E-Learning Resources for Corona Virus & Beyond

We have entered an unprecedented period in which e-learning has moved from an option that was "nice to have" to a "necessity". This period is creating a new landscape for educators, parents, and learners. Many companies, individuals, and organizations are offering a plethora of free e-learning resources for K-12 students to encourage and support distance learning. Resources that go above and beyond for e-learning are marked with a star (☆).

We know we've missed great resources! If you have any you'd like us to update this list with, please leave a comment or reach out to us via the Contact Us page! Thanks!

• Age of Learning (Preschool - 8th Grade)

• Amazon's Future Engineer, free computer science options (Grades 2 - 12)

• American Museum of Natural History, "Ology" Studies and "Explore" for a variety of science-based learning

• American Panorama, visualize data through maps

• Arcademics (Grades 1 - 6), Free Math, Spelling, Geography web-browser games

• Arizona State's Virtual Field Trips

• Arizona State's Ask an Anthropologist

• Arizona State's Ask a Biologist

• Babbel, learn a new language (K - College) Currently free for 3 months.

• Bark (For Students & Parents), Introduction to safe e-learning and online practices

• Big Universe (Grades K - 12), 17,000 eBooks in a variety of topics

• Boolean Girl (Ages 8 - 18), learn to code! STEM.

• Bunk (Grades 8 - 12), History-based, thoughtful articles about world events

• Chalk Academy, Multi-lingual learning resources (Primarily Chinese/Korean)

• Classroom Cereal, Grammar practice worksheets

☆ Curriki (Grades K - 12), Resources in Math, Science, Language Arts, & more!

☆ Data Nuggets (Grades K - 12+), scientist based data and research in a variety of areas

• Discovery K12 (Grades K - 12), 16,000 lessons, eBooks, Quizzes & Tests in all standard subjects

• Dr. Roger's Math Neighborhood (Grades 8 - 12) Advanced math explanation videos

• Educational Insights (Grades K - 6), Reading/Language Arts worksheets

• Education Modified, resources for special needs students (Spanish version available)

• Exploratorium, Covid-19 science learning

• FLINN, science videos and live labs & FLINN High School Science Activities

• Great Minds (Grades K - 12), instructional videos in Math, Language Arts, Science

• Hand2Mind (Grades K - 8), Math activities

• HippoCampus (Grades 8 - 12), 7,000 videos in 13 areas

☆ Khan Academy (Grades Pre-K - 12), Videos on a variety of subjects (ELA reading included)

• Legends of Learning, standards aligned Math & Science games

• Learning Resources (Grades K - 3), Inspire playful learning

• Loving2Read (Ages Pre-K - 8), adventures for kids in Science, STEM, Math, and more

• MEL Science (Ages 5 - 16), Live Webinars & Library of Chemistry experiments/articles

• National Constitution Center (Grades 6 - 12), eight-week series of interactive, daily courses

• OpenStax (Grades 8 - 12) Opensource textbooks in Math, Science, Social Sciences, & More

• PandaTree (Ages 2 - 10), daily Story Time in Spanish & Chinese

☆ Phet (Grades 6 - 12), Over 650 million free simulations in Physics, Math, Chemisty, & more

☆ ProjectExplorer (Grade 3 - 12), 250+ Free Videos/Lesson Plans

• Rubenstein Center for White House History (Grades K - 5) & (Grades 6 to 12)

• Scholastic Learn at Home (Grades K - 9)

• Smithsonian Distance Learning (Grades Pre-K - 12), expansive collection on a variety of topics

• Sophia (Grades 9 - 12), take courses for college credit! Currently free until 7/31/2020

• Virtual field Trips (Grades K - 12), destination-based videos for Social Studies, Geography, Etc!

• Walkabouts (Grades Pre-K - 2), Integrates movement with Math, Reading, & Language Arts

The above listed resources are fantastic, free, and available for anyone with an internet connection. Just the same, there are also a multitude of learning experiences that can be had outside of the traditional classroom. Bake a cake with your child. Take apart an engine. Collect chicken eggs or milk a cow. Build a Lego fort. Have a conversation about current events. Think outside the box. Here's a thought to leave you with:

"Support education in all its forms. Overcome the bias of the cookie-cutter approach to education which presupposes that all worthwhile knowledge can only be attained from a traditional setting. Challenge the idea that school is the only place to get a worthwhile education."

