Motivation Matters

This story from the Associated Press is one part good and one part not-so-hot news for educators about girls and math. According to the article, girls and boys score equally well on math tests in every grade from 2nd through 11th, but the stereotype that boys are better at the subject still persists in the mindset of teachers and parents, which can have devastating effects on motivation levels for girls.

The stereotype that boys are better at math has been fueled, at least in part, by suggestions of biological differences in the way little boys and little girls learn.

Regardless of the numbers, operating under a stereotype that holds half the population back can only have negative effects. We can only hope that, as the research continues to show equality between girls and boys, the mindset will change as well.

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I have mixed feelings about this AP story, which is about a library that has set up a place for kids to play video games. On the one hand, I do think it's a great way to draw kids into the library and expose them to what it has to offer, but being a reader at heart, I can't help but wonder if it might encourage some potential readers to skip over the books and other resources the library provides in favor of more easily accessible entertainment.

This library in Arizona is part of a new project launched by the American Library Association that aims to build gaming programs in more libraries and conduct research on how gaming affects student literacy skills, says the article.

Despite my concerns about gaming in libraries, researching video games, what they teach, and how they can work in tandem with traditional teaching methods is definitely something I support. If nothing else, getting a firmer grasp on the benefits and drawbacks of video games can only help inform educators' teaching methods. I'll definitely be watching this gaming research to see how it turns out.

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I recently finished writing a story about Twitter for Education Week's Digital Directions, which included a profile of one teacher in Silver Spring, Md., George Mayo, who is using Twitter with his students for a variety of projects.

Mayo set up a Twitter account called Many Voices and invited students to submit a sentence or two to a rolling collaborative story, which he then published and made available to purchase in print or as a free download. As you might expect, Mayo said his students were thrilled at being able to participate in the project, and they found seeing their work in print to be a satisfying experience. Coming in to school to find that a group of students in a different school had added a new chapter to their story was extremely motivating for his students, Mayo said.

The story itself is a dark science-fiction story about a mermaid who is turned into a human after his family is captured by fisherman. And I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical before I read through the story, but now that I've read through it a couple of times, I am impressed by the depth and consistency of the plot. Seeing as how the whole thing was written one or two sentences at a time from a variety of contributors, I was expecting to feel somewhat jolted around by all the different voices, but the story is actually a fairly seamless tale.

And it's not a light read, either. On my first read, I was struck by how bleak and depressing the whole thing was. The narrator struggles with a sudden loss of family and impending death within the first few chapters. Those seem like pretty hefty topics for elementary and middle school students to tackle.

Mayo is definitely one teacher who has embraced Web 2.0 tools in his classroom. He also used Twitter to promote a project called Many Voices for Darfur, which drew responses from almost 700 K-12 students about raising awareness for Darfur. Read Mayo's blog post about the project here.

Although Twitter does has some drawbacks--such as not being able to control what students are saying or using it for, and possibly cutting into more traditional grammar and writing skills--this teacher's work is one example of how it can be a useful and motivating tool for the classroom.

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This story by the BBC about encouraging more students to study science by putting more emphasis on hands-on experiments and less on testing is an interesting follow-up to a few of the recent blog posts on Motivation Matters. It's a quick and interesting read.

And on a technical note, a few weeks back, we had a glitch with our RSS feed. To start the feed up again, try unsubscribing and then re-subscribing, and it should clear up the problem. And if you don't already subscribe to the Motivation Matters feed, I highly suggest that you click the big orange RSS feed link on the right column to get started. It's a great way to keep up with the latest posts here, and with all your favorite blogs.

Here's a video to explain the basics and get you started:

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This commentary, by Leonard Sax, makes an interesting point. He says:

The real gender gap is not in ability but in motivation--not in what girls and boys can do, but in what girls and boys want to do: specifically, in what they want to learn, and how they want to learn it.

The number of women studying physics and computer science has dropped by 50 percent in the past 20 years, says Sax, and part of the reason may be that girls respond better to different teaching methods than boys do. They're more interested in "the nature of things" than "kinematics and momentum"--which is what most piques the interest of boys, he says, and is the introduction to traditional physics classes in the United States.

