Artichoke

Collision theory, class size, and those deliberate acts of teaching.

"I've tried to avoid teaching, which for all its charm takes a lot of your energy and makes you doubt yourself."   John Updike cited in Robert Genn Letters 

A much anticipated copy of John Hattie’s “Visible learning A synthesis of over 800 meta - analyses relating to achievement”    was sitting in the corridor in its yellow bubble wrapped Amazon envelope waiting for me to get home from the Pakuranga Schools TOD yesterday.  I have been hanging out to read the book that summarises 15 years of his research and thinking about influences on student achievement.

I will admit here that Hattie is one of my most favourite educational thinkers.  I regard him, as I do Illich, as someone who has brought an unusual and much needed clarity to my own teaching and learning. 

For example, take Hattie's thinking on class size effects on student learning.

It seems plausible to claim that reducing class sizes will improve learning outcomes, and for as long as I can remember this has been the claim of lobbying by teachers and teacher unions for improving working conditions. Refer the Scoop piece from the NZEI.  And until I read John's take on this a while back I had never challenged the assumption.  It seemed highly plausible.

However, Hattie notes that although reducing class sizes might improve the probability that the environments for improving learning will occur; he has research that shows that it does not improve student learning outcomes per se.  

Teachers get very agitated by this claim.  But if they listened carefully to Hattie’s argument and read his research they would understand why he can validly claim that class size has minimal effect of learning outcomes.  

Improving student learning outcomes through reducing class sizes requires that teachers moving to smaller class sizes “reconfigure the interaction, curricula, and strategies” they used with large classes to change the student interactions happening within the smaller classes. 

And the provocative bit is that Hattie’s research shows that in many instances this does not happen.

We continue to use the same interaction, curricula and strategies with the students in our care regardless of how many students there are.  If as teachers we do not change our practice when working with smaller class sizes , the quality of teaching, student learning and student interaction does not change when class sizes change.

It reminds me of the way I used to explain collision theory when I taught science.   The student text put it like this:  

 A reaction occurs when particles collide.  Not all collisions between particles result in a chemical reaction.  If a reaction is to occur, the particles must collide with sufficient energy for a reaction to occur.  They must also collide in the correct orientation (or position).

Finally, it is a fact that the more frequently effective collisions occur, the faster the rate of reaction.  There are four factors that affect the rate of a reaction, by affecting the frequency (and possibly the energy) with which collisions occur.  These factors are concentration of reacting solutions, surface area of solids, temperature and use of catalysts.

As a consequence I used to teach the kids to talk about increasing the rate of effective collisions rather than simply increasing the rate of collisions.

 I have to unpack the analogy a little more but it starts with “learning happens when teachers interact with students.  Not all interactions between teachers and students result in learning.  If learning is to occur, the teacher and students interactions must be of sufficient quality for learning to occur.  They teacher student interactions must also occur with  .... ”

So Hattie’s argument is that not all collisions between teachers and students will result in learning.  Simply increasing the frequency of those collisions without attention to changing the teaching and learning equivalent of the orientation of the collision and possibly the energy of the collision does not guarantee a reaction or improved learning outcomes.

As a consequence as teachers we need to talk about increasing the rate of effective interactions with students rather than simply increasing the rate of interactions. 

Hattie's work alerts us to re-look at ourselves and our practice.  To ask how can we assess and improve the quality of our teaching? 

Opening “Visible learning”   was an experience that reminded me of clasping one of those famous double scoop icecreams whilst standing in the sunshine on the banks of the Waikato River overlooking the power station in Huntly on Wednesday afternoon.

The dilemma of where to start when dealing with a rapidly melting double scoop chocolate ice-cream cone was not unlike the dilemma I faced when deciding where to start reading Visible Learning. 

There was so much that I wanted to read that I was made momentarily uncertain ...about where to begin.  

I decided on a strategy of selecting pages at random; and of reading whatever text first caught my eye as the book splayed open. And this is a book that splays well.  I was immediately rewarded by the following statement.

Constructivism is a form of knowing, and not a form of teaching, and it is important not to confuse constructing conceptual knowledge with the current fad of constructivism (Bereiter, 2002; Small 2003). Excerpt from Visible Learning “The empirical quest for explanations” on p243.

