by Robert Pondiscio
February 9th, 2009
Tags: contract negotiations, Michelle Rhee, teachers union
Posted in Education News | 5 Comments »
Washington, DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee takes to the Washington Post Op-Ed page today to “set the record straight with students, parents and, especially, teachers” — the poor performance of the city’s schools, she says, is not the fault of teachers.
I often speak of our district’s performance data with sadness and outrage. The situation for our city’s children is dire. Yet while I acknowledge the seriousness of the work we face, I want to be clear about something: I do not blame teachers for the low achievement levels. I have talked with too many teachers to believe this is their fault. I have watched them pour their energy into engaging every student. I know they are working furiously in a system that for many years has not appreciated them — sometimes not even paying them on time or providing textbooks. Those who categorically blame teachers for the failures of our system are simply wrong.
What follows is a lengthy discussion of the proposed teachers contract. Eduwonk downplays Rhee’s shiny gold star for teachers saying “I suspect this will be seen as the ”new Rhee” but this is basically what she’s been saying for a while.” Personally the op-ed reads to me like a standard PR tactic to rally public support for the contract. Countering the union line that Rhee favors a “scorched earth” brand of reform, including teacher evaluation, seems almost secondary here.
As for teachers the chancellor will almost certainly find that regardless of what she has meant these many months, her ready, fire, aim rhetorical style has certainly created the perception that she holds teachers in less than high regard. And it may take more than a single op-ed to change that.
by Robert Pondiscio
February 9th, 2009
Tags: critical thinking, Patricia Greenfield, technology
Posted in Education News, Research and Reports | 5 Comments »
The “informal learning environments” of television, video games, and the Internet are producing learners with a new profile of cognitive skills, says UCLA psychology professor Patricia Greenfield. Our visual skills are improving, while our critical thinking abilities are in decline, according to a review of 50 studies on learning and technology conducted by Greenfield and published in the journal Science.
Formal education must adapt to these changes, taking advantage of new strengths in visual-spatial intelligence and compensating for new weaknesses in higher-order cognitive processes: abstract vocabulary, mindfulness, reflection, inductive problem solving, critical thinking, and imagination. These develop through the use of an older technology, reading, which, along with audio media such as radio, also stimulates imagination. Informal education therefore requires a balanced media diet using each technology’s specific strengths in order to develop a complete profile of cognitive skills.
What’s the upshot for educators? At ARS Technica, John Trimmer notes because she recognizes that both forms of skills have their place, “Greenfield advocates a balanced approach to the rising tide of visual content obtained through informal education. First, she argues that schools should emphasize textual materials during the learning process in order to provide a counterbalance to the informal learning environment. But, for testing purposes, we could do a better job of providing a more balanced approach than the typical all-text method of evaluating skills and recall. “
