best of myshortpencil
• • • • •

A vision of the tomorrow that should be today.
Originally posted Feb.
19, 2003

Abigail Daugette, 6, reads at the 21st Century Charter School. Tim Halcomb / Indianapolis Star staff photo See, also, The Root Cause of Education Mediocrity, Our Schools and Our Future, Computers, Technology & the Internet and articles on this site referring to The 21st Century Student.

where every student will:

• Have 24-hour-a-day, year-round access to high quality, personalized
instruction.
• Begin each day’s learning exactly where s/he left off the day before.
• Move forward at a pace that ensures mastery of each lesson, being neither
rushed nor held back by other students’ progress.
• Take no state exam before s/he has successfully completed all the requisite
materials.
• Be rewarded for hard work and ambition with the opportunity to complete as
much vocational, technical or college instruction as possible before graduating.
• With the guidance of teachers, customize learning to include the skills and
knowledge s/he finds most stimulating and useful.
• Have education enriched with courses like financial,
investment and credit management, conflict
resolution, systems
thinking, marketing,
media
literacy and business
and science ethics.

We need to stop reinventing the wheel and start
accumulating sophistication by producing thousands of high-quality, interactive,
multimedia, learning-style-specific, Internet-delivered, parent-monitored,
student-selected lessons with instant feedback, online professional support and
software applications to monitor each student’s progress on every lesson.
Education needs to become far more complex and flexible while teachers’ jobs are
simplified.

I’m going to make an attempt to describe what a 21st century education will, and
actually already should, look like. I’m sure I’ll make additions and
modifications occasionally. Eventually, I’ll add some structure to it.

