-Tradition
What we view as the standard, traditional, lecture based classroom was actually conceived in Prussia- imported to the United States in the early 1800’s by Horace Mann.  As Julianna noted in an earlier blog post, the development of this format came about mirroring developments brought about during the industrial revolution; educating the national workforce much akin to factories manufacturing commodities.  Horace Mann, Secretary of Education at the time, took lease of the Prussian model, importing the template for use in Massachusetts in 1852.

Horace Mann's School for the Deaf

Mann sought to provide the coming generation of American children a common experience, one that would help bridge the sectarian divide between Catholic and Protestant communities in Massachusetts, a conflict he believed was perpetuated by parochial schools.  By providing a free education to all citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, he was able to consolidate a common sense of identity between the two communities, and in this sense, it more than fulfilled its purpose.

One can argue that the need for the common experience provided by school still holds true today.  This model, however, is over 150 years old and in desperate need of modernization.  We know students not only have differing capabilities, skills and strengths, but it’s the responsibility of schools to harness technological innovations that help provide the differentiated education students deserve to succeed.

Joel Rose, co-founder and chief executive officer of “New Classrooms Innovation Partners” writes in an article published by The Atlantic, speaking directly to this issue.  For Rose, it’s obvious that “factories weren’t designed to support personalization (and) neither were schools”.  This is how the traditional classroom fails to serve as a model that supports student creativity, ingenuity and individual development .  Furthermore, the US government’s approach to classroom modernization has amounted to purchasing computers for a classroom, which may seem like a good way of incorporating technology, however, “smoothly integrating three computers into a daily lesson is not always easy when a teacher has to consider the needs of 28 students all learning at the same time”.

Paraphrasing the thrust of Rose’s argument, what the education system needs is a reformulation of our educational model, re-conceptualizing the ways in which technology can be successfully integrated.  Only in doing so can we ensure that the wide range of student capabilities, talent, strengths and weaknesses, are successfully identified, supported and/or ameliorated.  This is a marked move away from the traditional “lecture based” standard, one which is gaining increased traction is what’s termed the “flipped classroom”.

Photo courtesy of EducationNews.org

-Reversing the role of time spent in the classroom
If the standard way a classroom operates is by spending time listening to lectures by a teacher, that knowledge then supported with homework done out of class, then the flipped classroom does precisely that- flips the equation.  One example of the “flipped classroom” is that of Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, who began teaching at Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park, Colorado.  Experiencing the stress of educating in rural communities where students were forced to take days off traveling to compete in athletic competitions at nearby schools “which weren’t nearby”, Bergmann and Sams were hard pressed to ensure students who were away did not become disadvantaged simply by engaging in sports.

Their solution was to record Powerpoint presentations in class, complete with audio, which was then provided students who could review new material while away competing, allowing him to consolidate the information they’ve learned, together in class.  Bergmann notes how the role of the teacher “changed, to more of a tutor than a deliverer of content, we have the privilege of observing students interact with each other.  As we roam around the class, we notice the students developing their own collaborative groups.  Students are helping each other learn instead of relying on the teacher as the sole disseminator of knowledge.  It truly is magical to observe.  We are often in awe of how well our students work together and learn from each other.”  Students help to develop “a culture of learning by… identifying learning as their goal, instead of striving for the completion of assignments… making… classes places where students carry out meaningful activities instead of completing busy work”.

Another shining example can be found in higher education, where Stanford’s medical school flipped their classroom.  Utilizing online lecture series based on TedX and Khan Academy, among other online videos, using class time to solve problems alongside professors (as opposed to simply being instructed the basics) raised their students’ attendance rate in a Biochemistry course from 30% to 80% in a semester.

Want quantitative evidence that this strategy is working?  Take a study conducted by Prober and Heath, in which one set of students in a control group recieved a lecture from a Nobel-prize winning physicist, with the experimental group (non-lecture) section, where students worked with graduate students to solve physics problems.  Experimental group tests scores were almost double that of the control group, where they earned a 74% versus 41%.

Just as Stanford Medical School is demonstrating the futility of maintaining the “sage on the stage” model, the development of newer models of education, exemplifying direct experience and individualized learning are proving that technology doesn’t just provide tools to learn- it radically expands the realm of how we learn.

