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Strategies for Helping Students Motivate Themselves | Edutopia

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Strategies for Helping Students Motivate Themselves | Edutopia

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Larry Ferlazzo

I teach English & Social Studies at inner-city high school in Sacramento,CA

Editor's Note: This piece was adapted from Building a Community of Self-Motivated Learners: Strategies to Help Students Thrive in School and Beyond by Larry Ferlazzo, available March 21, 2015 from Routledge.
My previous post reviewed research on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and described the four qualities that have been identified as critical to helping students motivate themselves: autonomy, competence, relatedness, and relevance.

In this post, I'll discuss practical classroom strategies to reinforce each of these four qualities.

Autonomy

Providing students with freedom of choice is one strategy for promoting learner autonomy. Educators commonly view this idea of choice through the lens of organizational and procedural choice. Organizational choice, for example, might mean students having a voice in seating assignments or members of their small learning groups. Procedural choice could include a choice from a list of homework assignments and what form a final project might take -- a book, poster, or skit.

Some researchers, however, believe that a third option, cognitive choice, is a more effective way to promote longer-lasting student autonomy. This kind of cognitive autonomy support, which is also related to the idea of ensuring relevance, could include:

Problem-based learning, where small groups need to determine their own solutions to teacher-suggested and/or student-solicited issues -- ways to organize school lunchtime more effectively, what it would take to have a human colony on Mars, strategies to get more healthy food choices available in the neighborhood, etc.

Students developing their own ideas for homework assignments related to what is being studied in class

Students publicly sharing their different thinking processes behind solving the same problem or a similar one

Teachers using thinking routines like one developed by Project Zero at Harvard and consisting of a simple formula: the teacher regularly asking, "What is going on here?" and, after a student response, continuing with, "What do you see that makes you say so?"

Competence

Feedback, done well, is ranked by education researcher John Hattie as number 10 out of 150 influences on student achievement.

As Carol Dweck has found, praising intelligence makes people less willing to risk "their newly-minted genius status," while praising effort encourages the idea that we primarily learn through our hard work: "Ben, it's impressive that you wrote two drafts of that essay instead of one, and had your friend review it, too. How do you feel it turned out, and what made you want to put the extra work into it?"

But how do you handle providing critical feedback to students when it's necessary? Since extensive research shows that a ratio of positive-to-negative feedback of between 3-1 and 5-1 is necessary for healthy learning to occur, teachers might consider a strategy called plussing that is used by Pixar animation studios with great success. The New York Times interviewed author Peter Sims about the concept:

The point, he said, is to "build and improve on ideas without using judgmental language." . . . An animator working on Toy Story 3 shares her rough sketches and ideas with the director. "Instead of criticizing the sketch or saying 'no,' the director will build on the starting point by saying something like, 'I like Woody's eyes, and what if his eyes rolled left?" Using words like "and" or "what if" rather than "but" is a way to offer suggestions and allow creative juices to flow without fear, Mr. Sims said.

"And" and "what if" could easily become often-used words in an educator's vocabulary!

Relatedness

A high-quality relationship with a teacher whom they respect is a key element of helping students develop intrinsic motivation. What are some actions that teachers can take to strengthen these relationships?

Here are four simple suggestions adapted from Robert Marzano's ideas:

1. Take a genuine interest in your students.

Learn their interests, hopes, and dreams. Ask them about what is happening in their lives. In other words, lead with your ears and not your mouth. Don't, however, just make it a one-way street -- share some of your own stories, too.

2. Act friendly in other ways.

Smile, joke, and sometimes make a light, supportive touch on a student's shoulder.

3. Be flexible, and keep our eyes on the learning goal prize.

One of my students had never written an essay in his school career. He was intent on maintaining that record during an assignment of writing a persuasive essay about what students thought was the worst natural disaster. Because I knew two of his passions were football and video games, I told him that as long as he used the writing techniques we'd studied, he could write an essay on why his favorite football team was better than its rival or on why he particularly liked one video game. He ended up writing an essay on both topics.

4. Don't give up on students.

Be positive (as much as humanly possible) and encourage a growth mindset.

Relevance

Have students write about how they see what they are learning as relevant to their lives. Researchers had students write one paragraph after a lesson sharing how they thought what they had learned would be useful to their lives. Writing 1-8 of these during a semester led to positive learning gains, especially for those students who had previously been "low performers."

It is not uncommon for teachers to explicitly make those kinds of real-life connections. However, research has also found that this kind of teacher-centered approach can actually be de-motivating to some students with low skills. A student who is having a very difficult time understanding math or does just not find it interesting, for example, can feel threatened by hearing regularly from a teacher how important math is to his or her future. Instead of becoming more engaged in class, he or she may experience more negative feelings. These same researchers write:

[A] more effective approach would be to encourage students to generate their own connections and discover for themselves the relevance of course material to their lives. This method gives students the opportunity to make connections to topics and areas of greatest interest to their lives.

What other strategies do you use in the classroom to reinforce any of these four critical elements of intrinsic motivation?

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Strategies for Helping Students Motivate Themselves

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Larry Ferlazzo I teach English & Social Studies at inner-city high school in Sacramento,CA Editor's Note: This piece was adapted from Building a Community of Self-Motivated Learners: Strategies to Help Students Thrive in School and Beyond by Larry Ferlazzo, available March 21, 2015 from Routledge.

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Luckily, kids are hard-wired for that kind of generative curiosity. Unfortunately, "right around age 5 or 6, questioning drops off a cliff," Berger said. Paradoxically, when kids go to school they stop asking so many questions. "Children enter school as question marks and leave schools as periods," Berger said, quoting Neil Postman.* But why?

There are a lot of understandable reasons why questioning drops off in school. Foremost among them is time. "Time really conspires against questioning," Berger said. "In the classroom there often isn't time to let kids ask their questions." And really good, deep questions often take a lot of time to unravel -- more time than a harried teacher trying to cover all the curriculum often feels she can afford. And while time pressure is a very real part of teaching, not making time for questioning says a lot about how valuable it is to us. People make time for the things they value.

But knowledge can also be the enemy of questioning. "As we know more, or feel we know more, we may be less inclined to question," Berger said. Sometimes answers can close down other avenues of thinking or ways of seeing a problem, but that all depends on how teachers treat knowledge. When treated as a life-long endeavor, learning a little bit about something opens up space to learn more.

And of course there are social barriers to questioning. Many kids don't see asking questions as "cool." And the perception that question askers are suck-ups or dorks probably also comes from fear. Many people feel vulnerable admitting they don't know something. They are afraid to offer a window into their inner world by wondering out loud.

These barriers to questioning are real and challenging, but there are lots of ways parents and teachers can work to make questioning a normal part of school and life. One of the primary ways adults can support questioning, Berger said, is to model curiosity and to value questions. Instead of asking a child, "What did you learn at school today," a parent might ask, "What great question did you ask today?" Or, when a child asks one of those great, deep questions that gets at why humans are even here, parents could dive in and explore the question with their child.

"You don't have to have the answers. You just have to have the interest," Berger said. Instead of trying to close off questioning by providing a pat answer or a terse "I don't know," parents might say, "If you were going to start answering that question, where would you start?"

