Experience and Education Chapter 2

Here are my thoughts on chapter two of John Dewey's Experience and Education.

Chapter 2

The Need for a Theory of Experience

In our MCL circles we discuss creating the “ideal learning experience”.  The idea of the ideal learning experience is a reaction to our current learning environment that is dominated by “not so ideal learning experiences”.  We can list all of the learning experiences that are not ideal, but they can be summed up by the dominance of the “sage on the stage”.  Harkening back to chapter 1, we must also remember that we must not succumb to the “either-or” fallacy.  We must resist the urge to think that our job will be done in education if we create “experiences” that differ from the existing model of learning.  Dewey makes this point by saying that although “Each experience may be lively, vivid and ‘interesting’, and yet their disconnectedness may artificially generate dispersive, disintegrated, centrifugal habits” that will make education and experiences more disconnected from a student’s life.  Our challenge in the world of MCL is to NOT fall into the trap of thinking that creating any experience will automatically improve learning for students just because it is a different experience from what currently exists in our schools.

Dewey states that experiences are meaningful only when they are connected to a student’s future experience.  This is the reason that disconnected learning experiences (according to Dewey) harm the learning of students; they have no relevance to the experience (either in the present or the future) of students.  It seems to me that if we are going to have a significant impact on the arc of learning in our country, we must grapple with this idea of creating learning experiences that are relevant to the present and connected to future learning experiences of students.  We must be cognizant that a learning experience that is engaging and outside the common learning experience of today may not necessarily be any better than a traditional learning experience.  Let’s not kid ourselves to believe that just because we are creating something different, that we are creating something better.

So what is our philosophy of education?  I think it noteworthy that Dewey takes the time to say that our current system is probably philosophically agnostic and runs on the power of habits.  The habits of the system have largely gone unexamined and have morphed into a quasi philosophy.  I recently had a conversation with a well known educator who shows passion for helping kids.  As we discussed what the possibilities of education can be, he continually referred to practices that are backed by “science”.  In other words, educators need only refer to those strategies and programs that have run the gauntlet of peer reviewed “scientific” research.  There are many problems with the assumptions underlying this philosophy of scientific research, but for our discussion here, let’s concentrate on the idea that we must keep education, learning and schooling as simple as possible.  When my son was in first grade (and struggling with reading), I did not ask his teacher to mount a mini-dissertation defense to develop and justify her recommendation for helping him.  Rather, I simply asked her what she believes, in her professional experience, will help him become a better reader.  She developed a plan (that worked) based on what she knew to be right.  As we develop a philosophy of learning (and experience) let’s access the experiences and knowledge of the actual educators in the field and lets not complicate the issue by assuming educational habits are a philosophy and that “scientific” research holds the answer to creating learning experiences.

John Dewey's Experience and Education Chapter One

A good friend (and mentor) of mine, Duff Rearick, and I are reading Experience and Education by John Dewey and sharing our thoughts with each other.  We both read a chapter and then write our response to the chapter.  Our response centers on what Dewey has to say as it relates to Mass Customized Learning and creating a new learning ecosystem.  I share our writings on this blog.  Please feel free to join the conversation!

Tom's reaction to chapter One.

Chapter 1

Traditional versus Progressive Education

Recently I completed reading What Hath God Wrought: The transformation of America from 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe.  I mention this because the author refers to this time in American History as a time of a “communication revolution”.  Whether it was people marveling at the (short) 78 days it took a ship to travel from China to New York or the mind blowing speed at which the telegraph allowed communication to occur, people marveled at the improvement of the speed of communication.  I mention this because I believe we have deluded ourselves in the 21^st century to think that we live in a “special” time in which technological change is happening at a pace never equaled before in the history of mankind.  That assumption is just not true. Each stage of history American history has undergone incredible changes that has significantly impacted our society.  In other words, change is a constant and people living through it always believe the change they are experiencing is the most significant ever.   However, nothing is static.

In chapter One of Experience and Education, Dewey criticizes the educational system because society views subject matter and instruction as a static entity which has no relevance to the lived experience of students.

“Moreover, that which is taught is thought of as essentially static.  It is taught as a finished product, with little regard to the ways in which it was originally built up or to the changes that will surely occur in the future.  It is to a large extent a cultural product of societies that assumed that the future would be much like the past, and yet it is used as educational food in a society where change is the rule and not the exception” [my italics] (p. 19).