Damian Dovarganes / AP

Contrast this with the fact that, over the last 50 years, “taxpayer investment in technology and STEM education has created more than half of the nation’s (United States’) economic growth” (Ayora Berry, 2012), while 2.6 million jobs in fields “like healthcare, aerospace, advanced precision manufacturing, scientific laboratory occupations, and computer-related design, are unfilled, according to a May 2010 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report”.

As the United States grapples with an economic recession alongside the rest of the global economy, what steps can be taken to ensure the 2.6 million job vacancies, existing in arguably the most profitable sectors of the economy, don’t travel abroad to more educationally prepared markets?  Furthermore, what of vacancies among defense contractors who are left unable to hire citizens, or, due to issues relating to national security clearance, applicants from abroad?

In the past, partnerships were made between large scale industries, dependent on a well educated workforce, which invested in college and university programs to help facilitate the proper education of the next crop of graduating members of their prospective workforce.  According to Marjorie Censer’s article in the Washington Post, “many are beginning to broaden their approach ….. ‘diversifying their investments,’ from looking beyond college students to kids in Middle and High Schools” says James Brown, executive director of the STEM Education Coalition”.

By focusing on the younger generation of students, companies are looking to ensure students are prepared with the math and science skills necessary to excel in careers rooted in STEM related skills.  In this way, Brown notes “[companies are betting] that if we make the pipeline stronger there, it will have ripple effects upwards.”  Censer notes a three pronged approach the private sector is making to increase the flow of prepared graduates into the labor market for the future: 1- Making it fun; 2- Keeping kids in the classroom and; 3- paying for school.

1- Make it Fun
One example is Northrop Grumman Foundation, which is sponsoring academic contests, in an attempt to make math and science knowledge a place of competition- the way sports are.  By competing in robot building tournaments, students not only remain engaged and inspired by technology, they learn invaluable skills early, in high demand fields like electrical and computer engineering.

Hawaiian High School Students Partipating in the Hawaii Regional Robotics Competition

2- Kids in the Classroom
Similarly, Neustar, has decided to directly invest in the classroom- fostering digital literacy courses in public and private schools in Virginia and Kentucky.  Similarly, Northrop Grumman has invested directly into educational syllabi, sponsoring an Eco-Classroom enriching the curriculum by sending teachers to Costa Rica for two weeks to collect data on ecosystems and the climate, bringing their science classes to life when they return.

3- Paying for School
In order to ensure increased accessibility to education, Lockheed Martin has given more than $1.1 million in grants to organizations that provide STEM related scholarships.  Similarly, Lockheed-Martin gives nearly $13 million annually to help subsidize the cost of education, making higher education more attainable for students, who would be unable to participate and reap the benefits education provides for otherwise.

One role the public sector can take to promote economic growth is by ensuring the coming generation is prepared academically to enter industries that will power the coming economic recovery.   This can especially be seen in the United States, where government is stepping up government intervention.  To ensure continued economic competitiveness, investments are being made directly in early education, strengthening STEM related skills which will enable the next generation of innovators to gain the skills necessary to compete for the jobs of the future.

Unveiling the Investing in Innovation (or I3) grant as part of President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – or stimulus- the Department of Education is seeking to sponsor innovative ways of “improving student achievement and attainment in order to expand the implementation of, and investment in, innovative practices that are demonstrated to have an impact on improving student achievement or student growth, closing achievement gaps, decreasing dropout rates, increasing high school graduation rates, or increasing college enrollment and completion rates.”

The I3 grant disburses anywhere between $3-$25 million dollars with an eye to helping develop new practices that improve student performance and graduation rates.  Among its primary targets are STEM related sciences, demonstrating the growing need among both the private and public sector to assist in the development of long term strategies and innovative technologies that help students succeed.

If there is anything we can agree on, it’s that the state of education is far from the level where it should be performing at. However, by witnessing the coming together of private companies, small business and social entrepreneurs in coordination with government assistance, strides can be made in closing the achievement gap among the workforce of tomorrow.  Where we need to start is today, beginning with K-12 education- today, more than ever, it’s clear that no one can do it alone and that it indeed takes a village.

