PD Ponderings: Efficiency and Accountability

We just finished a meeting where the program for professional development at my place of work was being discussed. The presenter, Dr. Lieberson from CAL, at one point asked us to reflect upon three issues, and share our ideas with our partners. I thought about two of them:

Should strategies be taught in the classroom?
Does a multi-skill (read, write, speak, listen) lesson more effectively teach, or do skills in isolation represent more effective practice?

My experience here so far suggests that these linked in terms of accountability; that is, more generally, why are we doing what we do here?

Strategies essentially are ways to solve problems. Communication is a negotiation of meaning, with the gap of understanding between interlocutors (the problem). Thus building the bridge is a means to facilitate that negotiation (the strategy). Theoretically, then, yes of course, as practitioners we should seek any means necessary to equip our students with tools for bridging that negotiation gap. Practically though, the end goal (accomplish the communicative task) is compromised by the system of evaluation where I work. Students don't need to communicate, because they can pass the course just by attending. Even those students who fail to attend are permitted to take the exam. Even those students who fail the exam may repeat it. Even those who cannot reach the "standard" are passed along if they show up, and at least put a mark on the paper.

In this scenario, strategies don't matter, because there is no problem to solve. The problem of learning and facing consequences of failing to learn have essentially been removed in different policies and practices.

Second, "effective" pedagogy is an almost irrelevant concern. A teacher could have the most brilliant mix of skills and content ever, but the students fail to engage because they are interested in "present/absent" alone. If present, they recieve monetary support from the government. Whether they actually learn is irrelevant in that context. No surprise, then, that an intrinsic motivation for learning has been squeezed out:

Researchers have documented that when individuals enjoy an activity, paying them can make the activity less enjoyable. Therefore, it would be foolish to pay students who already enjoy school because doing so might actually decrease their motivation to engage in school work — and the problem with paying students who don’t enjoy school is that these students will not continue to work hard in school unless they continue to get paid. Basic psychological research indicates that when the payment stops, so does students’ motivation. An exception to these findings would be a student (who initially did not like school and was not working hard) who started working hard when she got paid because she enjoyed the success she was achieving and/or she became interested in the content material. This way of motivating students would have to be monitored very closely to ensure that money was only given to these types of students in these circumstances. Implementing this type of system correctly would be a logistical impossibility for most teachers and administrators. Therefore, I do not advocate paying students to attend or engage in school activities.

To me, this means that, discussions of effective lesson plan designs aside, the most important issue is one of engagement: how do we get the students interested/motivated in learning?

Another aspect of "effectiveness" is the that Western culture tends to approach this construct in terms of time and distance:

We live in an age dominated by the cult of efficiency. Efficiency in the raging debate about public goods is often used as a code word to advance political agendas. When it is used correctly, efficiency is important-it must always be part of the conversation when resources are scarce and citizens and governments have important choices to make among competing priorities. Even when the language of efficiency is used carefully, that language alone is not enough. Unilingualism will not do. We need to go beyond the cult of efficiency to talk about accountability. Much of the democratic debate of the next decade will turn on how accountability becomes part of our public conversation.

Other, more poly-chronic and high context cultures may consider peripheral factors as important as well, and even central: social ties, familial obligations, hierarchical respect, etc etc. These do damage to western notions, but are key to understanding why clashes may occur. In the end, though, I believe there is a point of compromise, which I would like to explain with an illustration.

Multiple routes up the mountain

To get up this mountain, the shortest route is not necessarily the best one (steepest climb). The circuitous route route might be more scenic, or over less treachorous terrain. With any hiking option, however, the point agreed upon is that we want to get to the peak. Which route we take (ie our interpretation of effectiveness), is not as important as our destination. If we fail to agree on the destination, if we fail to be accountable, the journey has been in vain.

Therefore, the link between these two issues discussed above, in my opinion, is one of accountability. Are students required to achieve standards? Are standards respected? Are teachers held accountable for classroom practice? Does the administration create policies which inform professionalism?

I have found a great deal of cynicism toward teaching, toward professional development. I think it is commendable that my place of work is doing something about improving the quality of education. To make it stick, this aspect of accountability needs to be front and center in the discussion.