Techlearning blog

My original list of questions was:

1. Is it always better to use a computer than pen and paper, in terms of productivity, creative output or better learning?

2. Do computers always enhance pupils' self-esteem?

3. Does government funding lead to better spending on educational technology in schools? Is it better or worse if caveats are attached to the spending?

4. Is it always better to use templates to guide pupils' work?

5. Do free resources supplied by governments enhance or diminish the quality of teaching (and therefore, subsequently, learning)?

6. Do the standards laid down by various national curricula or schemes of work really level the playing field, or do they merely mask inequalities of provision caused by other factors?

7. Does it matter if schools do not embed educational technology in the curriculum?

Today I'm looking at the sixth one.

Incidentally, I've been working my way through these both here, and on my own website.

When I originally posted the questions, Carl Anderson said this about #6:

"Any good teacher who is doing their job is already addressing these standards. The problem is how we view them as teachers. If we view them as being what we have to teach there is a problem. A different approach will lead teachers to bring students far beyond these MINIMUM content standards."

I think Carl is absolutely right, but this is an area in which I have mixed feelings. Here in England we have a set of standards known as the National Curriculum. This is pretty prescriptive, although there is, in fact, a great deal of flexibility built in. When the NC first appeared on the scene, in 1988, it was an absolute nightmare. Each of the 10 (if memory serves me well) subjects had many so-called "Attainment Targets", and none of the subject specialists conferred with any other subject specialist. The result was a list of literally hundreds of targets that could not possibly be addressed in the time available.

But when you look at this in a historical context, it was something of a reaction, at least in part, to some nightmarish things going on in schools. Admittedly, much of the evidence I have is anecdotal, but there were cases of teachers setting their classes "project work", a euphemism for keeping the kids occupied whilst the teacher had a quiet life; or of teachers in primary (elementary) schools deciding not to teach mathematics because they neither liked it nor understood it.

My experience of teaching educational technology, and of encouraging others to use it in their subjects, is that before the arrival of the National Curriculum many teachers took one of two minimalistic approaches to educational technology. Either they ignored it all together, or they worked on the assumption that because they were unable to use it, nobody else would be able to either. Perhaps that is being slightly unkind, and that the real problem was a lack of imagination. Whatever the case, expectations were low, and the work set was, consequently, ridiculous.

For example, one English teacher insisted on taking her classes into the computer lab once a week so that they could type up the stories they had already written out by hand. Nothing I could say would convince her that this was (a) a waste of time and (b) a great missed opportunity to do something really creative.

In the subject Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and others, we in the UK benefited (I'm not sure that that is entirely the correct word, for reasons which shall become clear) from something called the Key Stage 3 ICT Strategy -- now known generically as the Secondary Strategy. This was a set of resources called Sample Teaching Units, which sought to exemplify and extend the bare bones given in the ICT Programme of Study. There was a whole structure of local, regional and national consultants, whose role was to run training courses for teachers in how to teach ICT.

That sounds wonderful, does it not? Indeed, there was praise from official reports, and anecdotal evidence suggested that the Strategy was working, in the sense that just about anyone could teach the subject using these materials and guidance, which was good news because there was, and is, a shortage of skilled ICT teachers.

However, there were a number of problems with the approach, at least as far as I was concerned.

Firstly, although I am all in favour of making life as easy as possible for teachers, there is something of a painting-by-numbers philosophy underpinning the production of the resources for the National Strategies, and I disagree with that very strongly.

Now, you could argue that that didn't mater, because (a) the Key Stage 3 Strategy is voluntary, not mandatory, and (b) the Sample Teaching Units (STUs) are just that: samples. There is nothing to stop schools or individual teachers being as creative as they like in using the materials, or deciding not to use them at all.

Very true, except that in practice a lot of schools used the STUs as is, with the result that there was no creative input at all in some classes, and the poor kids were simply bored into submission. I believe this is starting to change, but I should imagine that there is still a sizeable number of schools in which the same unadulterated STUs are used year in and year out.

Secondly, no matter how carefully you try to tie down a teaching resource, it will always get changed in some way, and in the hands of the least competent teachers it will get changed in the worst ways possible. Here is a case in point. Part of each STU is a note to the teacher explaining that as a result of teaching this unit, most of the class should understand X, but some will only understand Y, whilst some will go further and understand Z. That in itself is an excellent device, as it provides very useful information for the teacher.

However, I was inspecting a school once in which the teacher actually told the class, "Some of you will not understand all of this, but some will do really well...". I had to explain to the teacher afterwards that by doing that he had probably destroyed the self-confidence of most of the kids in the class.

Thirdly, my own experience of the training involved was that, despite the official line, any deviation from the prescribed content or way of teaching it was very much frowned upon. I like to think that such a purist approach is now a thing of the past.

So where does all this leave us? In my opinion, having a set of standards, and sets of resources which are, in their own way, or the way in which they are interpreted, just as prescriptive, is no substitute for a properly-trained teacher workforce, with the resources needed to fully get to grips with their subject and to develop, and share, resources. The most important resource is, of course, time. Time to go on courses, time to develop materials in non-contact time, and time to visit other schools. Even time to take time out of the classroom and work in a commercial environment for part of the week, or part of the year. As long as we fail to provide education with proper resourcing, including professional development, we will be continually having to adopt a band-aid approach in the form of so-called "standards".