Recent Posts
|
|
The Arts and UDL: What General Education Can Learn from the Margins
by Don Glass on April 12 |
|
|
Deeper Learning and the Common Core
by Robert Rothman on April 1 |
|
|
Universal Design for Learning and Improving Education for Incarcerated Youth
by Joanne Karger on March 20 |
|
|
The Power of Parents
by Michael Sadowski on March 4 |
|
|
Stand Up or Bystand? New Insights on Bullying
by Silvia Diazgranados Ferráns and Robert L. Selman on February 11 |
More from Harvard Education Publishing Group
- Nine Ways the Common Core Will Change Classroom Practice
- The Poverty Gap
- Teachers Writing It Their Way
Binding Education Science to the Practice of Teaching
by Gary Thomas on May 24, 2012
I can't remember when people first started talking about “what works.” Was it 15 years ago? Whenever it was, it’s probably time to reconsider our espousal of this enticing idea.
If I am looking for a new vacuum cleaner, I am certainly going to be interested in what works. And I’ll be guided by the consumer association assessments of different products’ efficiency and reliability.
If, however, I am thinking of purchasing something more significant than a vacuum cleaner—such as a car—I’ll be interested in more than simply knowing what works. I’ll be interested in how the car looks, how much it can carry, how comfortable it is, how much fuel it consumes, its impact on the environment, and much more. All of these considerations will make my decision not simply a matter of what works, but also a determination of what works for me.
In yet more important situations, such as friendship, the notion of what works becomes even more questionable. I don’t actively go about choosing who “works.” Friendships live and grow. It’s not as if I can select my friends from a group of people somewhere who would “work.”
Teaching is a bit like this. We grow into the teachers we are, and we cultivate the teaching personalities that suit us. Something that works for me may not work for you. It seems to me that this individuality really marks the landscape of our inquiry in education.
In examining our work—in researching it and analyzing it—I think that we have lost sight of this. There has been a lot of talk recently of a “scientific” approach to education research. Science is wonderful and I’m all for it. But the science being promoted reflects a folk view of science: big datasets, lots of clever formulae, and certainty. Surely science isn’t necessarily like that. The methods of science are flexible enough to answer the questions posed in any given field: there is no overarching scientific method.
A science of education inquiry should reflect the reality of the education endeavor, binding itself intimately with practice and enabling reflection on individual methods. Our shared understandings of such practice lie at the heart of our inquiry, and we should strive to forge a new science of education based on these understandings.
This blog post continues the conversation from the Harvard Educational Review article “Changing Our Landscape of Inquiry for a New Science of Education.”
If I am looking for a new vacuum cleaner, I am certainly going to be interested in what works. And I’ll be guided by the consumer association assessments of different products’ efficiency and reliability.
If, however, I am thinking of purchasing something more significant than a vacuum cleaner—such as a car—I’ll be interested in more than simply knowing what works. I’ll be interested in how the car looks, how much it can carry, how comfortable it is, how much fuel it consumes, its impact on the environment, and much more. All of these considerations will make my decision not simply a matter of what works, but also a determination of what works for me.
In yet more important situations, such as friendship, the notion of what works becomes even more questionable. I don’t actively go about choosing who “works.” Friendships live and grow. It’s not as if I can select my friends from a group of people somewhere who would “work.”
Teaching is a bit like this. We grow into the teachers we are, and we cultivate the teaching personalities that suit us. Something that works for me may not work for you. It seems to me that this individuality really marks the landscape of our inquiry in education.
In examining our work—in researching it and analyzing it—I think that we have lost sight of this. There has been a lot of talk recently of a “scientific” approach to education research. Science is wonderful and I’m all for it. But the science being promoted reflects a folk view of science: big datasets, lots of clever formulae, and certainty. Surely science isn’t necessarily like that. The methods of science are flexible enough to answer the questions posed in any given field: there is no overarching scientific method.
