Social discussion of CS in K-12

["Pokimica, Jelena" <pokimic2 AT illinois.edu>]

Todd Rose questions our usage of averages, I think from the view of measurement (eg., of ability). Essentially, averages work for group understanding, but not so much for individual understanding, as he notes. Being in educational neuroscience and having done brain scans/imaging, he could "see" it so vividly, as well. 

How to get to this understanding of the individual student (e.g, during admissions, or when teaching, or assessing/grading that student in any way, etc.) is the real catch and because we are all so unique, there can be that many ways in which we operate when learning, so how can we capture all that? I see technologies (because they are so fast) helping teachers to this end / "attuning to" each student. Of course it is still not to be devoid of human interaction. And new software programs would probably have to be developed to help us get to this end because of so many individual uniquenesses. The context is important, too. Students can come from various backgrounds. 

All in all, it seems that Mr. Rose is not against statistics or averages globally speaking (he is not for a complete eradication of it), it's just that he is not for the usage of "group" statistics when in fact talking about individuals. Then they get "lost" in the average and the true uniqueness of each is missed. 

~ J
Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 16, 2016, at 8:35 AM, Israel, Maya <misrael AT illinois.edu> wrote:

Dear all,

I can’t remember which of you I spoke with about this book, but I am currently reading a book called “The End of Average” by Todd Rose. He’s one of the UDL proponents at Harvard and writes both from his academic research as well as experiencing failure when he was in school (he dropped out of school with failing grades in high school and somehow made a remarkable recovery and is now a Harvard professor of neuroscience). NPR just did an interview with him, so I thought I would share the link with you.

In any case, I’m only 4 chapters into the book, but I find that it is written in a conversational style, which I appreciate and it articulates why Universal Design for Learning is so critical for academically diverse learners. I would love to chat with folks once they have either read the article and/or the book. All of you who know me well know that UDL is at the heart of my research and although it is not a perfect instructional framework and simplifies what we know about the brain greatly, it does provide a powerful framework that teachers as well as technology and curriculum developers can use to meet the needs of a much wider range of learners than are typically met in traditional classrooms, even those who use differentiation. 

Here’s the link to the NPR interview: http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/02/16/465753501/standards-grades-and-tests-are-wildly-outdated-argues-end-of-average?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160216

I hope you have a wonderful day. Take care,

Maya

Maya Israel, Ph.D.
Department of Special Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

276B Education Building
1310 South 6th Street
Champaign, IL 61820
misrael AT illinois.edu 
http://education.illinois.edu/sped/people/misrael