Interview 1 Part 2 with Dr. W.E. Doynit

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Accelerated Learning Interview: Part 2 of 4 Parts

(Continues the series of observations about learning efficiency).

Tablet PC Education conducted this interview with Dr. W.E. Doynit, Superintendent of the Normsville, California, Unified School District (NUSD), and then posted it in multiple parts. We met at Landgrant University on the Normsville, California (LUNC) campus.

Dr. Doynit received approval last night from the school board to proceed with plans to open New Era (charter) School Initiative (NESI). This initiative offers students a complete program of study from kindergarten through 12th grade that meets all state academic standards in six academic years. Students and faculty use Tablet and other mobile PCs with available commercial learning packages to earn a high school diploma.

Tablet PC Education: Thank you for extending your time for me to talk with you. I want to ask you questions about Tablet PCs in education.

But first, please clarify a couple of points for me.

What implications do the emphases on games for learning, project based learning, and collaborative learning have on NESI (New Era School Initiative)? Many educators say these are essential ingredients for a 21st century education.

Doynit: Yes, I agree that some people promote these ideas as essentials, and that many more recite them liberally. We conduct a school as defined by legislation. Education means something more than schooling.

I see terms like 21st Century Learning as new names for classic learning patterns.

I’m concerned that these new names give the unnecessary impression that school is fun and learning depends on cooperating with other people, as well as that schooling is preparation for future employment.

These impressions seem reasonable on the surface. However, they miss the necessary point that learning occurs one person at a time irrespective of whether someone else makes you smile or results in a job.

The Louis L’Amour book Education of a Wandering Man and the popular movie Slumdog Millionaire illustrate my point about individual learning without schooling.

From the view we use for our new era school, learning means an individual adopts behavior patterns that most informed people know and use.

We choose to show learners how to adopt and sometimes adapt these patterns in the most efficient way possible at that moment.

We also assume that no one knows what employment will be available in the future for these students. So, we give priority to preparing them for entrepreneurship through individual initiative over employment.

Tablet PC Education: What about creativity? Where does it fit into your plans? We don’t want schools to make people just do what others do. We want schools to encourage individuality in a democratic society, not as hermits, right?

Doynit: Our school gives priority to efficient learning, so each student can pass the mandated state academic standards tests. Then, we work with them to use what they learned in different ways. That’s our two stage operational definition of so called creativity.

Tablet PC Education: Your explanations sound controversial, but let’s get back to Tablet and mobile PCs in NESI. Why Tablets? They’re more expensive than laptops and notebooks.

Why not spend that extra money on teachers and classroom materials rather than that piece of electronics?

Doynit: Tablet and other mobile PCs have the most comprehensive set of features of any personal communication device. They have all the features of a personal computer plus they allow handwriting, convert handwriting to text and text to speech as well as speech to text. Users can record audio and, with a webcam, video.

These features mean that regular and exceptional students can use them at the same time in the same classroom or other learning venue usually during the same lesson.

We, through Landgrant University, also work with software developers who have academic content programs coming down the ramp for these machines.

Tablet PC Education: What about the extra cost for Tablets? Doesn’t that waste money that could go to better use for teachers and other material?

Doynit: No one knows how much money it takes for a teacher to increase any student’s learning rate one point.

Therefore, we spend a portion of our resources on Tablets where we see prompt learning rate changes.

Further, roadmaps of PC and other electronic communication device manufacturers show that all state-of-the-art PCs will soon include operating systems and hardware for use as Tablets. We’re still in a transition period from distinctive Tablets, notebooks, laptops and cellphones.

Tablets now exist in the $300 range and up giving purchasers a wide range of options to fit beginners as well as advanced learners.

Tablet PC Education: What upcoming Tablet software can you discuss and what implications does it have for what a teacher does in class?

Doynit: Software under development for Tablets will have the capacity to supplement and in some cases change the role of a classroom teacher from information and skills gatekeeper to learning analyst and coach.

For example, Tablets will automatically construct individual learning plans and activities for learners. They will rely on databases of how these learners have adopted new academic content and problem solving skills.

Tablet PC Education: Excuse me. A machine will design an individualized lesson for a specific student on a specific day in a specific subject based on how that student learns?

Even if that’s possible, where’s the human touch, the personal interaction, the professional judgment teachers accumulate over decades of experience?

Doynit: Yes, you said that as I meant to say it.

Tablet PC Education: That’s scary: a machine doing what certified, experienced teachers do. It sounds like science fantasy.

Do you think parents will allow you to collect those kinds of data about their sons and daughters?

Doynit: I think of it more as science fiction turned into reality. This appears plausible from the view we use. We uses of Artificial intelligence in planning lessons helps make a more decisive school.

The key that makes it plausible for a computer to plan a human’s adoption of a specific pattern rests with joining behavior pattern descriptions with rules that personal computers follow. Software developers make these joints.

As I said earlier, we consider learning to mean that a person adopts a behavior pattern others use. Behavioral scientists have collected for over a century experimental empirical data that describe how people learn. Software developers call such patterns “rules.”

Computers excel at following rules. They can be made to repeat patterns or rules that teachers and other learning specialists use.

Teachers add the human touch, some more and others less.

Ed. Note: Future parts of this interview will extend the discussion, including about world class education, learning losses, learning analysts, decisive schools, budgeting options, teacher pre- and in- service preparation as well as selection and pay.

References

Accelerated K12 Mobile Learning: Press Release

Decisive Schools 2010 with Mobile PCs http://www.robertheiny.com/2006/09/vision-of-education-decisive-schools.html

Decisive Schools 2010: Q & A Notes http://www.robertheiny.com/2006/09/decisive-schools-2010-q-notes.html

Interview 1 about accelerated learning with Dr. W.E. Doynit