But as one commenter points out, and this blog post by eduwonkette explains, data from the National Science Foundation as well as the American Institute of Physics shows that women studying science are actually growing in number, not dwindling.

Still, for purposes of this blog, the more fascinating debate for me is whether different teaching methods actually motivate one gender more than the other. It makes sense that different people are motivated by different things, but whether those preferences fall easily down gender lines... that I'm not so sure about.

Have you experienced this phenomenon in your classroom? Do you think girls and boys could benefit from being taught separately, or do you think that separation would cause more harm than good?

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My colleague Sean Cavanagh, who covers math and science here at Education Week, recently wrote an article about science labs in elementary schools. According to the story, although science standards generally call for hands-on experiments even in the early grades, such lab work doesn't always happen because of time constraints and a lack of teacher training. But introducing students to science experiments at an early age not only helps reinforce scientific laws and concepts, but also increases students' enthusiasm for the subject, says the article.

I, for one, do not recall ever conducting science experiments when I was in elementary school, and we certainly did not have anything like the labs or equipment described in the story at that level. The first time I ever saw a science lab or Bunsen burner was in middle school. As a student, I didn't start liking science until I was in college, and I won't go so far as to say that it was because I didn't experience hands-on science at a young age. But cultivating an enthusiasm for the subject in the early grades seems like a pretty good idea.

What do you think? How early does your school start introducing science experiments to students? How old were you when you started doing them? Does it make a difference?

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I just finished writing an article for Digital Directions about using digital video in the classroom. It was a fun article to write since all of the educators I spoke with about using digital media in the classroom were passionate and thoughtful speakers, which makes my job pretty easy. And it seems like every time I write about teachers who are using technology in their classes, student motivation is a topic that inevitably comes up. When I asked one art teacher in my story, Kristine Fontes, whether or not her students were more engaged when she used digital media, I think she summed it up pretty well with three words: "Are you kidding?"

All the teachers I spoke with observed a noticable increase in the level of engagement students exhibited with their projects when they were encouraged to use digital media. In fact, a lot of the projects that these teachers did with their classes were spearheaded by students who would come in after school, during recess, or during lunch to complete. Part of the appeal for students, teachers noted, was the idea of sharing their work with a wide variety of people from all over the world through the Internet. I completely relate to this phenomenon. After all, isn't that one of the main attractions of blogging?

Another man I spoke with, Brock Dubbels, for my Digital Directions article about alternate-reality games had a really interesting point to make that I couldn't exactly fit into the article, so I'll share it here with you. Dubbels, who teaches 9th graders in the Minneapolis public school district, said that there's a disconnect between today's students and teachers who do not encourage the use of technology in the classroom. In their normal lives, kids really like technology, he says. They're surrounded by it and use it for all sorts of reasons--entertainment, social networking, education, etc. Banning gadgets such as cell phones and video games from the classroom, he says, pits education against what kids are interested in, which is a battle teachers simply can't win.

"By taking away the things [students like]," Dubbels told me, "you're saying my values are more important than yours." A better approach, he suggests, is to integrate technology with education and make the idea that you have to choose between them null and void. By recognizing where student interests lie and tapping into that, teachers can begin to develop a deeper relationship with students, he says.

It's worth noting, though, that technology can be a distraction to learning, a nuisance, and students often use it for obnoxious purposes, such as to bully other students using online tools. Plus, the jury is still out on the impact technology actually has on student achievement--some suggests it helps, some that it has no impact at all.

But what do you think? Has the Internet and new technology helped you find better ways to motivate your students? What might prevent teachers from being able to follow Dubbels' advice? On the other hand, what are the downsides of using technology in the classroom? How can it have a negative effect on student motivation?

