Schneider's From the Ivory Tower to the Schoolhouse, Chapter 2: Multiple Intelligences

In my last post I reviewed the first chapter of Jack Schneider's From the Ivory Tower to the Schoolhouse: How Scholarship Becomes Common Knowledge in Education. There Schneider describes how Bloom's Taxonomy, despite never being designed for K-12 use, managed to make it way into practice at all educational levels. In Chapter 2, Schneider looks at Howard Gardner's Multiple intelligences, another idea that made its way from the research world into K-12 classrooms.

Howard Gardner (CC BY-NC-ND by The Aspen Institute)

Schneider suggests that the success of multiple intelligences is as much a product of an age as it is a product of a scholar. It certainly helped that Gardner was a Harvard professor with a MacArthur "genius grant," but the year of publication — 1983 — plays a big part in the theory's success. The U.S. was well into the "back to basics" era that began in the 1970s, and 1983 was the year A Nation at Risk declared that the country's future depended on the reform of schools to make them economic drivers, namely by focusing on math, science, and technology. This focus on curriculum, especially a focus on a narrow part of the curriculum, is not what progressive educators want to hear. Progressives, in the tradition of Dewey, want to focus on students and their experiences, where curriculum plays the lesser role as merely the means to potentially many learning ends.

According to Schneider, many of these progressive educators were in independent/private schools and they became the early adopters of Gardner's theory. For those schools and teachers, multiple intelligences was a way to distinguish their philosophical stance on education from that of the oncoming (and still ongoing) accountability movement in public schools. Tuition-paying parents certainly didn't object to the idea that their children could be intelligent in more than one way, and the theory seemed to validate the idea of getting a well-rounded education.

The growth of multiple intelligences beyond independent schools, says Schneider, is owed to the transportablility of the theory. Like Bloom's Taxonomy, multiple intelligences is summarized by a limited set of categories with seemingly self-evident descriptions. It's not specific to a particular content area or grade level and matches what teachers see in practice: that different students have different ways of learning and develop different kinds of talents. As with Bloom's, transportability comes with risks of misinterpretation, as Schneider describes:

Multiple intelligences was a theory with different uses for educators. It could challenge the validity of tests, open up standardized curricula, and defend cherished beliefs about teacher professionalism and student ability. But whatever the use, it was a theory philosophically compatible among public school teachers. And it was highly transportable—seemingly easy to understand from the names of its "intelligences" alone. The ironic downside of this, of course, was that it could also be used as a bulwark against real deliberation or debate. As Gardner himself wrote, "It is possible to wave the MI flag without having to think, change, or grow." Though likely not a majority, that was certainly true for some. (p. 64)

In the latter part of this chapter I was surprised and impressed by Schneider's description of how consultants and professional developers played a major role in spreading the use of multiple intelligences. Schneider gets my skepticism of all-too-typical PD:

Competing with one another for often lucrative contracts, third-party providers have a strong incentive to entertain their clientele without asking too much in return, and to develop a message general enough that it can be adapted in multiple settings. Thus, despite research indicating that effective professional development is time-intensive, context-specific, and content-rich, a great deal of training relies on traditional methods of delivery and is strongly shaped by consumer desire. (p. 69)

For those looking for an educational disaster narrative, Schenider's description of how some consultants and authors twisted multiple intelligences is interesting reading. Gardner's role in this is equally interesting, as he seems to sway between defending his theory and supporting those who sometimes misinterpret it for their personal gain. Schneider asserts that Gardner "was not in control [of the interpretation of multiple intelligences], and that perhaps he never had been" (p. 73).

If there was one thing I wish Schneider would have expanded upon, it would have been the commingling of multiple intelligences and learning styles. It's addressed in a couple of paragraphs but only briefly. I'd guess that Schneider could have a chapter dedicated to how theories of learning styles became pervasive in K-12 education, but it might have been too similar and perhaps redundant next to a chapter on multiple intelligences. Similarly, other often-believed theories (like right-brained/left-brained) might have fit in Schneider's book, but I'll take this chapter as representative of the lot. I can always look for additional commentary elsewhere, such as in a recent blog post titled Can Teachers Stop Believing in Nonsense? that addresses common K-12 misapplications of neuroscience.

As I spend more time in the research world, I have an opportunity to not only learn more about theory, but to get to know the researchers behind those theories. Some are at peace with the idea that others will "do what they will" with their work, while others want more control. Gardner took an active role in promoting his work, either directly or through the work of others, and I think he was right to do so. Academics are notoriously poor marketers of their work, which causes useful and legitimate research to get lost among the better-promoted work of think tanks or others whose marketing exceeds their scholarship. Part of the problem is a mismatch of incentives, but I think Gardner, for his struggles, did get some things right: write for a wide audience, advocate for your work, use your work to advocate, and support others who make productive adaptations to your work.