Hattie notes that his meta analyses findings back those of Kirschner, Sweller and Clark (2006); (researchers I’ve blogged about before) who reviewed minimal guidance during instruction teaching methods and found them wanting.

I liked the text clarifies the assumptions within inquiry and problem based learning approaches.

Assumption 1: Setting authentic problems leads to students constructing their own solutions.

Assumption 2: Knowledge is best acquired through experiences based on procedures of the discipline.  

And I liked how the text explains that these assumptions are not supported by the data.

“...each new set of advocates for these approaches seem either unaware of uninterested in previous evidence that unguided approaches have not been validated.” P243

Hattie affirms that claims of engagement and enjoyment are not evidence of student learning. 

All that “I know this works because “my students’ enjoy” or “the class is so engaged”, when we do [discovery learning, problem based learning or inquiry learning]” that I hear when working in schools. 

Inquiry and problem based learning are not evidence based practice because the evidence that they work is lacking.

A key understanding from p243 in Visible Learning is that believing that students construct conceptual knowledge DOES NOT REQUIRE us to adopt minimally guided methodologies like inquiry learning and problem-based learning.

Forms of knowing are not forms of teaching.  

If we believe that students learn through constructing conceptual knowledge, and that this is an active, social process where learners need “to create and recreate knowledge of themselves”, then direct and active teaching for this learning is the smart solution - both possible and appropriate.

Just look at the effect size data Hattie provides. 

Table 11.1 Effect sizes of teacher as activator and teacher as facilitator

Teacher as activator	d	Teacher as facilitator	d
Reciprocal teaching	0.74	Simulations and gaming	0.32
Feedback	0.72	Inquiry based teaching	0.31
Teaching students self verbalisation	0.67	Smaller class sizes	0.21
Meta-cognition strategies	0.67	Individualised instruction	0.20
Direct instruction	0.59	Problem-based learning	0.15
Mastery learning	0.57	Different teaching for boys and girls	0.12
Goals-challenging	0.56	Web based learning	0.09
Frequent/effects of testing	0.46	Whole language – reading	0.06
Behavioural organisers	0.41	Inductive teaching	0.06
Average activator	0.60	Average facilitator	0.17

Table 11.1 from Visible Learning (2009) Page 243

 The data in the table provides a powerful insight for teachers who want to make a difference to student learning; teachers who want to know where they should best put their energy.

When shared outside of the classroom it will also provides powerful argument for parents, Boards of Trustees, schools and communities who want to work together to improve student learning.

And what I like best is that, students learn significantly more when teachers adopt direct, active teaching methods.

Hattie’s effect size data resolves all that ambivalence between offering “deliberate and purposeful acts of teaching” or adopting that currently much acclaimed role of being a “guide on the side”, that stepping back and overseeing student inquiry.

And the question Hattie tackles in the next few pages (p244 to 247) is to explain the active teaching and learning strategies that teachers might work to improve their practice.  Things like improving the way we use backward design, learning strategies for surface deep and constructed knowledge, feedback, helping students know where they are going, how they are going and where to next etc.  

The effect size data and the elaboration on how we might improve the direct active teaching methods we adopt will undoubtedly help thoughtful teachers who like John Updike find that teaching takes all their energy and makes them doubt themselves.

I must continue reading.

Sustainability and Jamie Oliver drizzle words in education.

We have been writing content framed around the New Zealand Curriculum this summer break.  The process of working so intensively with the NZC document has alerted me to the things we privilege/ legitimise through inclusion in a national curriculum, and the things we omit and thus undermine.

For example in the NZC vision statement the second out of five bullet points (and yes I am alert to the irony of bullet pointing a vision) is for young people:

• who will seize the opportunities offered by new knowledge and technologies to secure a sustainable social, cultural, economic, and environmental future for our country;

 “Sustainability” is currently a Jamie Oliver drizzle word.  Be it in the context of a “Nan’s Lemon Drizzle cake” drizzle or a “drizzle over a little balsamic vinegar and season lightly with salt and pepper” drizzle, the result of drizzling “sustainability” or “sustainable outcomes” over all language symbols and text in any document you are working on in education is currently a “good thing” and guaranteed, much like Jamie Oliver’s creative drizzles in the kitchen, to find favour with your patrons.  It is so popular at the moment that I am waiting for the release of a drizzle index.