"We want their questions to be large and expanded instead of being diminished and eventually going away," Berger said. That philosophy should apply to school as well.
5 WAYS TO HELP STUDENTS BECOME BETTER QUESTIONERS
1. Make It Safe: "I think this might be the most important one," Berger said. Many kids won't raise their hand in front of the whole class to ask a question because they're shy or nervous. "Fear kills curiosity," Berger said. "The two things do not exist very well together." But a student that might be afraid to question in front of the whole group may be willing to ask questions in a smaller group or to write a question down. Teachers can help make small groups even safer by laying out protective rules like "no question can be edited or judged."

"The key thing is it makes questioning the point of the activity, and that is rarely the case," Berger said. "The point is always to get to the answer." Asking good questions takes practice. The Right Question Institute offers protocols to get students questioning, but teachers shouldn't expect kids to immediately be good at it.

2. Make it Cool: Berger suggests convincing kids that good questions lead to cool stuff and make the world a better place. Furthermore, people who ask good questions are cool people, even rebellious people sometimes. "The people who are really breaking new ground are the people asking questions," Berger said. "Questioners are the explorers, the mavericks."

And questions can make people uncomfortable, especially when they hit on something true. "If you are a questioner, you are going against the grain," Berger said. "That could appeal to young people."

3. Make It Fun: Turning questioning into a game can be a great way to make the process more lighthearted and fun. Frame the process as being a detective, solving riddles or puzzles. One possible game to get kids started is to take closed questions and turn them into open questions and visa versa. This helps kids really understand the difference and what makes a strong question.

Students could also approach the issue with "why" questions to dig into it, then start asking "what if" questions to open up their imaginations and finally "how might we" questions to begin coming up with solutions. "How might we" is a more invigorating and creative questioning tact that "how could we" or "how should we" prompts, which tend to have more judgment in them.

4. Make It Rewarding: Many students are used to empty praise from their teachers. When students venture a deep question, they commonly hear, "That's a great question, let's move on." But an educator's genuine interest in the question will be much more powerful than any praise.

Additionally, teachers can create structures in their classes to reward questioning. Perhaps there is a best question of the week, where students get to vote on one another's questions. Or maybe there's a bonus question on a test that is itself a question: "What question should have been on this test, but wasn't?"

5. Make It Stick: Questioning has to be a regular part of the school day for it to become a student habit. The famous comedian George Carlin used to talk about "vuja de," that none of this has ever happened before. He was joking, but he also credited his ability to look at familiar situations in fresh ways as a key to his success.

Educators could follow Carlin's lead and spend some time one day a week looking at a common object or idea and pushing students to ask questions about it as if they've never seen it before. "If you can instill this habit of mind in kids, this is the key to success for innovators," Berger said.

If educators can find the precious minutes to foster these habits, Berger believes it could go a long way to developing critical thinkers. "I know that often times it doesn't feel like there's room to do some of these things under the current schedules and demands, but I feel like what needs to be done is small acts of insurrection," he told educators and parents gathered at the conference.
Questioning Is About Power
Feeling confident to question the systems of power around us is one of the key jobs of an informed citizenry. Kids need to learn during their time at school that they have the right to know, to challenge assumptions and to dig deeper. Fostering this mentality in students can be challenging for teachers who are often complicit in systems of control over students. But often when teachers open the space for these questions, value them and explore them with students, a deep trust is built.

"I also think questioning matters because questions open up a dialogue instead of shutting it down," Berger said. He says it's the honest, thoughtful, respectful questions that start really good discussions. And ultimately could lead to the equity that so many educators and students are striving toward.

It's also important to note that questioning makes a student vulnerable, and every student has a different relationship and experience with standing up to authority. "It's very possible that there could be some groups of kids who would be more worried about how questioning is going to make them look," Berger said. "That kid has more at stake," and teachers need to recognize that.

These equity questions are the next topic Berger wants to explore. One study he read showed that upper-income families encouraged questioning in school, while lower-income families told their children to fit in and not rock the boat.

"Just because they're not asking a question doesn't mean they won't have them," Berger said. He's researching how people are making questioning safe for everyone. Ultimately, questioning and reflecting are the keys to self-growth, something educators want for all their students.

"It's OK to ask ambitious questions about yourself, your life, and that you won't have the answer right away," Berger said. Often people don't ask those kinds of questions because they're afraid they won't have the answer. But if questioning deeply has always been part of the learning process, perhaps the next generation of citizens won't be so afraid to sit with those hard questions.
*An earlier version of this story did not properly attribute this quote to Neil Postman. We regret this error.

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How to Bring 'More Beautiful' Questions Back to School

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Luckily, kids are hard-wired for that kind of generative curiosity. Unfortunately, "right around age 5 or 6, questioning drops off a cliff," Berger said. Paradoxically, when kids go to school they stop asking so many questions. "Children enter school as question marks and leave schools as periods," Berger said, quoting Neil Postman.* But why?

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Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth | TED

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Sir Ken Robinson | Changing Education Paradigms

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_qoc47dVGE If you are a science geek you will love the above link. To read more of my work visit: http://write-online.com/ Do not forget to subscribe us. :)

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Homework is an educational tool that has always been a part of schools. It affects every member of a school community: students, parents, teachers, administrators and board of education members.

For the most part, as a practice, it is completely outdated and largely misused as a means of impacting student learning and achievement. Research generally does not support the benefits of homework, yet homework is assigned at almost every level, it is rarely questioned and some people think our students should get more of it. Although never proven by research, parents assume an automatic relationship between homework and future success.

Homework was a topic that was never "covered" while I was working toward my teaching degree. As a classroom teacher, I received no training or professional development on the topic. Homework was rarely discussed on a professional level among colleagues or by my administrators; rather it was something that I believed I was required to give, and for the most part, I assigned many ineffective assignments, as I was simply assigning typical assignments that I experienced while going through school (i.e. doing what was done to me).

Once I became a principal, my approach to homework was not much different because it truly was an afterthought being rarely discussed, except when parents complained. When I noticed in a teacher's lesson plan the absence of homework for a period of time, I would simply suggest that the teacher assign some. The issue regarding the quality of homework was hardly ever addressed, as I too considered that if homework was assigned, learning must be occurring. I share the above because I believe my experiences are not unique, but universal in our profession.

Once I became a central office administrator with a district perspective, my views about homework began to change. I quickly saw how dangerous it was having teachers do their "own thing." Some teachers gave a lot of homework, some gave none, some graded homework and those grades counted heavily towards the students' final grade, while others did not grade homework or gave little or no weight to homework grades.

Some teachers were giving some effective assignments that encouraged thinking and others were assigning busy work that promoted very little learning.

Some homework assignments were large projects that required materials to be purchased, and parental support - some so much, that it was evident that the work was actually parent work - but resulted in a positive grade for the student. Therefore, the homework further perpetuated the achievement gap between those who have support at home and those who do not.

Finally, I began to ponder the purpose of some homework assignments such as a word search, diorama, mobile or writing spelling words multiple times. How do they promote learning and what evidence of learning do they show?

As a new superintendent for the Freehold Township School District, I was immediately called to examine how teachers were using homework as part of the learning process.

