No Girls in STEM: It’s the Schools’ Fault

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The full impact of the Information Revolution – the moniker for the impact of technology on the modern global economy – is still a subject of inquiry and debate. Still, it is clear that careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) will be vital to the United States’ economic prosperity in the economy that emerges from the revolution, as will be the skills of creativity, inquiry, and collaboration inherent in them. Accordingly, the United States’ government has spent much of the past ten years advocating for increased STEM curriculum in K-12 schools with an explicit focus on preparing our students for the economy of their future ((National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Science, Engineering & Public Policy, 2007; U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2006; U.S. Department of Education, 2006). Certainly, tailoring our schools to best prepare students for their future is the paramount responsibility of the education system, so increased STEM education is appropriate.

Problematically, STEM fields continue to be male-dominated. The United States Department of Commerce reported (Beede et al. 2011) that women hold less than a quarter of STEM jobs, disproportionately low amount of STEM undergraduate degrees, and are less likely to pursue a STEM career after obtaining such a degree than their male counterparts. Of the STEM degrees obtained by women, more than half are in the physical and life sciences, with only 18% in engineering. In contrast, almost half of men with STEM degrees pursued engineering, while less than a third were in the sciences. These numbers correlate with a much higher percentage of women who earn STEM degrees but work in education or other non-STEM fields. In these fields, women make on average 14% lower than their male counterparts, which, while problematic, is less than the 21% discrepancy seen in non-STEM job (Beede et al. 2011).

Eliminating this gender gap in STEM fields is necessary, both for moral and also economic reasons. The innovations emerging from these fields will, hopefully, help all people take advantage of new technologies. However, “needs and desires unique to women may be overlooked” (AAUW 2010) in design processes because of the absence of women. What’s more, encouraging women to join these fields will be a net gain in the STEM workforce, an inherently good outcome if these fields are as vital to our future as we presume. Furthermore, as a nation founded upon and thereby committed to equality, we ought to eliminate pay inequities that have plagued our economy since women joined the workforce. Although women in STEM fields statistically earn less than their male colleagues, these fields in general yield higher salaries than many others, resulting in a net reduction of the wage gap overall (AAUW 2010).

To remedy these problems, we must first consider the extent to which these divides exist as a product of nature versus that of nurture. In her 1996 study, Wilder found that nature – that is, physiological differences – are exacerbated by external factors like interaction with teachers, curriculum, and societal stereotypes (Wilder 20; Solomon 118). Hence, for STEM education to be effective, teachers and curriculum authors must consider the biases inherent in their behavior and content, respectively. Additionally, teachers and their curricula could be designed to accommodate physiological differences, thereby accounting for both nature and nurture.

Cause and Effect

Girls are directed away from STEM careers early in their education. This guidance is often unintentional and unconscious (Sadker, Sadker, and Zittleman 2009).

Teacher feedback can dissuade girls from pursuing STEM subjects by implicitly acknowledging pre-existing perceptions of STEM as masculine or, at least, not feminine, as well as boring or irrelevant. Through the study, Anderson (2009) concludes that girls are choosing subjects other than information and communications technology (ICT) because the ICT classes they had taken previously were boring. They also did not consider the courses to be helpful in preparing them for their future careers. Despite popular belief to this effect, the girls did not acknowledge that the purported male-dominance of the classrooms or the stereotypes of these subject as masculine played a significant role in their choices (Anderson 2009). These findings align with earlier studies that indicate that students generally form their attitudes toward computers by eighth grade (Solomon 2002; Sadker and Sadker 1997).

Until recently, girls have also been discouraged from developing more positive attitudes towards computers at home, especially due to the sort of games available. Girls’ are discouraged from use of computers by the lack of “collaborating activities, games with simulation, strategy, and interaction” in them. Instead, they tend to find games “that are designed for competition and that focus on death and destruction” (Solomon 2002; AAUW 2000).