Two interesting points.  First, in 1938 when Dewey was writing this book he recognized that societies are in a constant state of change and, two, educators must not be fooled into thinking knowledge is static.  If one believes that knowledge is static, then viewing the world through what Dewey calls an  “either-or” dichotomy will help you make sense of the past but inhibits you in making sense of the present and future.

I believe educators must embrace the grey area between the “either-or’s”.  Educational reformers (I like to call them deformers) have set the narrative of education to either-or.  If you do not agree with what they want to do to education, then you are against kids because what they want to do is all that will work.  This has resulted in an intensification of the education philosophy that Dewey was speaking against: teach the standards from an approved textbook and make a curriculum that is imposed from outside the education system.  My dream for true educational transformation (and I know Duff Rearick is rolling his eyes at my use of “transformation”) starts with educators (namely teachers) working in the area between the either-or’s.  This means, like Dewey mentions in chapter One, that we understand what works and does not work in our current system and create learning experiences for students that allows the subject matter to come alive in the context of our current society.

We must create an atmosphere in schools (or whatever iteration of schools the future holds) where teachers are not imposing subject matter onto the students.  Rather, the teacher will create experiences (working with the students) that will contextualize the learning the student is attempting to understand.  The act of creating experiences versus imposing “knowledge” increases the importance of teachers in the educational system.  They are not just portals in which established knowledge is passed through to students, they use their knowledge of the subject, the student, their community and society to craft learning experiences which are meaningful.  In effect, the act of creating experiences professionalizes teachers.

Mass Customized Learning: A Quick Definition and Guide

Appalachia Intermediate Unit 8, working in a partnership with The Pennsylvania Leadership Development Center, created the Pennsylvania Mass Customized Learning Consortium last year.  The consortium is open to all organizations involved in learning throughout Pennsylvania and surrounding states.  Membership consists of those education leaders who will work to transform learning in their organizations to assure students (learners) receive learning at their learning level every day.  The concept of “Mass Customized Learning” was made popular through the work of Chuck Schwahn and Bea McGarvey in their book Inevitible: Mass Customized Learning: Learning in the Age of Empowerment.  Nationally, there are schools all over the United States implementing ideas of customized learning into their system; most notably in Lindsay Unified School District in California.  As the Pennsylvania consortium grows from our current 24 learning organizations, there is usually one basic question that leaders have as they contemplate joining with the consortium. 

Question  #1: “We already personalize and differentiate our instruction so we are already “customizing” education in our schools so why should we join with the consortium?”

            Answer: Mass Customized Learning is much more than “personalization”, differentiation” or “performance based”.  MCL has two premises:

1.     Dislodge  the industrial age model of schooling. 

2.     Become radically learner centered.

Think about the examples of customization in our world today.  If you use Facebook, Twitter or Amazon your interactive experience is customized to your likes and dislikes.  In our area of Pennsylvania you can have your coffee and sandwich selections customized to your exact taste at a Sheetz.  Technology has progressed to the point where learning leaders can now leverage the technological tools to create a customized learning environment for our students (learners).   

Mass Customized Learning advocates do not believe that we can "tinker toward utopia" (to borrow Larry Cuban's term) anymore.  Rather, we must work to create a new learning ecosystem that goes beyond the current educational system and allows learners and their families to customize their learning experience. Creating a learning ecosystem without barriers of time, space or place is essential for our learners and our society. We now live in a time and place where we can create a learning experience for all of our children that is not time based.  By “time based” I mean that students move from one grade to the next and from one concept to the next often without regard to actual learning.  It seems obvious that we should not accept an educational system that “teaches” students in “batches” based on their date of birth.  Rather, let’s create a learning ecosystem that meets every student at their level (academic, learning, social, etc) every second of every day. This is what we discuss and implement as members of the Pennsylvania mass Customized Learning Consortium.  To get a better understanding of the industrial age model of schooling, please watch the video below. 