It began as a very quiet Thursday in July, and I was settling into my new role, being quite proud of the transition plan that I was finalizing. My first three days were eerily quiet, as we sometimes find in the summer before schedules and class lists are released, but on this day the phone began ringing with zeal. There were eight parents who requested a return call from me, so I knew there was a pressing issue at hand. Most of the calls were similar in nature, "Dr. Kasun, I am confused why my son/daughter is being recommended for Basic Skills, as he/she had straight As on his/her report card."

My response was, "Let me look into it further and I will get back to you." After conducting some research, I found that, in fact, the parents were correct, that their child had received As on the report card. However, these students scored Partially Proficient on the New Jersey ASK in math or language arts; thus, they were recommended for our Basic Skills Program. Further, after digging deeper, I found that most of these students did not score well on our district-wide assessments or classroom tests; yet, they received As in their classes because they completed all the assigned homework, and it was weighted so much that it altered the student's grade. Equally as alarming, I found that we had several students who scored perfect 300s on the NJASK and did very well on district assessments and classroom tests, but had Cs and Ds on their report card, as they were penalized severely for not completing homework.

As the topic of homework can be as polarizing as religion and politics, and can evoke such emotion connected to one's own personal experience with homework (if we polled parents, half believe that there is not enough and the other half think there is way too much), I knew as a new superintendent, I needed to tread very lightly on making any policy or practice change.

Our district had already embarked on the implementation of differentiated instruction, so I decided to focus the year on assessment and grading in the differentiated classroom based on Rick Wormeli's work in his book, "Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessing and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom." Trying to solidify our understanding of how to best institute differentiated instruction, we tackled such issues as the difference and importance between summative and formative assessments. As a staff, we were able to agree homework performance is not an accurate portrayal of final proficiency or mastery. It's the path to learning, so it is a formative assessment. We grade students against standards, not the routes by which they achieve them. Homework is practice and not a determination of mastery and grades are saved for declarations of mastery. Thus, we began to question how much homework should count toward a student's grade.

We also examined the practice of zeros and how detrimental it can be to a students' grade. Douglas Reeves, founder of the Center for Performance Assessment in Boston, pointed out in 2004 that a zero on a 100 point scale is mathematically inaccurate, and does not fix the problem of students not completing homework. When students fail to complete homework, we tend to approach the problem more like a discipline problem than a learning issue.

We began to change our ideas and focused a conversation based on the fact that homework should not be about compliance, but rather a tool to support learning. We are faced with the irony that a policy that may be grounded in the belief of holding students accountable (giving zeros) actually allows some students to escape the accountability for learning.

Changing the Homework Policies

The following summer with support from our board of education, we changed some policies and practices regarding homework and grading. Thus, we made immediate and universal changes for the 2012-2013 school year. Although we know that top-down mandates usually fail, we knew that it was critical to change, as we had no way to address a challenge from a student or parent. Homework and grading policies were not consistent across district classrooms, and our grades were sometimes not an accurate measure of a student's mastery because they were influenced (either inflated or deflated) based upon whether a student (or his/her parents) completed the homework. The most significant policy/practice changes were:
Homework shall only be weighted as 5 percent of a student's final grade.

Grades have to be a measure of what students know, compared to a standard. They are not about compliance. We chose 5 percent because, although it has some weight, it is small enough that if a student does no homework, but aces all tests, that student still gets an A. Grades are not necessary for learning to take place; in fact research indicates that grades tend to interfere with learning.

Once the threat of grades is taken away from homework, homework becomes a safe place to try out new skills without penalty, just as athletes and musicians try out their skills in practice or in rehearsals.

No zeros. The lowest grade is a 50.

Traditional practices of giving zeros and not accepting late assignments allow students to escape the accountability for learning. Learning is not about compliance, and we do not teach responsibility with a stick and carrot. It is not "learn or I will hurt you" (if one wanted to really hurt, one could give a "minus" grade, like "-200" for not completing an assignment). It is not about control; it is about learning.

We need to assign work that is relevant and connected to the classroom, so that students see a reason to complete it, and not solely do it because they fear getting a bad grade. The homework assigned should be so meaningful that students need to complete it.

We established maximum time limits of 10 minutes per grade level, per night.

Examples: third grade would be 30 minutes, fifth would be 50 minutes, eighth would be 80 minutes, and twelfth would be 120 minutes.

It is very dangerous for a district to have some teachers not assigning homework and other teachers, sometimes at the same grade level, giving hours of work.

The time limits shall not be based on the three smartest or quickest students in class. Teachers for each subject should tell students how much time an assignment should take and tell students to stop (draw a line) at this point.

The quality of the task is as important as the amount of time required.

As with any change, we faced some resistance and pushback from some staff and a few parents. The first challenge was that some believed if we do not put a grade or significant weight on homework (now only counting of 5 percent of a student's final grade), students simply will not complete it. This is absolutely a false premise, and learning can occur without grades. In fact, those students who tend to do all homework will and those who do not complete usually will not regardless of the presence or absence of any grade. The second challenge was that some teachers posed the notion that we teach responsibility and time management by giving homework. This is also an incorrect idea, as homework does not reinforce time management if adults have to coerce children into doing it; if children are coerced, they are not in charge of making decisions about the use of time. The third major opposition was that some argued that giving students 50 for doing nothing is not fair. To address this point, we went back to the mathematical inaccuracy of giving a zero on a 100 point scale. We pointed out that even in our teacher's observation model, Danielson, which uses a four point scale, a score of one is the lowest score (no zeros), as zeros when averaged in are usually not recoverable.

Professional Development on Homework

Equally important, at the same time as changing the above policies and practices, we began providing professional development regarding homework, and made it a topic for our new teacher academy. With the "new" mandated evaluation models and all the professional development that we were providing to our teachers, our classrooms had dramatically changed to be more student-centered, technology-infused learning environments. However, our homework assignments, for the most part, did not follow this shift. In our classrooms we realized and accounted for the fact that students differ in readiness and developmental levels, and all the children don't learn in the same way, but most homework assignments were a one-size fits all.

We asked teachers to use the same understanding about how children learn and factors that influence learning (research about the brain, motivation, persistence and learner difference) that was clearly visible in our classrooms and transfer this knowledge to homework assignments. As Dr. Bill Daggett suggested during his presentation at a 2015 NJSBA conference, we made a point of stressing during our professional development sessions with staff that relevancy makes rigor possible. We reminded our staff that rigor does not mean more work; students are not going to get ahead by completing hours of meaningless worksheets or packets. Key points in our professional development were:
The purpose of homework is to foster learning.

Just as we do in our classrooms, we need to let the students know the objective of the assignment. The ultimate goal of the assignment- pre-learning, checking for understanding, practice or processing- should be clearly communicated to the student.

Quality tasks are related to classroom learning. If it is not tied to classroom learning and there is not a clear objective, it is probably not an assignment worth assigning.

As we want to foster learning so that it is stored into long-term memory, a very simple, yet highly effective, homework assignment is to ask students to summarize in writing what they learned, include one question they still have, and rate themselves as far as their understanding on a scale of 1 to 5. By requiring students to reflect on what they learned, it helps move information into long-term memory, and it quickly lets teachers know what students understand. Just as in our classrooms, students must have opportunities to self-evaluate, to reflect on their learning and to set their own goals.