Denissen (2007) argued that a student’s interest in a subject boosts her confidence in it, which together boost achievement. Teacher influence significantly influenced math and science confidence and interest, and extracurricular STEM activities significantly boosted science confidence and interest. (Heaverlo 2011; Denissen 2007). In addition to teacher support and extracurricular activities, STEM curriculum, pedagogy, and activities should embrace four considerations:

Technology in context, not just for technology’s sake… Technology to solve genuine problems… Information technology for communication not just information… Technology for design not just consumption. (Solomon 2000)

Contextualizing STEM curricula in social good, along with availability to girls in and out of school with adequate teacher support should yield significantly more interest in STEM careers among women.

Solutions

Considerable energy and resources have been expended to remedy these problems. Booz Allen Hamilton (2012) conducted a study of NASA’s Summer-of-Innovation (SoI) program, an out-of-school network of organizations that promotes STEM to students and teachers nationwide. The program focused on middle schoolers, which is appropriate according to the aforementioned finding that students solidify their views of computers by eighth grade. The report identified 50 best practices, ranging from advice for program planning to program assessment. The recommendations align with the research findings detailed above. For example, they report on one organization that represents the best practice of creating a “supportive STEM learning environment with high expectations for students”:

One OST organization encourages its students to experiment and make “big, interesting mistakes” so that they can act on their intellectual curiosity and learn how to take risks in problem-solving. At the same time, this strategy of engaging students includes pushing students to succeed because creating this expectation helps communicate to girls that they are perfectly capable of pursuing STEM throughout their education and careers. This creates a learning environment that is both supportive and nurturing yet sets the bar high for girls in order to encourage them to succeed. (Booz Allen Hamilton 2012)

This sort of program is designed to accommodate the sort of learning girls prefer by being oriented toward problem-solving, offers access to all students who want it, and are engineered specifically to increase teacher support for students as they pursue STEM fields. Other best practices based on STEM out-of-school organizations identify the efficacy of providing young girls mentors who are women working in STEM fields. Others are praised for using single-gender STEM groups so activities can be tailored to gender-based learning styles and preferences (Booz Allen Hamilton 2012). Organizations report that they are embracing these best practices as they expand and improve their STEM for girls programs, including the Girl Scouts, the Center for STEM Education for Girls, Girl Start, and dozens of others (Girlscouts.org)

These very effective programs detailed in the report are out-of-school activities, however. In school, less focus has been paid to increasing girls’ interest in STEM specifically, as opposed to STEM interest generally. Recently, the US DoE issued a report suggesting ways that science curriculum can be developed to increase girls’ interest and confidence in the subject (Halpern et al. 2007). However, it was difficult to find any STEM curricula that reports to have been designed with girls in mind in coeducational schools. Problematically, the classrooms primarily responsible for discouraging girls from STEM careers with negative teacher feedback, linear curriculum without a social context, and social reinforcement guiding girls to other subjects occur during the day in coed schools.

Recommendations

Hence, deliberate efforts must be made to translate the success of out-of-school programs designed to encourage girls in STEM fields into similar encouragement in school. Professional development increasing teachers’ awareness of the ways in which they might reinforce stereotypes associated with girls and STEM, more “real world” content and curricula that also involves problem-solving, earlier introductions to engaging applications of STEM, and explicit acknowledgement of the value of STEM education might help to make these out-of-school programs less necessary. In turn, we may narrow or eliminate the gender gap in STEM fields over the next several decades, serving our economic and moral ambitions.


(Note: This is adapted from a paper that I submitted to a graduate school class at Teachers College.)

Bibliography

 

American Association of University Women. (2010). Why so few? Women in science,

technology, engineering, and mathematics. Washington, DC. AAUW.

ISBN: 978-1-879922-40-2.

Anderson, Neil. Equity and Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Education. (2009) Peter Lang. ISBN: 978-0820452432

Beede, David, Julian, Tiffany, Langdon, David, McKittrick, George, Khan, Beethika, & Doms, Mark. (2011). Women in STEM: A gender gap to innovation. Economics and Statistics Administration Issue Brief(04-11).

