Tag Archives: education

What’s New? Challenges and Possibilities for Educational Innovation Around the World

Posted on April 8, 2015 by | 1 comment

Over the next two weeks, we will be trying something different at IEN. We are participating at a symposium – “What’s new? Challenges and possibilities for educational innovation around the world” – at the annual conference of the American Educational Assocation in Chicago (April 17th, 8:15 to 9:45 AM, Swissotel, Lucerne Level, Lucerne I). In order to broaden the conversation, we will be sharing short papers by the participants in that symposium who will be talking about efforts to support educational innovations in Mexico & Colombia, Finland, Ghana & Mali, and Singapore:

  • Bringing Effective Instructional Innovation to Scale in Mexico and Colombia, Santiago Rincón-Gallardo, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
  • How Do School Sites Support the Adoption of Educational Innovations in the Finnish Context? Jari Lavonen, Tiina Korhonen, & Kalle Juuti
    Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki, Finland
  • Real-time Data for Real-time Use: Case Studies from Ghana and Mali, Radhika Iyengar, Earth Institute, Columbia University
  • A Framework to Organise the Enabling Factors for the Spreading of Curricular Innovations in a Centralised-Decentralised Context of Singapore Schools, Paul Chua and David Hung, National Institute of Education, Singapore

While the participants will be focusing on what has worked in their countries as well as the challenges they’ve faced, in the symposium we will also be looking across contexts and discussing some common questions including:

  • What kinds of resources, expertise and networks are needed to create an “infrastructure for innovation” in different contexts?
  • What commonalities are there in the spread of innovations across these contexts? To what extent are these “context-specific” lessons?
  • To what extent and in what ways are “innovations” in these countries really “new”?
  • What really changes and “improves” if/when innovations take hold?
  • When, under what conditions, and for whom, can innovations be considered “good”?

We invite you to follow along and share your own examples of the possibilities and challenges for innovation in different contexts.

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The Latest Recommendations for Education Reform in Finland

Posted on March 24, 2015 by | Leave a comment

Even in Finland, consistently a top performer on international tests, declines in recent national and international assessments have spawned tasks forces and calls for improvement. As Pasi Sahlberg tweeted last week, recently released reports in Finland have focused on creating a “Continuum of Teacher Development,” establishing “Tomorrow’s Comprehensive School,” and (most recently) exploring the future of higher education. While teacher preparation is often highlighted as a strength of the Finnish system, improving support for teachers figures prominently in many of the proposed recommendations. In fact, the report on creating a “Continuum of Teacher Development” is described as calling for an “overhaul” of teacher training. That report includes recommendations for Universities and teacher education colleges to develop an approach to mentoring and “induction” into the teaching profession that includes training and supporting mentors, developing a national network of mentors, and ensuring that graduating students have a personal development plan and support in the transition to “working life.”

“Tomorrow’s Comprehensive School” (with an accompanying brochure in English) was produced by a task force that included researchers, teacher educators, school principals and teachers. As Jari Lavonen, a task force member and Professor and Head of the Department Teacher Education at the University of Helsinki explained, their main charge from the Minister of Education was to assess the current situation, examine the reasons for the drop in learning outcomes in the PISA survey and other national assessments, and “find ways to make students feel more motivated and enjoy school.” The task force identified challenges to improvement at the national, municipal, and classroom level, as well in teacher preparation. In response to these challenges, the report highlights several key “themes” deemed central to improving learning attitudes and outcomes:

  • The structures and practices of basic education must strive to eliminate links between a pupil’s learning outcomes and his or her social background, living area or gender.
  • Allocation of resources adequate to guarantee a high standard of teaching in basic education must be ensured in the future.
  • Development of new pedagogical solutions that will support both communal and individual learning.
  • Developing the school as an ethical and a learning community where pupils have a voice and a choice, and also responsibility for their own learning.
  • Further development of research-based teacher education in cooperation with universities and municipalities to form a continuum of initial education and professional development of teachers
  • Support for teachers’ lifelong professional development.
  • Develop new models for teachers’ work and the use of their working time.
  • Enhancing principal’s preparation and establishing personal plans to support their professional development.

One news item on the task force report focused particularly on proposals to increase extra-curricular activities and to make changes in the school schedule, quoting Aulis Pitkälä, Director General of the Finnish National Board of Education, as saying, “We more or less unanimously came to the conclusion that the school day should begin no earlier than nine in the morning.” (Notably, calls for reform in the United States often involve demands to increase class time, already substantially more than is required in Finland, though not as much as is often reported, as Sam Abrams sorted out in a recent post on teaching time in the U.S.)

Auli Toom, University lecturer in Higher Education at the University of Helsinki, highlighted that creating a more systemic approach to “in-service” support for teachers and connecting pre-service and in-service teacher education have been under discussion for over ten years, but she hoped that this report might finally lead to some changes. She was also encouraged by a task force recommendation to establish a national, longitudinal programme of research that would investigate the characteristics of the Finnish educational system and its impact on student learning, but it is not clear if that recommendation will be implemented.