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Lately, I've been thinking a lot about online education. It started when I read this article written by my colleague Andrew Trotter about a book which predicts that by 2019, 50 percent of all high school classes will be taught online. That same week, the poll on edweek.org asked readers "Is the trend toward delivery of education online education a positive development?" Not sure exactly what I felt about the subject, I decided not to vote, but to just watch and see how the question played out in our highly unscientific survey. In the end, out of 131 total responses, 87 (or 66%) of voters said yes, and 44 (or 33%) of voters said no.

Then today, I found this article in the Christian-Science Monitor--"Virtual schools see strong growth, calls for more oversight." And I have to say, I was relieved to find that a lot of the reservations I had about online education were discussed in the article. As someone who has grown up with computers and the Internet, I am generally open to the widespread use of technology in classrooms. But something about giving up actual classrooms with real, live teachers and students for a virtual representation of that gives me pause. Can students really be as engaged in what they're learning if a classroom discussion takes place in a chatroom rather than an actual room with other kids? Or do online classes have the potential to get kids even more motivated by giving them the autonomy to complete lessons at their own pace--spending more time on the subjects they struggle with and less on the concepts they more easily understand? Are some subject areas better suited for this kind of set-up than others?

According to the Christian-Science Monitor article, there isn't much research to say whether or not online education programs are effective yet, and most experts agree that if anything, the sector needs more guidance and oversight from officials. But many also say virtual learning has a lot of potential:

Teachers in traditional schools "don't have a lot of time to be a tutor, mentor, or motivator because so much of their time is spent delivering one-size-fits-all lectures," says Michael Horn, executive director of education at Innosight Institute ... If computers take over lecturing, teachers can work with those who need help.

It'll be interesting to see what comes of this debate as the trend toward online education grows.

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This commentary on edweek.org starts with (for me at least) a counterintuitive sentence: "Kids love science." The author of the article, Ellen V. Futter, goes on to talk about how and why students turn away from science as they get to middle and high school. She presents suggestions for how educators can help fuel kids' enthusiasm for science and encourage them to continue studying science as they get older. One of the suggestions she made particularly hit home for me. She says:

K-12 teachers should be empowered to adopt hands-on, inquiry-based teaching methods that present science as a thrilling detective story, rather than a collection of facts and formulas.

At the risk of shameless self-promotion here, I'm going to point you now to a story I just finished for Digital Directions about using computer games to teach science. The point that Futter makes above is one that many of the educators I spoke with for this story agreed with. Science lends itself very easily to a storyline, especially a detective storyline, which in turn makes it a perfect match for computer and video games, which are often driven by those exact elements of mystery and discovery. Although there are kinks to be worked out as far as getting the games to work and lining the material up with curriculum, teachers who used computer games in the classroom did observe a noticeable increase in the level of engagement of their students, and research has verified those observations.

What do you think? Do you or other teachers in your school use computer games in class? Do you find them to be an effective way of teaching, or have you run into too many problems to make them worthwhile?

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I came across a really good video of a talk about giving kids the freedom to explore dangerous things. Gever Tulley, who founded a summer program called the Tinkering School, which allows kids to build inventions and generally tinker with things, urges parents to let their kids play with fire, own a knife, and drive a car--among other activities--arguing that those opportunities teach kids invaluable life lessons about the way things work and allow them to explore their natural curiosity in a positive way. It reminds me of the debate I had with my Dad about whether increased safety regulations were stifling students' interest in science.

From the way Tulley talks, you'd think the kids at the Tinkering School regularly come home with broken bones and bloody scrapes, but as he mentions later on his blog, only two kids have ever gone home with injuries serious enough to require a band-aid.

I especially like what he says about allowing kids to take apart appliances. I've had the same thought myself many times, when I realize that I have absolutely no idea how half the devices I use in my every day life work--from my computer, to my cell phone, even something as simple as a cassette tape. If I were asked to replicate one of those items, or even explain conceptually how they work, I would be at a complete loss.

The more students get hands-on experience with taking things apart, hypothesizing about which part does what, and putting them back together, the better they'll understand how they work as a whole, Tulley says. And it makes sense. When I was in college, I had to pass a certain number of science classes before I could graduate, and my last class was a one-credit course called "Everyday Electronics." When I left class after the first day, I was completely overwhelmed and frustrated. "For our final exam, we have to make a working doorbell that plays a song!" I lamented to my Dad over the phone, convinced I was on the verge of failing out of school. "I'm an English major; I do sentences, not circuits," I told him.

