(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
This is an early report from what is as far as I know the nation’s first Catholic school to incorporate blended learning. The results reported here are extremely encouraging. I hope that formal documentation of the figures presented will follow, but for now check it out:
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
I’ve seen a lot of videos like this. I’m sure it’s a good school. But what is the video’s point? Who is the audience?
I found it inspiring. I believe the intended audience would be existing and potential stakeholders, of all stripes, and to increase personal buy-in, of all types. It worked for me.
My guess is that the main audience is Catholic school leaders. Pause the video and examine the chart at 7:44 on finances and 8:13 on academic performance. If the school meets their per pupil costs goal next year and sees the same sort of gains next year, the school will have been a successful adventurer indeed.
Am I the only one NOT impressed by this? My kids ONLY went through Catholic schools and received a great education. How?? They teach kids the “traditional” way. Good materials and text books and good teachers. PERIOD.
I’m SICK of hearing how schools are going to teach critical thinking. One learns to think critically WHEN they have knowledge. Who thinks better?? The student with knowledge or the one without? Let’s face it the illiterate student will have NO idea how to think critically.
I’m sold on Catholic schools in general because they’ve rejected the fads you find in public schools. NOT because they’ve fallen victim to it.
Is this something that will harm the student?? Maybe not to the extent that other fads have had on public school students but a good teacher with good textbooks and curriculum can accomplish what we are all looking for. I know, I’ve seen it with my own kids.
If you’d like to experience the concept, at least in part, then head on over to khanacademy.org.
I certainly understand your suspicion but the fact that Catholic schools are looking at the idea ought to be the critical clue that it’s most likely a good idea. After all, if it’s a lousy idea, or worse hurts kids, then parents will depart in droves and the school closes its doors. That’s the difference between Catholic schools and district public schools and why Catholic schools have been so resistent to the plague of edu-crap – all those fads against which you rail. The former lives and dies at the whim of parents and the latter doesn’t.
But Catholic schools face a problem common to all organizations that don’t have the luxury of the power of taxation – rising costs. If they don’t figure out how to get more out of their teachers they have to hire more teachers and that bumps up their costs which bumps up tuitions cutting into their prospective clientele.
One of the less-mentioned advantages of blended learning is getting more out of teachers by relieving them of much of the grunt-work of teaching. Lecture, testing, test-scoring and similar mundane but necessary tasks are assumed by the computer freeing the teacher to look for kids with problems. The teacher goes from being an assembly line worker to being a problem-solver. The result is you don’t need as many teachers to get the job of educating kids done. That holds down costs which means more parents can afford to send their kids to Catholic school.
I’ve tutored in math and have suggested Khan. I normally suggest it to the struggling student or the students in a math class with a lousy teacher or fuzzy math program.
I’ve also had my children in Catholic schools with great teachers who didn’t need this in order to learn math.
I guess if you can’t find quality teachers or if you lack the ability to choose a quality text book, this could be an alternative.
There are some lousy text books in some Catholic schools. But the solution isn’t blended learning, the solution is to replace the text book.
I wouldn’t say I’m opposed, I’m just not sold that this is some magic fix.
Put a good teacher in a classroom with a good text book and I know you will get good results.
If you can’t manage to do that, then maybe blended learning is an option?
However if you can’t pick a quality text book, I’m skeptical that you will pick quality software.
Actually it is a magic fix. Just like everywhere else technology’s been applied it’s been a magic fix. Like, for instance, the electronic brains, to use the dated phrase, we’re using to engage in this conversation.
Look, it’s long past due that technology start to increase the efficiency and efficacy of education as it has done in every other area to which technology’s been applied. But education is, in the main, an extension of government so some of the considerations that drove the adoption of technology in so many other areas don’t apply in education.
Sure a good teacher backed up by a good principal using good text books can do a terrific job but technology holds the promise of allowing the machine to do the inevitable, necessary drudgery of education freeing the teacher to do what people do best all while bringing down the cost of education.
This is a “John Henry” moment in education and the thing to remember about John Henry is the drill that beat him originally was soon superceded by an even better drill. The other thing to remember is that John Henry’s successor ended up running a steam drill, a more demanding and higher-skilled job then swinging a hammer and also a job that generated greater benefits to society.
Have you looked at some of the textbooks used in our schools?? Have you noticed how lousy some are?? Have you seen a fuzzy math text book?? IF the schools cannot purchase quality materials now, who thinks they will choose quality software? Anyone?