Betz, Diana E, & Sekaquaptewa, Denise. (2012). My fair physicist? Feminine math and science role models demotivate young girls. Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. (2012). NASA Summer of Innovation: Excellence in Summer Learning Best Practices and Benchmarking Study.

Denissen, J.J., Zarrett, N.R., & Eccles, J.S. (2007). I like to do it, I‟m able, and I know I am: Longitudinal couplings between domain-specific achievement, self-concept, and interest. Child Development, 78(2), 430-447.

Halpern, D. F., Aronson, J., Reimer, N., Simpkins, S., Star, J. R., & Wentzel, K. (2007). Encouraging girls in math and science.

Heaverlo, Carol Ann. (2011). STEM development: A study of 6th–12th grade girls’ interest and confidence in mathematics and science. (3473025 Ph.D.), Iowa State University, United States — Iowa. Retrieved from http://eduproxy.tc-library.org/?url=/docview/894337556?accountid=14258 ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text: Science & Technology; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text: Social Sciences database.

National Academy of Sciences. Committee on Science, Engineering & Public Policy. (2007). Rising above the gathering storm: Energizing and employing America for a brighter economic future. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

National Science Foundation. Division of Science Resources Statistics. (2008). Science and engineering degrees: 1966–2006 (Detailed Statistical Tables) (NSF 08-321).

Arlington, VA: Author. Retrieved December 22, 2009, from www.nsf.gov/

statistics/nsf08321/pdf/nsf08321.pdf.

“Original Research Studies: Generation STEM.” Original Research Studies: Generation STEM. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2013. <http://www.girlscouts.org/research/publications/stem/generation_stem_what_girls_say.asp>

Sadker, M., & Sadker, D. (1997(. Teachers, schools, and society. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Sadker, D., Sadker, M., & Zittleman, K.R. (2009). Still failing at fairness: How gender

bias cheats girls and boys in school and what we can do about it. New York, NY:

Simon & Schuster, Inc.

S. D, S. (2012). GIRLS AND STEM. Education Week, 31(32), 5-5.

Shapiro, Jenessa jshapiro psych ucla edu, & Williams, Amy. (2012). The Role of Stereotype Threats in Undermining Girls’ and Women’s Performance and Interest in STEM Fields. Sex Roles, 66(3/4), 175-183. doi: 10.1007/s11199-011-0051-0

Solomon, G. [Editor]. Toward Digital Equity: Bridging the Divide in Education. Allyn and Bacon, 2002. ISBN: 978-0205360550

U.S. Department of Education. (2006). A test of leadership: Charting the future of U.S. higher education. Washington, DC: Author.

U.S. Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. (2000). Entry and persistence of women and minorities in college science and engineering education (NCES 2000-601), by G. Huang, N. Taddese, & E. Walter. Washington, DC: Author.

U.S. Department of Education. (2007). The Nation’s Report Card: America’s high school graduates: Results from the 2005 NAEP high school transcript study, by C. Shettle, S. Roey, J. Mordica, R. Perkins, C. Nord, J. Teodorovic, J. Brown, M. Lyons, C. Averett, & D. Kastberg. (NCES 2007-467). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

Wilder, G.Z. (1996). Correlates of gender differences in cognitive functioning. New York: College Entrance Examination Board


Internet Privacy for Students: An Oxymoron?

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The internet’s value to education derives in large part from its openness. Students can access information, people, and virtual experiences otherwise inaccessible to them. Many of the internet’s most popular websites – e.g. Google, Facebook, and Twitter – provide their essential services to any user at no cost. Yet, this same openness results in a troubling lack of privacy. Simply signing on to one of these services potentially exposes a user to data-collection by an internet service provider (ISP), website host, and other users. Users have little control over their information beyond choosing whether to use a site or not. Currently, the US federal government is attempting to legislate for this problem, the result of which will have consequences for our students as well as internet users generally. In this essay, we will examine the current issues relating to internet privacy for students and schools, the current legislation, and ways to support students in navigating this treacherous terrain.