A science of education inquiry should reflect the reality of the education endeavor, binding itself intimately with practice and enabling reflection on individual methods. Our shared understandings of such practice lie at the heart of our inquiry, and we should strive to forge a new science of education based on these understandings.
This blog post continues the conversation from the Harvard Educational Review article “Changing Our Landscape of Inquiry for a New Science of Education.”
Comments:
| Jun 5, 2012 08:19 AM |
The notion of reframing the "what works" approach to education at the moment would benefit from the work of Stuart Firestein who teaches a course called "Ignorance" at Columbia University. Firestein invites interdisciplinary faculty to take up learning questions based on what we don't yet know--and in defining this ignorance--set about to more fully explore what we seek to learn. Firestein is particularly critical of the 8lb textbooks that students master in place of generating their own questions and a deeper knowledge set. There are many parallels to the work of Ellen Brantlinger in her critique of the "Big Glossies" used in special education that likewise rob newly certified teachers of the development of a disposition to question, reflect, and accept ambiguity in their practice. To tackle the uniformity of thought that is produced in teacher preparation today will be a multi-pronged effort that may be well served by exploring our "ignorance" for the pure joy of discovering what we really want to know as an educator.
– Linda Ware |
| Jun 5, 2012 12:21 PM |
This article reinforces my belief that teaching is both a science and an art. Using the tools of scientific inquiry can certainly help us understand how children learn and how classroom practices may either impede or accelerate that learning. Skillfully applying those practices, however, is an art, no different than a painter bringing his brush to the canvas or a woodcutter carving with his knife. Teachers who understand this are those who create positive, nurturing environments through their own reflection of "what works".
– Rudy Barreda |
| Jun 5, 2012 02:43 PM |
Yes, this folk view of science you mention goes against the supposed valuing of diversity everyone keeps touting. Expecting to find "certainty" in a field that centers on human relationships is just not realistic. The "scientific" approach, unless it can reflect the experience of the individual practitioner, will be left on the wayside.
– Suzanne Stolz |
| Jun 6, 2012 09:39 AM |
The most powerful and inspirational point for me is the insistence that an authentic educational science must be based on recognition of the 'messy' personal attempts of individual teachers to solve particular and local issues to nurture, support and improve teaching and learning for all students. The solutions are fragile, temporary, develop from professional knowledge and a passionate concern to support individuals. A science of educational inquiry that recognises the pedagogical power of these individual stories offers hope to new teachers who struggle to dare to act upon what they see and know.
– Sue Snelgrove |
| Jun 7, 2012 06:10 PM |
The scientific approach to "what works" in education that Thomas discusses also leads to teacher preparation programs that focus on a narrow view of what leads to a "good" practitioner, often little more than being able to follow a scripted recipe for instruction. Reading Thomas's full piece and reflecting on my own work in teacher education, I am reminded of Heshusius's (1989) description of "accusations of fuzziness" against those who do not privilege the scientific method. Many of the teachers in my courses have expressed emotions from discomfort to outrage when asked to use constructivist and critical reflection tools, and cannot veer from the idea of "getting it right" in their practice-- many are resistant to the messiness and the relational aspects of the practice/art of teaching, which Thomas and previous commentors reference.
– Emily Nusbaum |
| Jun 8, 2012 05:34 AM |
Thanks for these comments. Yes, it's the messiness of life - the texture of the stuff we're interested in that gets ironed out of the folk science view of education inquiry. It is, in the immortal words of that well known epistemologist Donald Rumsfeld, "the things we don't know we don't know" on which our focus should fall, and this ties in with the ideas of Firestone. Thanks for the link to this, Linda.
