Category: LRNT 523

How are you, my cousin Ally?

I feel bad that we sort of lost touch. Isn’t your lovely Sofia about to start school, just like my daughter? The last time we spoke, you were asking me about the education system in Canada. Well, a lot has changed since 1997 when I moved here. Can you believe it’s been 33 years? Remember, how I used to copy your homework in a chemistry class because I hated it too much to study, but still wanted to get a good grade to show my dad because he was a chemical engineer? Well, in Canada chemistry is no longer a mandatory class in high school! The most interesting development is that the grading system has been eliminated from about half of high schools. It started with a pilot project in 2013 (Nixon, 2017) and the concept was gradually accepted by many others. At the moment, a parent can choose between two different approaches. You are probably wondering how this divide came to be. Well, there are several reasons for it. One of the main anti-grading arguments is that grades do not motivate students to learn, because learning is about intrinsic motivation while grades act as extrinsic motivation (Blum, 2016, p.96). The domination of extrinsic motivation is claimed by Blum to have a negative effect because “extrinsically motivated workers act in accordance with a “minimax” strategy: They attempt to perform the bare minimum of work sufficient for the achievement of maximal rewards.”(Kruglanski et al., 1977, p.141). At the same time, grades do not provide a proper understanding of student’s knowledge and abilities because they assume the uniformity of input, process and output, although every student has a different life and academic experience (Blum, 2017). Moreover, 56 % of students reported being stressed about grades (American College Health Association, 2013).

While my personal experience confirms that the grading system is flawed as described, I wanted to explore the other side of the argument and find out why the grading system persists and is still acceptable among students and parents. Diseth et al., (2020) claim that “that there is no necessary contradiction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation”(p. 972) and argue that the relationship between them and learning is more complex than once thought. Furthermore, Covington and Mueller (2001) claim that every student differs in what motivates them depending on their personality traits, some are driven by intrinsic motivation while others are more motivated by extrinsic motivation.

Perhaps, there is a place for each approach within a system. If one approach doesn’t work for my son, it’s good to know that I can transfer him to a school relying on a different approach. It’s also interesting how the increase in the use of Artificial Intelligence(AI) is affecting both systems. After Chui et al.(2020) were able to demonstrate that they could predict with a 90+% accuracy at-risk student via a machine learning algorithm, the traditional grading educational system (TGES) has started using AI to identify at-risk students so that they could be better supported. The eliminated grading educational system (EGES) could not take advantage of these learning algorithms because they heavily relied on grades. As a result, TGES has a lower drop-out rate and is considered a safer choice by parents who are worried about their kids’ performance. It has a reputation for producing well-rounded graduates. At the same time, EGES started using AI to identify gifted students. It all began after Hodges & Mohan (2019) claimed that “Where machine learning can be best utilized by researchers and educators is in classification tasks using nonlinear indicators. An example of a nonlinear indicator is a student academic product like a poem”(p.243). After eliminating grading, EGES naturally relied on paying more attention to non-linear indicators. Compared to TGES, EGES has a higher drop-out rate, but it is considered a better choice by parents who believe their kids have higher potential. It has a reputation for producing more exceptional graduates.

Academic learning is not everyone as you know, Ally. My oldest son was never into reading, as much as I tried to encourage him. I hope all those evenings of me reading to him at least gave him something, if not the love for learning and reading. Lucky him that all schools nowadays, regardless of the system, have AI assessments of non-academic talents. It was already possible a decade ago when Muazu Musa et al. (2019) demonstrated that a machine learning approach can predict an athletic high potential by analyzing physical fitness indicators. Who would’ve thought that my son has the potential to be among the top 5% in water polo? He really enjoys playing for his school team, they are very competitive in a junior national league!

Do you remember how back in the day teachers used to ignore someone who was having a rough day or simply told them to suck it up? Oh, how times have changed. Nowadays, AI is used in schools to identify and predict mental health problems. What’s great is that not only it pays attention to multiple variables, as Tate et al.(2020) demonstrated that “the model did not overly rely on any variable, thus the model would be relatively stable with the removal of any one variable, including those stable over time”. This means that if my son’s classmate calls him an asshole and hurts his feelings, but they make peace the next day, it won’t be reported to a school counsellor as a potential mental health problem. It might even help with eliminating bullying, although much of it happens online rather than in-person. The last time I spoke with a school principal, I was told that AI is being used to detect cyberbullying as well. Much progress has been made since Wu et al. (2020) created algorithms for bullying detection.

All these benefits come from increasingly invasive data collection, which concerns me as a parent, but I hope we can discuss it in our next conversation.