COPPA

Currently, students’ access to internet service is regulated according to their age. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), enacted in 1998, requires websites to do the following:

(i) to provide notice on the website of what information is collected from children by the operator, how the operator uses such information, and the operator’s disclosure practices for such information; and
(ii) to obtain verifiable parental consent for the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information from children;

Upon receiving this parental consent, websites must provide parents with the following:

(i) a description of the specific types of personal information collected from the child by that operator;
(ii) the opportunity at any time to refuse to permit the operator’s further use or maintenance in retrievable form, or future online collection, of personal information from that child; and
(iii) notwithstanding any other provision of law, a means that is reasonable under the circumstances for the parent to obtain any personal information collected from that child;
(C) prohibit conditioning a child’s participation in a game, the offering of a prize, or another activity on the child disclosing more personal information than is reasonably necessary to participate in such activity; and
(D) require the operator of such a website or online service to establish and maintain reasonable procedures to protect the confidentiality, security, and integrity of personal information collected from children.

Children, defined as anyone under the age of 13, must receive parental consent to us any website that collects information about users and must be notified (along with their parents) of all information collected. Further, children cannot be tricked into disclosing more information, and websites must do their best to maintain the confidentiality of the child.

In practice, COPPA’s regulations do little to protect children. The law places a significant burden on parents to vet each and every website. Yet, children often know considerably more about the internet and technology in general than their parents (Prensky). It is also exceptionally easy for children to lie about their age, as many do to avoid these restrictions. Parents’ ignorance about internet safety and the ease with which children avoid COPPA regulations may render the intention of this law moot.

What’s more, as many teachers have learned, these provisions cause significant problems for teachers who wish to user internet tools. Even the most innocuous tools require parent permission, which is often difficult to obtain for bureaucratic or logistical reasons. In this way, COPPA can stifle innovation, as teachers cannot embrace a tool without the adequate paperwork, even if they could prove that they have done their due diligence in vetting the tool or students are already using it without proper approval (that is, by pretending to be over 13).

Finally, note that nothing in this law stops a website from collecting information. Instead, it demands that websites are transparent in their data-collecting behavior. Transparency is generally preferred in matters of data-collection than opaqueness, but, especially for children, we might wonder whether the data should be collected in the first place.

Free vs Paid

Another instance of children’s privacy being at risk is in the use of free, rather than paid, accounts on websites. Lacking income or even a credit card, students and children are much more likely to use a free account on a website. Yet, free accounts often lack the granular privacy controls of a paid account. Consider Vimeo, a popular video-sharing platform. The only way to upload a video and hide it from the rest of the website is to have a paid account. The cheapest paid account is $59.95/year, though! If students were doing a video project, they’d only have limited control over their class project’s privacy unless their parents or their school spent nearly $60 to upgrade their account.

Ownership of Information

Similarly, unlike typical schoolwork, a students’ work online often becomes the property of the website used rather than the student himself. For example, Glogster, a popular “digital posterboard” platform, includes the following clause in the Terms of Use: “You hereby authorize Glogster a.s. to use and/or authorize others to use all or part of your Postings in any manner, format, or medium that Glogster a.s. or such other parties see fit. You shall have no claim or other recourse against Glogster a.s. for infringement of any proprietary right in Postings.” While some students might be honored to have their work featured in this way, users put a great deal of trust in a website when they agree to these terms. Although that trust is unlikely to be violated, students, parents, and teachers must be aware that they no longer control their information or creations as soon as they end up on certain websites.

Cloud storage has further complicated issues of data ownership. For example, many schools are moving data storage, email, and document-sharing off local servers and into a Google Apps domain. In so doing, they transfer all user data onto another company’s servers. While Google promises that Apps users’ retain ownership over their data (although they do not take a stance on whether it belongs to the individual or the business), they still reserve the right to use data to determine “which ads you’ll find most useful.”

