I highly respect you initiatives, Caroline, not just because they start
as a basically good idea, but then you do great follow-through that I
wish I will learn more from. And this is a great initiative, your email
waiting a long time in my inbox because it was so good I wasn't figuring
out how to contribute, though I felt I needed to at least share a couple
thoughts.
Something sort of along these lines I have been pursuing pretty much
since forever, but in my case it has not passed from being a
gedankenexperiment, alas.
My reflection goes along these ways
1) each child (and each teacher!) is unique in abilities, giftings,
potential and actual skills, learning styles...
from this we can infer that "one-size-fits-all" education is not as good
- for the child - as education that fits each child's way.
one-size-fits-all education is cheaper, seems to work, is the way it is
done everywhere... arguments hard to beat, though for generations it was
SOP, for those who could afford it, to have tutors to work with their
kids one-on-one, something obviously impractical and impossible to
scale-up to the needs and the rights we recognize now.
enter differentiated instruction, which sadly has meant often some kind
of apartheit, where the "A" tier gets attention, funding, the best
teachers... It is now SOP that there are "better" schools parents fight
to get their kids in. Contrariwise, many classrooms are by design
mixed-things and some sort of forced integration has been a fashion for
a while, and for a while failing schools got more funding, a trend that
took a while to turn around since it was discovered that it encouraged
failure.
Your proposal indicates "more intensive instruction" for the "students
that are struggling", which is nice, no doubt for those, but maybe
unfair to the others. It appears many more "scholar athletes" lately
are getting diagnosed for disorders that allow them to use chemicals
that otherwise are banned... I am concerned that if the way to get
better schooling is to be lower tier, there might be a rush for it.
On 04/20/2010 09:29 AM, Caroline Meeks wrote:
Hi Subbu,
Not off topic in my opinion.
RTI consists of:
1. *Scientific, Research-Based Instruction- Delivered in Tiers, with
students who are struggling getting more intensive instruction.*
*2. Screening of all students.*
*3. Progress monitoring (about every 2 weeks) for the students getting
the more intensive instruction (the 'intervention').*
*
*
*US based discussions of RTI focus on how it effects the pipeline to
special education. But in many OLPC contexts I don't think there is a
special education to be referred to. I think if kids can't make it in
the general classroom they drop out. Thus a system that keeps more
kids on track is valuable.*
*
*
*Discussions of how to improve instruction is very on topic for RTI.
In RTI terms you could think about it in two ways. Are the materials
part of a Tier I (all students) instruction or are they for Tier II,
for struggling students. The great thing about technology, be it a
laptop or a mp4 player, is that it could be used in both ways. The
whole class could use it, and we could help teachers match up specific
weakness in students with specific learning objects for a Tier II like
intervention.*
*
*
*I'm focusing a lot on the screening and progress monitoring pieces of
RTI because, thanks to huge, long, high stakes tests that teachers
don't see results back from for months, assessment has gotten a bad
name. RTI assessment is quick and results are immediate, specific
and actionable. *
*
*
*Yes, on the cell phones/hand helds for doing the assessments. In the
US palm pilots are used. I do think setting it up on a cell phone
would be far more economical.*
*
*
*Thanks for responding. :)*
*
*
*Caroline*
On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 9:36 AM, K. K. Subramaniam <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Tuesday 20 April 2010 06:01:33 am Caroline Meeks wrote:
> Why can't computers for children both give them the means for
creation,
> independent learning, collaboration etc etc. and give their teacher
> detailed, nuanced, actionable data on what skills they have
mastered and
> what they are still struggling with?
Computer-centric vocabulary is becoming obsolete today. Talking about
computers today is a bit-like talking about DC/Induction motors in
our homes.
We don't think of mixers, juicers, grinders, washing machines etc
as motor
machines, do we? Kids don't think of mobile phones as computers.
They think
of them as phones, cameras, voice recorders, mp3/mp4 players etc.
>Problem solvers, groundbreaking pioneers and visionary leaders
need to know
>their phonics and their basic math skills. We have the
capability to build
>tools that help teachers know and track which students are
struggling with
>what skills, and provide the collaborative framework for them to
collect
>data and share it to determine what works to teach those skills
to all
>students.
Just a few weeks back, I had a discussion with village school
teachers about
using smart machines to enliven language lessons. The discussion
veered around
using mini-speakers with mp3 player in classrooms. The players,
about 4" cube
take in 2GB USB flash, SD card or micro-SD cards and play for 5
hours on a
single charge. They cost about $8-$10 here and 2GB card can easily
hold about
four-five years of language lessons. Neither teachers nor 6-9 year
olds think
of them as computers.
We could also think of using portable mp4 players (for visual
lessons) or
smartphones (for data collection). These machines don't exclude
the use of
laptops for authoring lessons and give more options for children
to learn
languages, math and science.
[Apologies if this is OT on a RTI thread]
Subbu
--
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
[email protected]
617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
_______________________________________________
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
[email protected]
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
_______________________________________________
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
[email protected]
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