The first couple of weeks were equally as fear-inducing, and I left class every week feeling like I would never understand. But about midway through the semester, something clicked and all that tinkering around with wires and circuit boards started to make sense. Suddenly, our class assignments didn't seem impossible and the final exam seemed like something I might actually be able to do. And then, to my utter dismay, I started liking the class. I even briefly (for about five minutes) considered giving up my English degree to become an electrical engineer. (It certainly would have been a more lucrative career path.)

Needless to say, I didn't follow through with that plan, but the whole experience took the fear out of electronics for me. It was almost like learning another language. Once I knew the rules and basics, I could piece together how the bigger stuff might work. And that was definitely a lesson worth learning.

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As we are all aware, a variety of factors--including academic pressure and laziness--motivate some students to cheat. This article in The Oregonian notes that new technology brings even more ways for students to break the rules. The Internet can be used to download plagiarized research papers, cell phones can take pictures of exam questions, and graphing calculators can store information to be called up during a test, the article says.

However, the number of cheaters remains steady--and staggeringly high. "Two-thirds of high school students admit to cheating at some point during their academic careers," says the article. That's an overwhelmingly large number, although I have no trouble believing it. I'm pretty sure that many of my high school peers cheated on something, whether it was as small as a homework assignment or as major as a final exam.

On a related note, I read a prediction on the Engaging Learners blog yesterday that said by the year 2020, cheating will become obsolete and replaced by collaboration, in accordance with new work ethics that will emerge from 21st century developments. It's hard to put stock in predictions like those, but it's definitely food for thought.

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I spent the holiday weekend at my parent's house in Richmond, Va., where my Dad raised an interesting (if not harebrained) theory about why students aren't motivated to study science. The real downfall of science education, he said, are all the safety regulations that prevent kids from "doing anything exciting." Some of his favorite childhood memories were formed while he was hunkered down over a chemistry set, where he would mix chemicals and perform experiments that sometimes resulted in a spontaneous combustion or a singed eyebrow. If science education were more like that, he argued, kids would be more interested. He went on to explain his favorite experiments, which mostly involved setting things on fire.

My point of view was that although science labs would definitely benefit from some revising and additional funding, safety regulations are in place for good reason, and besides, the burden should not be put on teachers to make lessons more like episodes of MythBusters, but on the students, to approach classes with the understanding that they will have to study concepts that aren't always flashy and sensational. Truthfully, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle of those two perspectives.

Nevertheless, I thought of my Dad this morning when I saw this article in the Baltimore Sun called "Classes educate, shock," which discusses the ways that hands-on and visually exciting experiments can help students understand and appreciate science.

Perhaps my Dad's suggestions were not as harebrained as I thought.

What do you think? Does science education need a little shock treatment to get kids interested? Or is it already headed in the right direction?

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As a science-challenged student in my younger years, I did everything I could to avoid taking difficult science classes even though I lived in a family of scientists (my father was a college chemistry professor and my older brother followed in his footsteps.)

As a parent, I have tried to overcompensate for my scientific limitations by encouraging, prodding, and pleading with my boys to see the beauty, power, and potential career possibilities that science offers.

Unfortunately, I believe my efforts are failing. I am sure there are a number of reasons. But high up on the list is a reality that exists not only in my boys' relatively good suburban schools, but in schools across the country: The quality and quantity of lab work in science classes, a topic Education Week's Sean Cavanagh covers in "Science Labs: Beyond Isolationism."

What incentives need to be put in place to encourage schools to offer more high-quality science lab work for students?

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This article in the Orange County Register is an inspiring story about a man named Matthew Peterson who has created a series of educational computer games that teach elementary school children math skills. In the games, students use math concepts to help an animated penguin named Jiji overcome obstacles--like filling a ditch, building a bridge, or crossing a river, according to the article. The games rely on spatial-temporal reasoning, and do not require the use of language skills, making them a good fit for ESL students.