– Gary Thomas |
| Jun 9, 2012 08:14 AM |
This is a great topic--and of interest and concern to educators of all shape and form. Beth Ferri analyzed the "What Works" Federal webpage in relation to special ed. and while lots of things are listed, only two had sufficient "evidence" of working--and the rest were filled with caveats, and had little or no proof. There's so much that depends on any method or instructional approach to work. I think it's misleading to use the word science (as it is currently deployed) in this manner, unless it is explicitly redefined to be much more expansive. Using the discourse of "Science" (capital S, unquestioned, a bit like God) has allowed movements and governmental agencies to frame policies that reinforce notions of teaching as a script, a technical endeavor, a deskilled, non-reflective rote task. Simultaneously, I don't want to diminish science, and all that it has helped us understand. It is simply one way of coming to know the world, and cannot exist in a vacuum or culture-free context. It's the mingling of broadly defined, creative scientific approaches within fully recognized, layered cultural contexts (such as classrooms) that help us better understand what can be known, as well as our limitations of knowing. Teacher should not primarily conceive of themselves as unquestioning stat(e)isticians, i.e. workers of the state. Without romanticizing (as I know folks have to pay the rent), I have found most beginning educators have a strong, humanitarian grounding. This is what I see being challenged during their enculturation to current educational systems.
– David Connor |
| Jun 9, 2012 02:26 PM |
The current fixation on narrowly defined scientism within education and the tendency to ignore the failures of standardized curricula, practices, and testing can also be seen in terms of political agendas and the maintenance of regimes of power.
It is clear that limiting teachers to following recipes undermines their ability to practice "informed reflection," discredits knowledge developed at the individual and community levels, and undermines their ability and discourages their attempts to develop deeper understandings. It is also evident that reducing teachers to functionaries or lab assistants who carry out procedures and processes determined and developed at a distance renders their practice unresponsive to day-to-day needs and circumstances. By denying teachers the poetics of practice and reducing them to bookkeepers, we strip them of their ability to respond to local circumstances and individual needs and therefore to be effective teachers. It seems obvious that teachers should be empowered to follow their inspiration and deploy their creativity and imagination and it defies logic to believe that de-professionalizing teaching and teachers and diluting practices would improve the quality of education. Of course, all of this appears counter intuitive and counterproductive. Therefore, we can assume that there are agendas beyond the interests of teaching and learning and teachers and learners. To disempower and undermine the status of teaching and teachers is part of a political agenda. One tool of this agenda is to manufacture a crisis around education, which becomes political fodder to be turned into political advantage. The politics of crisis require easily identifiable causes and solutions. Teachers and education in general have become the problem and science and technical management the solution. Teachers are villainized and "generalizable"and quantifiable data become uncomplicated props that can be used both to support "solutions" to the "crisis" and further discredit teachers. The use of "scientific" data to establish "objective" standards and criteria and define "what works"is, thus, an act of political expediency, which plays to the anti-intellectual current within American society. Yet the drive to tame education by producing quantifiable data that will allow technical management appears logically inconsistent with the neoliberal mantra of trusting the vagaries of markets. Letting the market have free range over our economy may appear inconsistent with centralized control over education. Yet, recognizing the business and financial interests that support the neoliberal project explains the desire to free markets (and free marketeers) and also explains the desire to control the education of future workers and prospective customers. In addition, referencing "science"over teacher practices and knowledge serves another purpose. It functions to reproduce professional hierarchies. Allowing data and resultant theory to bubble up from below (classroom/school level) would mean distributing authority and loosening control. Relying on teachers' observations and intuition would be intolerable to those whose jobs are maintained on the basis of quantifiable and therefore "irrefutable" evidence of success. To empower teachers to trust their observations and their intuition to develop organic theory from which to base practice would be unacceptable to those who stake their authority and their jobs on their abilities to control and manage practice and consequently take credit for increased productivity. – chris Hale |
| Jul 8, 2012 10:22 PM |
In educational leadership we evaluate teachers on their reflective practices, however rarely do we, as you said, enable 'reflection on individual methods.' Some of the main obstacles are our shared mis-understandings of what works and the propaganda that consumes us. Yes, science is a good thing... but I do want to go up the new Bloom's ladder and create. So I will continue to explore what I don't know and learn more about how to question what I think I know.
– Andrea Dinaro |
| Jul 24, 2012 04:30 AM |
These comments are all fascinating and it is interesting that you have focussed on the 'science' aspect.