Reminder: Michael Pershan (@mpershan) and I are reading this book together, and for this chapter it's his turn to reply to my post. Keep an eye on his blog at http://rationalexpressions.blogspot.com/ for his follow-up.

Schneider's From the Ivory Tower to the Schoolhouse, Chapter 1: Bloom's Taxonomy

I hold some grudges when it comes to the topic of research to practice in education. A few highlights: A principal who (probably rightly) thought I was struggling to engage my students told me to watch Barbara Streisand's performance as a college professor in The Mirror Has Two Faces and "do what she does, because her students love her." The question, "Which academic journal did she read that in?" sarcastically crossed my mind, and no, I never watched the movie. At a state conference presentation about RtI, a presenter told us to only use research-based intervention strategies. When a teacher at my table asked, "How do we know if a strategy is research-based?" the presenter responded, "I figure if it's something you find in writing, and didn't just make up by yourself, then it's research-based."

My curiosity for research eventually landed me in graduate school and I now spend more time than ever thinking about the intersections of research and practice. When I saw Jack Schneider (@Edu_Historian) had a new book called From the Ivory Tower to the Schoolhouse: How Scholarship Becomes Common Knowledge in Education, I ordered it right away. Michael Pershan (@mperhsan) also picked up a copy and we're reading it together, taking turns reviewing and replying chapter by chapter. You'll probably want to read Michael's thoughts on the introduction and first chapter, as my post is partly a review of Schneider and partly a reply to Michael.

It would be rather pedestrian to write a book showing how education research doesn't make it into the world of K-12 education. If you randomly selected an article from an education research journal, and randomly selected a classroom, you'd be hard-pressed to find any impact of that article in that classroom. Repeat that process 5-10 times and you've got yourself a (lousy) book. Schneider, on the other hand, turns this on its head: he identifies four ideas from education research that have made their way into widespread practice. These four ideas have somehow beat the odds — odds determined not by a lack of teacher knowledge or interest in research, but, Schneider claims, the "fundamental separation of the capacities and influence needed to move research into practice" (p. 4).

The first of Schneider's four ideas to bridge the research-practice gap is Bloom's Taxonomy. I remember working with Bloom's Taxonomy as a student, perhaps as early as middle school. I certainly saw it in some of my teacher education courses, usually when we were learning to write educational objectives. Schneider, an education historian, reveals that the taxonomy wasn't never built for use in K-12. Instead, it was a tool for categorizing learning objectives for undergraduate courses and making comparisons across institutions. This was in the late 1940s, when behaviorist theories of learning said a learning objective should describe observable changes in student behavior.

Michael's review highlights two of Schneider's arguments for why Bloom's Taxonomy became well-established in K-12. First, teachers saw in the taxonomy support for things they were already doing, and second, the taxonomy "meant many different things to many different educators." Michael takes the bold step of wrapping these together as "Schneider's Dilemma," asking if there's much hope for changing practice if the only research teachers adopt is research that tells them to keep doing what they're doing.

I'm not quite ready to subscribe to the Schneider's Dilemma theory, and I'm not sure Schneider would be, either. This is just the first of Schneider's four cases, after all, so I'll withhold judgement for now. I see hints of ideas here that I've seen elsewhere, in particular Michael Apple's (1992) description of the 1989 NCTM Standards as a "slogan system," where statements or claims are general enough to get wide support without being specific enough to garner disagreement. Schneider offers many complimentary reasons why Bloom's Taxonomy became popular, including such things as the number and prominence of Bloom's grad students who could carry the taxonomy far and wide, and (more importantly) what Schneider calls transportability, a characteristic of an idea that makes it easy to convey to teachers, relevant across diverse contexts, and applicable on demand. Wrapping many of these reasons together, Schneider writes:

In short, the taxonomy was a shape-shifter. It seemed to address major questions about the process of schooling without proposing a major theory to be refuted. As a consequence, it was philosophically compatible among different—and sometimes ideologically opposed—groups, some of whom worked as teachers and many of whom worked in other positions. Yet despite all this inherent complexity, the taxonomy was, at its core, quite simple. Made up of six hierarchical categories, beginning with knowledge and ending with evaluation, it could be easily described, represented, and transported. (p. 35)

Michael is right to ask if Bloom's Taxonomy has done us much good for all its widespread popularity, but that's not really the question Schneider set out to answer. I'm okay with that: Asking how Bloom's Taxonomy gets into practice is different than asking if it's been used effectively, and I'm more interested in the first question than the second. Schneider says, "Without question, the taxonomy has had an uneven life in practice" (p. 49) and I have no doubt he's right. I'd like to believe that Bloom's Taxonomy has done more good than harm, even if it's shallowly used and applied in ways Bloom never imagined.

