Lessons to learn in education: Art Robinson, Next Generation Science Standards, Standard Based Grading

Lessons from Dr. Robinson and homeschooling

I highly recommend that any of you interested in your children's education go read the story of Art Robinson.  His wife prepared to homeschool their kids and be their teacher.  Then she died unexpectedly leaving Art alone to do it.  Being a professor he couldn't be their teacher, but instead provided an example of study and work and provided the discipline needed to keep them on task doing their own work while he stayed in the same room with them and did his work.  The results that he, or rather his children, obtained are phenomenal.  For the full story, go to robinsoncurriculum.com and look for the section on the left titled "The Robinson Story" or just click here http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/view/rc/s31p54.htm

Being a scientist myself I have been inspired by Dr. Robinson's commitment to mathematics.  Like him I believe that mathematics provides the needed foundation for physics (and computer programming).  Then physics provides the foundation for chemistry.  Together chemistry and physics provide the foundation for all the complexity of biology.

Reteaching myself

Anyway, I have made mathematics a daily part of my labors as a postdoctoral fellow and started with the derivation of the volume of a sphere.  This took much longer than I anticipated because I was committed to doing it all from scratch.  This required that I return to the roots of that enigmatic number Pi which when multiplied by the radius gives the half of the perimeter of a circle which in turn can be considered the width of a rectangle of height r.  The gem I re-discovered that really convinced me that I would've done better educating myself than spending so much time in lectures was the relationship between the surface area and volume of the sphere.  The surface area is the derivative of the volume of the sphere.  These beautiful relationships were lost on me or never taught during my public schooling.  The same can be applied to the volume of the cylinder and its surface areas.  The volume is Pi*r^2*height.  The surface area of the flat top and bottom are the derivative with respect to the height and thus are Pi*r^2.  The surface are of the curved side is the derivative with respect to r and is thus 2*Pi*r*height which makes perfect sense because we know the perimeter of the circle defining the cylinder is 2*Pi*r and multiplying by the height gives the area.

After this experience I am inclined to agree with Dr. Robinson that public schools don't provide the ideal environment for children to learn rather they offer too many distractions, reward mediocrity far too often, and grade based on percentages of completed homework, participation, and other things that have little to do with a students ability to perform a given task.

There is hope even in public education: Next Generation Science Standards and Standards-Based Grading (SBG)  

Educators are waking up.  A coallition of educators from 25 states released in April 2013 the Next Generation Science Standards which combine content mastery with the much needed development of the practical skills (referred to as practices) used by scientists, engineers, and researchers in all fields.  Furthermore, the Next Generation Science Standards highlight concepts that cut across many traditionally -seperate disciplines.  This provides a great opportunity to deepen student's learning by introducing them to multiple, diverse applications of the concept.

Many teachers are also shifting to standards based grading under which students receive clear grades based on their ability to meet specific standards.  Under such systems students are empowered encouraged to try and fail and try again until they master it.  Even if students fail many times, if they master the standard (meaning they can consistently accomplish the relevant task or pass the test of the standard), there is no penalty for all the failures.  This approach

1. promotes discipline and consistent effort, 
2. provides freedom to tinker with what works best for you as a student and discover your optimal learning style
3. accepts the fact that people almost alwatys learn more from their failures than their successes
4. and rewards mastery regardless of how many failed attempts that were required to develop that mastery.

It is a sane approach.  It reflects the natural process of learning.  For example, when a child is learning to walk, their parents have to leave them on the ground so they can try.  No matter how many times they fall, the parent lets them try again, knowing they will learn.  The child is never scolded for failing, only encouraged and rewarded by the parents' enthusiasm and joy when they succeed.  Standards based grading makes so much sense compared to grading each day or weeks effort, participation, completed homework, and so on.  The goal isn't to have students who never feel discouraged or never get scraped up and decide to not try and walk today.  The goal is to help students learn and empower and prepare them for the rest of their life.  Educators must provide a place where it is safe to fail and learn.  Grades that focus on and directly reflect  students'proficiency with clearly-defined standards help create this natural learning environment.  Counting students failed attempts, low daily effort, or failure to routinely complete homework do not.  In fact such measures either lead students to rebel and think school is a bore or lead students into the false belief that their compliance with daily effort and routine homework requirements indicates that they have mastered a standard or skill.  

These grading schemes benefit zero students.  In the short-term they hurt the slow learners or incredibly innovative students who are not willing to comply to the homework or daily effort demands.  In the long-run they create "good students" who think they are incredibly well-prepared for the real-world employment because of their "good grades" but in reality have learned not how how to most efficiently gain skills and expertise but instead learned how to comply and game a system for maximum personal benefit with the minimum amount of personal effort.  I speak from both first-hand experience and from the perspective of the dozens of university professors I have interacted with over the years.  I was one of these "good students".  Let's realign grades in schools so that they reflect real ability and real standards.