Data-tracking

Besides using a student’s work for promotional materials as Glogster might do, we might wonder what data could be collected from children that’d be of any use. Google’s tactic of collecting data in order to target ads is in fact an industry-standard practice. LUMA Partners is an investment bank specializing in digital media companies. They created this chart, which illustrates the complex network through which internet users’ data travels.

The process begins with marketers who use user data to inform advertising development, and publishers display targeted ads in the end. Marketing to children in particular is an enormous industry. The purchasing power of teens is estimated at $819 billion. When children go online, websites collect data which can be used to tap into this wealth. While educational resources like Glogster might not be using the data themselves, others may.

How do kids feel?

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and UC Berkeley (Hoofangle et. al) found that young people are increasingly aware of privacy issues but are generally misinformed:

An important part of the picture, though, must surely be our finding that higher proportions of 18-24 year olds believe incorrectly that the law protects their privacy online and offline more than it actually does. This lack of knowledge in a tempting environment, rather than a cavalier lack of concern regarding privacy, may be an important reason large numbers of them engage with the digital world in a seemingly unconcerned manner (Hoofangle et. al 2010).

Perhaps because of legislation like COPPA and the efforts of websites to emphasize privacy settings, children believe they have greater rights to their information than they actually do. Yet, the research showed “that young-adult Americans have an aspiration for increased privacy even while they participate in an online reality that is optimized to increase their revelation of personal data” (Hoofangle et. al 2010). Children want privacy and, unfortunately, wrongly presume they have it.

Schools’ Responsibility

COPPA has therefore proved to be inadequate in protecting students from data-collection practices or changing children’s understanding of their rights. It merely requires parents to approve the collection, and students can quite easily report a different age in order to bypass the process altogether. Additionally, as indicated by the chart above, data-collection seems an unavoidable aspect of the internet. Hence, rather than forbid children from using this often wonderful tool or striving for an unattainable end to data-collection behaviors, we should help students understand how they provide data and what happens to it. Armed with this knowledge, they can better protect themselves from misuses and retain control over their online identity as much as is possible.

Curriculum

Common Sense Media is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping children and families use digital media safely and responsibly. They offer a K-12 curriculum that develops students’ understanding and awareness of internet privacy from kindergarten through high school.
From K-2, students “learn that many websites ask for information that is private and discuss how to responsibly handle such requests.” When they are in grades 3-5, “Students learn what spam is, the forms it takes, and then identify strategies for dealing with it.” In middle school, “Students learn that they have a digital footprint and that this information can be searched, copied and passed on, but that they can take some control based on what they post online.” Finally, in high school, students dig deeply into the ways in which websites collect data for advertising purposes and what it suggests for their everyday life.

While Common Sense Media has been enormously influential in promoting these positive messages, partnering with dozens of high-profile educational and media outlets, its curriculum fails to protect children enough. As elementary schools are now integrating technology deep into the classroom, children must be made fully aware of the consequences of their behavior from an early age. Just as students would not be allowed to use equipment in a science laboratory without proper training about its dangers, we should not allow children to use technology without knowing the risks of using it. Hence, I recommend that the entirety of Common Sense Media’s curriculum be taught in elementary rather than developed until high school.

Schools can also fulfill their obligation to older students in addressing dangers particular to adolescence, as they do with sexual education or drug abuse education. By high school, students have developed a digital footprint – that is, the trail left by internet usage over time. Students might have pictures, comments, and academic work attributed to their name and discoverable by a simple Google search. Colleges are increasingly checking for these trails when evaluating admissions decisions. Thus, schools should not only teach students how to protect themselves from establishing a negative footprint, they ought to help students curate a positive digital footprint throughout school. When students do quality work for a class or demonstrate their talents, they can work with parents to make the work publicly accessible. Guidance counselors can help students eliminate negative elements of their digital footprint without fear of punishment for the student. In sum, schools can make an effort to educate and protect the “whole” child, which now includes his or her digital self.