Both highly expensive and cumbersome, textbooks have significant drawbacks.  Since the eighties, the cost of textbooks has risen at more than double the rate of inflation with a total rise of 186% in just twenty years. Textbook manufacturers entice educators and students alike to continue to purchase virtually the same books year after year by annually publishing new editions with minor changes. Nicole Allen, a textbook advocate with group that started the ‘Textbook Rebellion’, explains that “a handful of powerful textbook publishers have monopolized the industry and driven up costs four times the rate of inflation.”  In 2006 alone, public schools in the U.S. spent just under 4.5 billion on textbooks.  While the textbook versus technology question is a central feature of modern public policy debates, it is also a conflict that is playing out across university campuses across the world.  A new study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group found that 7 out of 10 students surveyed across 13 college campuses had skipped the purchase of a required text because the cost was too high.  On top of high costs, textbooks are large, heavy, subject to deterioration, and environmentally questionable.

Across the globe educators are all simultaneously arriving at the same conclusion – textbooks are dead and technology is the way of the future.  E-readers like the wildly successful Kindle and tablet computers enable educators to deliver a massive amount of content for a fraction of the cost.  While the initial cost of introducing these types of readers to students may be high, this cost is far outweighed in the long run.  First, technology provides a platform for content delivery that is at the same time more portable, more readily accessible (thanks to cloud technology), and easily updatable.  No longer does a text have to be thrown away entirely to make improvements to the content.  Furthermore, “children can get more from the ‘magic’ of using smartphones and tablets, than simply reading a book,” because the platform prompts student motivation by engaging students in what they are learning.  In explaining his commitment to replacing textbooks with ebooks, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger notes that it is “ nonsensical and expensive to look to traditional hard-bound books when information today is so readily available in electronic form” espacially since “kids are feeling as comfortable with their electronic devices as I was with my pencils and crayons.”.  The government of South Korea has committed to phasing out textbooks completely by the year 2015.  This trend spells trouble for the textbook industry, and they will surely lobby to keep textbooks a part of the classroom forever.  However, educators the world over have realized that in order to forge ahead into the future, the time has come to abandon the textbook and embrace technology.

Many teachers in India are working the bare necessities.

The Republic of India is geographically the 7th largest country in the world and the 2nd largest by population.  Nearly one third of India’s 1.2 billion people are currently under the age of 14, which means the country has the largest youth population in the world.   The immense task of effectively educating this population has become a recently invigorated project of the Indian government, who realizes that a proper education for their citizens will translate to improved economic and social development.  Due to government measures, the number of out of school children decreased from over 25 million to just over 8 million between 2003 and 2009.  While student enrollment in secondary school still tends to be low, elementary education has an enrollment rate of over 95 percent.  Private schools also play a massive role in India’s education system, making up nearly 60% of the nations’ secondary school institutions.  “While more modest in rural areas, the recent growth of private schooling in urban areas has been nothing short of massive, raising questions about growing inequality in educational opportunity.”

With enrollment on the rise, Indian educators must now turn their focus toward improving the quality of education provided in their schools.  “India does well relative to Pakistan and Bangladesh but lags seriously behind China and the other BRIC [Brazil, India, Russia, and China] countries… learning achievement levels are seriously low and teacher absenteeism is high, signaling poor quality of schooling.”  With the passage of the Right to Education Act, the Indian government not only committed to making education free and compulsory for students aged 9 to 14, but they also set up the National Commission for Elementary Education to monitor the quality of that education.   While the goals of the bill are supposed to be fulfilled by 2013, a recent report showed that in the 2009-2010 school year, only 4.8% of schools fully met with the requirements of the RTE standards.  Many educators such as the principal from the Air Force Golden Jubilee Institute, one of the nation’s leading public schools, believe that “technology is defining factor that enables schools to improve productivity and efficiency of teachers, students and the administration staff.”

Before educators truly can focus on the quality of the knowledge they’re imparting to students, they must first look toward their two greatest preliminary challenges – lack of infrastructure and immense disparity in access to educational opportunities due to class concerns.  As previously stated, over 95% of schools were not in compliance with the infrastructure stipulations of the Right to Education Act, with some lacking even the most basic necessities like drinking water and toilets. “Sixty percent of schools are not electrified and only one in every five schools has a computer. Also, 40 percent of primary schools have a student classroom ratio higher than 1:30, stipulated by the act.”  While these figures seem staggering to an educator in the developed world, there is a bright side for Indian educators to focus on.  As they begin to emphasize the improvement of their infrastructure through technology, they have do not have to focus on the vexing problem of backwards compatibility that many Western schools face today.  Backward compatibility is the principle that new technology should be created to work with old technology and often is a source of inefficacy in the implementation of new technologies in schools.  While this is but a small consolation for the fact that Indian educators are starting from a place where only one in five schools has a computer, it could actually mean that Indian schools make up an important market in which technology firms can invest without having to worry about backward compatibility.  They can build infrastructure so that schools naturally work with the technology, rather than against it.