Because of the drizzle thing, I was not surprised that he NZC vision statement suggests that it is important to secure a social, cultural, economic and environmentally sustainable future for New Zealand.

But what did catch my eye was the way in which the NZC vision statement suggests these sustainability outcomes will occur.

It seems that the NZC believes that sustainability will be “secured” through “seizing” opportunities offered by “new knowledge and technologies”.

I don’t know what seize or “secured” means to you ... but my guess is that what is being alluded to by “seize” is different from to clasp gently, to linger over, or to to nudge up against, and that “secure” is something different from sharing, or distributing.

The vision statement suggests that not only will sustainability be resolved through a technological solution but also that this technological solution will need to be pursued, pinned and consumed through competitive activity. 

It makes me want to ask ... who will be doing the seizing? And who will be advantaged by the seizing?

It is noteworthy that there is no expectation in this bullet point that changes in human values – the what it is to live, love and be kind, will play a role.  And this seems strange given the emphasis on the key competencies later in the document.

Sustainability is all about discovering what is important and then discovering how we can protect what we have identified now and in the future – it is about balancing human needs with other needs, preservation, guardianship, and kaitiakitanga.

But it seems that preservation bit is not as easily understood as it might first appear.   Is preservation all about seizing?  Is preservation all about finding a technological solution?

Thinking that technology will rescue us, and that what will rescue us can be seized and secured, suggests that the collective writers of the NZC believe we do not have to take collective individual responsibility for preserving the social, cultural, economic and environmental resources in New Zealand in the 21^st Century. 

And that is kind of frightening because the problem with thinking that “technology will rescue us” in these situations  was well explained and found wanting over forty years ago in 1968 by Hardin (refer Tragedy of the commons  - The article is well worth a read and I note not without its own critics). 

Hardin’s argument was that sustainable outcomes cannot be resolved by technological solutions, if individuals are advantaged by pursuing their own interests then we will need “a change in human values or ideas and morality” not a technological solution to change things.   

Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy.

As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks, "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?" This utility has one negative and one positive component.

1) The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since the herdsman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is nearly +1.

2) The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since, however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular decision-making herdsman is only a fraction of 1.

Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another. .But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit--in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.

The NZC suggests that if we want sustainability we must seek a technological solution that has been wrested and secured - control and ownership stuff.

Hardin’s argument suggests that if we want sustainability we must manage how individuals and corporations use the commons – more control.

McKenna suggests yet another alternative – that we should unburden the individual from all that wresting and securing or being managed by others stuff and instead trust in the collective for sustainable outcomes. Less seizing and securing and technology and more changing behaviours and values for trusting and sharing.  (Thanks to Nix for the link)

I have thought a lot about preservation, and what it means to preserve something, an insect, a person, a story, a fantasy.  The instinct to preserve something sometimes means that we covet it and  keep it hidden away, but I have found that objects can exert their will on us and preservation can become a burden.   Rather than covet my father’s collection I’d like to let go of it.  For this reason, when I first exhibited this work in PlaySpace Gallery at CCA, I gradually gave away every image in the piece to gallery visitors.  The act of scattering these images was meant to diffuse the responsibility of their preservation and to give these objects a second life. Perhaps this gesture of dispersal can be a form of preservation, one that lifts the weight off one person and trusts in the collective. Klea McKenna The Butterfly Hunter

John Francis Fien (2003) describes what preservation through dispersal might look like in an educational context: (Thanks to RB for the reference)

 “Enhancing our abilities to learn, to live sustainably and to love is the only way we will be able to address the ecological and social imperatives we face as we seek to build a fairer, less troubled and sustainable world for our children.”  From Learning to care: Education and compassion. In Australian Journal of Environmental Education, Vol. 19, pp. 1-13

[I note that although social, cultural, economic, and environmental sustainability are in the NZC vision on page 8 by the time we hit the values “to be encouraged modelled and explored” on page 12 the social cultural and economic have been lost.  NZC Values: excellence, innovation, diversity, equity, community and participation, ecological sustainability, integrity and respect.   And that is a shame because I don’t know if it is possible nowadays to think critically about ecological sustainability without a concomitant valuing of social and economic sustainability.]