The student experience

I’ve been thinking about getting started lately. I read in Jo Boaler’s Mathematical Mindsets about the “I just have to give them information first before they can do anything” problem that teachers often respond with when other people tell them they should stop talking and get their kids doing stuff.

I remember feeling that way a lot. Like, you want my kids to master exponential functions? There isn’t an activity I can give them where they’ll just self discover these properties. Sure I can give them the worksheet before I teach them this stuff they’ll just be super lost and it’ll be a behavior nightmare.

Jo’s insightful suggestion is to first start by giving them something can dig into. For example, a pattern that grows exponentially. They might not be able to write an explicit function for it, but they sure can have an engaging conversation pointing out that it grows much faster than a linear pattern and that multiplication is involved.

That’s when they’re hooked. That’s when their minds are primed for you to pause class and they’ll be on the edge of their seats while you walk through 8 minutes of formally defining exponential functions.

So, here’s the oversimplified prescription for good math teaching:

1) Give them a hook. Something to sink their teeth into. Ask questions. Get them thinking deeply.

2) Give them whatever new information that they need. (For example, the definition of trig functions)

3) Give them something more to do. Something to push their thinking that combines what they were wrestling with in 1) with the new information they were given in 2).

With that as the vision for world-class math instruction, it makes sense why folks are skeptical of the ability for ed tech to deliver world class instruction at this point in history.

What it always comes back to in my mind is backwards planning. It’s so easy to get lost and now backwards plan, but the first step in designing anything related to student learning has to be this question: What do I want the student learning experience to be?

Once there is perfect clarity on the answer to that question, then everything else is just a possible tool, technology in particular.

See how messed up it can get if you go the other way:

1) My students are going to learn on computers
2) Computers are good at solving objective questions
→ Students math education turns into solving objective questions on computers

I don’t think that’s anyone’s clear logic. But it’s a possible extreme. To some degree, it describes how I used a blended learning classroom when I taught.

What it all comes down to in my mind right now is let’s take my oversimplified version of Jo’s suggestion for ideal student learning experience as fixed:

1) Task for students to dig into with other students
2) Student is presented with new information
3) Student gets another task applying that new information

Let’s backwards plan from that! How can technology be a helpful tool here?

Maybe it can make the tasks available online and easy to find. Maybe it can connect students that want to learn outside of a classroom with each other to work through a task. Maybe it can present the new information in the format of an interactive article. Maybe it can offer blocked practice to help students understand the new information in 2) when necessary. Maybe it can help students keep track of how well they think they understand different concepts. Maybe it can help students remediate old ideas like fractions that are preventing them from really understanding the new information.

I have no idea the answer, but I’m convinced this idea of viewing education as always starting with the student experience and then seeing everything else, technology included, is going to be something that keeps coming up in my mind. And more importantly to realize, it seems like something I’m going to have to keep reminding myself of.

Perhaps we’d be slightly more effective for our students if every teacher lounge, every ed school, every ed tech company, every policy think tank etc. had a huge sign up that said “Start with the student experience”.