We cannot give points to students for bringing things in (paper towels, tissues, etc.), getting parents to sign logs, tests, etc. We cannot penalize or reward a student for what his parents sign or what his parents can buy, as this has nothing to do with learning.

Flipped Learning is an extremely effective approach for home learning

Short instructional videos created by the teacher provide information to the students that is clear, correct and concise.

Students can view the instruction multiple times and revisit it to gain understanding. It can also be viewed by parents adding them as partners in learning.

Flipping learning frees up class time, so that teachers can work with students as a coach and mentor and provide individualized learning.

Teachers need to assign homework that students can complete on their own

We should never assign something, such as a new math concept that students have to figure out on their own. To undo learning that occurred incorrectly is practically impossible.

Students should never have to start a homework assignment by asking parents- how do I do that?

Collaboration and personalized learning are paramount

Tools like Google Docs, classroom blogs, etc. that we use to foster collaboration in the classroom are just as effective for home learning. Best learning practices should not end at the end of the school day. Students use these tools as part of their daily life, so it is often how they learn best.

The same intuitive software that we use in our classrooms can be assigned at home to create personalized learning that meets each student where he or she is.

As a district we are still on our journey to improve our homework practices. The policy changes supported by the board have ensured that grades have become an accurate measure of what students know and understand and not inflated or deflated due to work done at home, which has diminished parental concerns and grading challenges. Our teachers' lesson plans show more effective and meaningful homework assignments, which include learning objectives. Discussions and notes from our team meetings demonstrate that teachers are planning, sharing and discussing home "learning" assignments, which improve learning rather than merely assigning busy work. Feedback from staff, students and parents demonstrate that home learning assignments are more meaningful, consistent and relevant. A change in our homework practices have provided more opportunities for students to engage in flipped and blended learning assignments that are tailored to their personalized learning needs.

Boards of education and administrators have an obligation to challenge and change practices that are outdated, even if they carry the weight of tradition. Some homework practices fall into this category.

We often find it easier to address policies when students' health and safety comes into view. All districts have concussion policies, smoking and substance abuse policies, and districts are quick to adopt policies and practices to protect the children in their care. We must be equally as vigilant and have the courage to address practices that can be harmful to the learning process like ineffective homework. Boards of education and administrators should proactively challenge all existing practices to understand their core intent, and to determine if they are actually fostering the learning process or not. In some cases, long-standing, ineffective routines have persisted out of tradition, and are superficially justifiable or suitably innocuous enough to escape scrutiny. These processes may be creating impediments to learning as well as wasting time and discouraging students, and the source of the negative impact may be difficult to discover. The rote assignment of questionably valuable or effective homework is a widespread example of this, and should be one of the first areas that educational leaders address.

Dr. Ross Kasun is currently serving in his fourth year as the superintendent for the Freehold Township School District. Previously, he served as the superintendent for the Colts Neck School District and the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for the Summit Public Schools. He earned his doctoral degree at Seton Hall University and his dissertation focused on leadership. Dr. Kasun is an adjunct professor for Montclair State University and St. Peter's University.

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Busy Work or Home Learning? - New Jersey School Boards Association

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Homework is an educational tool that has always been a part of schools. It affects every member of a school community: students, parents, teachers, administrators and board of education members. For the most part, as a practice, it is completely outdated and largely misused as a means of impacting student learning and achievement.

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What becomes of high school valedictorians? It's what every parent wishes their teenager to be. Mom says study hard and you'll do well. And very often Mom is right.

But not always.

Karen Arnold, a researcher at Boston College, followed 81 high school valedictorians and salutatorians from graduation onward to see what becomes of those who lead the academic pack. Of the 95 percent who went on to graduate college, their average GPA was 3.6, and by 1994, 60 percent had received a graduate degree. There was little debate that high school success predicted college success. Nearly 90 percent are now in professional careers with 40 percent in the highest tier jobs. They are reliable, consistent, and well-adjusted, and by all measures the majority have good lives.

But how many of these number-one high school performers go on to change the world, run the world, or impress the world? The answer seems to be clear: zero.

Commenting on the success trajectories of her subjects, Karen Arnold said, "Even though most are strong occupational achievers, the great majority of former high school valedictorians do not appear headed for the very top of adult achievement arenas." In another interview Arnold said, "Valedictorians aren't likely to be the future's visionaries . . . they typically settle into the system instead of shaking it up."

Was it just that these 81 didn't happen to reach the stratosphere? No. Research shows that what makes students likely to be impressive in the classroom is the same thing that makes them less likely to be home-run hitters outside the classroom.

So why are the number ones in high school so rarely the number ones in real life? There are two reasons. First, schools reward students who consistently do what they are told. Academic grades correlate only loosely with intelligence (standardized tests are better at measuring IQ). Grades are, however, an excellent predictor of self-discipline, conscientiousness, and the ability to comply with rules.

In an interview, Arnold said, "Essentially, we are rewarding conformity and the willingness to go along with the system." Many of the valedictorians admitted to not being the smartest kid in class, just the hardest worker. Others said that it was more an issue of giving teachers what they wanted than actually knowing the material better. Most of the subjects in the study were classified as "careerists": they saw their job as getting good grades, not really as learning.

The second reason is that schools reward being a generalist. There is little recognition of student passion or expertise. The real world, however, does the reverse. Arnold, talking about the valedictorians, said, "They're extremely well rounded and successful, personally and professionally, but they've never been devoted to a single area in which they put all their passion. That is not usually a recipe for eminence."

If you want to do well in school and you're passionate about math, you need to stop working on it to make sure you get an A in history too. This generalist approach doesn't lead to expertise. Yet eventually we almost all go on to careers in which one skill is highly rewarded and other skills aren't that important.

Ironically, Arnold found that intellectual students who enjoy learning struggle in high school. They have passions they want to focus on, are more interested in achieving mastery, and find the structure of school stifling. Meanwhile, the valedictorians are intensely pragmatic. They follow the rules and prize A's over skills and deep understanding.

School has clear rules. Life often doesn't. When there's no clear path to follow, academic high achievers break down. Shawn Achor's research at Harvard shows that college grades aren't any more predictive of subsequent life success than rolling dice. A study of over seven hundred American millionaires showed their average college GPA was 2.9.

Following the rules doesn't create success; it just eliminates extremes-both good and bad. While this is usually good and all but eliminates downside risk, it also frequently eliminates earthshaking accomplishments. It's like putting a governor on your engine that stops the car from going over fifty-five; you're far less likely to get into a lethal crash, but you won't be setting any land speed records either.
From

Barking Up The Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong. Copyright © 2017 by Eric Barker. Reprinted with permission by HarperOne, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers.

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Wondering What Happened to Your Class Valedictorian? Not Much, Research Shows

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What becomes of high school valedictorians? It's what every parent wishes their teenager to be. Mom says study hard and you'll do well. And very often Mom is right. But not always. Karen Arnold, a researcher at Boston College, followed 81 high school valedictorians and salutatorians from graduation onward to see what becomes of those who lead the academic pack.