I’m not going to make any wagers on that !
MWAB, I think your point is well taken, but it may help to remember that Catholic schools are quite diverse overall. Indeed, their demographic targets and missions vary as widely as the span seen in higher education. It seemed to me that what was showcased in the video reflected something approximating the Cristo Rey subset, where cost efficiency pressures are high. Indeed, a quick visit to the Seton Education Partners website confirms that their mission with this technology is to serve more disadvantaged kids. Nonetheless, I can see the blended model eventually impacting most market segments at some point, at least to a minor degree, but who knows? In the end, the market will tell us and will keep the offerings diverse.
MWAB-
I didn’t see any evidence in the video that the school was trying to teach critical thinking without the necessary base of knowlege. The ITBS scores in fact seem to indicate otherwise.
Well it’s hard to find a school/program that isn’t claiming they teach kids to think critically.
The IB program says they teach kids to think critically but then when you look at the framework, they push a U.N. political propaganda program on the kids via Constructivism. So much for critical thinking there!
I think that critical thinking is jolly good so long as you have the base of knowledge to undergird the project. If you don’t, your school will bomb something like the ITBS.
Agreed.
I have no firsthand knowledge of the school or the individuals portrayed in the video. So I can only presume to understand its genesis. The production is high quality; someone with $ financed it. The school probably has one or more benefactors who are committed to improving education for urban students. They believe the video will tell a powerful story about the possibility of achieving that goal. As another commenter observed, in that respect the video is inspiring. But who will it inspire? And what will it inspire them to do? A focused “call to action” would have strengthened it.
It’s a bit early yet to call for the widespread adoption of blended learning in an effort to improve Catholic schools and keep them open. On the other hand, it is only a matter of time until blended learning charter schools raise the level of competition for private schools enormously.
Private schools need to be exploring how to productively substitute technology for labor to get their quality up and their costs down. Otherwise a great many of them will go the way of the Dodo.
I went to a RocketShip charter school in San Jose a few years ago. They were heavily into what I guess is now called “blended learning.” RocketShip is getting ready to start a charter in Milwaukee. Separately, Scott Walker and some UW officials are set to make an announcement today that sounds like blended learning at the higher education level.
Focused calls to action are a dime a dozen, George.
The less-emphasized but crucial factor in blended learning is the potential to help hold the line on escalating education costs. If blended learning does help hold school costs down then focused calls to action won’t be necessary. Every school that depends on parental choice, including charters, will be looking at the idea. Obviously, even more so, will be the schools that depend on parents paying tuition.
Perhaps I chose my words poorly. By call to action I meant to suggest that the piece would have been more effective if it more clearly said “do this, increase achievement, and save money.” Something to nudge a legislator to say “Hey, that’s an idea we should try.”
I’m all for noising the information around. But the less legislators are involved the better.
The district-based side of public education is inherently resistent to efficiency improving technologies so getting legislators involved means shoving technology down the throats of school districts. They’ll have a lot of incentive to fight back and plenty of advantages.
I’m hopeful charters will be more interested since cutting costs frees up funds for other uses that the parents who might choose a charter would find attractive.
But it’s where parents choose and pay that interest will be automatic once the value’s clear.
Allen says, “But the less legislators are involved the better.”
Uh, who will eventually have to approve the policy reforms needed to create a flexible, thriving education market?
George Mitchell asks: “Uh, who will eventually have to approve the policy reforms needed to create a flexible, thriving education market?”
Parents, where they’re able.
The organizational dynamics of the school district means that the introduction of technology will have to be rammed down their throat. You may find a district here and there that embraces technology carrying its use to its logical extent by reducing head count but in the main districts will resist any policy, law, technology or idea that results in reducing personnel. Organizationally such a law would amount to pushing on a rope.
Where parents hold the hammer though schools that do a better job educating their kids will be full and schools that do a lousy job will fold. If the technology makes it easier for schools to generate good results parents will select that school and mandating the adoption of technology becomes as superfluous as mandating that kids go to school.
So the extent to which legislators ought to be involved is in the extending of the power of choice to parents.
“So the extent to which legislators ought to be involved is in the extending of the power of choice to parents.”
Thank you.
Given your general disposition against “one-size-fits-all,” perhaps you really mean to rephrase the title as “A Way of the Future”? 😉
🙂