The other massive challenge facing educators is the role of inequality in nearly all areas of Indian social life.  “India’s well-educated middle classes have powered economic growth in recent years, the caste system has been blamed for creating huge disparities in education levels between different social groups. Almost half of Indian women are unable to read. The government sees erasing those disparities as key to reducing social tensions and boosting economic growth.”  However, a press release by Indian company Netscribes notes that “across the board, from the upper classes to the bottom most stratum of the social hierarchy, expenditure on education accounts for a sizable portion of family incomes… need for extra and supplemental education is urgently felt by both students and their parents. Known as the world of shadow of education, coaching classes [tutoring] have grown phenomenally in India and is only to proliferate further in future.”  Looking toward the future, the equalizing effect of technology has the potential to bridge gaps in access to quality education.  This topic was discussed at a the EDTech Fourm in New Delhi, the largest conference of its kind ever held in India.  Presenter Sam Pitroda  explained that educators “need to ensure that poorest of poor too gets quality education. IT can play an important role in educating the people in poor areas provided we are ready to break the barriers.”

A 2006 report by the National Focus group on Education Technology nicely sums up the modern challenges of Indian education. “As the world shrinks on account of developments in science and technology, these changes affect Indian society (and other countries, too) increasingly in many different ways. The world today is a global village, and this represents unprecedented challenges for Indian Education. No society can live in isolation. This reality has a bearing on social processes in both the world as well as in India. This process has been going on for some time, but in the last ten years the pace at which the world is changing is becoming greatly accelerated.”  The appropriate response to this accelerated rate of change is, in a word, edtech.  “E-learning is mandatory in this age; it is definitely the need of the hour in India. The majority of people in India comprise what is called the GenNext and it is imperative to provide them the right kind of education.”

The effects of the lecture methodology.

Disadvantages of the Lecture Method
1. It is a teacher-centred method of teaching.
2. It kills students’ initiatives as it makes passive listeners.
3. It does not cater for the individual differences of the students.  This is evident in the sense that the students are taught by the teacher a the same speed as a whole group.
4. It does not provide students with enough opportunities to practice their oral communication skills.

The lecture method has been the prevailing system of instruction in classrooms since the creation of the modern public learning institution. “This approach to learning was developed during the industrial age, some two centuries ago.  The concept is for students to sit passively in rows of chairs or tables all facing the presenter, who usually resides at a lectern.  A lecture is a “one-to-many” form of communication, involving little or no audience participation.  It is authoritarian, by nature.”  The main issue with this method is that it makes students a passive part of the learning process.  This cultivates an environment of passivity, a situation less favorable of fostering student engagement and thus student connection with class material. Simply put the lecture classroom becomes the perfect environment to foster boredom and promote inattention.  The lead author of a new study on the subject by the University of British Columbia notes that in traditional lectures “there’s not much learning, and for the learning that does take place, the retention is fairly bad.”

An interactive classroom.

On the flipside, we find what many educators feel is the future of education – the active learning process.  In order to create an active learning environment, educators must create student-centered approaches which force students to engage with the material.  This is known as the interactive learning process and edtech is the future of the this method.  In the past, interactive learning has been achieved through expensive lab work and field trips.  While these methods are highly successful at engaging students in science and history, they are also costly, time-consuming, and simply out of reach for some teachers.  “The rapid growth of the Internet and the high bandwith capabilities of the World Wide Web means that interactive learning can be designed for delivery anytime, anywhere to anyone.” 

Edtech can provide interactive learning for a low cost, while maintaining the benefits of interactivity.  Math education specifically stands to gain from interactive technologies such as MathQuack, which “interact with students on a progressive level, meaning that the software program enables the computer to advance the material as the student grasps each concept successfully or to review a concept he or she is having difficulty with.”  A recent study of over 5,000 students and 120 teachers showed that students in classrooms equipped with interactive learning technologies fared significantly better than those in traditional lecture-based classrooms.  As we look to the future of education, edtech’s uniquely interactive capabilities become an important part of keeping students engaged.

Education reformers on the move.