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How Reading Logs Can Ruin Kids' Pleasure for Books - The Atlantic

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How Reading Logs Can Ruin Kids' Pleasure for Books - The Atlantic

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Rather than creating a new generation of pleasure-readers, forcing kids to keep track of their reading time can turn it into a chore.

Teresa Short / Getty

"When reading is portrayed as something one has to be forced to do," the authors write, "students may draw the conclusion that it is not the kind of activity they want to engage in when given free time."

Related Story

Should I Stop Assigning Homework?
This unintended effect of reading logs can catch parents off guard. Alesia Coward, a mother of a student in a highly ranked public elementary school, wishes she had objected to the reading logs required by her daughter's teacher: "Reading logs ruined my reader. [My daughter] used to love reading but when it became something she had to do, she stopped doing it for fun and only read as much as the teacher required."

Similarly, the attorney and blogger Sarah Blaine writes: "[My daughter] started kindergarten as a lover of books. My biggest concern ... was how to pry her away from books. But within weeks, the reading log began to change all of that: 'Mom, am I done with my fifteen minutes yet?' 'Mom, why do I have to write this?' 'Mom, I don't know what to say.' And worst of all: 'Do I HAVE TO read?'"

Compelling children to read may improve their reading skills, which is undeniably important, but mandated reading does not bring the same benefits as when children themselves choose to read. Worse, it may even diminish their interest in reading at all.

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Rather than creating a new generation of pleasure-readers, forcing kids to keep track of their reading time can turn it into a chore. "When reading is portrayed as something one has to be forced to do," the authors write, "students may draw the conclusion that it is not the kind of activity they want to engage in when given free time."

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How to Prepare the Next Generation for Jobs in the AI Economy

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How to Prepare the Next Generation for Jobs in the AI Economy

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Executive Summary

For tomorrow's workers, AI will be more than a tool; AIs will be their co-workers and a ubiquitous part of their lives. If the next generation is to use AI and big data effectively - if they're to understand their inherent limitations, and build even better platforms and intelligent systems - we need to prepare them now. That will mean some adjustments in elementary education and some major, long-overdue upgrades in computer science instruction at the secondary level. The U.S. is woefully behind many of our peer nations, and President Obama's Computer Science for All initiative may flounder amid budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration. Another major hurdle is that our schools face a severe shortage of teachers who are trained in computer science. This is where U.S. tech companies could help immensely. Investing in how the next generation understand and interacts with big data and AI is an investment that will pay off in the long run for all of us.

Most of us regard self-driving cars, voice assistants, and other artificially intelligent technologies as revolutionary. For the next generation, however, these wonders will have always existed. AI for them will be more than a tool; in many cases, AI will be their co-worker and a ubiquitous part of their lives.

If the next generation is to use AI and big data effectively - if they're to understand their inherent limitations, and build even better platforms and intelligent systems - we need to prepare them now. That will mean some adjustments in elementary education and some major, long-overdue upgrades in computer science instruction at the secondary level.

For example, consider how kids are currently interacting with AI and automated technologies: Right now, it might seem magical to tell Siri, "Show me photos of celebrities in orange dresses," and see a photo of Taylor Swift pop up on a smartphone less than a second later. But it's clearly not magic. People design AI systems by carefully decomposing a problem into lots of small problems, and enabling the solutions to the small problems to communicate with each other. In this example, the AI program divides the audio into chunks, sends them into the cloud, analyzes them to determine their probable meaning and translates the result into a set of search queries. Then millions of possible answers to those queries are sorted and ranked. Thanks to the scalability of the cloud, this takes just a few dozen milliseconds.

This isn't rocket science. But it requires a lot of components - waveform analysis to interpret the audio, machine learning to teach a machine how to recognize a dress, encryption to protect the information, etc. While many are standard components that are used and re-used in any number of applications, it's not something a solitary genius cooks up in a garage. People who create this type of technology must be able to build teams, work in teams, and integrate solutions created by other teams. These are the skills that we need to be teaching the next generation.

Also, with AI taking over routine information and manual tasks in the workplace, we need additional emphasis on qualities that differentiate human workers from AI - creativity, adaptability, and interpersonal skills.

At the elementary level, that means that we need to emphasize exercises that encourage problem solving and teach children how to work cooperatively in teams. Happily, there is a lot of interest in inquiry-based or project-based learning at the K-8 level, though it's hard to know how many districts are pursuing this approach.

Ethics also deserves more attention at every educational level. AI technologies face ethical dilemmas all the time - for example, how to exclude racial, ethnic, and gender prejudices from automated decisions; how a self-driving car balances the lives of its occupants with those of pedestrians, etc. - and we need people and programmers who can make well-thought-out contributions to those decision making processes.

We're not obsessed about teaching coding at the elementary levels. It's fine to do so, especially if the kids enjoy it, and languages such as Snap! and Scratch are useful. But coding is something kids can pick up later on in their education. However, the notion that you don't need to worry at all about learning to program is misguided. With the world becoming increasingly digital, computer science is as vital in the arts and sciences as writing and math are. Whether a person chooses to become a computer scientist or not, coding is something that will help a person do more in whatever field they choose. That's why we believe a basic computer programming course should be required at the 9 th grade level.

Only about 40% of U.S. schools now teach programming and the quality and rigor of these courses varies widely. The number of students taking Advanced Placement exams in computer science is growing dramatically, but the 58,000 students taking the AP Computer Science A (APCS-A) test last year still pales in comparison to the 308,000 who took the AP Calculus AB test. A third of our states don't even count computer science course credits toward graduation requirements.

The U.S. is woefully behind many of our peer nations. Israel notably has integrated computer science into its pre-college curriculum. The UK has made good progress lately with its Computing at School program and Germany and Russia have leapt ahead as well. President Obama's Computer Science for All initiative, announced in his 2016 State of the Union, was a belated step in the right direction, but may flounder amid budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration.

Expanding computer science at the high school level not only benefits the students, but could help the field of computer science by encouraging more students - and a more diverse group of students - to consider computer science as a career. Though we were thrilled last fall when almost half of our incoming first-year class at Carnegie Mellon was female, the field of computer science is still struggling to increase the number of women and minorities. Engineering intelligence into systems, and finding insights in a ubiquitous sea of data, is a task that cries out for a diverse workforce.

To be successful, however, it is critical that we update the way programming is taught. We're too often teaching programming as if it were still the 90s, when the details of coding (think Visual Basic) were considered the heart of computer science. If you can slog through programming language details, you might learn something, but it's still a slog - and it shouldn't be. Coding is a creative activity, so developing a programming course that is fun and exciting is eminently doable. In New York City, for instance, The Girl Scouts have a program that teaches girls to use Javascript to create and enhance videos - an activity that kids already want to do because it's fun and relevant to their lives. Why can't our schools follow suit?

Beyond 9 th grade, we believe schools should provide electives such as robotics, computational math, and computational art to nurture students who have the interest and the talent to become computer scientists, or who will need computers to enhance their work in other fields. Few U.S. high schools now go beyond the core training necessary to prepare for the APCS-A exam, though we have a few stunning success stories - Stuyvesant High School in New York City, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, and TAG (The School for the Talented and Gifted) in Dallas, among others. These schools all boast committed faculty members who have a background or training in computer science.

