“The design challenge of our time” – that’s how a leader in the field of new school models described the challenge our high schools face when trying to get students with enormous gaps in elementary and middle school skills all the way to college and career readiness in four years. Essentially, we are expecting high schools to be able to intensify the rate of learning from one grade level per year to nearly two grade levels per year – while also making sure they accrue all the Carnegie unit credits required for high school graduation. For alternative schools that usually only have students for a year or two, the rate of learning would have to be closer to three or four times the standard rate of learning.
Adaptive software and other tech-enabled technology is a big part of the solution. In some cases, districts are turning to adaptive software as the main source for curriculum and the delivery of instruction. As much as I want to say that click-through credit recovery courses aren’t acceptable, I’ve come to accept it as an interim step. Several leaders from districts have told me that the use of software as the core curriculum and instructional delivery produces better learning and results than classrooms with such extraordinarily wide differentiation, often led by teachers who really don’t think the students can or want to learn. I won’t go as far as to say that technology-driven credit recovery is an example of competency-based education because in most cases students are never expected to demonstrate deeper application of those skills through performance and performance assessment. Let’s just consider it a good band-aid solution to a much bigger problem.
However, the educational software market hasn’t been functioning quite right. It’s producing an array of products for math, but literacy—writing especially—is a whole different beast. The Gates Foundation is trying to fix that by jiggling the market a bit, “to entice publishers, developers, and entrepreneurs to propose the most innovative digital solutions for engaging, personalized software that helps students with reading and writing.” After running an RFP, they are ready to invest up to $6 million in web-based courseware to support students in mastering the Common Core State Standards for 4th through 8th-grade for literacy. We’ll hear about the winners in June.
However, the RFP may not produce what is desired by high schools and alternative schools dedicated to serving over-age and undercredited students. The RFP emphasizes the 4th-8th grade in their scenarios rather than 4th-8th grade skills. See the difference. Sure, students need access to software while they are in 4th-8th grade to help them reach proficiency. However, we need software that high school students can use to brush up and fill gaps in the skills that they should have been taught during 4th-8th grade.
Maybe these really are two different instructional challenges and we shouldn’t expect educational technology to serve two different customer groups. But can’t we try and design for both? The ed-tech market for older students that have fallen off the college path (about 40% of our teens) is truly dysfunctional. Some would argue that percentage is much greater given the disconnect between the skills students have upon graduation compared to college admissions requirements. Every alternative school provider I’ve spoken with complains that they have to take the best of what is available when they would rather have adaptive learning programs that really meet their student’s needs.
Hopefully the developers will see the larger market and will design interfaces with older students in mind as well. And hopefully they will remember that ELL students will have specific challenges with literacy that will need to be taken into account.
Once we hear about the winners in June, perhaps we can have a thoughtful conversation with them, helping them to see the larger market waiting to be tapped. There will always be some students that need to brush up on their skills even if we completely fix the education system every step of the way. Students that have been in the child welfare system, those whose parents are homeless, and those who move frequently as their parents try to patch together work or who have to bump around constantly due to job changes -- they will all have gaps until we create mechanisms for greater continuity of education.
We need to start designing for a world where students always enter schools with a mix of skills rather than assuming that we can create the perfect factory model.
By the way, if you have found any educational technology that totally rocks it for students that are over-age and undercredited, please let us know.
picture taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnY40F7_ZjE.
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