社区黑料

When I was a kid, my dad had a cartoon pinned to the wall in his office. Hagar鈥檚 son asks, 鈥淲hy is the grass green?鈥�

鈥淭hat鈥檚 easy!鈥� Hagar replies, 鈥淲ouldn鈥檛 it look silly if it was red or blue or yellow or purple?鈥�

As his son stumbles off, Hagar yells after him, 鈥淲ant to know why the sky is blue?鈥�

If you鈥檙e not laughing, well, know that the joke slays with chemists (and fathers of curious children). But it also hints at the basic human inclination toward tautology. We are prone to settling on the way things are 鈥� not to mention how we deal with them. We do things the way we do, ahem, simply because 迟丑补迟鈥檚 how we do them. .

Schools are no different. Education doesn鈥檛 have sacred cows so much as it has sacred cattle herds. Why do we teach reading this way? Why do we schedule classes, fund schools, and pay teachers like we do? Why is the sun round? Why does it move in the sky like it does? Why do we burn this incense while we chant this sun incantation?

Dunno. We just do. Wouldn鈥檛 it be silly if we did these things differently?

Fortunately, humans 鈥� especially the best educators among us 鈥� are also curious. Our constant curiosity about the world, about ourselves, has given rise to what we now call the learning sciences. As a (still nascent) field, the learning sciences are expanding knowledge and challenging assumptions about how children learn best. Advances in have already done serious damage to long-standing beliefs and practices in American education. Research on is at across the country. For years, teachers (and parents) have taken for granted that children pass through a series of clear developmental stages as they grow. New research suggests that wrong.

And then, of course, there are the reading wars. In September, American Public Media鈥檚 Emily Hanford published of the chasm separating the research consensus on effective reading instruction and what colleges of education teach prospective teachers. There鈥檚 no serious doubt that phonics instruction is critical to improving kids鈥� reading skills, but 迟丑补迟鈥檚 how teacher training programs prepare teachers for the classroom.

Trouble is, it鈥檚 a much harder thing to bring this new knowledge into classrooms. Hanford鈥檚 piece slaughtered one of education鈥檚 sacred cows, but you can rest assured that the overwhelming research consensus behind phonics won鈥檛 remake U.S. schools anytime soon. That zombie bovine鈥檚 going to be lowing in American elementary classrooms for decades to come.

Some of the hurdle is a raw matter of resources. You can鈥檛 use if your district鈥檚 technological infrastructure is stuck in the Oregon Trail era. But much of the ongoing revolution in learning sciences is less about money and more about rethinking how students and teachers allocate their time and resources each day.

Take that highlighter millions of U.S. students are using to mark up their texts this week, for instance. Research suggests you ought to take it the heck out of their hands. It鈥檚 not a particularly effective way for most kids to learn content. They鈥檇 likely be better off taking low-stakes practice tests and/or spreading out their scheduled times to study new material and practice new skills.

evaluating these (and other) learning practices opened with this line: 鈥淚f simple techniques were available that teachers and students could use to improve student learning and achievement, would you be surprised if teachers were not being told about these techniques and if many students were not using them?鈥�

Should we be surprised? It costs nothing to stop using highlighters. On the other hand, there鈥檚 significant organizational inertia around many of these little practices. They鈥檙e familiar. They鈥檙e how we teach. Wouldn鈥檛 it be silly to change?

Why is it so hard to take the things we鈥檝e learned and put them into practice in U.S. schools?

Enter Ulrich Boser. He鈥檚 a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, the author of , and the founder of , an organization that 鈥渉elps people 鈥� and organizations 鈥� harness the power of learning.鈥�

Boser did in 2017 exploring public views of education. 鈥淪chools 鈥� we all went through it, so we all have strong opinions,鈥� he said. But he came away convinced that 鈥淏asically, people don鈥檛 really know what great teaching and learning look like.鈥�

It鈥檚 not only the public 鈥� adults in schools aren鈥檛 always up to date on the latest science on how kids learn. Boser notes that there isn鈥檛 always a straight line from a strong research consensus to educational practices. To change how kids experience school and learning, messengers from the cutting edge of learning sciences need to change how adults in schools behave. And 迟丑补迟鈥檚 not always simple. 鈥淸For] some of our good research, we don鈥檛 actually have good examples of teachers rolling this out day in and day out,鈥� he says.