We also urge high school math departments to place less emphasis on continuous math, including advanced calculus, and more on the math that is directly relevant to computer science, such as statistics, probability, graph theory and logic. Those will be the most useful skills for tomorrow's data-driven workforce.

A major hurdle is that our schools face a severe shortage of teachers who are trained in computer science. This is where U.S. tech companies could help immensely. Microsoft, for instance, sponsors the TEALS program, which pairs computer professionals with high school teachers for a few hours a week. But we need thousands of educators teaching millions of students. Even greater commitments will be necessary going forward. On the academic side, The University of Texas at Austin's UTeach program is a model for preparing STEM teachers and has expanded to 44 universities in 21 states and the District of Columbia.

Much more is needed. As with science and math, we need governmental standards driving K-12 computer science education, along with textbooks, courses and ultimately a highly trained national cadre of computer science teachers that are tied to those standards. The Computer Science Teachers Association has been a leader in this area, promulgating a standards framework and an interim set of standards.

Investing in how the next generation understand and interacts with big data and AI is an investment that will pay off in the long run for all of us.

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How to Prepare the Next Generation for Jobs in the AI Economy

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Executive Summary For tomorrow's workers, AI will be more than a tool; AIs will be their co-workers and a ubiquitous part of their lives. If the next generation is to use AI and big data effectively - if they're to understand their inherent limitations, and build even better platforms and intelligent systems - we need to prepare them now.

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Delaying the Grade: How to Get Students to Read Feedback | Cult of Pedagogy

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Delaying the Grade: How to Get Students to Read Feedback | Cult of Pedagogy

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I have a confession to make: I am terrible at handing back papers. That sounds silly, right? I mean, you literally just hand the paper to the kid whose name is at the top.

But teachers everywhere know how disheartening that small act can be. (It can't be just me, right?)

There are the eye rolls and the whispering to each other of "What did you get?" and "She gave me a ___." Next thing you know, the paper you spent so long reading and marking has been shoved into the abyss of the backpack or tossed carelessly in the recycle bin.

Wow, glad I put so much time into that assignment, said no teacher ever.

I honestly got to a point where I would just wait so long to give things back, the kids would kind of forget, and then so would I. Oops.

In English I ask my students to write a lot. I don't grade everything they write, but when it comes to the "big essays"-the graded, polished drafts-what grade they will receive becomes the sole motivator for their writing. This frustrates me, and, in my opinion, distracts them from what they should actually care about: writing.

This intense focus on the all-important grade was my least favorite part, and it was definitely what kept the stack sitting on the counter behind my desk...for an embarrassing amount of time. It really bothered me that kids didn't care about the feedback I put on their essays, not just because I took the time to do it, but because I did it to help them. I want them to grow as writers, and most of them do throughout the year, but so many only seem to care about that number.

I won't lie: It made me angry. Not only did I feel like I had wasted my time, I felt like they just didn't care. And then the snowball of thoughts would start: How will they survive if they don't care about feedback? What's going to happen in college? Or when they get jobs? Ugh! I'm done!

After dealing with this for about nine years, I couldn't take it anymore. I either had to get over it or fix it. Since I'm not usually one to give up, I set out to find a way to get my students to actually read their feedback and care less about the grade.

The Fix for Ignored Feedback

The solution was remarkably easy and accidentally originated out of my laziness (score one for being a little lazy!). Last year, kids had turned in essays on Google Classroom, but rather than pasting a completed rubric into their essay as I usually did, I made hard copies of the rubric and wrote on them. This meant that I could return papers with comments but without grades.

And from this a whole new system was born: Return papers to students with only feedback. Delay the delivery of the actual grade so student focus moves from the grade to the feedback.

The simple act of delaying the grade meant that students had to think about their writing. They had to read their own writing-after a few weeks away from it-and digest my comments, which allowed them to better recognize what they did well or not so well. The response from students was extremely positive; they understood the benefit of rereading their essays and paying attention to feedback. One boy said, "Mrs. Louden, you're a genius. I've never read what a teacher writes on my essay before, and now I have to."

The Plan

1. Grade the Papers
After collecting student papers, grade them (hard copy or electronic) as you usually would with comments on the written piece, but keep the rubric separate.

2. Plan Independent Work
Plan accordingly by creating opportunities for students to do independent or group work for a few days when it's time to return papers to students. This is probably the most vital part of the process, because it will give you time to conference with individual students.

3. Return Papers
When you finish grading the papers, return just the written work to students, not the completed rubric. When I first tried this with students, I put the following directions up on the board when I returned the essays:

Read over your whole essay, including what you wrote and my comments.

Write THREE observations based on your reading and TWO follow-up questions to discuss with me at our conference. Ask about comments, how to improve things, how to do things differently, etc.

Use the rubric (posted online) to grade yourself.

Be ready to discuss all of this.

I now incorporate these instructions into the student copy of the rubric. Below is one page of that rubric, which includes the reflection section.

4. Time to Reflect
Return the essays during class, allowing time to explain, time for kids to read their essays, and time for them to clarify if needed. Encourage them to go slowly. ( Bonus step: Walk around and listen. Hear the difference. Honestly, you probably won't hear a lot of talking or comparing. If they are talking, it will be to themselves about what they are noticing.)

5. Conference with Each Student
This step is where the magic happens.

Since you've planned for independent work, you will have time to meet with each student individually. I do my conferences on a large whiteboard-painted table; I have found that since moving these from my desk to this table, our conferences are more productive. I'm not distracted by the stuff on my desk, kids are able to spread out (Chromebook, reflection, essay, etc.), and as a bonus, we can use the surface of the table when we need to do some planning. These meetings don't have to be more than a couple of minutes per student.

When kids get to my table, I start with "What do you want to talk about?" and let them guide the conference. It is so cool to hear what they have to say. So many of them make comments like "I can't believe I did <insert careless mistake>" or "I'm sorry I turned it in like this" or "I'm embarrassed; I see so many mistakes!" Or my favorite: "You specifically told us not to do this." The level of reflection is deeper than any I've ever encountered. I assure them that it is fine and I don't expect perfection, but on the inside I'm so excited that they're seeing the things I see.

Next they usually ask questions. This is exciting because some of their questions make perfect teachable moments! I have watched many students grow this year from these conversations. Take Alex, for example. He writes the wordiest sentences I've ever read, but he's gotten to the point where he puts his own comments on his essay as he writes so we can discuss while he's still in the writing stage. At least half of these are related to wordiness. I'm excited that he's learned to identify it, if not quite how to fix it yet.

Finally, I end by asking students how they graded themselves according to the rubric. I enjoy this part because more often than not, they were much harsher on themselves than I was. I then share the rubric with the grade and the rest of my general comments. For once, kids are usually happy about their grade because it was higher than they expected, contrary to the old days when they'd say "she gave me C" but they thought they deserved an A.

6. Revision
I always offer students the opportunity to rewrite their essay. Above all else, my goal is to help students become better writers. If this means they have to do it a couple of times, then so be it. Depending on the assignment, these are the usual requirements:

The student must meet with me 1 to 3 times (depends on the student and the essay) before it is due. These meetings are quick "check-in" style meetings: What are you planning to do? What have you done? What questions do you have?