So far, the schools that use the computer games have made significant strides in raising math scores. One school went from having 26 percent of its students proficient in math to 70 percent proficient. In addition, the school's principal says, "If you ask any child in my school what their favorite subject is, they will say math."

That's a pretty incredible statement coming from any school's principal, let alone one that a few year's previous was struggling so much with the subject.

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I hope my 4-year-old daughter has the science genes and motivation to follow in the footsteps of this group of girls, who recently swept the prestigious Siemens high school science competition. This is the first time ever that girls have won all the grand prizes in the competition, according to this Associated Press story.

This is great news for girls and maybe the stereotype that girls are not good at math and science is beginning to disappear.

But the underside of these results is the question: What is the matter with the boys? Are they on the decline?

As the father of three sons and having written about this issue in some depth in the past, those questions have to be asked.

Science educators: What are you seeing in your classrooms? Are girls showing more interest in science than boys? Or are the results of this competition merely a statistical blip in the world of gender equity in science?

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I recently finished writing an article for the upcoming issue of Education Week's Digital Directions about the educational impact of Microsoft's Halo 3. It was probably one of the most interesting stories I've written so far, or at least one of the most enjoyable stories to research. Really, it just gave me an excuse to hang out with my Halo-playing friends and grill them about the ins and outs of the game.

I, myself, have never played Halo. In fact, my experience with video games starts and stops with the original PlayStation, which I received for Christmas when I was 12. When we were in elementary school, my parents wouldn't let me or my sister have video games in the house. I remember trying to come up with research that outlined some of the educational benefits of video games in an attempt to convince them that having a Nintendo would actually help me in school. It didn't work.

But over the past decade, there has been a major push to channel some of the interest and enthusiasm kids have for video games into the classroom and an explosion of educational video games and computer programs have been designed to do just that. And while many of the video game experts I talked to for my story said video games can't adequately replace more traditional methods of instruction, at least not yet, linking translatable aspects of activities that kids love doing--like video games, movies, or sports--to school work seems like a great tool to motivate students.

What do you think? Can incorporating video games into lessons help increase student motivation? Or are they simply a distraction from learning? Do video games have educational value, or do they teach kids to expect too much from school?

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Written by Education Week's Katie Ash

Recombining DNA and purifying proteins sound like experiments students in an upper-level college course would be doing, but researcher George Cachianes has brought those hands-on lessons to high school students, according to this recent New York Times article. Drawing on his success, high schools in surrounding areas now are using his biotech syllabus as a model for their own science classes, says the story.

"Students are motivated by understanding the relationships between research, creativity and making money," says Cachianes.

The way Cachianes balances the introduction of basic biotechnology concepts with engaging advanced lab work is pretty fascinating, as is the idea that making a class more challenging actually boosts student motivation. What I like most about his approach is Cachianes' refusal to water-down or limit his students' lab work simply because they are in high school. By treating his students like adults, he is motivating them to do adult-level work.

This is just one example of how educators are encouraging more kids to study science and engineering. Also, it's an interesting follow-up to Friday's post.

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Thousands of public high school students in New Orleans received their own laptop computers this month. The ultimate goal of the $53 million technology initiative is to improve achievement, according to this Education Week story.

Some reseachers are very skeptical of linking laptops to student achievement gains. (See "The Laptop Revolution Has No Clothes.")

Others, however, are finding links to student learning gains. A recent study about a statewide laptop program in Maine, for instance, suggests that it has helped improve student writing.

What have you seen in your district or state? And what impact do such programs have on student achievement and/or motivation?

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In "Lessons Drawn from Sputnik 50 Years Later," Education Week writer Sean Cavanagh looks back at a defining era for math and science education.

But some experts say the more recent quest to increase interest in math and science careers, and raise the rigor of courses in those subjects, is more complex today than it was 50 years ago. Rather than simply competing with the Soviets, it's about competing with the world.

What lessons do you think Sputnik has for today's schools?

