This is the second post in a series of four looking at four questions from the book: “Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning” by E. A. City, R. F. Elmore, S. E. Fiarman and L. Teitel.
The first post looked at the question: How could use of Moodle integrated with a Khan Academy clone affect the level or content of math instruction in a classroom?
For this post I’ll be considering the question: How could use of Moodle integrated with a Khan Academy clone affect the role of the student in the instructional process?
Changing the role of the student is definitely a strength of the Khan Academy platform. The exercise dashboard provides the student with a guided pathway through math from addition to calculus. Although the content is very procedural, the student has significantly more control over their learning experience. Students can move through the content at their own pace and choose to follow all of the system’s suggestions or stray off the path and explore based on their own interests. The exercise system is mastery based and the computer patiently provides an infinite number of questions with hints. Instruction in the form of Sal Khan’s friendly voice is a click away. Effort is rewarded with points and badges, and wrong answers are corrected privately on the student’s computer screen.
Integrating the system with Moodle actually reduces the changes to the student’s role compared to a traditional classroom. The Moodle system provides a teacher controlled, step by step, topic or week oriented framework. Thus, working within a Moodle course, students are more likely to be working on the same thing as other students in the class and more likely to be working on content assigned by the teacher.
Why could this be a good thing? Isn’t the goal to affect change?
Yes, but the change has to work in the context of the classroom. Instructional Rounds discusses the concept of the Instructional Core of the classroom. “In its simplest terms the instructional core is composed of the teacher and the student in the presence of the content.” (pg. 22). From this follows Principal One of the Instructional Core: “Increases in student learning occur only as a consequence of improvements in the level of content, teachers’ knowledge and skill and student engagement.”
From the first principal follows the second: “If you change any single element of the instructional core, you have to change the other two.”
The Khan Academy framework is masterfully designed for independent learning, but adopting this completely independent student directed learning of procedural math would require a great deal of change to the other parts of the system. The addition of a Learning Management System that is oriented towards more traditional classes allows the technology to be adapted instead.
Also, having students use just the Khan Academy in a self directed manner does not seem to me to be a desirable goal. Instructional Core Principle Four is “Task predicts performance.” The task students perform on Khan Academy is solving procedural math problems. Having students be able to accurately perform math problems is a desirable goal, and one that is rewarded by the high stakes accountability systems. But in my optimistic world view no one really thinks that is the “real goal” of math education. We want students to be able to use math to solve problems, to think mathematically and use it to succeed in subjects and careers that require math.
My vision is to use the integrated technology to provide efficient instruction in procedural math and to also support deeper instruction and project based learning in the classroom. Thus the role of the student, especially during class time, should change from sitting and receiving lecture based instruction and then demonstrating procedural skills, to working collaboratively on projects to construct a deeper understanding of how to use the procedural skills they are practicing individually on the computer.
So to summarize: How could use of Moodle integrated with a Khan Academy clone affect the role of the student in the instructional process?
The first post looked at the question: How could use of Moodle integrated with a Khan Academy clone affect the level or content of math instruction in a classroom?
For this post I’ll be considering the question: How could use of Moodle integrated with a Khan Academy clone affect the role of the student in the instructional process?
Changing the role of the student is definitely a strength of the Khan Academy platform. The exercise dashboard provides the student with a guided pathway through math from addition to calculus. Although the content is very procedural, the student has significantly more control over their learning experience. Students can move through the content at their own pace and choose to follow all of the system’s suggestions or stray off the path and explore based on their own interests. The exercise system is mastery based and the computer patiently provides an infinite number of questions with hints. Instruction in the form of Sal Khan’s friendly voice is a click away. Effort is rewarded with points and badges, and wrong answers are corrected privately on the student’s computer screen.
Integrating the system with Moodle actually reduces the changes to the student’s role compared to a traditional classroom. The Moodle system provides a teacher controlled, step by step, topic or week oriented framework. Thus, working within a Moodle course, students are more likely to be working on the same thing as other students in the class and more likely to be working on content assigned by the teacher.
Why could this be a good thing? Isn’t the goal to affect change?
Yes, but the change has to work in the context of the classroom. Instructional Rounds discusses the concept of the Instructional Core of the classroom. “In its simplest terms the instructional core is composed of the teacher and the student in the presence of the content.” (pg. 22). From this follows Principal One of the Instructional Core: “Increases in student learning occur only as a consequence of improvements in the level of content, teachers’ knowledge and skill and student engagement.”
From the first principal follows the second: “If you change any single element of the instructional core, you have to change the other two.”
The Khan Academy framework is masterfully designed for independent learning, but adopting this completely independent student directed learning of procedural math would require a great deal of change to the other parts of the system. The addition of a Learning Management System that is oriented towards more traditional classes allows the technology to be adapted instead.
Also, having students use just the Khan Academy in a self directed manner does not seem to me to be a desirable goal. Instructional Core Principle Four is “Task predicts performance.” The task students perform on Khan Academy is solving procedural math problems. Having students be able to accurately perform math problems is a desirable goal, and one that is rewarded by the high stakes accountability systems. But in my optimistic world view no one really thinks that is the “real goal” of math education. We want students to be able to use math to solve problems, to think mathematically and use it to succeed in subjects and careers that require math.
My vision is to use the integrated technology to provide efficient instruction in procedural math and to also support deeper instruction and project based learning in the classroom. Thus the role of the student, especially during class time, should change from sitting and receiving lecture based instruction and then demonstrating procedural skills, to working collaboratively on projects to construct a deeper understanding of how to use the procedural skills they are practicing individually on the computer.
So to summarize: How could use of Moodle integrated with a Khan Academy clone affect the role of the student in the instructional process?
- Greater autonomy to master content at their own pace and through their own path individually.
- Classroom time spent working collaboratively doing more investigation.