References

American College Health Association. (2013, September 11). Canadian Reference Group Executive Summary Spring 2013. https://www.acha.org/documents/ncha/ACHA-NCHA-II_CANADIAN_ReferenceGroup_ExecutiveSummary_Spring2013.pdf

Blum, S. D. (2016).“I love learning; I hate school”: An anthropology of college. Cornell University Press.

Blum, S. D. (2017, November 14). Ungrading. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2017/11/14/significant-learning-benefits-getting-rid-grades-essay

Chui, K. T., Fung, D. C., Lytras, M. D., & Lam, T. M. (2020). Predicting at-risk university students in a virtual learning environment via a machine learning algorithm. Computers in Human Behavior, 107, 105584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.06.032

Covington, M. V., & Müeller, K. J. (2001). Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation: An approach/avoidance reformulation. Educational psychology review, 13(2), 157-176.

David Nixon. (2017, February 5).B.C. leads the push to eliminate letter grades from school report cards. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-leads-the-push-to-eliminate-letter-grades-from-school-report-cards/article33907027/

Diseth, Å., Mathisen, F. K., & Samdal, O. (2020). A comparison of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation among lower and upper secondary school students. Educational Psychology, 40(8), 961-980. https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2020.1778640

Hodges, J., & Mohan, S. (2019). Machine learning in gifted education: A demonstration using neural networks. Gifted Child Quarterly, 63(4), 243-252. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986219867483

Kruglanski, A. W., Stein, C., & Riter, A. (1977). Contingencies of exogenous reward and task performance: On the “Minimax” Strategy in instrumental Behavior1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 7(2), 141-148. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1977.tb01335.x

Muazu Musa, R., P. P. Abdul Majeed, A., Taha, Z., Chang, S. W., Ab. Nasir, A. F., & Abdullah, M. R. (2019). A machine learning approach of predicting high potential archers by means of physical fitness indicators. PLOS ONE, 14(1), e0209638. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209638

Tate, A. E., McCabe, R. C., Larsson, H., Lundström, S., Lichtenstein, P., & Kuja-Halkola, R. (2020). Predicting mental health problems in adolescence using machine learning techniques. PLOS ONE, 15(4), e0230389. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230389

Wu, J., Wen, M., Lu, R., Li, B., & Li, J. (2020). Toward efficient and effective bullying detection in online social network. Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications, 13(5), 1567-1576. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12083-019-00832-1

I suspect the last time Personalized Learning was great when Plato was learning what he wanted (philosophy) from who he wanted (Socrates).

Personalized learning is often equated to learning with a computer or technology-based instruction and while technology has an important role to play, it should not replace or overshadow a structural reform of the educational system. This is how I envision an ideal future for my son, who will be in high school in 2030. His strengths, needs, skills and interests are regularly assessed through a series of interviews by one or several educational psychologists who create a personality profile. This profile will be updated by each of his subsequent teachers. It is used to help him choose a direction in his education as well as individual courses that fit that direction. There are no mandatory courses. For each individual course, he gets to choose his own teacher (since technology allows it, maybe even out of thousands of teachers across Canada) or even multiple teachers. Perhaps that is how he also gets to choose what he learns in that course. Let’s say if it’s Psychology, he gets to pick individual theories he is interested in. No more memorizing useless information for tests. I doubt that Socrates was giving multiple-choice tests to Plato and grading him. Abolishing tests altogether might not be a bad idea. For admission to higher education, a comprehensive personality profile built over 10 years of school can be used along with a series of interviews and oral presentations of accumulated knowledge.

Is this likely to happen in Canada? Not in 10 years. The inertia of the existing system is too strong to overcome. It can only happen in a built from the scratch alternative system. If it does happen in the distant future, who is more likely to take the risk, a public system or private enterprise? 

Mary Jo Madda is a math and science teacher that turned into a journalist. Before jumping into a new field, Mary had some serious experience under her belt, she made a training curriculum for teachers looking to create digital media to use in their classrooms. After her transition, she soon became a senior editor at https://www.edsurge.com/, a community of education technology entrepreneurs and educators, before moving on to the role of a Creative Strategy Manager for education initiatives at Google.  She still writes for EdSurge.

I picked Mary because of her contribution to building a community of educators and covering a variety of topics related to education. Since the role of an educator is new to me, i find it important to have access to the experience and ideas of others in the field.

