“Why are your desks in rows, Mr. Pondiscio?” asked the assistant principal. “You’re supposed to have your students in groups.”
“Why is that?”
“Research shows children learn better in groups. We socialize intelligence.”
“Sorry? What research? Doesn’t it make more sense to have them work in groups when doing a group activity? Half the class is facing away from me when we’re doing something whole class and I need their attention.”
“Mr. Pondiscio, you should NEVER be doing whole class work! It’s important to differentiate instruction at all times. The research shows it’s how kids learn best. And where are your math manipulatives? They should be within easy reach at all times.”
“What if my lesson doesn’t include manpulatives? Then pattern blocks become projectiles.”
“Not include manipulatives? What are you talking about? The district wants to see manipulatives for differentiation at ALL times. Kinesthetic learners need…”
“Are you aware that there’s really no scientific basis for the belief in learning styles?”
“Mr. Pondiscio, don’t argue with me. The district wants children in groups at all times. They don’t want to see whole class instruction ever. And when they do a walk-through, they expect to see manipulatives out or in reach. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the instructional supervisor.”
While I’m making the dialogue up, I had a variations of this conversation more times than I care to remember. I was reminded of this while reading Dan Willingham’s latest over at the Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog. “For each of the following pairs,” Dan writes, “which will lead to better learning?”
A verbal explanation of a concept
A verbal explanation with manipulatives
A lecture with PowerPoint slides
A workshop where participants produce a product
Trick questions, of course. There is no one right answer. Willingham writes:
“Each choice just describes a method of conveying information. What matters is how effectively the method is used to convey the desired content. Furthermore, some methods fit certain types of content better than other types. And the form-content combination may also be more or less effective, depending on what the learner already knows.”
This, of course, is frequently overlooked at the classroom and administrative level where good ideas too often harden into the only acceptable way of doing things “because it’s what ‘they’ want to see.” Take math manipulatives. How could they not help, Willingham asks?
They don’t help when they don’t represent that target concept well, or when they have flashy but irrelevant properties that distract the student. Manipulatives can be great, but they have been oversold. Sometimes they help, sometimes they are irrelevant, and sometimes they actually detract from learning.
“Any pedagogic method can be used well or poorly, Dan concludes. ”Depending on what one is trying to teach, some methods will be much easier to use well than others. Blanket evaluations of pedagogic methods—for example, participation equals ‘active learning’—are inaccurate.”
Abe Lincoln’s PowerPoint
In his blog, Willingham tells the story of being invited to speak to a group of teachers. But his contract forbade the use of PowerPoint because “the latest cognitive research showed that PowerPoint turns people into passive listeners and that participatory activities such as workshops were better.”
A commenter at Joanne Jacobs responds with this priceless link of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address–as a PowerPoint.
Where did the “kids in groups” idea come from? All the classrooms at my kids’ public school do that, but it seems a ridiculous idea to me. When kids are facing each other over the same desktop, that exponentially multiplies the number of opportunities for them to cheat, get distracted, get into fights, take someone else’s paper or other work. What’s the supposed benefit?
Comment by Stuart Buck — September 7, 2010 @ 5:09 pm
[...] Thou Shalt Use Manipulatives « The Core Knowledge Blog Filed under: education — coopmike48 @ 3:59 pm Thou Shalt Use Manipulatives « The Core Knowledge Blog. [...]
Pingback by Thou Shalt Use Manipulatives « The Core Knowledge Blog « Parents 4 democratic Schools — September 7, 2010 @ 6:59 pm
Manipulatives are great for introducing certain concepts, but too often they are used as a “crutch” long after students ought to have transitioned to pencil & paper calculations.
Comment by Crimson Wife — September 7, 2010 @ 7:53 pm
love this post!!
Comment by tim-10-ber — September 7, 2010 @ 8:34 pm
Stuart,
They don’t tell you about the DOWNSIDES of group work in ed school, but you describe them well. Cooperative learning is presented as a panacea. Lecture is not even presented as a valid option; you are made to understand that it has been discredited. “Be the guide at the side, not the sage on the stage.” Such indoctrination becomes so deeply ingrained in teachers’ minds that they negate the evidence of their own eyes –that group work is usually inefficient, messy, an exacerbater of management problems –and continue to do it throughout their careers. This makes me very angry. Many education professors are like tainted food purveyors: their product is not only not benefiting consumers, it’s truly causing harm.
