Social discussion of CS in K-12

[George Reese <reese AT illinois.edu>]

Looking at that CAPS video again (I think Kerris had pointed me to it earlier) really makes me want to look under the hood. I think it is inspiring that they’ve created such a professional looking environment. It reminds me of what career and technical education has tried to become. But you don’t see automotive shops. You see drones. Because of the expensively looking environment and well-dressed kids one thinks “professional” and not “technical” and certainly not “vocational”.  

 

 

From: Judy Wiegand [mailto:wieganju AT champaignschools.org]
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 5:17 PM
To: Todd Lash
Cc: George Reese; ctrl-shift AT lists.mste.illinois.edu
Subject: RE: [Ctrl-Shift] FW: [New post] Is Progressive Schooling Just Around the Corner? (Part 1)

 

All,

Below is a link to the Blue Valley CAPS Program.  What I found interesting included:

·         increased opportunities to explore different interests

·         integrated, thematic approach

·         authentic experiences for high school students that mirror post-secondary

·         partnership with local business and community leaders that determined the programs of study - based on economic need for the KC area

 

Judy

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR0nqQpdvOU

 

 

From: Todd Lash
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 11:47 AM
To: Judy Wiegand
Cc: George Reese; ctrl-shift AT lists.mste.illinois.edu
Subject: RE: [Ctrl-Shift] FW: [New post] Is Progressive Schooling Just Around the Corner? (Part 1)

 

​I'd love to hear what your take away was from your visit to CAPS Dr. Wiegand.  Dr. Reese also made us aware of The Project Schoo​l in Philadelphia which looks to be operating on a very interesting model. 

 

Best Regards,

Todd

 

Todd Lash

Magnet Teaching Specialist/Instructional Coach

Kenwood Elementary School

1001 Stratford Dr. 

Champaign, IL 61821

217.351.3815

Twitter:  @Todd_Lash

The Kenwood Tech Story

 

"If your dream doesn't scare you, it isn't big enough."

#daretoshare

---

From: Judy Wiegand
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 11:18 AM
To: Todd Lash
Cc: George Reese; ctrl-shift AT lists.mste.illinois.edu
Subject: Re: [Ctrl-Shift] FW: [New post] Is Progressive Schooling Just Around the Corner? (Part 1)

 

Interesting -

A group of us were in KC two weeks ago and visited the CAPS Program.

 

Judy

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 25, 2014, at 9:52 AM, "Todd Lash" <lashtodd AT champaignschools.org> wrote:

George,

Thanks so much for sending this.  I too have been looking for other schools that might be of interest. The EPiC SChool in Kansas City might be another one​:

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article779208.html

Kansas City area’s digital-age schools hail an education revolution | The Kansas City Star

Liberty’s EPiC school and the Kauffman School in KC stand with other new school buildings that are designed to serve and anticipate the rapidly advancing world of digital learning.

Read more...

 

Also, could we please add Miriam Larson, our new librarian, to the listserv?  larsonmi AT champaignschools.org

Thanks,

Todd

 

 

Todd Lash

Magnet Teaching Specialist/Instructional Coach

Kenwood Elementary School

1001 Stratford Dr. 

Champaign, IL 61821

217.351.3815

Twitter:  @Todd_Lash

The Kenwood Tech Story

 

"If your dream doesn't scare you, it isn't big enough."

#daretoshare

---

From: ctrl-shift-bounces AT lists.mste.illinois.edu <ctrl-shift-bounces AT lists.mste.illinois.edu> on behalf of George Reese <reese AT illinois.edu>
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 9:39 AM
To: ctrl-shift AT lists.mste.illinois.edu
Subject: [Ctrl-Shift] FW: [New post] Is Progressive Schooling Just Around the Corner? (Part 1)

 

Dear Ctrl-Shifters,

 

I read Larry Cuban’s blog regularly. He’s a reliable skeptic about technology, but a thoughtful one. Most especially, he’s familiar with history of education reform movements. His latest post on progressive schooling has some links to programs we might want to investigate as we move forward.

 

-George

 

From: Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice [mailto:comment-reply AT wordpress.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2014 3:01 AM
To: reese AT illinois.edu
Subject: [New post] Is Progressive Schooling Just Around the Corner? (Part 1)

 

larrycuban posted: "My record in predictions is, at best, half-wrong and half-right. I have no special powers in looking around the corner. My record in figuring out what is cresting, what will take hold and spread and what will disappear is unenviable. Not an encouraging"

Respond to this post by replying above this line

 

 

New post on Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

 

Is Progressive Schooling Just Around the Corner? (Part 1) by larrycuban

My record in predictions is, at best, half-wrong and half-right. I have no special powers in looking around the corner. My record in figuring out what is cresting, what will take hold and spread and what will disappear is unenviable.

