A Learners’ View (ALV) Is Of Choices On The Straightest And Fastest Path To Learning, The Oxygen Of Social Life
“LEARNERS COMPLETE TEACHERS. THEY MAKE TEACHERS POSSIBLE,” said Dr. W.E. Doynit matter of factly to the high school auditorium full of children and adults. “Without learning, teaching does not exist regardless of what someone called Teacher does.
“Teachers show learners how to connect dots with choices. Each lesson starts with something a person knows how to do (We call that Dot 1); and shows learners how to use that (We call that a line connecting Dot 1 and Dot 2); to do something more with it (Dot 2).
“To teach a person to connect dots is not the end of it,” he continued. “For the learners taught, each lesson is the threshold between what their lives have been before teaching and what their lives can become. Teaching matches choices made by learners with likely consequences. It shows learners how they can choose to do what the most informed people before them have done.”
He said this with confidence. Each teacher at Horizon School told him earlier, separately that they wanted to be the complete teacher who tries to make the world a better place one learner at a time.Their efforts appear to combine the craft of research, instruction, and analysis with the art of curiosity, persuasion, and optimism. He expects to fill the remaining open positions with teachers who express similar commitments.
Doynit, slightly balding, wearing too fashionable eyeglasses, and so much polyester in his pants that they shined in the spotlight, could have been the man who lived next door with a spouse, three children, a mortgage, and too much credit card debt to match his take home pay as superintendent of Normal Unified School District (NUSD) in Normal, California, a Central Valley town with growing inner city challenges. Behind him was a theater size screen with the words New Era School Initiative (NESI) and Horizon School appearing subtly when you looked carefully at what appeared at first to be solid blue.
As he scanned the audience while speaking, he guessed that each person he saw must feel like they have fallen down the rabbit-hole in Louis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.” He recognized school age children, adults, the local newspaper editor, members of the school board, and prospective teachers.
He acknowledged while preparing his comments that every employed and prospective teacher recognizes that she or he faces a fundamental predicament: To continue or to change to using state-of-the-art practices each day in classes? They acknowledge their inadequate preparation for the flux in demographics, in the economy, and in advancing electronic communications underway in Normal. Their decisions influence their families daily lives and their career line as well as the lives of children in their classes.
Their well trained confidence in methods to use in classrooms is assailed by an onslaught of competing images, reports, and advice – all without responsibility for handling problems teachers encounter daily – for addressing rapidly advancing technologies, international competition, and growing dissatisfaction with the academic performance levels of public school graduates.
Doynit continued to the audience, “I offered this as a description of how I view teaching and learning at Horizon School. Now, let’s describe our progress and plans for the school. In short, we’re on schedule to open as announced.”
“Our School Board has given Horizon School a charter as the first operation of what we call the New Era School Initiative (NESI). This era consists of a massive transformation in schooling around the globe. Educators are moving, sometimes like a glacier, from teacher centric schooling of the last 2,000 years to results directed learning programs disbursed into many places with electronic communication tools. As you may have heard, not everyone in Normal agrees with the need for NESI or for our characterizations of existing or future schooling.
“Our board and school accrediting agency approved NESI earlier. We’ve named the charter program “Horizon School” to capture the image of how explorers, navigators, and other adventurers and their navigation machines use the physical horizon as a constant reference for maintaining stability and measuring progress.
Doynit notices that audience faces remain expressionless like faces on Amish dolls. Blank. He doesn’t see anyone texting or fiddling with a computer, at least not yet, so they must be waiting for something more.
“Children who begin at Horizon School at age 5 or 6 will graduate from high school six years later, ready academically to enter college. They will have earned near perfect scores on state academic performance tests and more that the state does not test.
“This is possible, because teachers at Horizon will use state-of-the-art (SOTA) planning, instruction, and curriculum techniques that experimental scientists have documented reduce the likelihood of learners failing to learn each lesson. We refer to this approach as efficient teaching-learning.
“We work from the premise, grounded in experimental research, that learning occurs in one step. All other visible activity by learners during a lesson is trial-and-error. Please notice in each of the three videos tonight that teachers have made choices in the lesson that learners chose in order to learn that lesson.”
Doynit turns off the stage lights. As he does so, a video image appears on the screen of a young man working at a task board picking up and putting together metal parts.