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If you are concerned about getting students more motivated to study math and science, especially more difficult math and science, the results of a recent Public Agenda survey are likely to feel a bit troubling.

It seems that students, and their parents, are satisfied with a less-rigorous level of instruction in those subjects.

Check out the Education Week story about the survey results.

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The Science After School blog links to an article that asks the question: Why Do Some People Resist Science?

Indeed, a very good question.

As K-12 schools search for better ways to improve math and science education, this is a question that must be asked and answered from classrooms to the highest levels of education research and policymaking. If educators, researchers, and policymakers don't truly understand where that resistance and lack of motivation comes from, they will have a hard time figuring how to get more kids fired up about finding a cure for cancer or understanding the causes of global warming.

Even though I grew up in a family of scientists (my father and older brother), I, unfortunately, became resistant to sciences, much like most folks. I am hoping my children take a more active interest in the sciences than I did. Scientific ignorance, in today's world, is not bliss.

What do you think are the reasons for this resistance? And how do educators change student attitudes about the sciences?

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A headline on the front page of today's Washington Post says "Climate Change Scenarios Scare, and Motivate, Kids."

The story tells about the growing interest of students, some as young as 8, in the issue of global warming. Some youngsters are doing classroom projects on climate change; others are trying to rally their schools to raise money to combat global warming. And at one high school, enrollment in an AP environmental science class has doubled over the past two years and is expected to continue growing.

What's the educational lesson here?

It's a simple one: Make learning relevant to students' lives and futures and their motivation will follow.

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If time on task and extensive practice are key building blocks for learning, then educators need to take a closer look at the power of video games, especially their ability to provide immediate error feedback, according to a March 31 entry in the blog, Explorations in Learning.

The writer suggests that there is much to be learned from video games if students are motivated to spend hours on particular tasks and make adjustments based on error feedback.

The entry includes a useful and interesting piece from Wired Magazine, "High Score Education: Games, Not School, Are Teaching Kids to Think," as well some thoughts about the link between motivation and the "learning flow" theory of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

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One of the responsibilities of this blog is to troll for interesting or useful research articles about student motivation.

This morning, I found one while trolling on the American Educational Research Association site. Titled "Students' Motivation for Standardized Math Exams," the article examines how individual differences in motivation and psychological processing affect performance on high-stakes math assessments. It evaluates how factors such as achievement goals, self-concept, and test anxiety are related to student performance.

Among other interesting information, the piece includes excerpts from interviews with 8th graders about high-stakes math tests. "Usually tests make me nervous," says one student. "Kind of anxious like I had to hurry and then when I hurry I might not get the right answer. Like I'm worried about making the time or falling behind the other kids or something ... if they're all done before me, I feel like I am not doing it correctly."

What impact do you think high-stakes assessments have on motivation or performance?

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Check out the latest Classroom Tech column in Teacher Magazine, "Game On," by yours truly. It touches on an issue generating quite a bit of interest lately: The power of video games to improve student learning.

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"Why is everything massified in the [education] system, rather than individualized in the system? New technologies make possible customization in a way that the old system--everybody reading the same textbook at the same time--did not offer."

That is the perspective of Alvin Toffler, the well-known chronicler of our nation's social and technological prospects and the author of Future Shock, as expressed in a question and answer session with edutopia magazine.

To be sure, the idea of educational customization has been around for decades in different forms. But Toffler tells edutopia he thinks that technological innovations and the need to educate people to be fast and flexible learners are coalescing more than ever before, creating not just opportunities, but reasons, to customize learning.

Of course, he is not alone. There has been some recent political traction in support of customization. See Customized Learning Plans for ALL?. And there are an uncountable number of educators and parents who believe in this approach to learning.

What is particularly worth noting is that Toffler argues in the Q & A that customization would have a major impact on student motivation. "You need to find out what each student loves," he says. "If you want kids to really learn, they've got to love something."

Toffler says in the Q & A that if he were designing the curriculum for a school, he would put together a sequence of courses on sports that would include the business, culture, and history of sports. Now that is a sequence of courses I undoubtedly would have pursued with unusual passion in high school.