Not an encouraging way to entice readers to continue, I admit. Nonetheless,  let me tell you what signs I see of a possible progressive coalition emerging. This is impressionistic, to be sure, filled with guesses, occasional fumbles, and error. But there might just be something brewing politically across the country that is emerging as a  counter to the three-decade long concentration on top-down federal, state, and foundation-funded curriculum standards, testing, and accountability.

What do I mean by “progressive?’ In the decades between the 1890s and 1940s, "progressive education," was the reigning political ideology of schooling. There were two main ideas, anchored in what was then emerging as a "science of education" that spurred and divided progressives in those years. First, student-centered instruction and learning (adherents were sometimes called "pedagogical progressives") and, second, advocates of "scientific management" (sometimes called "administrative progressives" who sought to prepare children and youth to fit into work and society far more efficiently than the traditional schooling of the day. Both wings of the progressive movement cited John Dewey and his embrace of science as their source.

Educators, including many academics, administrators and researchers of the day glommed on to "scientific management." Proud to be called “educational engineers”  during these years, these progressives created lists of behaviors that principals would use to evaluate teachers, designed protocols to follow to make a school building efficient, and measured anything that was nailed down.

Academics, school boards, and superintendents–then called “administrative progressives” --adopted scientific ways of determining educational efficiency. These reformers were kissing cousins of “pedagogical progressives.” These cousins wanted to uproot traditional teaching and learning and plant child-centered learning in schools. They made a small dent but the efficiency-minded progressives triumphed politically in the early 20th century.

That efficiency-driven progressive crusade for meaningful information to inform policy decisions about district and school efficiency and effectiveness continued in subsequent decades. The current donor and business-led resurgence of a “cult of efficiency,” the application of scientific management to schooling, appears in the current romance with Big Data, evidence-based instruction, and the onslaught of models that use assumption-loaded algorithms to grade how well schools and individual teachers are doing, and customizing online lessons for students.

Even though the efficiency wing of early 20th century progressives has politically trumped the wing of the movement focused on the whole child and student-centered pedagogy, it is well to keep in mind that cycles of rhetoric--wars of words--and policy action on efficiency-driven and student-centered Progressivism have spun back-and-forth for decades regardless of which wing won in which decade. The point is that while most policymakers are efficiency driven and have succeeded in dominating public schooling for decades, that political domination has hardly eliminated educators and parents committed to holistic schooling.

Even now at the current height of efficiency-driven, top-down standards and testing, schools committed to educating the whole child have persisted (see here and here). Also consider those charter schools that label themselves as progressive (see here,  here, and here)

And on occasion, both wings of the progressive movement, contemporary "educational engineers" committed to scientific management-cum-accountability and those interested in student-centered instruction, have surprisingly merged. One example is the differentiation of high school curriculum offerings (vocational, academic, commercial) in the 1920s and the frequent efforts to differentiate (or individualize) instruction since the early 20th century (see here  and  differentiated curriculum).  That marriage of efficiency-minded reformers and  student-centered advocates occurred then and occurs now.

I see that convergence of the two historically progressive wings in online instruction touted highly today as "personalized learning" in places like The School of One, Rocketship schools, and K-12 corporate schools.  See, for example, the current glossary of personalized learning).

This convergence of efficiency driven instruction and student-centeredness has had it critics, but does represent one instance of a bottom-up push to combine student productivity and individual instruction. Is it a vanguard of a new cycle of Progressivism? Perhaps.

Part 2 will look at the political interest groups (e.g., left-of-center progressives, tea party advocates, home schooling champions, corporate leaders, teacher unions, parents, and students) that have grown in their opposition to current top-down standardization of curriculum (e.g., Common Core and national testing). I also look at the do-it-yourself or maker movement, boosters of career academies, and long-time pedagogical progressives who have continued their support of student-centered instruction and curriculum. Whether these vastly different groups can form and sustain a political coalition to alter the current standards, testing, and accountability movement, I consider in Part 2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

larrycuban | July 24, 2014 at 1:00 am | Tags: reform policies | Categories: school reform policies | URL: http://wp.me/pBm7c-2dl

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