References

Apple, M. W. (1992). Do the standards go far enough? Power, policy, and practice in mathematics education. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 23(5), 412–431. doi:10.2307/749562

AERA Philadelphia and NCTM New Orleans: Forty Sessions

Forty sessions. Forty. You see, I'm one of those people who really try to get my money's worth out of a conference, and when it's somebody else's money (thanks, National Science Foundation!) I try even harder. My 10-day conference marathon started with a rough day of travel, but in the remaining nine days I went to just about everything I could. I just made the conference my one and only priority — I didn't go sighseeing on "company time," I ate only when necessary (I lost 7 pounds in 10 days, despite being in the lands of cheesesteaks and bignets), and I only skipped a few sessions to give myself time to prepare for my own presentations.

New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center

I don't know if 40 sessions is some kind of record, but if it is I'm not sure I ever want to break it. It was against all good advice to attend both AERA and NCTM in the first place. I set a precedent for myself last year when I recapped 21 sessions from the NCTM Research Presession and Annual Meeting in Denver. That effort took several days of binge-recapping, something I'd rather not do this year. I'm thinking about aiming for one recap per day; if that works out I could be done before June, but not by much. Before the recaps begin, however, I needed to put together an accurate accounting of the sessions I attended. Due to NCTM's overlapping sessions at the Annual Meeting, there are a few in this list that I did not see in their entirety. I can still recap what I can and make sure to point to whatever resources that might have been made available. If you see anything in the list below that you'd rather not wait to hear about, leave a comment or otherwise let me know and I'll try to get you information sooner rather than later.

AERA: Friday, April 4

1. Enriching Research and Innovation Through the Specification of Professional Practice: The Core Practice Consortium (AERA Presidential Session)

Chair: Pamela L. Grossman, Stanford University
Presenters	Participants
Deborah Lowenberg Ball, University of Michigan	Bradley Fogo, Stanford University
Francesca Forzani, University of Michigan	Hala N. Ghousseini, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Megan L. Franke, University of California - Los Angeles	Sarah Schneider Kavanagh, University of Washington
Magdalene Lampert, Boston Teacher Residency	Matthew J. Kloser, University of Notre Dame
Pamela L. Grossman, Stanford University	Jamie O'Keeffe, Stanford University
Morva McDonald, University of Washington	Jessica J. Thompson, University of Washington
Elham Kazemi, University of Washington
Mark A. Windschitl, University of Washington
Discussant: Anthony S. Bryk, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

2. Division C Early Career Award Lecture
Chair: Gale M. Sinatra, University of Southern California
Leveraging Social Media to Create Opportunities for Learning and Scholarship - Christine M. Greenhow, Michigan State University
Participant: Barbara A. Greene, University of Oklahoma

3. Teacher Quality, Teaching Quality, and Student Outcomes in Mathematics: Putting the Puzzle Together
Chair: Heather C. Hill, Harvard University

• Teacher Knowledge and Student Learning: Bringing Together Two Different Conceptualizations of Teacher Knowledge - Charalambos Y. Charalambous, University of Cyprus; Heather C. Hill, Harvard University; Daniel McGinn, Harvard University
• Explaining Teacher Effects: Results From the National Center on Teacher Effectiveness Main Study - Heather Hill, Harvard University; Douglas Staiger, Dartmouth College; Mark Chin, Harvard University; Andrew Bacher-Hicks, Harvard University
• Predictors of Teachers' Instructional Practices - David Blazar, Harvard University; Claire Gogolen, Harvard University; Heather Hill, Harvard University; Andrea Humez, Boston College; Kathleen Lynch, Harvard University
• The Meaning of "High" and "Low" Value-Added Teaching: Observing Differences in Instructional Quality Across Districts - David Blazar, Harvard University; Erica Litke, Harvard University; Johanna Barmore, Harvard University

Discussants: Bridget Kathleen Hamre, University of Virginia; John Papay, Brown University

4. Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and Mathematics Teacher Education Programs: Current and Future Directions
Chair: Yukiko Maeda, Purdue University

• Identifying Common Core State Standards for Math Challenges to Inform the Preparation of Preservice Teachers - Jeffrey M. Choppin, University of Rochester; Jon D. Davis, Western Michigan University; Corey Drake, Michigan State University; Amy M. Roth McDuffie, Washington State University
• Reported Changes in Secondary Mathematics Teacher Education Programs due to the Common Core State Standards - Jeffrey Craig, Michigan State University; Jai He, Michigan State University; Sharon L. Senk, Michigan State University; Yukiko Maeda, Purdue University; Vivian Gregory Alexander, Purdue University
• Goals of Mathematics Teacher Educators for Prospective Teachers and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics - Marcy B. Wood, The University of Arizona; Jill Annette Newton, Purdue University; Patricia S. Wilson, University of Georgia; Denise A. Spangler, University of Georgia; Corey Drake, Michigan State University; Sara E. Kasten
• Priorities for the Improvement of Secondary Mathematics Teacher Preparation for the Common Core Era - W. Gary Martin, Auburn University; Marilyn E. Strutchens, Auburn University

