empirical variations of ways people learn?
Doynit: Yes, these differences result in different learning rates. For now, we use rationed learning as a way to reference avoidable losses of learning in conventional schooling.
I do not know of another current study designed to examine that view. The last such study was in the middle 1970s called Project Follow-Through conducted with over one million students.
Conventional schoolers have largely ignored their powerful data. Drafters of the No Child Left Behind legislation used these data as one reason for requiring more testing of students.
The proposed research will yield more such data. The potential of having these data seems crucial for education policy makers to consider as they distribute resources among learners.
Tablet PC Education: So, you held one conversation with a Big 10 university people where the education faculty decided to give priority to what you described as schooling over learning. You explained what you meant by those differences. I suspect you know that most educators would argue that they deal with practical problems, not theoretical options you offer about schooling and learning.
Doynit: I suggest that this proposed research gets to the heart of practical options educators and others may use to increase learning rates directly and promptly, including with Tablet and other mobile PCs.
Tablet PC Education: Please continue describing progress in developing the proposed research center to study uses of mobile PCs to learn.
Doynit: I have helding a second conversation after the call at WIPTE with someone who sees a value in results from research about learning with mobile PCs.
At the same time as these talks, I’ve continued developing the proof-of-concept of aLEAP. This heuristic serves as an initial core for research at the center.
With that progress, I’ve started formalizing descriptions of parts of the proposed research program.
Tablet PC Education: Now tell us your third point about the proposed research.
Doynit: Third, my call for a research program appears consistent with what learners do with mobile PCs outside of formal learning venues. At the same time, the call runs against tides of educational research history and of contemporary conventions of educational research organizations. These tides emphasize corporate style time bound product development research rather than conventional academic exploratory studies.
The proposed research straddles the two tides. This straddle requires a relatively rare higher risk taking institutional research administrator’s approval and support. Prearranged external funding frequently results in administrative approval.
The ubiquity of mobile electronic communications appears throughout daily life, expect in schools. Learners from preschool throughout life increasingly use mobile PCs to learn something on their own.
Most school learners appear to do so more rapidly than most public school educators have adopted in classrooms.
An unknown likely small fraction of learning with mobile PCs overlaps with school lessons and assignments.
The study of learning has been the province of psychologists. Individual research psychologists have their own scientific specialties and research commitments. They seek competitive grants from a narrow range of sources to fulfill these commitments.
The application of what psychologists report has been the province primarily of public school teachers and administrators. Many, but not all, of these educators have adopted some aging electronic communication technologies to enhance what they already do to complete their contracted duties. They, too, assert that they need more money. They appeal to the same sources as psychology researchers.
Both claim additional resources will permit them to do more of what they already know how to do with and without electronic communication technologies. They do not necessarily seek more information or things to do.
At first blush, the proposed research program appears to bring together interests of psychology researchers and education practitioners.
Tablet PC Education: So, you have an evolving project that you nurture under the name of a proposed research center. Yes? Are you a psychologist? If not, why should anyone in the academy trust you or your ideas about learning? Don’t they require ongoing vetting to show public confidence in an idea? Maybe you have another reason for proposing this research program and center?
Doynit: In this effort, I’m a teacher and learning analyst. I want reliable tools to assess observable learning behavior with more confidence.
Tablet PC Education: Let me interrupt you again. What’s a learning analyst? Where did that idea come from? Doesn’t it just unnecessarily confuse our discussion?
Doynit: I’ll respond briefly. Perhaps we can talk at another time about learning analysts.
A learning analyst specializes in technical monitoring of how people learn, the extent to which instruction follows ways people learn, and compares these observations against results of similar efforts or purposes. A learning analyst is to education what a financial analyst is to investments. They both monitor and describe observable technical aspects of their respective fields.
Tablet PC Education: Who should conduct the proposed research? You said you’re not seeking an academic appointment.
Doynit: Likely, this program will require an interdisciplinary team. The proposal relies on principles from social and behavioral sciences, including observable learning behavior and its relationship to daily life. It requires familiarity with technical literature across these disciplines. It also requires people familiar with developing technical tools to use in data collection and analysis.
Tools resulting from this program will provide a practical way for educators to start promptly and operate schools more like the fictional NESI charter school.
Tablet PC Education: Again, thank you for clarify your proposal and its link to the fictional NESI charter school. Next time, I want to talk with you about teachers and teaching. More specifically, what’s in the proposal for teachers and why should they care about it?
References
- Accelerated K12 Mobile Learning: Press Release
- A Learning Efficiency Analysis Paradigm (ALEAP), Early draft in Learning with Tablet PCs Research Agenda: From Facts to Pragmatics. Presented at the 2009 Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education,
- Children’s Research Center for Mobile Learning
- Decisive School 2010: Q & A Notes
- Learning analyst
- Learning efficiency
- Nearsourcing
- New Era School Initiative (NESI) Conversation 6: School Reform rev. 2 (1st response to Robert Reed’s comments
- New Era School Initiative (NESI) Interim Report Summary 1
- Project Follow Through
- Rationed learning
- Rationed Learning: A Conspiracy of “Yes, but … 2002-2012.”
- Robert Reed’s comments on NESI Conversation 2: Doynit on School Reform
- Workshop on the Impact of Pen-based Technology on Education (WIPTE)
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Posted by The Tablet PC In Education Blog, May 24, 2009, 6:47 AM. (Retrieved April 14, 2010, 6:51PM.) http://www.robertheiny.com/2009/05/new-era-school-initiative-nesi_24.html