Data sets, kids, and liberty to learn

The desire to "solve" the problems of education often elicits what could be called the "dream of the perfect data set."  The dream goes something like this: if we could somehow gather and organize all of the data we currently have we would see the solution to our educational problems.

You don't always hear the dream expressed as baldly as it is in this video, though.  In it, Jeff Edmondson, the President of Strive (an organization whose motto is "Every Child, Every Step of the Way, Cradle to Career") suggests that if we could somehow aggregate all of the data we have on kids we could set up systems that help them to full educational attainment, health, and success.

Edmondson's vision is noteworthy for two reasons:

1. it assumes that data speak clearly, and that aggregating data makes it more likely, not less, that we will understand the solutions to problems.

2. it assumes that it is OK for a person or people to look at all of the data and make decisions for the child--assigning the child a doctor, or a mentor at the moment the child needs it.

Both of these assumptions are troubling, the first because it imagines that at the individual and aggregate level, data are unambiguous, or that you can reason straight from data to a solution; the second because it proposes some sort of enormously powerful and wise organization who can implement the suggestions of data in the lives of kids.

Any parent would blanch at these suggestions, because they are false, because they propose that children in need should be open to systematic surveillance, and because they imagine that children and their families fail to make decisions about their lives based on good reasoning.

Edmondson argues near the end of his talk that it is possible to support "every child every step of the way."  Even if that were true, would it be wise?  Would children be better of because of it?  Would they be smarter?  Wiser? Healthier?  I doubt it.  I want children and their parents to make good choices as often as possible, and systems of schooling should encourage that.  But once they insist they know the right decisions, then they step beyond an educative role to something much scarier, and perhaps much less effective as well.

The power (?) of incentives in changing faculty behavior

I am at the AACU Conference in Washington DC. I spent yesterday at a pre-conference gathering of the Leadership Coalition, a consortium of 50 or so colleges working on "transformational change" initiatives, esp. those that focus on developing the whole student and ensuring a broad view of student well-being.

The Coalition has sponsored a survey of faculty to see what sort of innovations they prefer and why. They reported findings from a pilot survey yesterday. (They are doing a bigger survey using the same tool this spring.) Two interesting things:

1. 87% of faculty report changing their syllabi, and 34% report adopting a new pedagogy at least once a year. I'm not sure if this is a sign of innovation, but it does mean faculty play with the content of their courses more than their approach to teaching.

2. When asked what sort of incentives exist on their campuses to support innovation in teaching, faculty said the most common was "a culture that values excellent teaching" followed by "recognition (i.e. teaching awards)," "administrative support," and at the bottom, "course release" and "stipends". When asked what sort of incentive would get them to change their teaching, by far the two most powerful were "stipends (76% of faculty agreed)" and "course release (73% of faculty agreed)." The least influential, by far, were teaching awards (33%)

Now this second finding alone is unsurprising, even if it is a bit disappointing. (Here I will refer you yet again to two of my favorite TED talks: this one by Barry Schwartz and this one by Dan Pink both questioning the power of financial incentives to bring about positive, lasting change.) Its implication is that faculty will change their behavior, for a time, for between $500 and $3000 dollars.

But one further bit of data was more interesting: there is no correlation between the existence of stipends (or course releases) and faculty satisfaction or stress level. Nor is there a correlation between awards and satisfaction. Or, put another way, a stipend might change faculty behavior for a while, but it won't make faculty feel better about their work.

Why? Because stipends really function as a way to get faculty to temporarily change their priorities in a context where they already feel overwhelmed. But they do nothing to respond to that feeling of being swamped. (In fact, they might heighten that feeling.)

Interestingly, faculty who frequently revise their syllabi, or who adopt new pedagogies, do score higher on satisfaction. And, as the overall number of types of support for innovation increases, faculty feel more satisfied and flourish more. Why is this? Two theories (these are mine, though influenced by the conversation at the session): 1. that course revisions are signs of faculty control of their own core activities, and 2. the number of types of support for innovation is a sign that the institutional culture values the creative work of faculty.

What does this mean for people responsible for faculty development or change on campuses? Some simple but important things:

stay busy--providing lots of development options not only increases the possibility that you will influence more faculty but it also makes faculty as a whole feel like the institution values their work

start where the faculty are--find out what sorts of changes are already going on, and support them. Doing so builds on the intrinsic motivation that faculty already have. It also means that healthy faculty development will be obvious when small groups of faculty have chosen to work together (with institutional support) on topics of their own choosing. And a healthy campus culture will be when a large proportion of faculty are involved in these small groups.

Not rocket science I know. But also not general practice, which is instead characterized by a single approach to faculty development (ie workshops) and a set of initiatives that may or may not appeal broadly to faculty.

the value of intangible things

This TED Talk by ad man Rory Sutherland, is laugh-out-loud funny. (Especially good from 13:00 on). But his main point--that in a world of scarce resources, we ought to do more to increase the value of intangible things, and the intangible value of real things, is profound.

Education is currently awash in the practical --trying to demonstrate tangible value, develop real skills, create new things--programs, patents, technologies, etc. All this stuff is important, but as Sutherland points out, it may not make people happier. What is more, if its main message is about consumption (come, buy our new thing, earn more money, etc. etc.) it may be doing harm.

There are things that add intangible value to education though. Ceremonies and diplomas, for example. (If you have ever been to a graduation event of students who had to work hard, the ceremony itself is enormously important. Or visit the home of a first-generation graduate, and see the diploma in a place of pride.) And gifts--of time and books particularly. And perhaps most importantly, perspective. One of the most effective ways to deal with any current problem, personal or societal, is to be able to put it in the context of human trials.

Of course, there are anti-democratic sorts of intangible value as well. Education at Harvard is no better than lots of places for most students. But the brand itself is of huge value, and that value endures through the life of the graduate. So the challenge for educators everywhere is this--how do we increase the intangible value of education, but do it democratically, so that education has an egalitarian impact on society?

Cost, Quality, and Textbooks

I learned yesterday about a new federal regulation that will require electronic course schedules, generally posted before students register for classes, to list the textbooks that the class will require. Its purpose is to make college textbook buying cheaper for students, since they will know which books they need well before the semester begins and can get them online.

The announcement of this regulation met with some groans at a meeting I was attending. Since generally faculty don't select books anywhere near that early, the conversation went, the college will have to figure out a way to change faculty behavior. Or, we'll have to figure out how to comply with the regulation without "inconveniencing" faculty.

Sine the meeting I've been thinking about the cost/quality issue as it plays out with this regulation. We're spending a lot of time trying to change the typical relationship between cost and quality, which is that as cost goes up, quality goes up as well. So the question here is this: does this regulation, whose purpose is to reduce cost, have the potential to improve the quality of learning?

The answer is maybe. It certainly has the potential not to improve quality. It could simply have no effect on student learning. It could also have a negative effect, since by requiring faculty to select textbooks so far in advance it forces them to put content considerations will ahead of pedagogy, objectives, or student learning. The result would be a quiet shift towards instruction and away from learning.

But it might improve quality. Here is how. Let's say faculty balk at selecting textbooks 6 to 8 months before a course is taught. This natural reluctance could be the way to nudge them away from textbooks altogether. Instead of building classes around a list of books, deans, administrators, faculty developers, and other faculty could use this regulation as an incentive to build courses around problems, or open source learning, or service-learning, or any of the other activities that shift the focus away from instruction towards learning (without requiring a textbook to do it).

The result would be the creation of the right relationship between cost and quality. Cost would go down for students as they bought fewer textbooks. And quality would go up, as faculty worried less about providing canned content and more about providing a rich environment in which students can learn.