When it comes to our education system, the concept of reform figures prominently into any current dialogue on the subject.  The prevailing sense among those discussing education is that  that the modern system is in serious need of an overhaul.  However, some of the most marked resistance to recent policy reform has sprung from a somewhat surprising source – teachers themselves.  While the resistance coming from teachers seems surprising at first, given that they stand to benefit from an education system that is overall improved, it makes sense as you begin to look at the ways in which reform is being implemented.  The overall course of modern policy reform identifies teacher inefficacy as a major contributing factor to the diminished quality of education.  “Revamping the makeup of the teaching profession through tweaks such as altering tenure and teacher evaluations has become a policy debate-du-jour, one that has riled many a state house in recent years.”

When it comes to these issues, it seems as though the battle lines have been firmly drawn.  The education reform lobby advocates a new “brand of education reform [that] is data driven and accountability focused… advocating for stricter teacher evaluations that take student performance on standardized tests into consideration; merit pay for teachers; and the elimination or fundamental reworking of teacher tenure.”  The flipside of the argument is summed up in the words of English teacher Cate Dossetti who explains that “student achievement means performing at levels which will prepare (students) for college and for the real world — it doesn’t necessarily mean which band on the standardized test they’re performing at.”  However a recently published survey by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in conjunction with Scholastic, shows that the issue isn’t quite as simple as it might appear.  This massive and comprehensive survey found that “teachers themselves support that overhaul” of the education system, just not necessarily the way it’s being done.  Overall, teachers support measures to make the quality of teaching more effective, just not through the elimination of the tenure system.  They also support increased evaluation of teachers, but on more measures than the standardized tests alone.  It seems as though teachers feel that overall, these types of changes are necessary, but the specific ways in which policy makers are attempting to implement those changes are unsatisfactory.  Teachers are on board with major change but “as soon as you inject actual policy details into the question – specific measures, such as eliminating tenure, merit pay or basing tenure on test scores – teachers’ responses can change substantially.”

So how can policy makers implement reform without stepping on the toes of teachers? Can technology provide a solution to this conundrum?  When it comes down to it, the main point of contention between teachers and reformers is the placement of blame on teachers.  In assessing the overall efficacy of the ailing education system, reformers have put the majority of blame on the heads of teachers.  The most recent survey data shows that if policy reform were to focus on identifying struggling teachers and supporting them, rather than punishing them, teachers would be more on board with reform measures.  It is here that edtech could be the saving grace; identifying less effective teachers through learning analytics, streamlining a more dynamic assessment process, and supporting teachers with the trivial, enabling them to delve deeper into their curriculum.  This very concept was discussed by educator Bruce Taylor at the 67th Annual ASCD Conference & Exhibit, where 8,000 educators from across the globe met in Philadelphia to hash out the future of education.  He explained that intelligent, tech-focused policy “will allow [teachers] to focus on things that make [students] human and not flesh-and-blood hard drives… There will be less dependence on rote answers and more emphasis on the application of content and a greater focus on interpretation and analysis.” Because a turn towards edtech is a turn away from blaming teachers, technology has the potential to significantly ease the tension between teachers and reformers with a relatively minor shift in reform policy focus.

A National Issue- Possible Causes & Painful Realities
In November 2005, the background paper for a workshop on “Women in Scientific Careers” conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and its working group on the Steering and Funding of Research Institutions (SFRI) concluded that:

“…women obtain more than half of all university degrees in many countries but only around 30% of university degrees awarded in science and technology, OECD countries face a paradoxical situation: a feminisation of the workforce in general and of university-trained graduates in particular, but continued under-representation of women in the research workforce. …the available data tend to reinforce results from the academic literature that show women remain unevenly distributed in research occupations and under-represented in senior positions.”

Does this paradox owe itself to a glass ceiling responsible for the “under-represent(ation of women) in senior positions” or to the prevalence of an existing bias within the industry?  Some blame the widespread cultural prevalence of gender stereotypes that are responsible for reinforcing a defeatist belief among female children that “Math is for boys and not for girls”- findings sadly supported by a study of Second graders, conducted by researchers from the University of Washington released in The Science Daily.

Regardless of the reasons, the numbers do not look promising.  The Information Technology Association of America revealed that the number of women in the Information Technology (IT) workforce is continuing to decline: from a high of 41% in 1996 to 32% in 2004 despite female representation in the workforce as a whole continued to remain stead at 46% in the same period.