Discussant: Robert Floden, Michigan State University

AERA: Saturday, April 5

5. The Video Mosaic Collaborative: An Online Professional Development Resource for Mathematics Education and the Learning Sciences
Chair: Sharon Derry, University of North Carolina

• The Video Mosaic Collaborative Repository: A Historical Perspective - Marjory Fan Palius, Rutgers University
• VMCAnalytic Tool: A Demonstration - Robert Sigley, Rutgers University
• Validating an Evolving Video Mosaic Collaborative Design by Seeking Evidence of Teachers' Growth in Reasoning and Related Shifts in Beliefs - Carolyn Alexander Maher, Rutgers University; James A. Maher; Marjory Fan Palius, Rutgers University; Robert Sigley, Rutgers University; Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver, Indiana University
• Making Thinking Visible Through Multimedia Artifacts - Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver, Indiana University; Carolyn Alexander Maher, Rutgers University; Marjory Fan Palius, Rutgers University; Robert Sigley, Rutgers University; Alice S. Alston, Rutgers University
• Design Research With Video Mosaic Collaborative-Based Instructional Activities for Online Teacher Education - Sharon Derry, University of North Carolina; Julia Gressick, Indiana University - South Bend; Alan James Hackbarth, University of Wisconsin

Discussant: Hilda Borko, Stanford University

6. Maximizing the Benefit of Teacher/Researcher Partnerships in Classroom-Based Development and Implementation Projects
Chair: Avi Kaplan, Temple University
Participants: Rick Coppola, University of Illnois at Chicago; Matthew Hartwell, Temple University; Liam Gallagher, Project Learn School; MaryAnn Stolberg, Our Lady of Victory Catholic School; Chris S. Hulleman, University of Virgina; Kenn E. Barron, James Madison University
Discussant: Tim Urdan, Santa Clara University

7. Innovative System and School Redesign: Improving Leadership Practice to Support Instructional Reform
Chair: Megan Hopkins, The Pennsylvania State University

• The Relative Importance of Work With Teacher Leaders in Promoting Instructional Change: An Exploratory Study - Eric M. Camburn, University of Wisconsin; Seong Won Han, University of Buffalo - SUNY
• Infrastructure Redesign and Instructional Reform in Mathematics: Formal Structure and Leadership - Megan Hopkins, The Pennsylvania State University; James P. Spillane, Northwestern University
• Catalyzing Reform: How Coaches Frame Reading Policy - Sarah L. Woulfin, University of Connecticut
• The Needed Infrastructure for Cognitively Ambitous Instruction in High Schools - Jal David Mehta, Harvard University; Sarah Melanie Fine, Harvard University
• Strong Ties in a Decentralized District: Balancing Professionalism and Accountability to Achive Sustained Growth in Student Achivement - Lisa A. Umekubo, University of California - San Diego; Janet A. Chrispeels, University of California - San Diego; Alan J. Daly, University of California - San Diego

Discussant: David K. Cohen, University of Michigan

AERA: Sunday, April 6

8. Linking Theory, Research, and Practice to Improve STEM Undergraduate Education (AERA Presidential Session)
Chairs: Ann E. Austin, Michigan State University; Susan Singer, National Science Foundation
Participants: Stephen Barkanic, Business-Higher Education Forum; Anthony S. Bryk, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; James S. Fairweather, Michigan State University; Cynthia Finelli, University of Michigan; Robert D. Mathieu, University of Wisconsin - Madison; William R. Penuel, University of Colorado Boulder; Ann E. Austin, Michigan State University

9. Understanding Change Within Discussions of Mathematics Teacher Professional Learning Communities: Methodological Frameworks
Chair: Joy Ann Oslund, University of Michigan

• Studying Changes in Teachers' Group Conversations: A Methodological Literature Review - Joy Ann Oslund, University of Michigan; Pamela A. Moss, University of Michigan
• Concomitant Analysis in Considering Teacher Development and Professional Development Materials Over Time - Edd V. Taylor, University of Colorado Boulder
• Using Tools from Discourse Analysis to Understand Change in a Teacher Study Group - Samuel Otten, University of Missouri; Beth A. Herbel-Eisenmann, Michigan State University; Kate Johnson, Brigham Young University
• Studying Teachers' Attempts at Change Through Narrative Inquiry - Lindsay Keazer, Michigan State University