As I’ve done before, I declare my full-throated endorsement of lecture –something many of us practice, but with guilty conscience. I cite as evidence that this constitutes TRUE best practice an interview with a star U. of Maryland professor who says that the key to great teaching is great PERFORMANCE –engaging your audience, timing, etc. This is the antithesis of what they teach us in ed schools, and yet it is the truth.
Comment by Ben F — September 7, 2010 @ 9:05 pm
Ben, Ben, Ben,
Believe me, I think cooperative learning is a joke, a facade, simply another fad, but lecture? Full-throated endorsement of lecture? True best practice? Holy Cow, Phil Rizzuto! HOLY COW!!!
Can you honestly believe one lecture to a class of twenty to twenty five students even approaches best meeting the needs of everyone in that class? Are there slow learners, accelerated learners, disabled learners in this class? How are their needs being met?
One lecture to the class may well be the most convenient approach for the instructor, but for the students? This absolutely defies logic.
Comment by Paul Hoss — September 7, 2010 @ 9:29 pm
I’ll let Ben defend himself (he’s more than capable), but I didn’t read his comment as advocating for “all lecture all the time.” Rather it was a reaction to the “guide on the side” nonsense, i.e. that one should never lecture. And in that, I concur. Some of my favorite moments as a teacher have been lectures. Of course my students wouldn’t have used the term. They would have called it telling a story.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — September 7, 2010 @ 9:33 pm
Paul, what most American students NEED –whether they be slow, accelerated or whatever –is a heck of a lot of more knowledge. Would the slow learners learn more if I pulled them aside in a small group and read to them quietly about the Aztecs? I doubt it. Would the accelerated learners learn more if I sent them off on their own to read about the Aztecs? Probably not. Would the ADHD kids learn more if they acted out Aztec empire-building in the back of the classroom? I doubt it. “Lecture” has become an epithet (sadly, like “government” or “taxes”), but if I were a computer-guided robot doing what I do, I would be lauded to the heavens as a multi-sensory, engaging, differentiating, miracle-working gadget, and Gates would be spending billions to buy more of me to replace all the stuck-in-the-past lecturing teachers. Yes, this is what good lecturing can do, yet our prejudices make us blind to it.
I don’t want to lecture all the time –I can’t; it’s exhausting. But I tell you, most student love good lectures, just as you or I would much prefer a good lecture to the specter of group work with an assorted group of peers, some of whom are malicious, and most of whom are pretty ignorant of the subject. I got a very nice card from one of my students today telling me, I kid you not, that she hoped I would keep teaching the way I’ve been teaching for the rest of the year because it’s making history so interesting (our school started at the end of July, so she’s had a good dose of my style). She thinks history is going to be her favorite class this year. It seems to me that lecturing –telling and showing by someone who knows and loves his subject, and who has the power to present it lucidly and palatably –comes close to being the essence of teaching, and that many of the new fangled modalities (e.g. small groups of kids with poor reading abilities tackling a text jointly) are inferior substitutes that have currency only because devising and promulgating new pedagogies is the way ed schools think they can justify their existence.
If American schools are to improve, we must counter the libel against lecturing, and liberate teachers’ minds from the false and destructive doctrines of the ed schools.
Comment by Ben F — September 8, 2010 @ 2:01 am
Hear, hear Ben!
Comment by andrei radulescu-banu — September 8, 2010 @ 10:43 am
There was a lot of research in the 1980s about cooperative learning. Proponents of group work often claim that this research has “shown” the superiority of cooperative learning. It has “shown” nothing of the sort, or at least the findings have been ambiguous.
For one thing, the goals of cooperative learning have often been social: to get students to like each other more, interact more, etc. When it comes to achievement, cooperative learning has mixed results.
Much depends, of course, on what you are trying to achieve. If you want students to understand a complex topic, group work is rarely the best route. Lecture combined with some discussion or question and answer may be the best for those situations. Group work can be fruitful when students already have the knowledge and skills they need for the project.
