Philippine Basic Education

With the possibility of overwhelming hospital facilities and staff, it is now necessary for the US to do everything possible to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus. In the past, we have obviously made mistakes by not shutting down the main avenues through which the virus is transmitted from person to person: indoor gatherings. Early in the Fall, schools remain closed in most areas but bars, gyms, restaurants, churches and weddings continue. And in New York City, with an apparent second wave of infections, schools close doors first while bars remain open.  Current data do indicate that schools in areas where in-person learning continues do not contribute significantly to the transmission of the coronavirus. Nevertheless, at this point where every state in the country is seeing a rapid and uncontrolled rise in COVID cases, it is obviously not prudent to send our young to schools. Yet, in the county I live in, a group called OpenFCPS still clamors for students to have the choic...

It would be absurd to suggest that a legislative body can create or amend laws of nature. Yet, in education, lawmakers seem confident enough to dictate what should be taught inside a classroom. The Subcommittee on Education of the Virginia legislature is currently considering a bill sponsored by Del. Shelly Simonds that requires "each student in grades six, seven, and eight, starting in the 2025–2026 school year, to complete at least one semester-long or year-long computer science elective course or introduction to technology course." Before the election, Simonds was serving as member of the school board and before that, she was teaching Spanish in an elementary school. It is unfortunate that despite her experience as an educator, Simonds thinks a lawmaking body can serve as an authority on education. There are plenty of reasons why Virginia House Bill 694 should not be passed, and even the chief executive officer of code.org, Hadi Partovi, says "no", when asked th...

FCPSOn, the program of Fairfax County public schools (FCPS) aimed to "provide students with equitable access to meaningful learning experiences and technology to support their learning", was first introduced several years ago in some schools in Chantilly. Since then, the program has been evaluated by a team of researchers from the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins. In their most recent evaluation, the researchers conclude, "Guaranteed access to a personal computer has succeeded in “leveling the playing field” among students of varying socio-economic backgrounds, learning interests, and needs". FCPSOn is scheduled to be implemented in all middle schools starting next school year. CoveringTheCorridor  reports that in the proposed budget, $4.0 million would be used for this expansion. One of my son's teachers in middle school was therefore looking forward to next year when each and every student in her French class would have access to a ...

Information nowadays is literally at our fingertips. Back in 1997, Jan Hawkins  lamented the fact that schools were trailing behind in the internet revolution. She imagined all of the compelling opportunities for both students and teachers provided by advances in educational technology. She indeed saw technology only as a tool, reminding that we needed to use it intelligently, but she did not foresee how technology could be used to destroy truth and therefore society. For several years, I worked in helping establish classrooms with computers and internet connectivity in elementary schools in the Philippines. At that time, I knew that it was important that these new avenues for both information and communication are vetted. Yet, what often caught the interest and time of both students and teachers are social sites and information sources that are hardly trustworthy. And fast forward to present days, the situation has become more dire. Without the prohibitive cost of printing and...

We all want our students to become engaged in their learning. Martin and Torres of the National Association of Independent Schools wrote , "Engaged students are more likely to perform well on standardized tests and are less likely to drop out of school. The conditions that lead to student engagement (and reduce student apathy) contribute to a safe, positive, and creative school climate and culture." So I was pleasantly surprised yesterday afternoon to see my daughter's teachers this coming school year in our front yard. The school decided this year that its staff would be visiting their students and families before classes begin. The school calls it the "Community Walk". I was not the only who was impressed, another parent clearly was, as shown on a Facebook post. Certainly, there are a number of ways to increase student engagement. Getting the children excited right at the beginning of a new school year with a "Community Walk" is definitely a st...

Chalkboards are disappearing. I no longer have one in the lecture hall where I teach General Chemistry. A couple of years ago, Kim Kankiewicz wrote in the Atlantic : "At a cost of up to $5,000 per classroom, schools invest far more in installing interactive whiteboards than in training teachers to use them." The training is necessary since an interactive whiteboard is supposedly so much more than just a white board on which we could use markers with different colors. Yes, we can project images on it. And with various software, make it interactive. Unfortunately, studies show that  "interactive whiteboards have not raised the levels of pupils’ achievement and do not necessarily impact the quality of classroom learning." One of the few classrooms at Georgetown that have a chalkboard While the rest of the world are replacing blackboards with whiteboards, a 2017 dissertation notes that teachers in Japan are still using chalkboards. Back in 2015, it is estimated ...

Learning to read is very important in basic education. Reading and listening are ways by which we can receive information and build knowledge. How we process what we hear or read and derive meaning is comprehension. How well an individual can visualize the text is important in both engagement and comprehension especially with children who are just beginning to learn to read.  Experiments performed decades ago by Brooks decades ago have shown "a conflict between reading verbal messages and imagining the spatial relations described by those messages." Clearly, connecting reading and imagination does not occur readily. Like other children, my son and daughter like seeing pictures in the books that they read. I likewise enjoy reading cartoon strips. Who doesn't? Illustrations help. With the internet and television, these illustrations can be animated. That makes it even more attractive. Recent research , however, shows that with regard to helping children with language proce...