Conclusion

“Internet privacy is an oxymoron,” says academic and activist Lawrence Lessig. He may be right. Nonetheless, children and internet users generally ought to be aware of the information they make public on the internet and how it might be used. While we may not be able to attain full privacy online, it behooves us to maintain control over our online identity. The government’s efforts to legislate the problem have had minimal effect. Parents can help their children, but ultimately, the children need to be able to help themselves use technology responsibly. To best prepare them for their futures, schools ought to cultivate an awareness of internet privacy issues in students. In so doing, students will be mindful of what they do and do not submit to websites and how they use the internet in general. Through this awareness, we can encourage responsible use while acknowledging the reality of internet privacy.

Note: A version of this essay was submitted for an assignment in one of my classes at Columbia Teachers College.

Bibliography

Hoofnagle, Chris Jay, King, Jennifer, Li, Su and Turow, Joseph, How Different are Young Adults from Older Adults When it Comes to Information Privacy Attitudes and Policies? (April 14, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1589864 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1589864

http://edu.glogster.com/terms-of-use/

http://insights.mastercard.com/2012/11/21/purchase-power-of-global-teens-tops-819-billion/

http://mashable.com/2012/05/21/lessig-internet-privacy/

http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60762

https://vimeo.com/help/faq/privacy

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/lesson/keep-it-private-k-2

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/scope-and-sequence

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/supporters/education-supporters

http://www.coppa.org/coppa.htm

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/12/08/14collegeadmit.h31.html

http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the horizon,9(5), 1-6.


If I’m to spearhead technology integration at my school, how do I start?

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A colleague at another school wrote me the following:
“If I’m to spearhead technology integration at my school, how do I start? How can I assure the powers that be (tech immigrants mostly), that their time and money is worth it? How can I provide a sure-fire tech-integration strategy that’s success can be measured?”

Here’s my response:

There is indeed a wealth of information out there on edtech. I follow the blogs listed here and my twitter is @edtechbst, if you want to look at who I follow and retweet. It’s a bit hard to filter through the noise in both places. Basically, over time, you’ll get a handle of the folks you agree with. Once you’re familiar with the variety of views – ranging from those who think tech will redeem all of mankind to tech being yet another passing fad (and everything in between) – you can begin to just look for resources and ignore most of what people are saying. It all gets rather repetitive. However, when a new tech tool is mentioned multiple times or an article is linked to from a variety of blogs, you can bet they’re worth looking at. That’s generally how I now use the blogs and Twitter.

From there, if the article is any good, I’ll write about it or at least pass it on to any teachers that might be interested. For new tools, I’ll sign up, play around, and get an idea of how it might be used and by whom. In so doing, I add tools to my toolbox, which comes in handy when a teacher has an idea and I need to come up with a plan on the spot.

That leads to your next question… how to ensure you aren’t wasting your colleagues’ time? I think tech integration proceeds in three stages: 1) Teachers getting over their fear/discomfort of tech enough to give it a shot; 2) Teachers understanding and embracing it as something that can enhance education if used well; 3) Adoption and implementation of a long-term, coherent, thoughtful vision for integration. Stage 1 depends largely on your relationship with your teachers. Stage 2 requires you to have a wealth of knowledge of edtech tools and strategies so that your work with teachers is productive. Stage 3 requires real buy-in from teachers, development of curriculum, and a particular understanding of edtech that reflects your school’s culture. I don’t think there is one right way to integrate tech; every school will do it differently. K-12 project-based learning with a 1:1 laptop program may work for one school while more traditional instruction with 1:1 iPads will work better for another. You and the faculty together can figure that out.

You also asked about measuring success. One easy way is for a teacher to teach a revised, tech-enhanced unit but give the same test as he/she would have previously. Compare results. Another option is to give a lot of surveys and evaluate teachers’ and students’ perceptions of instruction as it develops. Remember, though: the faster you move, the more you will feel the growing pains.