“This video shows Eugene assembling a bicycle coaster break. It’s an example of the detailed planning of each lesson teachers will do at Horizon. Notice how the parts of the brake are arranged from left to right in the order for the most efficient assembly of the complete unit. Notice also that Marc, his teacher, painted the top side of each part red. We call the red a redundant cue. It increases the chances that Eugene will have that side of the part face him.
“Notice also that Marc uses only a few words during the lesson. The power in this lesson is in the arrangement of the parts, not in what the teacher says. You will see our teachers using these strategies and techniques during lessons in academic subjects.
Eugene and Marc demonstrate the principle that learning occurs in three stages: there’s a beginning when Eugene gives permission to the teacher to proceed (We say, “Eugene attends.”), a middle when learners respond to teacher, and an ending when learner meets criterion for the lesson. As in this video, each lesson at Horizon has only one criterion for learning, even when it’s a way to solve a complex problem.
After running that excerpt for a few minutes, without bringing up the lights, Doynit announced, “You can watch at your convenience this and other complete videos shown tonight on our school website.” The Horizon School website address appeared on the screen and remained there until the next video started.
“In this next video, Bonnie shows 3, 4, and 5 year old children how to read. Notice the level of excitement she generated as they used the dirt floor of Grandma’s tobacco barn as our teachers use whiteboards and computer screens.”
After a couple minute excerpt, Doynit said, “This video illustrates how much traditional lesson content can be covered in a short amount of clock time. In six weeks of 20 minute sessions for each of reading, mathematics, and science, all of these children read, added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided between middle of first grade and middle of second grade levels, and they could handle basic concepts of physical science, such as atmospheric pressure. Bonnie used a version of hear-say, hear-do, see-say, see-do to teach, and standard measures to assess their learning.
“Some of you may be interested to know that Bonnie was a speech therapist, not a certified teacher. She did not practice any hocus pocus or other magic to get these results. Teachers at Horizon are certified and will use versions of the same techniques Bonnie used, adapted for learning appropriate content.
“Our third and last video demonstrates the power of a setting on learning. The video started with the teacher, Akura, telling the classroom of 35 fifth graders from working class families, including five students eligible for special education, “You all know what is expected of you in class. You also know how to distract me from teaching you, and I’ll bet you can be good at it (the class smiled and someone said an enthusiastic “Yeah!…”). You also know how to keep each other from learning. So, let’s put those games aside and get to the point. Do you agree?” The class assented.
“Monday mornings,” Akura continued in the video, “I will write on the board an outline of my lesson plans for the week. It’s what we would do and you would learn in a normal class. Each of you copy and keep these plans in your own handwriting in your desk. You then work your way through those lessons at your own pace. Do so alone or with others in class. You choose when. Then, grade your own papers, correct your mistakes, and grade your redos until you get that lesson right. Keep those papers with your lesson plan copy. I’ll collect and review them from time to time.
Akura went on to say he will put teachers’ manuals and answer books on the shelf under the window, so learners can check their work against the experts. He said he will circulate in class to help with problems as the come up. And, he told the class that he will test and grade them in the same old way they know, so if they cheat during the week, they cheat themselves and will have to make it up in order to complete the next weeks assignments successfully.
“I’ll also,” Akura said, “put paper and other art supplies on the window shelf. Help yourself anytime. Just clean up your own messes, so Carlos (the school custodian) doesn’t have to clean up after you.
“Remember, you live your life, not mine. So, remember who you are, do your best, always, and have fun doing your best.”
Doynit turned up the house and stage lights. “You may be interested to learn that all of these 5th grade students meet or exceeded 5th grade standards and over half of the class completed over half of sixth grade standards successfully by the end of their regular 5th grade school year.
“These three videos illustrate teaching methods that lead promptly to learning. We’ll use these methods, and others, at Horizon. These methods are grounded in application of experimental research descriptions of what people do while learning. Each method resulted in prompt, dramatic rates of learning beyond that anticipated by most educators and community members.
“We’re bringing these methods together into one program at Horizon School. It is what technologists in Silicon Valley would call a Beta release of a program. That means that it is a first release of its kind for use by people other than by engineers and others under controlled conditions. While we have confidence in the scientific grounding of our program, we recognize that not everyone shares that confidence or chooses to participate in our program. NUSD offers other programs for those who choose them.
“We look forward to you joining us. Until then, good night, and best wishes as you follow to wherever your choice leads you.”
[edit] Related Reading
- Interviews and Conversations about New Era School Initiative (NESI)
- Mythical Secular Perfect Teacher (MSPT)
- Approval of a NESI Charter School