Like Ben, I enjoy good lectures whether I am the deliverer or the listener. I also love a whole-class discussion led by the teacher. It leaves room for thinking and pausing; you don’t have to be visibly active all the time.
I love paying close attention to a lecture, putting everything together in my mind, and figuring out which questions still remain unresolved. And I love it when a lecture takes unexpected paths that lead to a greater understanding of the main point or topic.
Lectures aren’t for every situation, and they take immense preparation. I would be content giving two or three lectures a week (per course) and doing other things in the remaining sessions. I don’t understand the hostility to lecturing in the schools. I am aware of some of the origins of it but still find the anti-lecture dogma baffling. It extends into college, where many lecture courses are being converted into workshops. Will students no longer learn to listen for any extended period of time?
Comment by Diana Senechal — September 8, 2010 @ 11:07 am
I laughed out loud when I read the dialog – whether it was the fact that I’ve experienced similar conversations that made it funny to me or that I am horrified that it’s not just me who has had such experiences is unclear.
True conversation between me and a colleague at a committee meeting:
Colleague: I got it! I know what we should do to help students develop better study habits!
Me: Oh yeah, what’s that?
Colleague: We should do what we used to do – give them all learning styles inventories and have them put stickers on their planners that indicate what kind of learner they are! That way they would know and their teachers would know!
Me: Well, I don’t know that that would be effective. The research seems to indicate that giving students a learning styles inventory will improve achievement.
Colleague: But, we need them to know what they are!
Me: Um, there’s no evidence that learning styles even exist.
Colleague: Well, that doesn’t matter.
Doesn’t matter? Seriously? I was speechless.
I wonder how proponents of these ridiculous learning theories would feel if their doctors experimented with methods that have no basis in research.
Comment by Anthony Guzzaldo — September 8, 2010 @ 12:40 pm
Real life experience Part II…
Yesterday, in a professional development seminar that I was voluntold to attend, the presenter was explaining the portions of communication that come from verbal, vocal, and nonverbal cues.
Presenter: So, you can even use this information in your classes. Knowing that research says only 7% of communication is verbal, that means if you lecture your students will only learn 7% of what you’re trying to teach them.
Really? How do people get away with making these kinds of claims?
If my school were equipped with a b.s. alarm system, I would have pulled it right then… twice…
Comment by Anthony Guzzaldo — September 8, 2010 @ 1:22 pm
Correction to first story…
“research seems to indicate that giving students a learning styles inventory will NOT improve student achievement”
Comment by Anthony Guzzaldo — September 8, 2010 @ 1:23 pm
Paul, Paul, Paul…
Let’s not pretend that lecture and interactive-lecture are synonymous.
Is it wisest to spend 50 minutes talking to a silent (and bored) group of kids? Of course not. But that doesn’t mean that a more interactive, discussion based lecture delivery is the same thing. I have found that to be the very best way to teach content and the proof is in how much more my students achieve when I do things that way.
Additionally, I take issue with your contention that teachers could be meeting the unique needs of every student, but choose not to out of convenience for themselves.
While differentiation (the real kind, not the learning styles kind) sounds great in theory, I have yet to encounter a single person, yourself included, who has explained to me how I can realistically go about doing that.
Mind you, I teach at the high school level, so the disparity between my highest and lowest achievers is vast. Still, I work as hard as any teacher I know and have still not figured out how I can possibly differentiate properly given that I am one person, there are only 24 hours in a day, and I have to eventually sleep.
Comment by Anthony Guzzaldo — September 8, 2010 @ 5:04 pm
Ben,
Lectures have their place in schools and I understand your appreciation of them. A passionate, knowledgeable teacher (which it sounds like you are) can be very effective with this approach.
I went in another direction when I became a teacher because I remembered all too well what school was like for me. I was the impatient type and I got to resent the wasted time and redundancies of school. I wanted to learn and I didn’t believe it was right that I (or other capable kids) were forced to wait for everyone to catch up.
So, after operating my class in a traditional manner for one year I committed myself to change. I didn’t want to subject my students to the same experience I had in school. I was going to at least attempt to address the individual pace of learning for each student. It was challenging initially and organization was of the utmost importance.
Maybe I was just driven to operate in this manner to satisfy my curiosity as to whether such an approach could be functional. It turned out that it was doable and it was extremely satisfying.