• "No child left behind" is replaced with "Provide every
  child with the opportunities needed to achieve to the best of his/her
  abilities." (The current law perpetuates the comfortable practice of
  teaching to the middle, if not to the bottom of the class). The focus
  changes from pace of teaching to the pace of each student’s learning.
• To the extent practical, students receive instruction via computers, which
  can deliver exceptional instruction with consistency. Students who do not
  learn well on computers will be provided alternatives, such as traditional
  classroom instruction.
• Take every student from where (s)he is academically and provide at least a
  year’s learning for a year’s schooling.
• Within the same classroom, probably organized by age cohort, students may
  proceed through the curriculum at their own rate, which is monitored to
  ensure adequate progress. Students who need to take more time, take it.
  Students who "get it," can move on, taking extra time when they
  get "stuck." The teacher will have students at many different
  levels of the curriculum, probably working on materials from different
  grades. Far less time will be spent on instruction. The teachers’ job will
  be to motivate students to consistently apply themselves and do their best,
  in addition to supplying brief motivating stories, exercises or discussions.
  (More like teacher as coach and monitor than as instructor.) See
  this
  article on how one student used a set-your-own-pace curriculum to finish
  high school by age 15.
• To progress through each lesson in the curriculum, students will have to
  perform with at least 85% proficiency, or some other level, possibly
  variable, depending on individual student abilities. Report cards will not
  have grades, but a number for each subject that indicates the student’s
  progress through the curriculum. For example, a second grade student might
  receive a 3.4 in reading, indicating (s)he is 40% through the 3rd grade
  reading curriculum, or a 1.8, indicating the student is 80% through the 1st
  grade materials.
• Students will take state standards exams upon reaching established
  checkpoints. For example, upon completing 80% of the 4th grade English
  Language Arts Curriculum, the student would take the 4th grade ELA. Results
  would be known the same day of the test and remedial action (probably
  unnecessary since students arrive at the checkpoints at their own rates), of
  likely short duration, can be immediately commenced.
• Parents would be able to view student lesson materials and texts online
  before and after the student uses them. They would be able to see the
  results of exercises and drills. They would also be able to request specific
  additions or substitutions of materials within the curriculum. For example,
  a reading exercise to improve vocabulary might offer a story on ecology or a
  story on evolution. Usually, the student would be able to choose which story
  to use, but the parent could block certain choices.
• Parents would also be able to monitor, in real time, much of their
  children’s studies and work. They could send instant messages of praise and
  encouragement, or even suggestions for improvement.
• Students will be able to choose online materials, videos, texts or
  readings among different viewpoints, instructors, presentation styles,
  subjects, their own learning style and other variables, depending on their
  interests and other variables. The teacher will assist students in exploring
  the approaches that work best. See, Educators
  shift focus to kids’ learning styles.
• Every student will have Internet access at home, provided, or perhaps
  subsidized by the school. Students will be able to continue working at home
  during illnesses, snow
  days or other absences. Indeed, to keep class sizes really small, some
  or all students may work one day at home and the next day at school.
• Since students proceed through the curriculum at their own rate, the
  curriculum will be online and students will follow it sequentially in
  typical cases, but may also have the freedom to do related lessons at
  different grade levels if they wish to explore a topic in more depth while
  they are into it, provided they are making adequate progress through the
  curriculum.
• Since much of the curriculum will be provided via the computer when
  appropriate and effective, teacher absences filled in by substitute teachers
  will result in far less "down time."
• Since students may proceed through the curriculum at their own rate, some
  students may take 14 years for a traditional K-12 program and others may
  take 10. The reward for completing the curriculum in 10 years would be the
  opportunity to graduate from high school after 13 years with 2 years of
  college completed. College courses would be provided locally or via the
  Internet. The cost would be covered by the school as part of a minimum
  13-years education (including kindergarten). This could save students and
  their families tens of thousands of dollars and be a highly motivating
  factor for students to work hard with rapid and effective progress. In other
  words, the system will reward hard work and self-discipline.
• Since the curriculum is online and all students have Internet access at
  home, students may elect to proceed through the curriculum on weekends and
  during breaks and vacations. In other words, disruptions to the learning
  process by system needs or schedules need not occur.
• Students would be able to receive help on lessons either from an online
  teacher, or the classroom teacher.
• Parent discussion of school work would be far more informed since students
  can show parents exactly what they covered from day to day. Alternatively,
  or in addition, the computer may create links to the students work for the
  past 10 days that parents can simply click and inspect.
• Most testing, including some essay exams, will be graded by the computer.
  Teachers will have online files of each student’s work in each subject. The
  computer may scan across weeks or years of data to detect weaknesses in each
  student’s learning or skills.
• Students will be able to take tests when they are ready. They will not
  have to wait for the rest of the class to be ready, nor will they be rushed
  into taking tests they aren’t prepared for. Moreover, they will take only as
  much time as they need taking tests. They will not have to wait for the
  slowest student in the class to complete each test. Time saved in taking
  tests has the potential for adding almost a year’s learning to the education
  of fast test-takers.
• Many lessons will provide additional information for parents about
  activities, books or websites that may be used to supplement the goals and
  materials for each lesson.
• Many lessons will provide links to related enrichment materials. For
  example, a science lesson may link to information on the
  history of science.
• For those concerned about social skills, peer interaction, class
  participation, recess, recreation, P.E., music, art, hands-on learning,
  etc., these will be interspersed throughout the day or week.
• Lessons in the curriculum will include optional "enrichment"
  readings or exercises, including information on story structure, critical
  thinking, theory of knowledge, exercises to broaden the scope of thinking or
  to improve synthesis and evaluation skills, and many other areas of academic
  import.
• The curriculum will be modernized, including instruction on life-long
  financial planning, critically evaluating media and information disseminated
  by public officials (especially how to hear what is not being said), greater
  emphasis on statistics, communication skills, ethics, conflict resolution,
  reasoning skills, etc.
• Elementary students will be able to learn a foreign language with
  side-by-side stories in different languages. They will be able to hear those
  stories read aloud or even read the stories to the computer, which may store
  recordings for teacher evaluation.
• Computer/Internet instruction will enable families to take vacations and
  breaks at their own convenience.
• Students would be able to watch classroom instruction via video streams
  from classrooms.
• There will be a far greater emphasis on independent learning skills.
  Learning how to become a learner will be a top priority. Students will
  prepare for state standards and regents exams not through the use of review
  books, but through the preparation and use of their own outlines and notes.
• In addition to increasing their knowledge and thinking skills, students
  will find, understand, document and model dynamic interactions and
  relationships within and among subjects using software like Inspiration,
  Stella, Powersim
  and Vensim. See clexchange.org
  and join
  a k-12 listserv or read
  archived messages. Also, see The
  Waters Foundation.
• It should be far easier to keep transient students on a constant path of
  learning, even to the point of maintaining the same curriculum while
  attending several schools during the same year.
• Students will be able to chose from among several online texts. If they
  have a problem with a concept or skill using one text, they can try another.
  Accessing different texts will automatically generate royalty payments to
  the owners. This should cost less than purchasing the same amount of
  materials in textbooks.
• Students who are capable and interested could complete their academics in
  1/2 to 2/3 of a school day and spend the rest of their time, in or out of
  school, pursuing their interests, talents and passions, be it in art, music,
  science, government, dance, acting, sports, economics, healthcare, public
  service, mechanics, culinary arts, technology, social advocacy, animal care,
  or anything else their parents would support. In other words, it would be
  possible for many students to do what child actors do–become educated while
  being more productive.
• As students work through the curriculum, the computer will automatically
  generate a chronolgical and topical page of links to the materials used so
  students can quickly find and retrieve information previously accessed. The
  page(s) of links will stay with the student throughout elementary and
  secondary school, and perhaps for life!
• Homework becomes more like school work at home because the teacher is
  either available online or virtually within the lesson. Moreover, since the
  rest of the class does not have to be on a particular student or teacher’s
  schedule, homework can be accomplished with greater flexibility. If Tuesday
  nights are busy, the student needn’t stay up until midnight to squeeze in
  homework.
• Students could earn "merit badges" similar to the
  Boy Scouts in all the areas offered by them and more.

In short, education reform has not yet begun. The current model of
education delivery today in most public schools still looks a lot more like the
late 19th century model than the 21st century model. The
teacher-at-the-head-of-the-class, teacher-as-primary-instructor, lock-step
movement of the entire class through the curriculum, uniform texts and readings,
classification of students by levels of learning ability and standardized test
results, A to F report cards, grading, teacher-dependent learning rather
independent learning, uniform breaks and vacations, 180-day teacher work-year,
equalization of students by having them end 13 years with essentially the same
amount of education, are all in their last days.

The only question is, "How long will NY’s teachers and unions resist
coming into the 21st century?" As this
WSJ article says, "[E]ducators, while sincere, are among the most
change-resistant workers on the planet."