The student must make substantial revisions, not just grammatical edits.

The student must turn in the original and the updated draft on time.

And that's it! Okay, looking back over what I said, it sounds like a lot, but really it's very easy for you. I think this is the best change I have made to the writing process in the last few years. Students have become more reflective ( and sympathetic of how long it takes me to grade-haha! ), their writing has improved, and I return papers much more quickly-and happily-than ever before. ♦

Stick around.
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Delaying the Grade: How to Get Students to Read Feedback

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You spend hours marking and commenting on student work, and then they don't even read your feedback. The solution is all in how you time it.

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Educational Leadership:Teaching for the 21st Century:21st Century Skills: The Challenges Ahead

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Educational Leadership:Teaching for the 21st Century:21st Century Skills: The Challenges Ahead

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Vol. 67

No. 1

Abstract

What Will It Take?

Better Curriculum

Better Teaching

Better Tests

A Better, But Harder, Way

To work, the 21st century skills movement will require keen attention to curriculum, teacher quality, and assessment.

Abstract

What Will It Take?

Better Curriculum

Better Teaching

Better Tests

A Better, But Harder, Way

A growing number of business leaders, politicians, and educators are united around the idea that students need "21st century skills" to be successful today. It's exciting to believe that we live in times that are so revolutionary that they demand new and different abilities. But in fact, the skills students need in the 21st century are not new.

Critical thinking and problem solving, for example, have been components of human progress throughout history, from the development of early tools, to agricultural advancements, to the invention of vaccines, to land and sea exploration. Such skills as information literacy and global awareness are not new, at least not among the elites in different societies. The need for mastery of different kinds of knowledge, ranging from facts to complex analysis? Not new either. In The Republic, Plato wrote about four distinct levels of intellect. Perhaps at the time, these were considered "3rd century BCE skills"?

What's actually new is the extent to which changes in our economy and the world mean that collective and individual success depends on having such skills. Many U.S. students are taught these skills-those who are fortunate enough to attend highly effective schools or at least encounter great teachers-but it's a matter of chance rather than the deliberate design of our school system. Today we cannot afford a system in which receiving a high-quality education is akin to a game of bingo. If we are to have a more equitable and effective public education system, skills that have been the province of the few must become universal.

This distinction between "skills that are novel" and "skills that must be taught more intentionally and effectively" ought to lead policymakers to different education reforms than those they are now considering. If these skills were indeed new, then perhaps we would need a radical overhaul of how we think about content and curriculum. But if the issue is, instead, that schools must be more deliberate about teaching critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving to all students, then the remedies are more obvious, although still intensely challenging.

What Will It Take?

The history of U.S. education reform should greatly concern everyone who wants schools to do a better job of teaching students to think. Many reform efforts, from reducing class size to improving reading instruction, have devolved into fads or been implemented with weak fidelity to their core intent. The 21st century skills movement faces the same risk.

To complicate the challenge, some of the rhetoric we have heard surrounding this movement suggests that with so much new knowledge being created, content no longer matters; that ways of knowing information are now much more important than information itself. Such notions contradict what we know about teaching and learning and raise concerns that the 21st century skills movement will end up being a weak intervention for the very students-low-income students and students of color-who most need powerful schools as a matter of social equity.

The debate is not about content versus skills. There is no responsible constituency arguing against ensuring that students learn how to think in school. Rather, the issue is how to meet the challenges of delivering content and skills in a rich way that genuinely improves outcomes for students.

What will it take to ensure that the idea of "21st century skills"-or more precisely, the effort to ensure that all students, rather than just a privileged few, have access to a rich education that intentionally helps them learn these skills-is successful in improving schools? That effort requires three primary components. First, educators and policymakers must ensure that the instructional program is complete and that content is not shortchanged for an ephemeral pursuit of skills. Second, states, school districts, and schools need to revamp how they think about human capital in education-in particular how teachers are trained. Finally, we need new assessments that can accurately measure richer learning and more complex tasks.

For the 21st century skills effort to be effective, these three elements must be implemented in concert. Otherwise, the reform will be superficial and counter-productive.

Better Curriculum

People on all sides of this debate often speak of skills and knowledge as separate. They describe skills as akin to a function on a calculator: If your calculator can compute square roots, it can do so for any number; similarly, if a student has developed the ability to "think scientifically," he or she can do so with any content. In this formulation, domain knowledge is mainly important as grist for the mill-you need something to think about.

Skills and knowledge are not separate, however, but intertwined. In some cases, knowledge helps us recognize the underlying structure of a problem. For example, even young children understand the logical implications of a rule like "If you finish your vegetables, you will get a cookie after dinner." They can draw the logical conclusion that a child who is denied a cookie after dinner must not have finished her vegetables. Without this familiar context, however, the same child will probably find it difficult to understand the logical form modus tollens, of which the cookie rule is an example. ( If P, then Q. Q is false. Therefore, P is false.) Thus, it's inaccurate to conceive of logical thinking as a separate skill that can be applied across a variety of situations. Sometimes we fail to recognize that we have a particular thinking skill (such as applying modus tollens) unless it comes in the form of known content.

At other times, we know that we have a particular thinking skill, but domain knowledge is necessary if we are to use it. For example, a student might have learned that "thinking scientifically" requires understanding the importance of anomalous results in an experiment. If you're surprised by the results of an experiment, that suggests that your hypothesis was wrong and the data are telling you something interesting. But to be surprised, you must make a prediction in the first place-and you can only generate a prediction if you understand the domain in which you are working. Thus, without content knowledge we often cannot use thinking skills properly and effectively.

Why would misunderstanding the relationship of skills and knowledge lead to trouble? If you believe that skills and knowledge are separate, you are likely to draw two incorrect conclusions. First, because content is readily available in many locations but thinking skills reside in the learner's brain, it would seem clear that if we must choose between them, skills are essential, whereas content is merely desirable. Second, if skills are independent of content, we could reasonably conclude that we can develop these skills through the use of any content. For example, if students can learn how to think critically about science in the context of any scientific material, a teacher should select content that will engage students (for instance, the chemistry of candy), even if that content is not central to the field. But all content is not equally important to mathematics, or to science, or to literature. To think critically, students need the knowledge that is central to the domain.

The importance of content in the development of thinking creates several challenges for the 21st century skills movement. The first is the temptation to emphasize advanced, conceptual thinking too early in training-an approach that has proven ineffective in numerous past reforms, such as the "New Math" of the 1960s (Loveless, 2002). Learning tends to follow a predictable path. When students first encounter new ideas, their knowledge is shallow and their understanding is bound to specific examples. They need exposure to varied examples before their understanding of a concept becomes more abstract and they can successfully apply that understanding to novel situations.

Another curricular challenge is that we don't yet know how to teach self-direction, collaboration, creativity, and innovation the way we know how to teach long division. The plan of 21st century skills proponents seems to be to give students more experiences that will presumably develop these skills-for example, having them work in groups. But experience is not the same thing as practice. Experience means only that you use a skill; practice means that you try to improve by noticing what you are doing wrong and formulating strategies to do better. Practice also requires feedback, usually from someone more skilled than you are.