There is a particularly low level of academic engagement in STEM related learning among minority, female and lower-income students, who collectively comprise a growing proportion of the total college-going public.  In fact, a study conducted by the National Science Foundation using the National Assessment of Educational Progress noted “that of students at the 12th grade level, about three out of four white and Asian students scored at above basic level (which is far below proficient) on the math assessment, while fewer than half of Hispanics and under a third of African American students scoring the same level”. (US Department of Labor “The Stem Workforce Challenge: The Role of the Public Workforce in a National Solution for a Competitive Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Workforce- April, 2007)

In fact the shrinking number of women pursuing STEM related careers as part of their higher education is a disparity that is also reflected in levels of female employment as either “Full” or “Tenured” members of academic faculty.  Consider the following graphs noting the percentage of doctoral scientist and engineers employed in universities and 4-year colleges (S&E occupations) who are tenured, by race/ethnicity and gender- made available, again, by the National Science Foundation.

Percentage of doctoral scientists and engineers employed in universities and 4-year colleges (S&E occupations) who are tenured, by race/ethnicity and gender

Percentage of doctoral scientists and engineers employed in universities and 4-year colleges (S&E occupations) who are full professors, by race_ethnicity and sex

No One Can Do It Alone
- Partnership Based Solutions

In light of the previously mentioned figures, a number of organizations have risen up to brazenly challenge the disaffecting status-quo.  One particularly encouraging trend has been the growing number of partnerships formed between a number of non-profit organizations and after-school advocacy programs.  This model is a particularly encouraging one when quantitatively measured.

The efficacy of improving student Math scores made possible by the implementation of after school programs is affirmed through a study by the Institute of Education Sciences’ National Center for Educational Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEERA).   In their evaluation of “Enhanced Academic Instruction in After-School Programs” in their 2009 report, a review of student test scores in 15 of their participating centers, the NCEERA found that when students received an additional 48 hours of Math instruction over a year-long period resulted in an increase of 3.5 scaled score points in SAT 10 total math scores- a statistically significant number.

The AfterSchool Alliance is one organization, among many, working to expand access to after-school education across the United States.  Established in 2000 through a public/private partnership between the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, J.C. Penney Company, Inc., the Open Society Institute/The After-School Corporation, the Entertainment Industry Foundation and the Creative Artists Agency Foundation, the AfterSchool Alliance stands as an example of how public/private partnerships help to positively shape realities on the ground.  Their “Afterschool in Action” blog series documents the successes of effective programs nationwide, with the latest blog post honoring the many female focused afterschool programs, highlighting programs working to energize young women to succeed in STEM related subjects.

Among the organizations highlighted, courtesy of Ramya Sankar‘s post are the following:

• “Art2STEM-  which promotes STEM related subjects through art in Nashville, TN. Through activities like creating animations and architectural design, the programming focuses on creativity and showing how the arts complement STEM fields. As part of Alignment Nashville’s Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) grant from NSF, the afterschool program exposes girls to various STEM topics through these hands-on activities as well as field trips to local tech businesses.

Photo courtesy of Dell

• GirlStart – Located in Austin, TX, GirlStart offers afterschool programs, summer camps and various outreach events throughout the year in Central Texas to encourage and inspire girls to consider science as an option and equipping them with STEM skills. GirlStart received NSF funding to create Project IT Girl—highlighted in our report on outcomes and impacts of STEM learning in afterschool—which exposes high school girls to computer programming and provides them with experience working with a local tech company. Girls are also connected with female STEM professionals during the Girls in STEM Conference for 4th-8th graders where they learn about STEM careers.
• SciTech – Started by the Ruben H. Fleet Center in San Diego, CA, SciTech participants work on projects throughout the school year that focus on their problem solving skills. The afterschool program is offered at eight elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. Girls work on projects in subjects ranging from renewable energy sources to food chemistry. Students also participate in The Tech Challenge, sponsored by the Tech Museum in San Jose, CA.  Local female STEM professionals also  come and do presentations and interact with students to serve as role models.”

Meanwhile, organizations like The National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) are engaged nationwide (USA) to support programs like those previously mentioned, by integrating them within their vast networks of support.  Others like the volunteer based BlackGirlsCode organize “Code Camps” for young women of color, imparting 21st century skills while engaging members of their community directly.  Others focus their engagement online, like the Steminist, who through social media and the internet work to increase awareness and visibility of successful programs for others to learn from.

