In a short essay called Scapegoating Schools of Education, Penn State professor Tim Slekar poses this:

1. When did George Washington cross the Delaware?

2. Why did George Washington cross the Delaware?

Can you guess which of these questions my teacher education students know the answer to? Come on and try it. Give up? Most of them dont know the answer to either of these questions.

Why, you might ask, and how is this possible? I used to ask these questions (actually I banged my head against a wall most of the time) but I stopped a long time ago (banging my head). I now spend precious time in my social studies methods course (how to teach social studies to children) teaching future teachers the answer to these and many more questions dealing with the discipline of history.

And its not just the discipline of history civics, world history, economics, sociology, etc. Future teachers come to my methods course social scientifically illiterate.

So when they leave my social studies methods class and Arthur Levine blames me and other teacher educators for failing to prepare future teachers I wish he would do a little more research. How can I possibly help my future teachers understand and perform the pedagogical complexities needed to teach the social sciences powerfully when they come to me so unprepared?

My reactions:

1. Sympathy for Professor Slekar.

When we first started MATCH, our 9th grade math teachers faced the same issue. How am I supposed to teach algebra when the newly arrived frosh havent mastered fractions and decimals, and some cant even multiply or divide?

As a whole school, you can do something about that issue. Ann created assessments, we got tutors to backfill this, Charlie got parent buy-in for high-dosage weekend tutoring, etc.

But as an individual teacher, who probably cant change the whole institution, your charge to teach Z which presupposes kids know X, which they dont is very frustrating.

What I think education reformers dont realize is sometimes the sheer implausibility of the goal, from the point of view of a good teacher in a traditional high-poverty school where the teachers and leaders simply dont row in the same direction, is soul-crushing.

I was emailing earlier this morning with a friend who teaches at Large District School down the street. He is supposed to teach a course called Algebra 2 to a group of kids who arrive each year having failed Algebra 1.

2. What might help? Slekar writes:

In other words, future teachers come to me from other courses (not taught in schools of education) lacking any real knowledge. Maybe more disturbing is that my future teachers come to me with at least a B average (most with a 3.5 and above) in their content courses.

I wonder if the following change is possible. What if Penn State Altoonas Ed School would give a basic history entrance exam to teacher prep students? College students couldnt take the teaching courses until they passed the content courses. Period. No exceptions.

Short-term, one would expect some freaking out. Perhaps healthy freaking out. The college students would be mad. The professors of their content courses in the arts and sciences the ones that Seklar describes as doling out 3.5 GPAs to kids who know very little would feel pressure. Presumably theyd raise the bar.

Thats happened in Massachusetts in the last couple years. The concern: many elementary school teachers didnt know basic math.

So the state changed the licensing exam so future teachers needed to pass a stand-alone math section. At first, everyone went nuts, since 75% failed in 2009, the first year of the new requirement. But since then most Ed Schools have responded, I believe, in some form by teaching more basic math.

3. Wrong Villain?

Professor Slekar points to Arthur Levines critique of Ed Schools. But Levine hasnt ignored the fact that some future teachers dont know the basics of their subject. He just argues that the way to deal with this is tougher admission standards by the Ed School, so that more academically strong high school grads choose teaching. Its the leading recommendation in his report.

Still, Seklar makes an interesting point. Many Ed School critics have argued that its the regular arts and sciences departments that can be trusted to have high academic standards and future teachers should take more classes there; its the Ed Schools, say the critics, which give out the easy As. While a study has confirmed this generally, Seklar points out that, at least at some colleges like Penn State Altoona, this a shaky assumption.

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The National Center for Special Education Research now has its second director. Deborah Speece, a 27-year special education professor at the College of Education at the University of Maryland, was named to the post this week.

“Scientists who claim special education as their field of study are among the finest scholars in the country and I am eager to work with them, the special education community, and our colleagues in sister disciplines who are interested in addressing the challenges faced by children and youth with disabilities, their families, and their teachers,” Ms. Speece said in a statement.

The National Center for Special Education Research, or NCSER, is under the umbrella of the Institute of Education Sciences. It was established in 2004, when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was reauthorized. NCSER’s mission is to explore how to best design instruction to meet the needs of each child with a disability.

Aside from her work at the University of Maryland, Ms. Speece’s experience includes her work as co-editor of Learning Disabilities Research & Practice and associate editor of the American Educational Research Journal. She also worked on NCSER’s Technical Working Group for the Evaluation of Response to Intervention Strategies in Elementary Reading. She taught students with learning and behavioral disabilities in Ohio public schools.