I liked that Mary’s articles ranged from silly
“He Had No Pants on” 10 Awkward, Human Moments in the Move to Online Learning

to serious
Confronting the Realities of Sexual Harassment in Education and Edtech

from dry
Not Just Numbers: How Educators Are Using Data in the Classroom

to controversial
White Fragility in Teaching and Education: An Interview With Dr. Robin DiAngelo

EdSurge also has a podcast where relevant ed-tech topics are discussed. After gaining speaking experience on a podcast, Mary moved on to bigger audiences.  She was a speaker at SXSWedu, various universities and appeared on TedX. In this particular talk Mary looked back at the failures of the past “Why technology can’t fix education”  but she also did other talks about success in the future What Skills Will Students (Really) Need to be Successful in 2025 and Beyond?

Mary Jo Madda is not a worldwide or even national celebrity, educators rarely are, yet she is a good illustration of how women contribute to the field. 

I learned the hard way that blogging and making video content is not just about sharing knowledge or information. It’s also about providing a window into your soul. Are you passionate about what you teach? Did it transform you into an interesting person? But why should it matter if you are teaching a subject that is interesting by itself? Well, Lin & Huang confirm my own experience that “the charisma of a teacher has an obviously positive influence on students’ interest… no matter what that interest is” (2016).  Blogging allows an opportunity for your true character to shine through and while you can shield yourself with the wall of text, the video leaves you nowhere to hide. I realized how important it is to have such a window into someone’s soul when I was looking for a psychoanalyst. A few of them had short articles or abandoned blogs on their websites, but none of them had any video content. It’s not surprising, counsellors and psychotherapists, regardless of school of thought, are taught to reveal as little as possible about themselves. The main reason is that therapy is client-focused, the therapist stays in the background and for the most part, steps forward when summoned by the client. Once in a while, the therapist shines a light at something that the client can learn about. It is considered beneficial to remain hidden from the client at that moment because people often perceive therapists as different from an average person, perhaps less flawed or more enlightened.   The cloak of darkness keeps up the necessary illusion. And it is necessary because how do you learn from someone who, let’s say, picks their nose, how do you receive healing from someone who fights with their kids, how do trust someone who betrayed their spouse, how do you share your secrets with someone who’s bored to death by them?
Revealing yourself, whether in the session or through blogging or video on your website, often conflicts with the nature of the profession and yet as a client I was searching for a window into their soul. I was anxious, I wanted to know, will I like that person? Is it a good match? Is it someone I can trust? Can I learn anything from them about myself? Are they able to help me? As I am about to start my own private practice as a counsellor, I’d like to break this tradition and get actively into blogging and provide lots of video content. Hopefully, it will answer the same questions others will have about me. I might pay a price that I will not like. It might cost me many potential clients, but maybe it’s best to lose someone who looks into my soul and does not see what they are looking for.

References

Lin, S., & Huang, Y. (2016). Examining charisma in relation to students’ interest in learning. Active Learning in Higher Education, 17(2), 139-151. doi:10.1177/1469787416637481

 

re: 25 years of Ed Tech by Weller

    The sage is dead. We live in a world where modern science is advanced by many, we no longer see individual scientists rise to the fame of Einstein or Darwin. Thus the shift in the role of the educator from “the sage on the stage” to “the guide on the side” seems natural. It might work in some or even most fields, yet it feels wrong when it comes to teaching personality psychology. The main reason is that psychology is not an exact science. There are behaviours, but they are open to interpretation. There are categories, but they are fuzzy. The only way to understand theory is to apply it in social interactions, make many mistakes, analyze your mistakes and repeat this process until you start making so few mistakes that you become a sage. Most people don’t like to make mistakes. Most people don’t like to admit they made a mistake. It is easier to accept constructive criticism if it comes from someone significantly above you in a hierarchy of competency, rather than below or at the same level. It takes a sage to make other sages. Constructivism in psychology, without the presence of a sage, often makes things worse because learners construct their own interpretations of an already fuzzy science. Consider a seemingly simple task of determining whether someone is an introvert or an extrovert. There is an extensive theory that can be used to teach someone to relatively easily detect extreme cases, but no theory can help differentiate an inborn introvert displaying a learned preference for extroverted behaviours from an inborn extrovert displaying a learned preference for introverted behaviours. There is no blood test for it. There is no 100% (or even 75%) accurate psychological test for it. It takes a sage to see that difference because they’ve seen this pattern in thousands of variations and developed a very nuanced wisdom that cannot be shared and absorbed through language only. It can only be acquired through practice. Sages make mistakes too, therefore worshiping them on the stage no longer makes sense, but they can still play an important role on the side. Replacing them with a guide is a disservice to learners.