Discussant: Helen J. Featherstone, Michigan State University

10. Research in Mathematics Education SIG Poster Session
Supporting Common Core-Driven Curriculum Adaptations for High School Algebra - Raymond Johnson, University of Colorado Boulder; Heather Leary, University of Colorado Boulder; William R. Penuel, University of Colorado Boulder

11. Open Access Publishing and the Leadership Role of Education Research
Chair: Felice J. Levine, American Educational Research Association
Erno A. Lehtinen, University of Turku; Mark Warschauer, University of California - Irvine; William Cope, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; John M. Willinsky, Stanford University

12. Analysis of Social Networks of Educators: Empirical Findings, Practical Applications, New Directions, and Theoretical Issues
Chair: Min Sun, Virgina Polytechnic Institute and State University

• What We Know About Teacher and Administrator Networks: Replicated Findings and Recent Extensions - Kenneth A. Frank, Michigan State University; Min Sun, Virgina Polytechnic Institute and State University
• Challenges, Changes, and Churn: A Longitudinal Social Network Perspective of Urban District Leadership - Alan J. Daly, University of California - San Diego; Kara S. Finnigan, University of Rochester
• Knowledge Production in Education Systems and Organizations: Intra- and Interactions About Instruction - James P. Spillane, Northwestern University; Megan Hopkins, The Pennsylvania State University
• Using Network Ideas to Plan for the Adoption and Implementation of New Standards - William R. Penuel, University of Colorado Boulder

Discussant: Cynthia E. Coburn, Northwestern University

NCTM: Monday, April 7

13. The Coming Transformation of American Education: Implications for Mathematics Education
Arthur Levine, Woodrow Wilson Foundation

NCTM: Tuesday, April 8

14. Connecting Data and Chance through Modeling
Lead Speaker: Cliff Konold
Co-speakers: Richard Lehrer and Robert delMas
Discussant: Patrick W. Thompson

15. The Algebra Project: Working for Quality Math Education for Students
Lead Speaker: Robert P. Moses
Co-speakers: Bill Crombie, Andre Harguani, and José Antonio Orozco
Discussant: OneLA- Industrial Areas Foundation

16. Examining the Influence of Tasks, Goals, and Anticipation on Instruction
Lead Speaker: Samuel L. Eskelson
Co-speaker: Margaret Smith

17. Using Representations of Practice in Survey Research with Mathematics Teachers
Lead Speaker: Daniel Chazan
Co-speakers: Orly Buchbinder, Justin K. Dimmel, Ander Erickson, and Kristi Hanby
Discussants: Patricio G. Herbst and Randolph Philipp

18. Mathematics Teacher Educators Supporting Prospective Teachers in Learning about CCSSM
Lead Speaker: Corey Drake
Co-speakers: Jill Newton and Denise A. Spangler

19. Colleagues 2.0: The MathTwitterBlogoSphere and Mathematics Teachers’ Professional Learning
Lead Speaker: Ilana S. Horn
Co-speakers: Nicole Bannister, Annie Fetter, Shauna Hedgepeth, Ashli J. Black, Justin Lanier, and José Vilson

20. Aligning Mathematical Tasks to the Standards for Mathematical Practice
Lead Speaker: Raymond Johnson

NCTM: Wednesday, April 9

21. Perspectives on Linking Research and Practice: Thoughts from the Field
Co-speakers: Lynsey K. Gibbons, Kara Jackson, Heather Lynn Johnson, and Jonathan N. Thomas
Discussant: Michael C. Fish

22. A Practical Theory of Productive Persistence in Mathematics Education
Lead Speaker: Philip Uri Treisman

23. Beyond Rise-over-Run: A Design Experiment and Learning Trajectory for Slope
Lead Speaker: Frederick Peck

24. How Should the Enacted Mathematics Curriculum Be Conceptualized and Studied?
Lead Speaker: Janine Remillard
Co-speakers: Joshua Taton, Kara Jackson, Indigo Esmonde, and Anne Garrison Wilhelm
Discussant: Mary Kay Stein

25. The Joy of x
Lead Speaker: Steven H. Strogatz

NCTM: Thursday, April 10

26. Principles to Actions: What's Exciting about NCTM's New Blueprint?
Lead Speaker: Steven Leinwand

27. Developing Leaders in Mathematics Education: What Does it Take?
Lead Speaker: NCTM Affiliate Services Committee

28. Are They There Yet? Exploring the Standards for Mathematical Practice in the Written Curriculum
Lead Speaker: Katie Arndt
Co-speakers: Lori Rakes and Jennifer Ward