- Mike Rowe, 2017

Why School?

“Defining problems is far more important than generating solutions.” - Cuban

“Generating solutions to the wrong problem, or for a misunderstood purpose, may create ‘innovation,' but it won’t necessarily create positive change.” - Raab

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than 5 minutes.” - Einstein

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If we are to realize improvements in the American education system, we need to start with a clear definition of the problem. While there are many symptoms of the problem, at the root of the issue is a basic and foundational question. Once we become clear about the purpose of schooling, we can focus on the real issue of how to improve the system to the goals aligned to that purpose.

So, why school? Or, more precisely, what is the purpose of the U.S. school system? At the root of the issue of how to reform schools is a lack of consensus about the purpose of schooling.

Typically, a flip answer to the question of “Why school?” is to provide all children with the opportunity to get an education. Giving just a little more thought to the issue, though, it becomes clear that this is a more complex issue. To what end is the education intended? What are important elements of the education? Is the education for the individual’s or for society’s benefit? Is an opportunity sufficient or is an education required? Who determines whether or not the education has been realized? What seems to be a simple question quickly becomes complicated and, when one considers it even further, complex.

Is it really important that we think deeply about these things? one might ask. It is. “If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?” And, as importantly, if you don’t know what it is you are trying to achieve, how will you decide what strategies to use to achieve it? This lack of clear direction guiding hundreds and thousands of teachers in a school or district results in chaos, inefficient use of resources, teacher/student/parent dissatisfaction, and underperformance. And, the confusion isn’t limited to what happens locally. The involvement of legislators, state education departments and even local school boards, among others, becomes problematic rather than helpful. Laws, policies, requirements, funding, and other decisions drive school systems to specific goals, but those often are in conflict with each other. Further, these perhaps well-intended, but often tunnel visioned decisions become more problematic as they don’t consider unintended consequences for their implementation in the “real world”.

Erin Lynn Raab, in her December 2017 thesis Why School?: A Systems Perspective on Creating Schooling for Flourishing Individuals and a Thriving Democratic Society, describes schooling as a teleological system and argues that the improvement of American schools will require a systems approach that begins with a deep understanding of its purpose, the values that must be evident in the system, and goals. Personal experience concurs with Raab’s position.

Again, then, what is the purpose of schooling? Many have documented the history of American public schooling and the evolution that has occurred. Most agree that at its inception, the purpose of schooling in the United States was to socialize citizens. Over time, however, other purposes for schooling arose. These included intellectual purposes, such as developing reading, writing, and math skills; economic purposes, such as preparing graduates for jobs; developing capacity in students to live pragmatically and successfully in their current environment; creating emotionally healthy children and adults; creating lifelong learners; and more. A Google search on the purpose of education turns up numerous articles, books, papers, websites, and blogs. And, the advocated purposes seem to be as numerous as the sources promoting them. There are even websites inviting the public to express their opinions about what the purpose of school should be and, again, there is no clear consensus. There are recurring themes, however. Among them is a growing belief that schooling is to develop the individual student, a purpose that appears to be 180° from the original purpose.

The lack of consensus for the purpose of school speaks more to the complexity of schooling than disagreement among stakeholders. While there are a few voices that advocate strongly for this purpose or that, it is more likely that posing the question elicits responses similarly to the blind men describing the elephant they are touching in the well known folktale, with each describing what he is experiencing and what is relevant to him. To carry the analogy further, it is far more feasible that the purpose of schooling is really a system of purposes that must co-exist in delicate balance.

Raab’s Meta-Framework is useful for organizing thinking about these purposes, as the goals or aims of education seem to align neatly with her four domains:

Briefly, Raab uses two axes that juxtapose opposites. The Individual-Collective axis contrasts the purposes that relate to the individual’s benefit from school with society’s, or the collective’s, benefit. The Intrinsic-Instrumental axis contrasts the process of schooling or the means, called the Intrinsic extreme, with the outcomes, or the Instrumental extreme. This 2 X 2 matrix results in the four domains:

• Individual Human Possibility: This domain refers to what is typically termed “education”. It is the development of the individual students to achieve his or her full potential.

• Individual Efficiency: Here, the focus is still on the individual, but on his or preparation for future life, e.g. to get a good job, to go to college, to achieve recognition.