Because of these challenges, devising a 21st century skills curriculum requires more than paying lip service to content knowledge. Outlining the skills in detail and merely urging that content be taught, too, is a recipe for failure. We must plan to teach skills in the context of particular content knowledge and to treat both as equally important.

In addition, education leaders must be realistic about which skills are teachable. If we deem that such skills as collaboration and self-direction are essential, we should launch a concerted effort to study how they can be taught effectively rather than blithely assume that mandating their teaching will result in students learning them.

Better Teaching

Greater emphasis on skills also has important implications for teacher training. Our resolve to teach these skills to all students will not be enough. We must have a plan by which teachers can succeed where previous generations have failed.

Advocates of 21st century skills favor student-centered methods-for example, problem-based learning and project-based learning-that allow students to collaborate, work on authentic problems, and engage with the community. These approaches are widely acclaimed and can be found in any pedagogical methods textbook; teachers know about them and believe they're effective. And yet, teachers don't use them. Recent data show that most instructional time is composed of seatwork and whole-class instruction led by the teacher (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network, 2005). Even when class sizes are reduced, teachers do not change their teaching strategies or use these student-centered methods (Shapson, Wright, Eason, &amp; Fitzgerald, 1980). Again, these are not new issues. John Goodlad (1984) reported the same finding in his landmark study published more than 20 years ago.

Why don't teachers use the methods that they believe are most effective? Even advocates of student-centered methods acknowledge that these methods pose classroom management problems for teachers. When students collaborate, one expects a certain amount of hubbub in the room, which could devolve into chaos in less-than-expert hands. These methods also demand that teachers be knowledgeable about a broad range of topics and are prepared to make in-the-moment decisions as the lesson plan progresses. Anyone who has watched a highly effective teacher lead a class by simultaneously engaging with content, classroom management, and the ongoing monitoring of student progress knows how intense and demanding this work is. It's a constant juggling act that involves keeping many balls in the air.

Part of the 21st century skills movement's plan is the call for greater collaboration among teachers. Indeed, this is one of the plan's greatest strengths; we waste a valuable resource when we don't give teachers time to share their expertise. But where will schools find the release time for such collaboration? Will they hire more teachers or increase class size? How will they provide the technology infrastructure that will enable teachers to collaborate with more than just the teacher down the hall? Who will build and maintain and edit the Web sites, wikis, and so forth? These challenges raise thorny questions about whether the design of today's schools is compatible with the goals of the 21st century skills movement.

For change to move beyond administrators' offices and penetrate classrooms, we must understand that professional development is a massive undertaking. Most teachers don't need to be persuaded that project-based learning is a good idea-they already believe that. What teachers need is much more robust training and support than they receive today, including specific lesson plans that deal with the high cognitive demands and potential classroom management problems of using student-centered methods.

Unfortunately, there is a widespread belief that teachers already know how to do this if only we could unleash them from today's stifling standards and accountability metrics. This notion romanticizes student-centered methods, underestimates the challenge of implementing such methods, and ignores the lack of capacity in the field today.

Instead, staff development planners would do well to engage the best teachers available in an iterative process of planning, execution, feedback, and continued planning. This process, along with additional teacher training, will require significant time. And of course none of this will be successful without broader reforms in how teachers are recruited, selected, and deselected in an effort to address the whole picture of education's human capital challenge.

Better Tests

There is little point in investing heavily in curriculum and human capital without also investing in assessments to evaluate what is or is not being accomplished in the classroom. Fortunately, as Elena Silva (2008) noted in a recent report for Education Sector, the potential exists today to produce assessments that measure thinking skills and are also reliable and comparable between students and schools-elements integral to efforts to ensure accountability and equity. But efforts to assess these skills are still in their infancy; education faces enormous challenges in developing the ability to deliver these assessments at scale.

The first challenge is the cost. Although higher-level skills like critical thinking and analysis can be assessed with well-designed multiple-choice tests, a truly rich assessment system would go beyond multiple-choice testing and include measures that encourage greater creativity, show how students arrived at answers, and even allow for collaboration. Such measures, however, cost more money than policymakers have traditionally been willing to commit to assessment. And, at a time when complaining about testing is a national pastime and cynicism about assessment, albeit often uninformed, is on the rise, getting policymakers to commit substantially more resources to it is a difficult political challenge.

Producing enough high-quality assessments to meet the needs of a system as large and diverse as U.S. public schools would stretch the capacity of the assessment industry, and incentives do not exist today for many new entrants to become major players in that field. We would need a coordinated public, private, and philanthropic strategy-including an intensive research and development effort-to foster genuine change.

Substantial delivery challenges also remain. Delivering these assessments in a few settings, as is the case today, is hardly the same as delivering them at scale across a state-especially the larger states. Because most of these assessments will be technology-based, most schools' information technology systems will require a substantial upgrade.

None of these assessment challenges are insurmountable, but addressing them will require deliberate attention from policymakers and 21st century skills proponents, as well as a deviation from the path that policymaking is on today. Such an effort is essential. Why mount a national effort to change education if you have no way of knowing whether the change has been effective?

A Better, But Harder, Way

The point of our argument is not to say that teaching students how to think, work together better, or use new information more rigorously is not a worthy and attainable goal. Rather, we seek to call attention to the magnitude of the challenge and to sound a note of caution amidst the sirens calling our political leaders once again to the rocky shoals of past education reform failures. Without better curriculum, better teaching, and better tests, the emphasis on "21st century skills" will be a superficial one that will sacrifice long-term gains for the appearance of short-term progress.

Curriculum, teacher expertise, and assessment have all been weak links in past education reform efforts-a fact that should sober today's skills proponents as they survey the task of dramatically improving all three. Efforts to create more formalized common standards would help address some of the challenges by focusing efforts in a common direction. But common standards will not, by themselves, be enough.

The past few decades have seen great progress in education reform in the United States-progress that has especially benefited less-advantaged students. Today's reformers can build on that progress only if they pay keen attention to the challenges associated with genuinely improving teaching and learning. If we ignore these challenges, the 21st century skills movement risks becoming another fad that ultimately changes little-or even worse, sets back the cause of creating dramatically more powerful schools for U.S. students, especially those who are underserved today.

References

Goodlad, J. I. (1984). A place called school. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Loveless, T. (2002). A tale of two math reforms: The politics of the new math and NCTM standards. In T. Loveless (Ed.), The great curriculum debate (pp. 184-209). Washington, DC: Brookings.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network. (2005). A day in the third grade: A large-scale study of classroom quality and teacher and student behavior. Elementary School Journal, 105, 305-323.

Shapson, S. M., Wright, E. N., Eason, G., &amp; Fitzgerald, J. (1980). An experimental study of the effects of class size. American Educational Research Journal, 17, 141-152.

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21st Century Skills: The Challenges Ahead

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Vol. 67 No. 1 Abstract What Will It Take? Better Curriculum Better Teaching Better Tests A Better, But Harder, Way To work, the 21st century skills movement will require keen attention to curriculum, teacher quality, and assessment. Abstract What Will It Take?