29. Online PD Resources for Mathematical Practices: Seeing Structure and Generalizing
Lead Speaker: Joanne Rossi Becker

30. Beyond Rise/Run: Activities to Invent and Connect Slope's Five Faces
Lead Speaker: Frederick Peck

31. Examining and Developing Practice through Live Laboratory Teaching
Lead Speaker: Deborah Loewenberg Ball
Co-speakers: Julie McNamara and Nicole Garcia

NCTM: Friday, April 11

32. Math Teachers and Social Media: Professional Collaboration or Support Group?
Lead Speaker: Raymond Johnson

33. What Changes Should Be Made for the Next Edition of the CCSSM?
Lead Speaker: Zalman Usiskin

34. Why "Getting Real" Requires Being "Radical" in High-Stakes Education
Lead Speaker: Rochelle Gutiérrez

35. The Mathtwitterblogosphere: Creating Your Own Online Professional Learning Communities
Lead Speaker: Ashli J. Black
Co-speaker: Chris Hunter

36. One of Us: Every Teacher a Blogging Teacher
Lead Speaker: Kate Nowak

37. Making Sense of Fraction Operations with Realistic Mathematics Education
Lead Speaker: Mieke Abels

38. Teachers Leveraging Technology in the Classroom
Lead Speaker: Jon Wray

NCTM: Saturday, April 12

39. Online Professional Learning Opportunities for Mathematics Educators
Lead Speaker: David C. Wees

40. NCTM's Principles to Actions: Implications for High School Mathematics
Lead Speaker: W. Gary Martin

NCTM New Orleans 2014:Levine's The Coming Transformation of American Education: Implications for Mathematics Education

Dr. Arthur Levine - President of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation (amongst other things)

NCTM Research Conference - Monday, April 7, 7:00 pm

Arthur Levine.
Source: http://woodrow.org/about/president/

The 2014 NCTM kicked off this evening with a poster session (which I missed, sadly) and an address by Dr. Arthur Levine, President of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and former President of Teachers College, Columbia University. In this talk, Levine detailed what he saw as six current and future forces that have the capacity to transform education.

Force #1: Demographics

In this section of the talk, Levine focused on demographic shifts, such as an aging population, an increased number of people moving to the Sun Belt, changes in color and diversity, and increasing immigration. Here are some of Levine's thoughts and claims:

• We're going to see an extraordinary number of retirements, both in our university and K-12 systems, and they must be replaced.
• There's been a 12% increase in math majors in the past 10 years, but it's really hard to recruit them into math education because other professions are more lucrative.
• We're going to see a new majority of students in higher education: older than 25, part time, overwhelmingly female, and working. Higher education won't be their primary interest as they juggle responsibilities of work and family.
• Students of the future aren't going to want higher education with "softball leagues or psychological counseling," as they can get those elsewhere. What they want is convenience, service, reliable financial aid, quality instruction, professors who are current in their fields, and low cost. They won't want to pay for things they don't use and they won't care about elective courses. These students will be prime candidates for online instruction.
• People are moving to traditionally conservative states and we'll have a "Republican hegemony," at least for the near future. This will stress some education systems and deplete others.

Force #2: Economy

Here Levine talked about the shift from an "analog" economy to a "digital" economy and the jobs that either went abroad or no longer exist. Some claims:

• Entry-level job skills are higher-skilled, with a particular demand for STEM knowledge and skill.
• States are increasing their graduation standards to the highest levels in history and saying dropouts aren't acceptable, like they could in the past when dropouts could more easily find steady jobs.
• We're going to find that the fastest growing job fields are STEM fields.
• Levine says governors who he talks to only talk about economic development and STEM.
• Everyone will have to be fluent in two languages - words and numbers. We thought we needed to teach kids Chinese, but instead we realized we need to teach them how to code.
• The symbol of the industrial era is the assembly line. Our schools looked like that and, for a time, it worked. Students moved through by age, taking courses measured in Carnegie units devised in 1910. Now time is variable, process is variable, and we're switching from process to outcomes and a focus from teachers to students. States are imposing standards and outcomes, and this means more accountability and regulation.
• We're going to see a proliferation of equity lawsuits. Equity used to mean access to the same process. Now students need access to the same outcomes. We've started to see the rise of these lawsuits and they're going to go "through the skies" in the coming years.