I guess the summary of all this is: keep good teaching and learning as your priority always. The second it becomes tech for tech’s sake, it will fail. Beyond that, proceed deliberately, allow teachers to move at their own pace but nudge them along, and stay on top of the edtech world because it’s always in flux.

Hope that helps. Happy to talk more!


Because You Asked: Tools To Help Students Apply To College

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New post on edSurge:

“Getting into college ain’t what it used to be. Today, college admissions counselors, private coaches, parents, and students form a team that focuses for years on receiving the big envelope from the likes of Harvard, Yale, Williams, and Amherst. Problematically, as colleges and universities receive more applications, their admissions process grows ever more opaque. Would a B in AP calculus help me more than an A in statistics? Should I play the violin or trombone? Should we move to a better zip code?

A few promising startups are trying to answer these and other questions in an effort to help those families who don’t have the thousands of dollars some folks are spending just to help a kid get into a school. It’s a realm of education ripe for real disruption.”

Read the rest here…


Teacher Buy-In: Third Pillar of Tech Integration

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Countless horror stories circulate among educators of hardware purchases that sit in closets and basements. The education world did a good job of making clear in the 90s and early 2000s that technology’s mere presence in a classroom does not itself yield any meaningful educational outcomes. At best, it does nothing; at worst, it takes away from good things happening in that classroom.

Now, the consensus seems to be that teachers need extensive and sustained professional development, which is true. It is certainly one pillar of successful tech integration. Curriculum also must evolve to take full advantage of technological tools. Although less common, curriculum development seems to be growing as a recognized second pillar.

Still, we’re ignoring the third pillar: teacher buy-in. All the professional development in the world will not motivate a teacher to use technology effectively if he/she doesn’t believe it to serve as a means to better instruction than they practice without it. Teachers – not administrators, students, or parents – must be on board with the notion that they are better educators if they use technology effectively. When they make this leap, they will engage their creativity and pedagogical expertise to consider uses of the tools that support or enhance their curricular goals. They’ll prove its value through better teaching.

Teacher buy-in should happen simultaneously with professional development, and both should precede curriculum development. Teachers must understand the academic power of technology to pass judgment on it. They need to be experts in tech before they can develop curriculum that exploits it.

Soliciting teacher buy-in is a less straightforward process than these other two pillars, however. It requires demonstrations of effective use, opportunities for teachers to experiment with it (and fail!), serious conversations about why we teach what we teach and why we teach it the way we do, a fellow teacher to push teachers to have these conversations, and hands-off support from administration as teachers go through this process. It’s tricky. It’s inelegant. But it’s necessary.


Technology Integration Lesson Planning Workflow

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I was thinking about the questions I ask myself as I help teachers plan tech-enhanced lessons. Below is the workflow I generally follow. It’s a rough draft, so please feel free to add to it!

 


Ed Tech: A Young Women’s Club

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It’s crazy to me that Marissa Mayer is such a lightning rod of controversy. She’s doing one hell of a job turning around a dinosaur of a tech company in Yahoo. It’s no secret that large-scale institutional change requires strong leadership. When other CEOs bulldoze through tradition – see Steve Jobs in 1997 – we celebrate them. Shouldn’t we celebrate her?

Most interesting is that the criticism of Mayer seems to come primarily from the mainstream media, not the tech blogs. Silicon Valley isn’t the old boys’ club it used to be. It grew up.

Ed tech seems to never have had this problem. As my network of ed tech entrepreneurs continues to grow, I’m struck by how many women are referenced as “the person you need to meet” or the one “doing amazing things.” If anything, ed tech entrepreneurship has become a young women’s club.

Why is that? Is it because education has a higher proportion of women than other fields in general? Is it because this recent surge in ed tech entrepreneurialism is new, emerging in the post-tech-boys’-club era? I recently read a study that indicated that the best way to get girls interested in STEM in middle and high school is to focus on the social applications of STEM curriculum. Is it because women are more attracted to the social good of ed tech as opposed to the profit earning potential of just about anything else?