Edward J. Kame’enui, the first commissioner of NCSER, is now a professor at the University of Oregon. He served from 2005 to 2007. Since his departure, Lynn Okagaki, who is also head of the National Center for Education Research, had filled on an interim basis. Ms. Speece’s appointment is for six years.

Bryan Cook, a special education professor at the University of Hawaii, praised her appointment.

“Dr. Speece has experience as a public school special education teacher, is widely respected for her high quality research in areas such as language and reading intervention for students with disabilities, and has managed successfully numerous federal grants,” he told SpedPro. “With the reauthorization of IDEA and [the Elementary and Secondary Education Act] looming, as well as the threat of serious budget limitations, we’ll need a devoted special educator advocating for the continued importance of special education research.”

For more on the appointment, read the Inside School Research blog.

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lynda.com’s documentary team is pleased to announce an addition to the Creative Inspirations series: bonus features. Starting this week, we’ll begin to roll out a series of extras that were produced to enhance the viewing experience of our flagship documentary series.

After release, we often screen our films for a theatre audience and bring the person featured in the documentary to the screening to be interviewed on camera. The topics discussed are frequently derived from feedback we receive from our members. These bonus features put you in the front row, and let you become inspired all over again.

After the screening, Stefan G. Bucher answered audience questions during his interview with Terry Lee Stone.

This summer, lynda.com had a special screening of Stefan G. Bucher, Designer, Illustrator, and Writer in the Ahmanson Theatre at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. After the lights came up, Stefan came up on stage to enthusiastic applause to be interviewed by Terry Lee Stone, a writer and creative strategist who teaches the business of design at Art Center. This lively discussion covers a wide range of topics and brings us up to date on Stefans most recent endeavors. Highlights include Stefans thoughts on choosing projects and whats next for the monsters! As usual, Stefan brought along his sharp wit and wonderful sense of humor.

The bonus feature can be found at the end of the table of contents on the documentary page: Stefan G. Bucher, Designer, Illustrator, and Writer.

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Last week Kyle James reminded us that the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachussets Dartmouth had just published the results of its latest study on social media use in higher ed.

With 456 interviews performed from November 2010 to May 2011 among a representative sample of 4-year institutions in the US, the findings of this study are valid within a +/- 4% range.

While they confirm some widely-shared assumptions on the state of social media in higher education, these results also reveal some surprising trends.

• According to this study, 100% of colleges and universities now use some form of social media be it blogs, Facebook, Twitter, message/bulleting boards, videoblogging, podcasting, Foursquare, MySpace, LinkedIn or YouTube. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is the most widely used by institutions as only 2% arent present on the most popular social networking platform.
• YouTube follows with an adoption rate of 86%, just before Twitter with 84% and blogging with 66%.
• Whats a bit more surprising is the jump in podcasting use compared to the previous year from 22% to 41%. I really dont understand what could explain this surge and this makes me question the reliability of this specific data point (how was podcasting defined to respondents?).

Is success in the eyes of the admissions officer?

When asked how successful institutions are with the different types of social media channels they use, more than three-quarters of the respondents reported all channels (at the exception of the dying MySpace platform) as successful.

So, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds when it comes to social media in higher education?

Not so fast.

A closer look at the results of two other recent studies, namely the 2011 E-expectations Study from Noel-Levitz and the State of Web and Social Media Analytics in Higher Education I conducted for Higher Ed Experts, raises several questions about the very rosy picture painted by the study of social media use in admissions offices.

• When only 9% of prospective students and 5% of their parents have a Twitter account according to the Noel-Levitz survey, how can 72% of the institutions see Twitter as a successful channel?
• When 66% (a 15-point increase from the previous year) of admissions offices use blogs and three-quarters of students and parents said they never or only rarely looked at college blogs, how good can be the social media strategy of the admissions office?
• If 95% of admissions offices pat themselves on the back when they are asked to evaluate the success of their efforts on Facebook yet only 49% of the institutions according to the Higher Ed Experts study track Facebook activity, what does FB success look like for almost half the institutions?

Obviously, I dont have the answers to these questions, but I believe theres a real need to go beyond the social media checklist tactic and adopt a more strategic and measurable approach in higher education. Now that everybody is on board, its time to find out what works for the institution and stop what doesnt.

Dont YOU think so?

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