I guess my starting point in writing this article was a certain irritation, not to say resentment, about the way that the word 'science' was being expropriated by a constituency of folk who took a particular (if not to say peculiar) view about education and teaching. 'Science' (equals progressive, systematic, dynamic, foolproof knowledge, etc - i.e. the science of the popular mind) was(is) being hi-jacked to support THEIR stance on the way that teaching should be. I wanted to point out that science doesn't always, or even usually, conform to the model they imagine. It's much looser, more creative and serendipitous than they suggest. It often uses detailed study of the particular case as a means of progressing, and yet such a reflective, deliberative process is downplayed in their discourse - somehow it is seen as inferior. It's not inferior: it is at the heart of all science and it characterises the best our own inquiry in education. We should find ways of developing and cultivating this kind of inquiry rather than dismissing and ditching it. – Gary Thomas |
| Dec 14, 2012 04:38 PM |
My problem with this article and the comments made regarding it is that no one seems to have any idea what science is. I find this also true throughout the educational community as a whole. Everyone is anxious to appropriate the moniker of science to defend their own positions while at the same time condemning those who hold different views as being excessively scientific or using the wrong kind of science. The author of the article himself clearly reflects this view.
I will not attempt to provide a comprehensive defense of science in this reply, but let me just say that you are right to suggest that social sciences and education are far more complex (messy to use your expression) than physics or chemistry and that this complexity does effect the outward appearance and apparent utility of science in these different fields, but it does not change how science works. Also, the concept that the scientific method is fungible does not mean that people are free to do whatever they please and by any means that whim or intuition lead them. Any method, to be scientific, must still be grounded in objective empiricism, repeatability and verification. When we veer away from that we simply succumb to being driven by hunches, subjective rationalizations, cultural biases and wishful thinking. One may try to dress these up by using more positive sounding phrases such as experience, cultural sensitivity, intuition, tradition and so forth, but we know from history that depending on these as guides has resulted in some of the worst teaching practices recorded. The greatest objection that seems to be leveled at science in your article and in the replies of your readers is the belief that science is prescriptive in nature, that scientifically driven education reduces teachers to automatons caring out hard wired programs. This is a misunderstanding by those who believe science inevitably leads to scripted and inflexible procedure and a misuse of science by those who actually try to apply science in this way. Science is informative, not prescriptive. Science does not threaten the craft of teaching, but allows the teacher to make informed decisions. Just as science does not tell us how to build an aircraft, it simply constrains the engineer to what is possible, science does not tell a teacher how to teach, but only grounds their decisions in an objective reality. There are many ways to teach as there are many ways to build an aircraft, but none can do so by defying reality as revealed by science. My fear is that science is so universally misunderstood throughout the educational community and there has developed such a strong and unjustified hostility toward it that education may not be willing to allow itself to benefit from what scientific practice can bring to it. Your article does little to dispel this hostility and does much to confirm and justify the mistrust already present in their minds. Throughout your article you claim to not be hostile toward science, yet you make it clear that the only science you are not hostile toward is a science of your own construction which bears no resemblance to actual science. Simply because you justly criticize other bad science does not validate your own science. Regardless of the fact that the above few sentences appear argumentative, I do, in fact, understand your motivation. Science, as you have seen it practiced, has failed and failed miserably. Your problem is not that you do not correctly identify failure, but that you take the practitioners at their word that they are practicing science and in turn blame their science for the failure. And then, rather than recognizing the science as bad, you make the mistaken assumption that it is simply the wrong kind of science and go about constructing a "new" science. There is no need for a "new" science, only a better understanding of what science really is. My advice is to begin by trying to understand the structural importance of theory (not the predictive nature) and how theory ties things together, and to concentrate on scientific methods as a means of validating information, not creating information. That would be a start. – Tim Sites |
Submit your comment
The opinions expressed here do not reflect the opinions of the Harvard Education Publishing Group or the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Harvard Education Publishing Group is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by guest bloggers.
