EDUC 6809 - Weekly Reading 10

This post is written in response to the ISTE 2012 Tuesday Keynote featuring Dr. Yong Zhao


(Dr. Zhao takes the stage around the 24 minute mark)

His Argument

“Test Scores are seductive but don’t lead to real education”

- Dr. Yong Zhao

Dr. Yong Zhao argues that standardized curriculum and national assessments stifle creativity and entrepreneurship, which he believes to be the engine that drives economical growth and innovation. He uses China, and the rest of Asia, as an (convincing) example. His presentation makes a powerful case that those countries may be winning the assessment/standardization battle but losing the business/innovation war.

Do I agree?

Dr. Zhao states that technology has been misused as a way to improve test scores and this is because the focus of education reform has been place on assessment standards. I agree with his argument.  I believe with less focus on high stakes assessments, students would be better prepared for the 21st Century workplace. With a new focus, technology could then be better utilized and the potential for creativity, critical thinking and innovation could exponentially increase.

 I think technology is currently being over-emphasized but under-utilized. There has been a lot of emphasis on technology in education lately, unfortunately, the education system is still struggling to figure out what to do with it. As evidenced by the case studies I and my fellow students created this semester, in-school technology use is limited at best. My fellow student, Abigail Hayhurst writes about in-school computer use in her case study about 14 year-old “Jane:”

“The computers are used for traditional assignments. Students take benchmark assessments and conduct research for writing papers.” 

Abigail concludes, as I do, that “There is nothing innovative of 21st century about these practices.” (Hayhurst, 2013).

"Know where you are going"

- Dr. Yong Zhao

Dr. Zhao uses the example of China (to good effect) to illustrate the folly of assessment tests. He speaks of the Chinese economic transformation from “cheap labor to knowledge driven, innovation driven” and uses statements from Chinese leaders to claim “they don’t think their system can do it.” Dr. Zhao believes that China’s rigorous, standards driven, educational system stifles the skills necessary for innovation and entrepreneurship. The implication is: an increase in standardization will result in a similar stifled environment that would be detrimental to the future of our students (and our world!).

In the U.S, focus on standards have been increased. This is true even in the college admissions programs. A Policy Research brief produced by the National Council of Teachers of English, called Writing Now (2008), states:

“research shows that these high-stakes timed-writing samples are often ineffective or incomplete indicators of student ability and capability for college work. Misuse and misunderstanding of the results of standardized tests of writing is common, which may lead to inequalities in admission to colleges and graduate programs, especially for traditionally underrepresented groups.”

Assessments really don’t tell you anything about the success of students in the workplace either. If that was the case, Chinese and other Asian students would be better represented in the business field. According to the information presented in Dr. Zhao’s presentation, Asian students represent 15 - 25% of Ivy League students, but only account for 2% of the total board seats of Fortune 500 companies.

A similar comparison can be made in the paper "Reading by Design: Two Case Studies of Digital Reading Practices" (2009) about the students who were extremely capable of creating out-of-school writing, but didn’t do well on assessments. Take, for example, “Peter” who was a capable student when it came to new literacy practices while reading the digital text "Naruto", but performed poorly in traditional, print-based, school reading assessments:

Jennifer (the researcher) was impressed with his advanced vocabulary and in-depth appreciation of content in the series and found it difficult to reconcile his poor reading scores with Peter’s knowledge and understanding of Naruto’s storyline and plot.” (Rowsell & Burke, 2009).

"Creativity can’t be taught but can be killed”
-Dr. Yong Zhao

As evidenced by China, focusing on standardization is a main determent to innovation and creativity. In “Multimodal Literacies: An Introduction” the connection between creativity and innovation is further explored.

"We know that when people are actively engaged with inquiry, have a desire to learn new things, and try out different digital, visual, musical, spatial, dramatic (and so on) tools and techniques, they have the potential to say and do things that we have never before imagined."

This goes hand in hand with Dr. Zhao’s final thoughts about student autonomy. One way he contends to increase this crucial component is to enhance student strengths and talents.

“Every Talent is useful.” 

- Dr. Zhao

The policy research brief “Adolescent Literacy” (2007), promotes a student-centered classroom environment to engage learners:

“Providing student choice and responsive classroom environments with connections to “real life” experiences helps adolescents build confidence and stay engaged

Furthermore, the brief goes on to say:

“Teachers often devalue, ignore or censor adolescents’ extracurricular literacies, assuming that these literacies are morally suspect, raise controversial issues, or distract adolescents from more important work. This means that some adolescents’ literacy abilities remain largely invisible in the classroom.” 

I suspect the “more important work” this may refer to has to do with the pressure to raise test scores. Talent comes in many forms, and it typically manifests itself in out-of-school activities. Providing student choice and responsive classroom environments with connections to “real life” experiences helps adolescents build confidence, creativity, critical thinking and engagement - which lead to student autonomy.

"A real good education is one that helps every individual child to maximize their potential." 

- Dr. Yong Zhao

Technology should be utilized to enhance student strengths, foster individual talents and build confidence in a student. Using technology to teach new literacy skills and as tools for students to create multi-modal products that showcase their learning is one way to do this. These skills, paired with internet technology allows students to participate in a global dialogue. In this way, technology can truly be used to grow creativity, critical thinking, innovation and global participation required for the 21st Century.

Sources:

Hayhurst, A. (2013). Media ecology case study: Jane (the social bug). Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZCynN5JiPaqasztPAvWPdCRHLTXmgD26E5e57rUB2Fo/edit

National Council of Teachers of English. (2008). Writing Now. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Magazine/Chron0908Policy_Writing_Now.pdf

National Council of Teachers of English (2007). Adolescent Literacy. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEfiles/Resources/Magazine/Chron0907AdLitBrief.pdf

Rowsell, J., & Burke, A. (2009). Reading by design: Two case studies of digital reading practices. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy ,53(2), 106-118. doi: 10.1598

Sanders, Jennifer and Albers, Peggy. Multimodal Literacies: An Introduction. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ZnRBedCgj_IJ:https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Books/Sample/32142Intro_x.pdf+are+literacies+and+Discourses+used+interchanably&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjE9pBd2JmN_g_xuDVosAj01ImYkr6u-oyjriG0tREXG8fzwbyeuhcmDw0rrbTA1rug-bgizHwuiUlocJcQwdvcCiPOxZYWVExNgQ8BmulksyeRUcUX4LJmfxLlw7e8UTdG2TuT&sig=AHIEtbSZ7RHTNL_Rfe2bglUQRg9zzCD2JA

ISTE 2012 Tuesday Keynote Featuring Yong Zhao (Video file). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKXeNKsjoMI