Technology Won't Fix America's Neediest Schools -- It Makes Bad Education Worse

theodp writes: In an adapted excerpt from Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology, Univ. of Michigan prof Kentaro Toyama begins: "'Technology is a game-changer in the field of education,'" Education Secretary Arne Duncan once said, and there was a time when I would have agreed. Over the last decade, I've built, used, and studied educational technology in countries around the world. As a computer scientist and former Microsoft employee, I wanted nothing more than to see innovation triumph in the classroom. But no matter how good the design, and despite rigorous tests of impact, I have never seen technology systematically overcome the socio-economic divides that exist in education. Children who are behind need high-quality adult guidance more than anything else. Many people believe that technology 'levels the playing field' of learning, but what I've discovered is that it does no such thing."

Comments

Shouldn't this be obvious?

[schklerg]

I've yet to see any technology that can overcome bad process, bad practice, and bad planning. Why should education be any different?

Marketing may try to sell a magic fix, but reality seems to always win.

Re:Shouldn't this be obvious?

[Vermonter]

It's like saying that handing out new hammers to a bunch of carpenters will make the bad ones good. A tool can only enhance quality, not create it.

Re:Shouldn't this be obvious?

[cdrudge]

That's pretty racist and stereotypical. Sanjay helps with tech support. Ming helps with math.

Re:Shouldn't this be obvious?

[DarkOx]

I think the underlying thinking behind most educational technology is take the work out of the hands of the local practitioner, deskill the teacher. While the sellers and developers of edtech will never admit this is the case and my not even realize it themselves it basically amounts to central planning.

If a computer program is going to teach a kid math the pedagogical approaches it takes will be more or less fixed and ones designed at some central facility somewhere. It wont be the paradigm the local instructor was using and it may or may not add to clarity.

I am in my early 30's depending on who you ask I am either the last of the gen X'ers or among the first of the so called millennials. Outside of some of the education television experiments tried in classrooms on boomers, I saw most of the early experiments in edtech. I had a number of older teachers who had spend years drawing their own little cartoons, crafting their own little narratives to help us understand. I also had younger ones who wanted to try out all the new MECC stuff. I was in Minnesota. If that worked for you great, if not the instructors were mostly caught flat footed with no alternative ideas about how to convey the lesson, unlike the other teachers that had taken the time to develop their own materials.

Central planning isn't any better for education than it is for economies. When edtech stops trying to teach and really starts trying to make teachers more effective it might work. A better hammer will allow a good carpenter to get his framing done faster and possibly even done better. A better hammer isn't a robotic carpenter though, but most edtech attempts to be a robotic teacher.

My sister teaches Highschool math subjects. She loves Mathmatica. She says it lets throw up a visualization on the screen the really helps some of her students get it. Its faster and better than anything she could scribble on the whiteboards. She is using it though in the context of her own lessons to explain her own contrivances that show how to apply the math. Its a generic tool though, while lots of educators use it isn't designed only for education and it isn't designed to teach any specific lessons.

Edtech needs to focus on giving teachers quality general use tools and class room appropriate hardware on which to run them. It does not need to be trying to create a digital textbook equivalent or play instructor on its own.

Re:Shouldn't this be obvious?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Well... the elimination of artisan labor and the rise of mechanized production processes was effectively a process where a (complex set of) tools enhanced quality so much that it made the bad carpenters and the good carpenters more or less indistinguishable.

Of course, the day we get technology capable of doing the same for education will also be the day where we have technology sufficient to render obsolete all educated workers, so the fact that technology has finally fixed schools will be a footnote in a much more dramatic restructuring of basically everything.

Re:Shouldn't this be obvious?

[Jason Levine]

My wife was a teacher. Her three biggest complaints were:

1) Parents who just didn't care. The child could be failing and my wife could try contacting them multiple times to try to help the child out, but the parents just couldn't be bothered. The parent sends the signal (both to the teacher and to the child) that the child and the child's education isn't important. Of course, the kid is going to pick up on that. (Kids are often smarter than we give them credit for.)

2) Parents who cared too much. This might be more of an issue because she taught in a private school. The parents would think that because they paid tuition, their kid deserved an A no matter what the quality of the kid's work. They wouldn't even bother looking at the child's work, but would march into my wife's classroom to demand that C-level work be graded as an A because "she works for them."

3) Administration that gets in the way. Sometimes the administration can help teachers out. They can assist in the previous 2 cases to back the teacher up and let the teacher do his/her job more effectively. All too often, though, administration comes up with "ideas" on how to improve teaching without consulting the teachers. This is analogous to a PHB deciding on a new coding strategy without consulting the programmers. When this happens, the teachers find themselves trying to be effective teachers while jumping through more and more useless hoops.

After my wife left the profession, a fourth obstacle really kicked into high gear as well:

4) Politicians/Private Companies. These people come in - either with a desire for profits or to draw in votes - with big ideas for how to improve education. They don't consult with teachers - and often will vilify them to silence any teacher objections - and will push their plans through. Like #3 above, teachers find themselves having to jump through increasingly complex hoops which render them incapable of teaching effectively. This, then, "proves" that teachers are no-good so that politicians and private companies can fire them to make way for more profitable employees who will stick to the private company provided teaching scripts.

Re:Shouldn't this be obvious?

[tnk1]

Back in the day, my own anecdotal experience was that disruption is a big deal. I sat in both honors classes and "regular" classes back in the day. There was a huge difference in how much you learned based on how disruptive the class was. When I was in a class filled with kids who were dedicated to getting good grades and learning things, you got shit done. I learned less, had less taught to me, and was less able to concentrate in the regular class. I still personally got good grades, but that was because the class was dumbed down so much, it was hard to understand how anyone could have done poorly, let alone failed those classes, even without being a nerd.

In the end, I realized that I worked to get in honors classes as much to simply not be in the regular classes as I did to excel. You literally could not learn even easier things very well in a disruptive class.

Personally, I think we need to pick out the disruptive cases, get them in smaller classes with more structure, and get them out of the way of people who want to learn. Then everyone, including the disruptive kids, will probably be more successful.

False early advantage

[Dareth]

From what I have seen, children with early access to technology treat them as just another toy. They may be more familiar with some interfaces and know how to do some basic tasks but do not have a great advantage over someone introduced to computers at a later age who is interested in learning about them. You need some basic skills to use a computer. You need to be able to read and write. Some basic math skills and typing are helpful. Once you have the basics you can add technology as a supplement. It is not a replacement for the basics of learning which can still be done with a simple piece of paper and a pencil.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Tools not crutches

[sinij]

Children that come from more privileged socioeconomic backgrounds tend to be more able than disadvantaged children. Why? One reason is that privileged background afford them better support system and more stimulating environment. Another reason, is that contrary to the prevailing social narrative, not everyone is born equal or could achieve anything. There are very practical limitations imposed by intelligence that cannot be overcome by motivation alone. Intelligence also happen to be highly heritable trait and it is strongly correlated with "privileged socioeconomic background". Unfortunately, we don't yet have technology capable to compensate for the lack of ability, motivation, and impulse control that are associated with intelligence.

In the light of the above, it is by no means certain that these boundaries are surmountable.

it's not bad process

[rsilvergun]

It's a lack of money. The class sizes are too large and they mix the special ed kids in with the other students so that they are constantly getting interrupted while an undertrained teach tries their best. Meanwhile the parents are broke so the kids game tons of problems at home.

I love the way everyone in America tries their best to ignore the disadvantages of poverty and the privilege that comes with money

Re:Technology has greatly improved education

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

I like to think of technology as a rising tide; it raises all boats. It doesn't make dinghies into yachts.
Technological improvements in teaching tools don't help underprivileged children more than privileged children. They improve things equally for everyone.
This doesn't mean that everyone will get the same benefit. There are at least four factors that will still affect the success of children in school, regardless of technological tools:

1) Parental involvement and investment (temporal, emotional and monetary).
2) Community culture. e.g., gang activity, health of relationships with local authorities.
3) Individual intelligence.
4) Teacher skill and investment.

Properly applied (using experimentally proven methods), new technology improves school learning. Giving children new tools will not, however, improve the performance of uninterested children more than interested ones.