Studies are clear, for instance, that oral language development 鈥� opportunities to practice speaking English 鈥� is critical for English learners鈥� linguistic and academic development. But it鈥檚 an entirely different question how to take that consensus and make it real in schools and effective for large groups of kids. Is it any surprise that schools and teachers adopt new ideas slowly?

It鈥檚 not that teachers are uniquely set in their ways. They鈥檙e just humans like the rest of us. Think of the last time Google updated your email interface, or your office changed payroll software, or the city changed the traffic patterns near your house. Think of when you tried to cut down on your snacking during the week 鈥� or tried to ramp up your exercise regimen in the mornings before work. It鈥檚 hard for adults to change habits! Habits are like our experiential shorthand 鈥� little patterns we develop to manage tedious, if complex, pieces of our lives like driving, keeping track of bills, filling our bellies, or teaching children to retain complex information from a text. We get comfortable in our patterns of behavior because they free up our brains to think about other things.

So: how do we drive institutional changes in how schools shape kids鈥� learning opportunities? At one level, the answer is simple: We should train teachers on our new approach 鈥� phonics for all, etc. 鈥� and then support them as they implement that approach. But that level of simple and intuitive is also too vague to make a difference.

鈥淐ognition is not something that teacher education programs think about,鈥� says Boser. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 think about thinking, you could get meta about that.鈥�

He continues, 鈥淭hey have their own agenda problems. You have professors interested in philosophical conversations, which, frankly, I find interesting too.鈥� But, he says, it鈥檚 perhaps more important that prospective teachers learn about, say, strategies for when and how to give feedback on students鈥� learning and work.

To help with this, Boser鈥檚 Learning Agency has 鈥渢o elevate the science of learning.鈥� The idea is to teach more educators about effective learning strategies so that they鈥檒l buy in, adjust their behavior, and spread the message. The project aims at tracking pain points for teachers as they learn about 鈥� and try to change their practice in response to 鈥� new findings in the learning sciences.

鈥淟et鈥檚 take one of the country鈥檚 best researchers 鈥� and team them with a couple teachers,鈥� says Boser. 鈥淸Let鈥檚] acknowledge that the teachers want to do good work and they want to learn, but they鈥檙e struggling.鈥� As the teams work toward implementing better learning strategies in schools, they鈥檒l also develop videos showcasing what they鈥檙e learning and how they鈥檙e using it in classrooms.

If teachers better understand the learning sciences and can use that knowledge to shift their daily practice, ideally this should begin to put pressure on the broader U.S. public education system. How can policies change to encourage systemic adoption of better learning strategies?

Boser is cautious about this. 鈥淧olicy isn鈥檛 great at changing habits. It鈥檚 not a good tool for it. But if we change the curriculum 鈥� that can change habits.鈥� He continues: 鈥淭echnology has its pluses and minuses, but what it鈥檚 good at is scale 鈥� Are there other things that we can do with that?鈥�

This will necessarily be an iterative process. As teachers shift their practice to reflect cutting-edge learning sciences, they鈥檒l help researchers and policymakers better understand successful implementation of these approaches. As policies change to reflect the usage of these new learning strategies, ideally they鈥檒l also prompt more teachers to shift practice.

For instance, is enormously important, but it鈥檚 also inadequate to the task of selling better teacher practice and curricula around learning sciences. It鈥檚 a blunt tool for measuring small instructional or curricular changes. If policymakers also had better, more refined measurements for gauging student, teacher, and school success, it might be easier to make the public case for widespread changes to the coursework in teacher preparation programs and K-12 schools alike.

In other words, there鈥檚 research evidence that some learning strategies work better than others currently in widespread use. But it鈥檚 hard to prove that these alternative strategies work better at scale without intentionally measuring their effectiveness. And, of course, existing policies aren鈥檛 necessarily designed with that sort of fine-grained measurement in mind. That鈥檚 next: finding policies that allow us to measure achievement data that really matter, that reflect meaningful long-term improvements in students鈥� learning.

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