While I’ve learned it’s not the approach for all teachers, I’d like to see more at least attempt this strategy and possibly incorporate it into a portion of their day.
Comment by Paul Hoss — September 8, 2010 @ 5:13 pm
As a teacher who works exclusively with struggling readers (whose reading difficulties are often a symptom, rather than the cause, of their broader learning problems), I cringe every time I enter a classroom and see students with their back facing the teacher’s directions or presentation, all part of the “group” philosophy of learning! Our students even take tests facing each other – then are accused of cheating! More of the “He looked at me funny!” problems start during silent-reading time than anyone could believe; I’m guessing that many behavior, social, and learning problems are related to my district’s insistence that students be seated in “table groups” at all times. Where is the sanity in this? We are doing a tremendous disservice to students who need a classroom environment that fosters concentration, reflection, and individual responsibility.
Comment by LynDee — September 8, 2010 @ 5:58 pm
New York City’s District 75 (a geographically noncontiguous district for students with severe disabilities) includes the following questions in its “walkthrough checklist” for administrators conducting quick observations:
Does student desks arrangement promote eye-to-eye contact and inquiry?
Does the teacher follow the 3 components of Readers Workshop? (Mini Lesson, Independent Reading/Conferencing, Share)
Is student writing celebrated and displayed in varying stages?
Have all students been assigned a talk partner?
Are students given opportunities to talk during the interactive read aloud? Is talk encouraged?
Are the 7 proficiencies of good readers being shared and practiced?
Are writing centers/areas established in classrooms?
Does the teacher ask “big idea” questions?
Comment by Diana Senechal — September 8, 2010 @ 7:05 pm
On KQED’s influential Forum today Milton Chen, the executive director of Edutopia, trotted out every single cliche from the progressive ed catechism. He said, verbatim, “Be the guide at the side, not the sage on the stage.” He said that memorization is passe because the information is online. He cited the fact that 4th grade reading scores have been flat for 30 years as evidence that we needed to double-down on project learning and bringing tech into the classroom –as if that hasn’t been exactly what we’ve been doing for the past 30 years! Chen is the most articulate and utterly doctrinaire spokeperson for progressive ed that I’ve ever heard. Given his obvious intelligence, I wondered if he sincerely believed what he was saying: the paycheck he gets from George Lucas probably enables him to live pretty nicely in San Francisco’s pleasure dome. A gospel of traditionalism would not sell well in the innovation-besotted Bay Area.
Comment by Ben F — September 8, 2010 @ 8:55 pm
Re Edutopia and Milton Chen:
http://educationnext.org/edutopian-vision/
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — September 8, 2010 @ 9:11 pm
I had some students tell me that they wanted me to lecture more. They were usually among the best students.
As far as cooperative work being used to further social goals: My cooperative learning “professor”, a lifelong English teacher, told us that “cooperative skills” are rated highly by CEOs, so we need to teach them. The type of cooperation I’ve seen in schools bears little resemblance to cooperation or teamwork anywhere else.
Teamwork works because of STANDARDIZATION. That’s why people in different timezones can work on a project together. Teachers, in general, hate the idea of any kind of standardization.
Human beings have been cooperating for tens of thousands of years; It’s really the secret of our success in colonizing the entire planet. This little fact seems to have escaped the education profs who act as though they’ve just discovered it.
Comment by john — September 8, 2010 @ 9:13 pm
Anthony,
If the Lord be willing and the creek don’t rise my book should be out sometime in late spring, or at least I hope. One chapter is devoted specifically to how to individualize the pace of instruction for all students.
Trust me, I’m no rocket scientist. If I could figure this out and develop it on my own, it’s my belief anyone should be able to individualize. But they have to believe it’s best for their students and they have to be committed to invest in the up front planning time. It’s organization and the willingness to believe in this approach that made it work for me.
BTW; Robert was kind enough to publish a chapter last December I developed for my book. Have you read it yet? It’s on the Core Knowledge archives.
Comment by Paul Hoss — September 9, 2010 @ 5:33 pm
I have a secret ambition: place hidden tape recorders under the desks that kids sit around whilst doing their ‘collaborative learning’. Then play them back to the teacher and get her (or him) to say just what her pupils had learnt.
