teaching – Page 2 – Alan C. Jones

“Coding is the future: Or, is it?”

October 28, 2024 by Alan Jones

Several years ago, I was at a graduation dinner for a relative’s son. Similar to the scenes in the movie The Graduate, several attendees were giving the new graduate advice on future career fields that were both lucrative and secure. Top among the suggestions was the field of “coding.” Simply put, a coder is a professional who builds programs for websites and apps. Based on what I was reading in the media, it appeared to me that this was sound advice.

Recently, however, the media has offered a different read on that piece of advice. Three of the major tech companies—Google, Cisco, Microsoft—have laid off thousands of tech workers. All of these tech workers were in the six-figure income bracket. The companies involved have blamed slowing demand, supply chain constraints, cost-saving measures, and changing technologies as the source for the layoffs.

I watched several YouTube videos featuring laid-off workers expressing their feelings about being laid off. In these conversations, I could not help but be impressed with their educational backgrounds—all attended top computer engineering universities— and their work experiences—all were loyal, made significant contributions to the company, and had advanced to top management positions.

What made these confessions foreign to me was the career path I had experienced. My career background amounted to years of training in one profession, entering that profession, and then retiring forty years later. For the most part, the profession changed little from when I entered it. What I read in the media and listened to on the YouTube videos is a job market now dominated by uncertainty. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average person will change careers 5-7 times during their working life. Approximately 30% of the total workforce will now change jobs every 12 months. All of these changes require significant retraining.

As a retired educator—teacher, principal, professor—these job market findings call into question the following axioms we educators have preached from auditorium stages and classroom lectures.

Axiom #1: The more education, the better the job.

Axiom #2: This subject is a gateway to a good-paying job.

Axiom #3: What we measure in schools aligns with real-world knowledge and skills.

Axiom #4: A school platform—rules, courses, credits, bells—aligns well with real-world working conditions and expectations.

Based on recent job market findings, the axioms we preach are woefully out of step with real-world occupational realities. The static nature of our current schooling model is opposed to developing employees who are adaptive learners who can navigate ever-changing personal, academic, social, and economic environments.

All school mission statements speak to these real-world realities but, in practice, revert to institutional goals of schooling that value telling overdoing, uniformity over novelty, accountability over responsibility, efficiency over effectiveness, control over autonomy, and competitiveness over mastery. At the turn of the twentieth century, there was a group of progressive educators who promoted a school design and pedagogy more attuned to twenty-first-century occupational demands. administrative “progressives” in urban school systems adopted a school model that was cost-efficient and accountable—the same model that our sons and daughters now attend.

If schools are serious about preparing our sons and daughters for real world occupations, they must abandon instructional platforms installed at turn of twentieth century and experiment with pedagogical models more attuned to working in a Google world. School districts that decide to part ways with an antiquated model of schooling should question how talent is treated in classrooms. Presently, talent in our nation’s classrooms is a one size fits all definition: scoring high grades in academic subjects and standardized tests. In a Google world, however, talent is broadly defined as a quality with the following attributes.

Different talents complement each other;
Any large-scale projects demand multitude of talents;
Different talents bring different and often fresh perspectives (major inventions in our century were developed by individuals at the margins of our society);
Diversity prepares societies for change.

With this expanded definition of talent in place, schools would need to rethink and reconstruct the entire test-driven subject centered curriculum. I have written a number of blogs on what that restructured curriculum would look like. Suffice it to say the “assign and assess” curriculum would be replaced with a “question and experiment” curriculum housed in a variety of learning environments that provide students with different experiences and opportunities to learn.

“Do all the even problems on page…”

September 25, 2024 by Alan Jones

The latest trend in school reform is the call by some educators to eliminate homework from the daily grammar of schooling. Alfie Kohn, in his book, The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of Bad Thing,” summarizes the research findings on the effects homework has on student achievement, which, in his words, is “all pain and no gain.” Other studies that have looked at the assignment of homework describe the social and emotional fallout that occurs in homes where parents and their children engage in the daily struggle over the when and how of completing homework assignments.

The question that is never asked is the why of the assignments. When parents, school administrators, or teachers are questioned on the why of assigning homework, they will respond with one or more of the following debunked whys of homework policies.

Homework teaches valued work habits;
Homework increases student achievement;
Homework provides the practice necessary to master skills;
Homework offers students an option to earn additional points for a higher grade.

Even when parents, school administrators, and teachers are confronted with research debunking a popular why of daily homework assignments, the practice of assigning homework has become the norm for judging effective schools and effective teaching. The only fly-in homework ointment occurred during COVID when parents observed up close and personal the mindlessness of the homework assignments their children were asked to complete. The typical homework assignment appeared to be afterthoughts at the end of class that sounded something like this: “OK, class, do all the even problems on page ____;” “That was the bell, finish reading the chapter and do the five-chapter review questions.;” “Finish the review sheet I handed out at the beginning of class.” All of these off-the-cuff assignments lack the fundamentals of a carefully designed homework assignment and, as parents noted during COVID, just appear to be “busy work” with little or no instructional value. Although the research offers mixed conclusions about the value of homework, all the research is clear about the following elements of an effective homework assignment: assignments are engaging; the purpose of the assignment is clearly understood; tasks are clearly explained; the assignment is related to course content; the product format is varied and clearly explained; the assignment asks the student to think deeply about questions that matter; assigned activities are particularly suited to the home.

I recently finished a book titled, “Standout School Leaders: Connecting the Dots.” The book is published by Corwin and will be out in March. The theme of the book is the qualities of school leaders who are not only good at managing their schools well but are also leading their schools in doing the right things. The establishment of a research-based stance on the assignment of homework is a prime example of an administrator who stands out from their colleagues in doing the right thing.

“The Reflective Practitioner Part 2: Doing the Right Things”

September 12, 2024 by Alan Jones

In Part I of this blog I summarized Donald Schön’s description of how professionals go about “getting stuff done.” His description was a significant departure from most organizational theorists who viewed the implementation function as a rational process controlled by research, plans, and strategies. Schön on the other hand viewed the process composed of continual ad hoc adjustments to what were thought of as “best laid plans.” Embedded in this ad hoc process was the function of reflection—continually assessing whether the particulars of implementation—goals, budgets, time, space, expertise, resources—were in alignment.

While Schön’s ad hoc reflection process was certainly a significant departure from most organizational theorists’ conception of implementation, it was the second part of Schön’s theory that was a radical departure: “reflection on action.”

The question that is rarely if ever asked of the implementation process is are we “doing the right things.” The charts below list the two sets of questions that administrators would posed in the process of reflecting on action. The first set of questions are philosophical in nature. Each question is not interested in the how, what, where, or who of implementation, but, rather the WHY of mission driven goals and values. Based on the answer to these reflective questions, the administrator may decide to revise the original goals and strategies of the initiative they were implementing. The revision process involves reconnecting theory to practice, which in turn, would require a rethinking of the plans of action and reframing the narratives explaining the how, what, and who of implementation.

The question remains: why do most main offices ignore asking the question: “Are we doing the right thing?” Part III of this blog will address that question.

TO REFLECT
*Why did we do this?* *Why did you try that?* *What did you expect?* *What did you get?* *What was the gap?* *What was the cause?* *What would you do differently?*

REVISE
DOING THE RIGHT THINGS
RECONNECT	Theory to Practice Practice to Strategy Strategy to Organization
RETHINK	Strategy Training Organization Assessment
REFRAME	Target Audience Practical Argument Instructional Narrative