What programs like BlackGirlsCode, GirlStart, SciTech & Art2STEM offer to students, schools and members of their community, are successful models of public/private partnership that deserve to be emulated, because no one can do it alone.  Unfortunately, more often than not, non-profit organizations simply don’t have the resources to fund-raise while simultaneously focusing on delivering results on the ground.

Regardless of how organizations focus their efforts, by joining forces with fellow members of the educational sector, partnerships can be formed to deliver the next generation of innovative products that increase accessibility to students, with the opportunity to be supported by third party sponsors.  The responsibility of educating the next generation of  professionals, is one we all share in one capacity or another.  Whether we are parents, educators, school administrators, industry leaders or philanthropists at heart- each of us can do our part to encourage our daughters and sisters to achieve.  In doing so, we not only have a hand in shaping our future but ensure a stronger economy and globally competitive workforce, where we all have a chance to succeed.

The face of traditional testing.

Everyday Assessments

On a day-to-day basis, edtech is able to track student comprehension and progress through learning analytics.  “The goal of learning analytics is to enable teachers and schools to identify educational opportunities for each student’s level of need and ability. More than just a buzz word, learning analytics promises to harness the power of advances in data mining, interpretation and modeling to tailor education to individual students more effectively.”  New technologies such as student response systems, commonly referred to as clickers, allow students to actively engage in lectures while at the same time providing teachers with invaluable information about how well their students are engaging with the material.

Student Response System in action.

This type of technology “can provide added value, however, when compared to some active learning methods such as class discussion. In a normal class discussion situation, only one or two students have the opportunity to answer a question. Even if the answer is correct, the instructor has no way to gauge if the other students knew the correct answer. A student who is unsure of the correct answer may be unwilling to take the public risk of being incorrect. One of the best features of an SRS [Student Response System] is that it allows students to provide input without fear of public humiliation and without having to worry about more vocal students dominating the discussion.” Discussing the role that technology should play in day-to-day assessment through learning analytics, Barbara Means, a VP in SRI International’s Policy Division, notes that the “idea is to have a system that keeps a record but that is very unobtrusive on the surface — one that just blends into the course of activity.”

Examinations

When it comes to the actual examination process, edtech provides tangible solutions for educators.  The classic difficulty in administering exams is the relationship between the most subtle methods of examination to the realistic implementation of the grading process.  For example, the best test of a student’s knowledge of a subject may be a long exam with only open-ended questions, but this type of test requires significantly more time and mental energy to grade than a multiple-choice exam, which can be run through a Scantron machine in 2 seconds.  Research shows that traditional of assessment such as “the forced-choice measures of multiple-choice tests, fill-in-the-blanks, true-false, matching and the like,” are less effective in measuring the depth of a student’s comprehension, though they are significantly easier to grade.  A study at the University of Lethbridge shows that this type of assessment promotes guessing, does not show the thinking process, and encourages wrote memorization over true comprehension.  A recent study from the University of New England showed that “multiple-choice test of mathematics skills did not allow students to demonstrate the highest levels of ability.”

An exam administered with technology.

The fact of the matter is that most education technology actually utilizes these less effective methods of assessment.  However, the most cutting edge educational technology firms, MathQuack included, are hard at work to change this fact.  The future of mathematics assessment with edtech will be marked by the development of highly advanced systems that use algorithmic math to grade students on a step by step basis, allowing their errors on early steps to be carried forward without penalty while also understanding their thinking processes.  This new breed of assessment through education technology combines the benefit the most accurate testing models with the ability to grade with the speed of a computer.  The President of the National Academy of Sciences, Bruce Alberts, notes that “the promise of modern technologies — computer technologies — that in principle could allow you to do sophisticated testing on a large, inexpensive scale.”