Force #3: Relationships with Government

More thoughts from Levine:

• The emphasis in education is economic development, with STEM on the rise and humanities on the decline.
• Higher education has shifted from a growth industry to a mature industry. Truman convened a committee in 1947 to engineer for growth. Now it's different. We're not trying to bump from 70% completion rates to 90%. Instead, we're trying to tighten regulations and become more efficient, doing more with less money.
• If you look at the Obama education plan, you see choice, charters, and accountability. We used to have a name for people who supported those things: Republicans. Republicans and Democrats now only differ on two big education issues: Republicans trash unions in public, while Democrats do so in private, and they disagree on vouchers.
• Educational improvement has been on the agenda for 30 years. Baby boomers are such a large segment and when they agree on what they want - which isn't often - they get it. Boomers had kids in the 1980s and they demanded great schools. "If you were running for dog catcher or president, you needed an education plan." Now boomers are older and their issues are their parents, if they still have them, and they want health care, elder care, and social security. There are limited budgets and health care will compete with education for public dollars.

Force #4: Technology

Technology is a marker and driver of change, and Levine predicts that curricular materials will change drastically, making traditional textbooks a thing of the past. The same technologies that we use to construct virtual environments like possible sci-fi visions of the future will be used to make rich simulations of history. No longer will students be limited to reading about fifth-century Athens; instead, they can go there virtually, where they'll virtually interact with classmates from around the world. Levine continued with thoughts on "digital natives":

• "This year's freshmen were born in 1995. That's like last week."
• "I asked a student in a focus group, 'How are you adapting to new technology?' He said, 'It's not technology unless it happens after you're born.' It's just reality, digital natives at analog universities being taught by digital immigrants."
• "Sometimes what we call cheating students call collaboration and file sharing. These students float in miles of data one inch deep. If we're hunters, they're gatherers. If we do depth, they do breadth."

Force #5: Privatization

For Levine, this one is relatively simple. Education is very appealing to the private sector. They see it as a growth industry that's counter-cyclical: the market for education goes up when the economy goes down, and education is subsidized with dependable cash flows. Private says they educate more efficiently and with stronger leadership, so we can expect to see more and more money from the private sector in both post-secondary and K-12.

Force #6: Knowledge Producers

Publishers and other content producers are all after the same information, says Levine. He recalled a conversation he had with someone in the educational content/publishing industry:

Publisher: "We're not in the book business anymore. We're in the knowledge business. We have products in 15,000 schools and we offer professional development. No higher education institution can match that."
Levine: "Where are you getting your content from?"
Publisher: "We hired full-time content providers."
Levine: "I thought to myself, 'I don't know anyone who is a content provider,' so I had to ask what one was. What the publisher described is essentially what I would call 'professors.' So we're competing for the same people, except he can offer bonuses."

Implications

Levine summarizes with the claim that we'll see an increase in education providers, with a blurring about what's private and what's public. We'll also see a blurring of local and global. We've transitioned before, says Levine, when our country went from a predominantly agricultural economy to an industrial economy. The Latin and Greek classes the educated elite enjoyed weren't of much use in an industrial economy, so new universities were created that were more specialized and technical, like MIT, along with land-grant universities straddling the worlds of arts and sciences and community colleges that made higher education local. Our coming transformation will re-position faculty as assessors, prescriptors, diagnosticians, while learning will increasingly become outcome based.

More from Levine:

• We're going to see three kinds of higher ed institutions: brick, click, and brick-n-click.
• For students, we'll see more choice, "anytime" studies (study anyplace, anytime, any style/mode)
• "If students are going to school and every choice doesn't look like 15 weeks, 3 hours a week, there's got to be a way to calibrate it all, and I think we'll do it based on outcomes."
• "I think we'll see a change in high-stakes assessment. Imagine if our GPS gave us results every hour. What would it tell us? 'You're 80 miles out of the way. Recalculating.' That's not useful. Assessment will move from largely summative to formative, formative, formative until it's summative. I think we're also going to see data, data, evidence, evidence as we focus on outcomes and learning. We'll ask what George W. Bush once asked: 'Is our children learning?'"
• We're also going to see much more lifelong learning. "Now we have students taking all their courses just in case they'll need them." In the future, courses will be delivered just-in-time.
• I think we'll see talent prioritized over the institutions where talent works. Is it more important to have 100,000 students in a class, or be faculty at Stanford? Someone with 100,000 students doesn't need Stanford. They'll say, "I'm the product. I don't need their branding." These faculty won't have jobs - they'll have agents. Faculty will want MOOCs, consulting deals, book deals, TV deals, and they'll negotiate for them. This happened in Hollywood; for a time the movie studios dominated, but now we go for the actors and don't care about the studio. That will become increasingly true in higher education.

Lastly, Levine believes that mathematics and STEM is in a spotlight we haven't seen since the Sputnik era. So what do we do? This won't last forever:

"When it comes time to talk STEM and math, right now the media is much more likely not to come to us instead of Bill Gates. He's seen as being ahead of where we are. But these are the fields of the future, the ones our children will depend upon. I think universities are still the right ones for the job. Ninety percent of STEM educators are prepared there. Research shows that nobody's better than we are at this."