Whatever the answer, it’s clear ed tech is doing something right. At long last, as Marissa Mayer represents, the tech world seems to be increasingly egalitarian as well. Now the rest of society just needs to catch up…


Vision Statement for Technology Leadership

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In my graduate school class tonight, we collaborated on a vision statement that defines the responsibility of a technology leader in a secondary school.

The leader’s responsibility is to ensure that technology is used purposively, responsibly and in accord with particular content/curricular as well as students’ developmental needs. He will oversee the evolution of pedagogy that fully exploits the power of technology for learning. Technology will not be used purely for its own sake but to enhance learning goals, and to provide students with 21st century skills. Leaders will provide access to resources and on-going professional development to ensure that teachers are prepared to meet the needs of their students while employing their skills and expertise.

What do you think?


What Michael Jordan and Steve Jobs Teach Us About Cultivating Greatness

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In his recent article on the culture of Silicon Valley and what it can teach Washington, Tom Friedman writes,

With collaboration, one plus one can often turn out to be four, says Jeff Weiner, the C.E.O. of LinkedIn, adding: “I will always work with you — if I know we’ll get to four. You can’t build great products alone. And if everyone understood that you can’t build great government alone our country would be in a different place. NY Times

Silicon Valley is a cutthroat business environment that appreciates the value of collaboration as a means toward success. Similarly, in his bestseller Drive, Daniel Pink extols the virtues of a collaborative business environment insofar as it cultivates intrinsic motivation in employees. No wonder we’re promoting collaboration as a chief virtue of education.

Yet, two modern heroes – Michael Jordan and Steve Jobs – achieved their greatness by being ruthlessly competitive, not collaborative. Michael Jordan’s hall of fame speech in 2009 revealed what those who had followed his career closely already knew: he’s an arrogant, petty, mean man. He was brutal to his teammates, oppressive to his opponents, selfish at home, and generally interested only in himself. And it worked.

Steve Jobs was also an arrogant, selfish, fiercely competitive, inflexible man. He constructed Apple according to his own aesthetic ideal, working only with people that shared his rather narrow aesthetic taste and business philosophy. Far from collaborating, Steve Jobs pursued his path and destroyed anyone in it. And it worked.

Both men are now our heroes. Widely regarded as the best basketball player ever, Michael Jordan is the benchmark against which all other athletes (not just basketball players) are judged. How do we reconcile the fact that the pinnacle of sports is reached through values antithetical to sportsmanship and selflessness that we actively promote?

What’s more, and to make an argument more relevant to the topic of this blog, isn’t it foolhardy to extol the virtues of collaboration in education when it is the exact opposite set of values that allowed him to achieve greatness?  Might we need a better argument for collaborative learning? Or ought we to question it more? Is there room for cultivating independence and competition in the school of the future?


Reflections on Educon

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EduCon is an unusual conference. The leading thinkers in educational technology comprise the audience. While many (most?) ed tech conferences try to garner support for tech, bring folks up to speed on the basics, or promote the next big thing, EduCon focuses on the deepest issues of ed tech, as well as its virtues. It elicits the deepest and therefore most important discussions about ed tech. It edifies ed tech leaders thereby.

My experience was no different. As much as my fellow attendees added to my experience, it’s the speakers who make or break a conference. Like picking classes in college, I’ve found that picking conference sessions based on the speaker rather than the subject matter is the best strategy. Gary Stager and Tom Daccord (expectedly) emerged as the most impactful speakers. Stager’s wit, sarcasm, and intellect remind us of the pedagogical philosophy that ought to guide our work. Daccord is the opposite of Stager in demeanor, but I believe they agree on deeper issues. Daccord’s reflections on good leadership were insightful and inspiring. As bookends to my day, these two guys remind me both how to lead and why to lead that way.

The conversations with fellow attendees during these two sessions and in between deserve another mention. Whether I was talking to a CEO, CFO, teacher, principal, or superintendent, everyone had thought about the important questions of our world and were open to thinking about them anew. This is how a group of educators should always operate. It was great.