Original Questions 

What role should assessment play in the educational process?  Assessment should occur on both a day-today basis as well as at the examination level.  In both cases, the purpose of assessment is to give a clear picture of what students know, how well they know it, and how well they can apply that knowledge.  Which method of assessment gives the clearest picture of how well students have comprehended material?  It is clear that the best type of assessment come from methods that promote student involvement and critical thinking, over wrote memorization and guesswork. “Technology is an obvious partner because whether it’s on a CD-ROM, floppies, or on old-fashioned technology like video cameras or even overheads, the student is bringing together visual, three-dimensional, and paper-and-pencil work. We want to be able to document and have a trace of what the student has accomplished and how the student got there.”  How should the assessment process be coordinated to give a clear picture of student comprehension while at the same time maintaining a grading process that is logistically feasible?  Technology provides the perfect platform for the streamlining of the assessment process.  Using advanced algorithmic math, edtech programs will be able to analyze each step of a student’s math work at a speed that is simply not feasible for a human grader.  With traditional methods of examination it “takes time to prepare the printed examinations, organize the examination stations, and then to carry all of the papers to the laboratory before the examination. It is also time consuming to correct the examinations and communicate results. Besides the issue of sustainability, online evaluation would save administrative time and money in addition to helping us to provide faster feedback to students.”  When it comes to the future of the assessment process, education technology is uniquely poised to combat a wide array of difficulties that have long vexed educators the world over.

It is important to note that the shift from self-motivated education to compulsory education is overall a positive one for society – it improves access to education for all students regardless of class, it introduces students to topics which they may not have discovered, and it produces more well-rounded citizens who can approach problems from several different disciplines.  However, this shift also presents an entirely new set of challenges to educators, the first of these being the task of motivating students.  In this task, technology offers a modern solution to a modern problem.  With technology, teachers are able to engage their students in the same multimedia platforms that have captivated their attention outside the classroom.  Ryan Ritz, a computer science teacher from the Park Tutor School explains that the “key to teaching is keeping kids involved. They like everything being electronic – it’s speaking their language.”

The key motivational benefit of technology in the classroom is capturing student’s attention.  With technology, teachers can get students actively engaged in what they are learning about.  Valerie Strauss with the Washington Post explains that teachers are taking digital natives and turning them into digital citizens.  “They’re working together, they are gathering, assimilating and analyzing data, they are learning how to present what they are learning, and so on. This is career-track stuff, 180 degrees different from much of the ‘regurgitation education’ that is the hallmark of too many of our schools.”  In assessing the role that technology will have in modern education, Greg Kearsley and Ben Shneiderman have advanced “The Engagement Theory” which argues that “students must be meaningfully engaged in learning activities through interaction with others and worthwhile tasks. While in principle, such engagement could occur without the use of technology, we believe that technology can facilitate engagement in ways which are difficult to achieve otherwise.”

A recent study at the University of Massachusetts discovered that teaching with technology engages students, enhances learning, and finds that “in-class personal response systems and online homework / quizzes significantly improve exam scores.”  High school teacher Steven Maher of Chatham New Jersey asks policy makers to “think about the media environment that an average teenager lives in; to walk into a classroom that doesn’t have any of that media must be like walking into a desert.”  The fact is that technology integration is not just an option when in comes to motivating the modern student – it is an imperative.

A view of the future classroom from a teacher's perspective.

Professionals in the edtech field are now faced with pivoting the discussion away from technology versus teachers, to technology enabling teachers, for successful classroom integration. The most important message the educational technology community needs to communicate to teachers is that, despite any advances teachers always have and will continue to be an critical element in the education process.  The problem with a “teacher vs technology” debate is that it’s framed as inherently oppositional that, in reality, work better together.  Without embracing technology, teachers are short selling their students, who could learn with increased efficiency, better preparing them as students in our modern era.

The National Council for Teachers of Math recently published the opinion that “effective teachers maximize the potential of technology to develop students’ understanding, stimulate their interest, and increase their proficiency in mathematics. When technology is used strategically, it can provide access to mathematics for all students.”  In fact, a recent study released by the Department of Education concluded that, contrary to what was argued by Mr. Walker in his article, the “real promise of online education, experts say, is providing learning experiences that are more tailored to individual students than is possible in classrooms.” 

Technology a crucial part of the modern teacher's arsenal.

The key difference between these seemingly disparate opinions is the role technology can serve, supporting the work of teachers outside the classroom, enabling them to customize students’ work outside of class in a way that is impossible in a classroom setting.  However, just as teachers today cannot be fully successful without technology integration, modern education technology fails when teachers are not there to guide students.  Living, breathing teachers are an integral part of the educational process- especially when students get stuck and need guidance.  Teachers can connect the most complex of dots for students in a way that is just not possible for a programmed machine.  The ultimate lesson here is that students only win when teachers and technology go hand-in-hand, not head-to-head.