Planning for NCTM New Orleans 2014: The Research Conference

Fresh off the plane from AERA in Philadelphia, I have a few moments to share my plans for the NCTM Research Conference. As you can see, I occasionally fool myself into thinking I can be two places at once. Or in one case, four.

Monday

5:45 - Persistent and Problematic Errors in Algebra I

Julie Booth, Francie Eyer, and E. Juliana Paré-Blagoev (Room 217/218)

5:45 - Teacher Learning of Learning Trajectories in Professional Development

P. Holt Wilson, Paola Sztajn, and Jared Webb (Room 217/218)

5:45 - Challenging Teachers' Perceptions of Mathematical Smartness

Megan H. Wickstrom (Room 217/218)

5:45 - Tracking Math Teacher Trajectories: Initial Results of a Longitudinal Study

William C. Zahner and Robert Afonso (Room 217/218)

7:00 - The Coming Transformation of American Education: Implications for Mathematics Education

Arthur Levine (Room 208/209/210)

Tuesday

8:30 - Connecting Data and Chance through Modeling

Cliff Konold, Richard Lehrer, and Robert DelMas; Patrick W. Thompson, Discussant (Room 214)

10:00 - High School Integrated Curricula and College Level Mathematics Performance

Thomas R. Post, William Bush, and Robert Reys (Room 207)

10:00 - Implementing Mathematical Modeling in the Common Core Era

Michelle Cirillo, John A. Pelesko, and Jinfa Cai; Christian R. Hirsch, Elizabeth Phillips, and Sherry Fraser, discussants (Room 214)

10:00 - The Algebra Project: Working for Quality Math Education for Students

Robert P. Moses, Bill Crombie, Andre Hargunani, and José Antonio Orozco; OneLA- Industrial Areas Foundation, discussant (Room 208/209/210)

10:00 - The NCTM Research Conference: A Brief History and Future Directions

Members of the NCTM Research Committee, Members of the SIG/RME Board of Directors , J. Michael Shaughnessy, Patricia F. Campbell, Larry Hatfield, and Judith Sowder (Room 220/221/222)

(As you can see above, 10:00 is packed. I want to go to all of them and fear the regret of not seeing Bob Moses.)

11:30 - Examining the Influence of Tasks, Goals, and Anticipation on Instruction

Samuel L. Eskelson and Margaret Smith (Room 219)

1:15 - Using Representations of Practice in Survey Research with Mathematics Teachers

Daniel Chazan, Orly Buchbinder, Justin K. Dimmel, Ander Erickson, and Kristi Hanby; Patricio G. Herbst and Randolph Philipp, discussants (Room 214)

1:15 - Knowledge for Teaching Informal Line of Best Fit

Stephanie Casey, Nicholas H. Wasserman, David C. Wilson, and Adam Molnar (Room 207)

2:45 - Mathematics Teacher Educators Supporting Prospective Teachers in Learning about CCSSM

Corey Drake, Jill Newton, and Denise A. Spangler (Room 205)

3:30 - Colleagues 2.0: The MathTwitterBlogoSphere and Mathematics Teachers’ Professional Learning

Ilana S Horn, Nicole Bannister, Annie Fetter, Shauna Hedgepeth, Ashli J. Black, Justin Lanier, and José Vilson (Room 211)

3:30 - Exploring Relations between Teachers’ Knowledge, Perspectives, and Practice

Charles Munter, Richard Correnti, Anne Garrison, Lynsey K. Gibbons, and Kara Jackson; Deborah Loewenberg Ball, discussant (Room 214)

5:00 - Aligning Mathematical Tasks to the Standards for Mathematical Practice

Raymond Johnson (Room 217/218)

Wednesday

8:30 - Building Research Communities in Mathematics Education

Erica Walker, Daniel Chazan, Marta Civil, and Jacqueline Leonard (Room 219)

8:30 - Perspectives on Linking Research and Practice: Thoughts from the Field

Lynsey K. Gibbons, Kara Jackson, Heather Lynn Johnson, and Jonathan N. Thomas (Room 220/221/222)

10:00 - A Practical Theory of Productive Persistence in Mathematics Education

Philip Uri Treisman (Room 208/209/210)

12:30 - Beyond Rise-over-Run: A Design Experiment and Learning Trajectory for Slope

Frederick Peck (Room 215)

1:15 - How Should the Enacted Mathematics Curriculum Be Conceptualized and Studied?

Janine Remillard, Joshua Taton, Kara Jackson, Indigo Esmonde, and Anne Garrison Wilhelm; Mary Kay Stein, discussant (Room 219)

There are two more research sessions on Wednesday afternoon but I may very well take that time to prepare for my talk on Friday and/or try to process some of the above.