These tapes could be just as sensational as the Watergate tapes, if only we could find someone who could stay awake for long enough to analyze them.
Comment by Tom Burkard — September 10, 2010 @ 11:25 am
When Ben, in comment 5 above, said he gives his full-throated endorsement of lecture, I gave an inward cheer, but also felt a pang of alarm. I know what Ben means. At least I think I do. But who else does? If people have a picture in mind of a type of lecture that is not appropriate for a given class, then of course they conclude that lecture is not good. If lecture is not good, then of course we should do something else.
Lecture can mean many things to different people, and some of those things are not at all suitable for some situations. I think probably the lecture situation most people think of, when the word is used, would be a speaker who is paid to speak one time only to a large audience of strangers who have a wide range of backgrounds and interests in what the speaker is talking about. I think that situation is in many important ways quite different from a teacher who meets with a class everyday, knows them well, establishes a constructive classroom culture, responds to their responses extensively, has clear learning goals in mind, assigns tasks that lead to the attainment of those goals, gives feedback on those tasks, and has prior experience to draw from. In such a situation an important part of that teacher’s job is to explain things. Explaining things is done with words, a lot of words. Thus good teachers do a lot of lecture. But it is not much like that first kind of lecture I mentioned.
I would argue that there are three main parts to teaching in most school situations involving academic subjects. First the teacher provides some form of presentation of the subject matter, one topic at a time. Second, the teacher provides tasks that gives practice in the subject matter to the learners. As a general rule you don’t learn anything without practice. Third, the teacher monitors the learning and provides extensive feedback to the learners. Generally without this extensive feedback little learning takes place. There is no end of variations on this basic theme, but the basic theme is ubiquitous. Thus teachers do a lot of talking. They do a lot of explaining. they do this talking and explaining because that’s what it takes to manage learning. So we lecture. But, again, it is not much like that first type of lecture I mentioned.
Instead of asking what we should do in a classroom, we should ask what teachers actually do. Then we should analyze that. As usual, in spite of very limited experience and data to base things on, I have developed my thoughts along this line. It’s at http://www.brianrude.com/Tchap17.htm
Comment by Brian Rude — September 12, 2010 @ 12:04 am
Paul, thank you for directing me to some resources that worked for you.
I am absolutely open to the idea of differentiating (again, the real way, not the VAK way) and I am willing to work hard to pull it off. I just haven’t yet succeeded when I’ve tried and I haven’t seen anyone do it correctly.
So, I appreciate your sharing some resources that worked for you as well as your own take on the issue.
Comment by Anthony Guzzaldo — September 14, 2010 @ 10:41 am
So called “cooperative learning” is, in my experience, rarely cooperative, and rarely results in learning.
Comment by sthill — September 18, 2010 @ 8:07 am
[...] Thou Shalt Use Manipulatives [...]
Pingback by Should manipulatives ALWAYS be used? I don’t think so! « The ZeroSum Ruler (home) — December 19, 2010 @ 1:28 pm
I hope you don’t mind, but I reposted your blog post on my blog. I love it! “Manipulatives become projectiles” is exactly true. As a high school teacher, I have seen over the years the number of my students who have their multiplication tables memorized take a nose dive. I developed a tool to help them add integers of different signs (ie: -23 + 7) because, here in Boston, the curriculum pace is so fast, they got just 16 days practive on these types of problems in 7th grade. Something’s got to be done about the way math is taught in the US. There’s no quick fix, but throwing manipulatives at kids at all times is not going to get them to factor x^2 + 10x + 24 or stop telling me that 8 – 3 = -11!
Comment by Shana Donohue — December 19, 2010 @ 1:33 pm
I also wanted to share with you a chart published by Professor William H. Schmidt that shows the difference in number of math topics we throw at our students per year as opposed to in A+ countries. http://zerosumruler.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/us-vs-a-countries-breadth-vs-depth-in-math-which-is-better/
As you can see, we throw a lot, never allowing our students to absorb.
Comment by Shana Donohue — December 19, 2010 @ 2:09 pm
I hope you don’t mind that I cited your blog post in my thesis! I used is a justification against the “red chip/black chip” model for teaching integer addition.
Comment by Shana Donohue — February 18, 2011 @ 3:50 pm