• Social Possibility: This domain focuses on sustaining or creating a desired culture and society. While it focuses on indoctrinating individual students, the purpose is for the benefit of society which requires the school to create an environment which will promote those values.

• Social Efficiency: Here, the focus is on outcomes that will benefit society, such as making sure there are enough doctors, welders, and farmers to meet society’s needs and to support economic growth of the society.

The aims or goals for school aligned with these domains include things like:

• Preparing youth to live in a democracy

• Developing good citizenship in youth

• Instructing youth in religious doctrine

• Assimilating youth into a society

• Creating emotionally healthy youth

• Teaching youth math, reading, and writing skills

• Preparing youth for college and/or career

• Developing analytical reasoning and critical thinking in youth

• Producing the nation’s needed workforce

• And more

Raab asserts that all four purposes need to be present simultaneously and that the purposes for schooling don’t change based on environment or era, but that the aims will vary from place to place and from time to time. She also acknowledges that one or more purposes may be more dominant than others depending on events and circumstances.

Given that efforts focused on supporting only one of the purposes can be counterproductive for other purposes, it becomes clear that a systems approach is warranted and that schools are indeed highly complex entities.

While some advocate for a common understanding across the United States of the purpose and goals for schooling, this is unrealistic. Not only is it unlikely to achieve that kind of consensus, but it also cannot be legislated. Furthermore, as mentioned above, the context may have an impact on the balance of purposes and goals, so this discussion is always evolving. It is incumbent, then, on each local community to determine the purposes and aims for schooling and to revisit this discussion regularly.

Coherent Governance©, a derivative of Policy Governance© developed by Randy Quinn and Linda Dawson of the Aspen Group International, LLC, provides a process for district leadership to engage in discussion about “ownership” of the district, as well as the purpose, value, and results desired. This is a good place to start. To fuel the discussion, boards might want to read Raab’s thesis or use the survey provided by Wesleyan University at https://wesleyan.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_d58MoqTrRQ8CjDD. Alternatively, Sepati Ingera, LLC welcomes the opportunity to support your work by facilitating these discussions. Give us a call.

Check Your Work

How many times have math teachers told you to check your work? And, how many times did you make the mistake of putting ⅓ of a student on a bus because you didn’t think about what the story problem was asking and you only did the calculation?

Sadly, “like lemmings to the sea”, too many departments of education and educators are jumping onto the “value added model” and “growth model” practices in vogue today. Conceptually, these make good sense. Of course we want to know if teachers, schools, and districts are more effective than similar entities. Of course we want to make sure that each student is growing well. These are important questions.

Unfortunately, many practices used to answer these questions today are just performing calculations without really thinking about whether or not they are really answering the question. And, because most calculations are using data from state accountability assessments which were designed to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind, they are getting poor results.

Think about it. These accountability tests are designed to answer the question, “Is the student performing on grade level?” These tests aren’t designed to answer the question, “Where is the student performing?” The distinction is significant. In analogy, it is like asking if fifth graders are between 55 and 57 inches in height. Some will be, but some will be shorter and some will be taller. If all we do, though, is determine if they are in the set range, we won’t know where the others are performing. Because NCLB accountability tests only measure students on grade level standards, this is precisely what is happening when it comes to assessing student achievement. And, to take the analogy further, because state standards for one grade are not the same standards for another, we are assessing things that may be related, but not the same and in some cases are truly very different. It’s like measuring the child’s weight one year and height the next. While they may be related, they aren’t the same thing.

Importantly, states also use cut scores for descriptors that vary from grade level to grade level and over time, so this complicates things further. It’s like using a yard stick in one case and a meter stick in another when we compare student performance from one grade to the next. Even though we might be comparing the same student, if we are using descriptors like “meets” and “exceeds”, we may be missing real growth or believing students made gains when they didn’t.

Overall, current state accountability tests are not effective measures for VAM or growth modeling.

The good news is, the Every Student Succeeds Act does allow for some states to adopt measures that assess students off grade level and some test publishers have already done good work that can be leveraged to support this sort of approach. And, some states are beginning to take advantage of this flexibility. And, there are other measures out there that already do a much better job of measuring growth, like NWEA’s Measures of Academic Progress, that can be used right now to answer the questions above.

In the meantime, while we hope and wait for state accountability measures to improve, educators, state departments, and legislators need to become more assessment and data literate so we can all start getting the correct answer.