Carmen Tschofen's Public Library

"associative bias" "interprets the present in light of the past" "produces stories that make sense" even if they are not true/accurate. The better stories are judged "more probable." Associative coherence follows the pattern of a network.

Psychology kahneman assumptions

The approach suggested here follows a different reasoning and sees individuals as social. Both the individual and the social are then about interaction, where the individual is interaction inside and the social is interaction outside. The inside and outside cannot be separated or understood separately.

change learning questions assumptions

Second, the piece assumes that technologies eliminate human agency. We'll just do whatever these apps tell us to do. But we can make choices, we can always turn them off, and we can make decisions about how to use them or how to interpret their recommendations. Always.

Third, it misunderstands serendipity. Serendipity isn't a thing; it's a state of mind, a measure of our openness to seeing similarity and difference in the world, of our willingness to set aside our usual assumptions about who or what interests us, and in some degree who we are. If I'm not in the mood, or I'm feeling very rushed and have a deadline, that really wonderful short essay right beside the article I'm reading will go ignored; if I'm feeling more leisurely, then I might look at it.

We usually think of serendipity as a delicious unexpected treat. But it's not. It's generated by our capacity to appreciate deliciousness in the world, by our taste for novelty.

serendipity agency openness

writing

It's still a football hoop because it reinforces the idea that the information we most need about schools comes from standardized tests of math and reading (and, to a lesser degree, science). Those tests are still going to do a poor job of evaluating higher-order thinking skills, and an obsessive focus on them is going to narrow the curriculum. This is true not just in tested subjects—I'm still upset about the minimization of writing in English courses because of reading's privileged status—but also in untested subjects where teachers face increasing pressure to change what they do to focus on the tested skills. This is not because the tested skills are inherently better or more worthy goals, but rather because they generate the numbers we use to label schools (and, increasingly, teachers).

myth belief NCLB measurement testing

The assumption goes something like this: the open digital educational materials made available through these initiatives are of value because they are the product of these prestigious, highly selective institutions.

On the surface, this seems perfectly logical. It’s an interpretation of value based on the deeply engrained, long-used logic and criteria used to rank different institutions. According to this logic, the “best” institutions, like Harvard and Stanford, provide students (those with the money and grades) with access to the most respected academics, and in turn, to the latest and best thinking on academic subjects. The excitement about MOOCs from Princeton and others is that it gives the public access to materials that are otherwise available to a privileged few.



However, in this case the traditional criteria for evaluating value in higher education may be misleading. Prestigious institutions may, in fact, be the least well prepared and least well-suited of all types of institutions to lead the MOOC expansion. The orientation, interests, and market focus of these institutions could limit their capacity to meet the needs that MOOCs typically seek to fulfill.

Higher ed MOOC myth belief religion

gifted complexity

So perhaps the Beeb do have a point - whilst participation inequality may still hold true in online communities, maybe it is time we developed a more sophisticated model to take account of the myriad contemporary forms of particpation not only across the whole web, but within the confines of specific communities. Thoughts?

lurking participation

http://educ.ucalgary.ca/files/educ/roger_schank_slides.pdf
1. shut down the high schools (role of religions in education- delivered truths)
2. Stop preparing students for college
3. Re-focus colleges away from academics
4. Eliminate all testing
5. Let students choose what to learn
 Make learning fun  again. Communications, human relations, reasoning.

cognitive change education learning Schank

complexity

A trouble is, thus, a private matter: 'values cherished by an individual are felt by him to be threatened' (ibid.: 396).
In contrast, issues have to do with 'matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the limited range of his life' (Mills 1967: 396; Mills 1959: 8).

For much of the time governments tend to cloak or to present such public issues as private troubles: it is the fault of individuals that they cannot find work, rather than an outcome of structural or political arrangements. Furthermore, given the orientation of social workers and educators, when working with individuals or groups, it is all to easy to end up working with people around the immediate issue or trouble. In C Wright Mills’ (1967: 534) words they can ‘slip past structure to focus on isolated situations’ and consider problems ‘as problems of individuals’. We can confuse personal troubles with public issues. Indeed, this  critique by Mills of the professional ideology of what he described as social pathologists (social workers who focus on individual adjustment rather than structural change) remains of fundamental concern.

Scholarship is a choice of how to live as well as a choice of career; whether he knows it or not, the intellectual workman forms his own self as he works toward the perfection of his craft; to realize his own potentialities, and any opportunities that come his way, he constructs a character which has as its core the qualities of a good workman.What this means is that you must learn to use your life experience in your intellectual work: continually to examine and interpret it. In this sense craftsmanship is the center of yourself and you are personally involved in every intellectual product upon which you work. (Mills 1959: 196)

power private public craft scholarship personal

You know, I really think that if we got the first few years right, we wouldn't need the remaining 14 years of so of formal education; we could manage with a much more flexible, creative and innovative approach.

empowerment expertise autonomy

Stupid. Running every kid in America through the math gauntlet to get a handful of mathematicians is like buying a bakery to get a loaf of bread. But even if thousands were needed, it makes no sense to force everybody to line up and run that gauntlet...the belief that studying a mix of pre-selected, required subjects provides a comprehensive, well-rounded education. That’s an admirable aim, but it’s never even come close to being met. When, long ago, big guns in education policymaking sat down around a conference table to decide what courses students had to pass to get a high school diploma, they didn’t start from scratch and look at all possible options. They chose from an existing, much shorter list set by custom, reinforced by familiarity, unsupported by research or an articulated philosophy...he governors and school officers who pushed the Initiative think that standardizing the curriculum provides “a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn…” Corporate interests also think it’s a good thing, but for a different reason: It standardizes the education market, thereby significantly upping profit potential.

The secretive, long-running, organized, well-financed campaign to centralize, standardize, and privatize American education is on track. To follow the campaign, follow the money.

radical math motivation autonomy choice

motivation autonomy mastery performance

The main thing taught in schools is history-- the history of language, the history of math, etc.

history futures

futures education

http://www.numu.org.uk/

Complex, long-term solutions are not what politicians like to hear.
Second, as Yong Zhao pointed out last week, whatever impact such top-down initiatives might have, is infinitesimal compared to the vagaries of fate: masses of evidence exists to show that where, and to whom, you are born, taken with the 4-5 years of pre-school experiences, is the single biggest determinant of educational equality and of social mobility. Another round of teacher-bashing may appease the right-wingers, but if you really want to make a difference, commit massive amounts of time and  money to intervening, as early as possible, in economically disadvantaged families. But that doesn't play well with the tabloids.

Even countries where, up till now, the PISA assessments have been quite favourable are going for more centralised control-and-command. Australia is inching its way towards a national curriculum, and is becoming more prescriptive in its teaching standards, and expectations.

The tragedy behind this attempt to make schools improve  (OFSTED recently said that all schools should be 'above average' - seriously, they did) is that it's as doomed as attempts to make students pass a test. What we're left with is a profession who inevitable trigger the same degree of stress that they experience, in their students.

complexity assessment assumptions