I had a chemistry professor in Ateneo who taught me not just chemistry but also some nuggets of wisdom. Back then, rallies against the Marcos administration were widespread. This professor reminded me that sincerity was never enough. Competence was equally necessary. Sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity were dangerous. With this reminder, he also cited a strip from Charlie Brown, "How can we lose when we're so sincere?" Aquino obviously had made serious errors during his administration. Without careful vetting, Aquino appointed a Chief Justice to the Supreme Court that later would be ousted by a quo warranto  petition. Aquino also rushed a mass vaccination program against Dengue, disregarding the proper protocols and ignoring the advice of experts. And in basic education, Aquino plunged the nation into a new K-12 curriculum without careful preparation and analysis and with total disregard for the resources necessary. Above copied from The Comics Section ...

It was Marc Prensky who first made this bold statement in 2001: Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach... ...It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of their interaction with it, today‟s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors... ...What should we call these “new” students of today? Some refer to them as the N-[for Net]-gen or D-[for digital]-gen. But the most useful designation I have found for them is Digital Natives. Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.... To this, George Couros provides us something to think about, "“Kids are sooooo much better with technology than adults are”? Yes, many kids have never known anything BUT a world with iPhones and YouTube, but the same adults have lived in that world the same amount of t...

With the arrival of computers, smart phones, and the internet, there was great optimism that technology could finally enhance learning. People easily bought the idea that students would learn better with these new tools and the world wide web was introduced to classrooms all over the globe. With available data, one could now examine if indeed learning had been improved by computers. And the clear answer is "no". Students are in fact performing poorer in both reading and mathematics with the advent of technology in classrooms. (Please see a previous post on this blog right after the OECD study was published: " Technology Can Amplify Great Teaching But Not Replace Poor Teaching ") In Students, Computers and Learning , the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development)   reports that basic literacy and numeracy skills must come first before students are able to benefit from technology. The use of computers and smart devices both inside and outside the...

Jane Wakefield of BBC  wrote two years ago an article " How to avoid 'death by powerpoint' ". She listed several images that one should avoid putting into slides. The list she shared was made based on opinions of several powerpoint professionals. These images are: "cogs, images of people holding hands around a globe, stacked pebbles, thumbs up, archery targets (with optional arrow), jigsaw piece being fitted into puzzle, businessperson poised to, run a race, handshakes, rosettes, and groups of businesspeople staring intently at a monitor". Of course, overused images are not the only reasons why a powerpoint presentation can become a disaster. Addition of technology to learning can only be positive if it is done right with cognitive principles in mind. Above copied from BBC News Richard Mayer enumerates various principles one should consider in multimedia presentation. These principles are all based on evidence. The list is nicely summarized in   a chap...

The Trump administration is clearly on a path of drawing policies and taking actions that simply ignore evidence. Its withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement is one recent example. Defending this decision, Trump cites a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that estimates how much of an effect on global climate full compliance to the Paris agreement would have. Trump stresses that the effects are smal although one of the authors of the study, Erwan Monier ,  clearly states:  “ The Paris agreement is certainly a step in the right direction, but it is only a step. It puts us on the right path to keep warming under 3 C, but even under the same level of commitment of the Paris agreement after 2030, our study indicates a 95 percent probability that the world will warm by more than 2 C by 2100.” On basic education, the situation is more or less the same. Trump and his education secretary Devos are likewise championing virtual charter schools. Here, evi...

In a previous post on this blog, Do Computers Affect the Social Development of Our Children , a working paper by Fairlie and Kalil has been highlighted. Their findings show that computers do not negatively impact a child's social development. Children who use computers are equally likely (sometimes even more) to interact with others face to face. For younger children, there remains a concern on whether screen time is bad or good. There are obviously benefits to introduce young children to the use of technology. The question is whether there is a price to pay. Screen time right before bedtime is already known to affect sleep . The blue light from the screen interferes with the normal clock that our body uses to induce sleep. Now, there is a study that screen time in general during the day is correlated with less sleep time at night. The study, published in Nature , comes from a survey of more than 700 families in the United Kingdom. Their findings is summarized as follows: ...

Our children maybe spending less time playing outside because of computers. We are concerned that due to screen time, our children are perhaps spending less time with their peers. The lack of face-to-face interactions due to time spent alone on a computer may lead to children not developing socially. We even see the warning signs in social media. These, however, are only our own fears. It is important to look at the evidence. And the latest research actually shows that these concerns are unfounded. Above copied from Imgur In a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research ,  Robert W. Fairlie  and  Ariel Kalil  find that children who have access to a computer "are more likely to report having a social networking site, but also report spending more time communicating with their friends and interacting with their friends in person." In addition, "There is no evidence that computer ownership displaces participation in after-school activities such as ...

Resources are indeed important in delivering quality basic education. Those of us who have given to poor students in schools recognize right away and unmistakably the immense gratitude and excitement we receive from beneficiaries. How we help can also come in different flavors. It could be "high touch" where we sacrifice our own time and spend considerable effort to help educate or it could be "low touch" where we simply provide tools that may help students to learn. Either way, the response is particularly positive, from students, their parents and teachers. Whether what we have contributed is effective or not, however, remains to be addressed. We can easily make students smile. Making students learn more is a different question. Lynch and Kim at Harvard recently reported a study examining the effects of a "low touch" intervention. They provided free subscriptions to an online math lesson and a laptop to poor children. More than 200 students (which inc...