Still, educators should evaluate Toffler's argument with a healthy bit of skepticism. If we created schools that catered primarily to what interested students, we'd have a thousand kids studying the sports sequence (and I would be among that group) and maybe five signed up for chemistry or physics. Science and math are hard for most folks, but once you get beyond the frustrating, difficult parts, they can be very fascinating and rewarding subjects to study.

What do you think? Is Toffler right? Or is there some balanced point we need to reach between where schools are now and what he envisions?

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In my post from Nov. 27, Sad About Science, I wrote about the struggles of getting students motivated to study science.

This week's issue of Education Week has a story that addresses that concern, but also raises questions about fairness and elitism. The story, "Math, Science Academies Favored to Challenge Top-Tier Students," is about the growth of math and science academies, which offer high school students with talent and motivation in those subjects a demanding academic environment.

Many of these academies have difficult entrance requirements, prompting some critics to call them elitist and question the fairness of investing public money in such institutions. Those are legitimate concerns, especially if the goal is to raise achievement in math and science across the board, rather than just among top students.

Even so, the impact such academies can have on student motivation among some of our brightest students cannot be overestimated. Bright, highly motivated students often thrive when they are surrounded by peers who are equally motivated.

The Education Week story mentions one student who graduated from the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science. The student said attending the academy motivated her to look beyond the opportunity ceiling she once saw ahead of her. She is now a student at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. If she hadn't attended the academy, she said, "I don't think I would have gotten interested in genetics, or gone to a research university." ( It's worth noting that she probably would not have been able to attend the academy without financial aid.)

In the quest to raise the science and math achievement of the masses, it's important not to overlook the needs of our brightest students. Maintaining that balance, of course, is not always as easy as some might suggest.

But no great achievement in life is ever easy, right? I'm sure Einstein would agree.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 9:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"My general impression is one of extreme disappointment," Gerald Wheeler of the National Science Teachers Association told Education Week after the release this month of a federal study showing that students in urban schools struggled with relatively basic tasks in a test of their science skills. "I can't imagine these kids surviving in a scientifically literate society."

Having grown up in a family of scientists (my father, now retired, was a chemistry professor and my older brother is a chemistry professor), I remember the many conversations my father and brother have had over the years about why so few U.S. kids pursue scientific interests. My father and brother bemoan the perceived unwillingness of teenagers to tackle difficult subjects such as chemistry, physics, and biology that take discipline, focus, and commitment to navigate and understand. They point out that schools relying on history or English teachers to teach science were simply wasting their time, because the sciences demanded a teacher with superb subject matter knowledge.

As a self-described science idiot in a science family, I tended to keep my mouth shut when these conversations took place. But not anymore, because I think science is potentially the most fascinating subject you can learn about in school. Most schools and communities simply are not tapping into the potential power of science.

To get kids motivated to learn science--and to hang with it even when the going gets tough--requires a bigger picture approach that involves the whole community, as suggested by Science After School, a blog about science education. The author of the blog argues that generating more motivation to learn science starts with accepting the scientific process as something that children can understand and use to understand the world around them. And those opportunities, he says, must be provided to students who may not get such experiences at home.

Then, as my father and brother argue, make it a priority and find the resources to hire teachers with superb subject matter knowledge. But those teachers also must possess the unique skills necessary to turn that knowledge into relevant lessons about science.

In other words, make science relevant and make it available. And then set teachers and students on a course to rescue us from graduating a generation of scientifically illiterate citizens.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 6:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

A few posts ago, Set Them Free, I basically said that students who are happier are more likely to work hard in school.

Well, now it's time to punch a hole in my happy thoughts. At least when it comes to math.

Last month, a new report by the Brookings Institution concluded that the so-called "happiness factor" in math may be inversely related to performance in that subject. The report found that in countries where students express high levels of math confidence and enjoyment (i.e. they are happing when doing math, unlike most of us), they tend to score below average on international assessments compared with their peers around the world who are not quite as happy.