Dual Enrollment 4.0

One of the biggest questions facing learning leaders in society today is how to create a system of learning that allows for equality in opportunities for students.  There are many ways in which learning leaders can attempt to address this issue. For example, my colleagues who advocate for a fair system of school funding are doing yeoman’s work in trying to adjust a system that is more responsive to a school and community’s needs. Besides the fiscal issues there is also a need to address equality of academic opportunity for students.  There are many facets in this area that need fixed, but the one that I am going to discuss today is equality of opportunity for college credits for high school students.  Specifically, I will discuss dual enrollment.

Dual enrollment is a program where high school students take a college class while still in high school.  This has many obvious benefits.  First and foremost, most dual enrollment credits are significantly cheaper than the credits the same student will take once they are a full time student enrolled in college. Therefore, students that have this opportunity benefit financially over those students that do not have the opportunity.  Dual enrollment models have evolved over time.  I believe the latest iteration of the dual enrollment model offers the greatest promise for poor, isolated underserved students, families and communities.

The first generation dual enrollment model was rather simple, and geographically limited.  In this model, students from high schools close to a college or university could physically take classes at the college or university and receive college and high school credit for that class.  In effect, once they passed the class, they would receive a transcript from the college and get high school credit.  This model was good for those few (very few) students who lived close enough to a college campus and/or could arrange transportation to the campus.  Unfortunately for the VAST majority of students, this model did not offer any significant improvement in academic opportunity.

The second generation of dual enrollment was a slight change from the first generation model.  In the second generation model, college professors would physically (or in some cases virtually) teach students from a high school, in the high school itself.  Again, the class would count toward high school and college credit.  This model attempted to address the lack of opportunity of the first model by having one person travel instead of a large number of students.  There are two significant drawbacks to this system.  First, the matter of geography was not really addressed.  This model still favored students and schools that were located near a college campus.  Second, in this model, if a high school did not have enough students enrolled in the class, then the class would not be offered.  Since the pool of potential students in this model is limited to the high school, most smaller to midsized high schools discovered this flaw in the system.

In the third generation of the dual enrollment model there was a significant change to address the weaknesses of the first two models.  In this model, colleges and universities would certify high school teachers and the curriculum they teach and then count that high school class as a college class.  In other words, the students will be taking the same class that they normally would in their high school schedule, except that the class will also give them college credit. This model largely addressed the problem of geography.  Geography is not a deterrent for students and staff.  In effect, any college or university that chose to do so could partner with any high school located anywhere, to offer a class that would be counted both as a college class and a high school credit.  This allows for flexibility for students, families and schools to offer a certified, high quality class that will allow students to earn a college credit.  The weaknesses in this model for those of us concerned with equality of learning opportunities is that smaller and midsized high schools will still have limited opportunities to offer a class (the pool of students to choose from is too small).  The simple math is that if there is not enough students to offer the class, then the school cannot offer it and the students lose the opportunity to take the class.

The IU8 Dual Enrollment 4.0 Model seeks to address the problem that small and midsized high schools confront by not having enough students to offer a class.  In this latest iteration of the dual enrollment model, classes are decoupled from an individual high school and offered across a broad array of high schools. Thus, the pool of potential students for a class is much larger.  In our model, students take the class in a blended format meeting face to face two or three times a semester and doing the rest of the work in an online format.  The other important aspects of the IU8 model are:

·       IU8 takes care of all of the logistics.  We have the teacher, the curriculum, the learning management system and the agreements with colleges and universities. 

·       The cost is $300.00 per class for a 3 credit course.  We believe strongly that equality of opportunity for learning experiences must not have as a barrier financial cost.  We are not happy even with $300.00 and will look to lower the cost even further in the future. 

The IU8 model of dual enrollment also gives students, families and schools flexibility in how they use the courses.  We believe that the best educational (learning) decisions are made within the context of local circumstances, thus we allow local constituents to decide how they will use the courses.  For example, a school may decide to count the class as a high school credit, or they may not count it as one of their graduation requirements.  Some schools may financially assist students in taking the class, others will not… that is a local decision (as it should be).   Students and families may decide to take the class on their own and get the transcript from the university with little or no involvement from their high school.  We believe this latest iteration of the dual enrollment model gives local schools and communities the most flexibility to customize the learning experience for students.

All models of dual enrollment are being used today to help students navigate their learning environment.  All of the models have their strengths and weaknesses and we believe that dual enrollment 4.0 offers the least amount of barriers for all students across financial and geographical landscapes.