Pasi Sahlberg, author with Andy Hargreaves of a new post about “saving” PISA, commented that the report was particularly welcome because it provides a much-needed look at Finland’s education system and its current challenges. “It takes a comprehensive look at not only cognitive aspects of education but also how to make teaching and learning more meaningful,” he added. “However, it remains silent about what many have said to be the most important shortcoming in Finland: What kind of comprehensive school do we need in 2030?” Without a clear vision Sahlberg worries that some will see the report as an effort to bring PISA results in Finland back to the top of the charts. “Making Finland the top PISA performer is the wrong vision.”

—Thomas Hatch

 

 

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What’s new? OECD Report: Gender Equality in Education

Posted on March 5, 2015 by | 2 comments

The most recent OECD report, titled “The ABC of Gender Equality in Education: Aptitude, Behavior, Confidence,” shows that the wage gaps between men and women worldwide might have more to do with career decisions that are being made by students much earlier than we think.

Confidence gap

The results of this survey show that at the age of fifteen, girls are typically ahead of boys in reading, boys are only slightly ahead of girls in math, and there is barely any difference between the two in science. The report found that when they looked at attitude, behavior, and confidence, boys are more confident than girls even when they underperform, whereas girls tend to be more anxious about math, even when they perform well in the subject.

Career aspiration gap

Despite the fact that girls tend to outperform boys in STEM subject areas, it is the boys who expect to have careers in engineering or technology. In the U.S., for example, 15% of boys expect careers in engineering or computing, compared with only 2.5% of girls (despite the fact that boys and girls perform similarly in STEM subject areas); girls are more likely to aspire to careers in health services.

Teachers and parents

What does this gender gap tell us about parent and teacher attitudes, work life, and society? The report found that parents are more likely to expect their sons to enter careers in STEM fields, except in East Asian countries where both boys and girls are expected to enter careers in STEM fields, and where boys and girls both outperform almost every other country. They also looked at how boys and girls spend their time outside of school and found that boys spend more time playing video games, while girls spend more time on homework. Another difference they found is that when boys read, they are more likely to read comic books, whereas girls are more likely to read fiction. Finally, girls are more likely to get higher grades in school than boys. The report suggests that this might have more to do with compliance than achievement, a result that might actually push boys to work harder, and to expect to work harder throughout their careers.

What’s new?

While much of this information might not seem new to many readers (boys like video games and comic books; girls lack confidence in math), the implications present some interesting ideas for parents and teachers. For example, the report suggests that students might benefit from greater choice in what they read at school. The report also suggested that there is some evidence that single-player video games might promote problem solving and math skills. Finally, educators need to think about the relationship between curriculum and instruction, gender, and student performance. For example, girls tend to perform better in math when they are allowed to solve problems independently. (Note: These topics have all been addressed by education researchers, such as those who study literacy, technology, and gender.)

As Michael Reiss noted in a post on the IOE London blog this morning, while teacher education used to focus on issues of inequality and teacher assumptions, teacher training courses today might be less likely to go in-depth into these issues. According to Reiss, “We need to get back to realising that how school students see themselves and their subjects is important. If we don’t, too many young people, especially girls, will continue to believe that science is not for them and that they aren’t really that good at it – and then they won’t be.”

—Deirdre Faughey

For more on the OECD report released today (IEN will be retweeting posts as they come out during the day):

A closer look at gender gaps in education and beyond | OECD Insights Blog http://buff.ly/1M8GPt6

Obsessing over differences between boys and girls at school won’t fix anything http://buff.ly/1M8GWoy

Why are girls in the UK doing so much less well than boys in school science? | IOE LONDON BLOG http://buff.ly/1Nknl8a

Playing video games can boost exam performance, OECD claims http://buff.ly/17UQoi3

Neues Gender-Pisa: Mathe ist „männlich“, gute Schulleistungen „weiblich“ – Wissen – Tagesspiegel http://buff.ly/1BKUDsK

Students aren’t being taught maths correctly, creating a ‘huge’ learning gap – National – NZ Herald News http://buff.ly/1CB0IcB

 

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Scanning the globe

Posted on January 28, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Several reports over the past month highlight issues such as educational funding, early childhood education, new schools and school closure, and curriculum:

Funding

In the Phillipines, http://www.philstar.com argues that the country is not contributing enough to education. While education spending increased from 1999 to 2011 (13.9% to 15%), it has yet to reach the target 20% of the national budget. According to UNESCO, “The share of national income invested in education, which equalled the subregional average in 1999, had fallen behind by 2009 at 2.7 percent of GNP, compared with an average of 3.2 percent for East Asia.” In Canada, The Globe and Mail reports that school boards have increased their spending over the past decade. In Canada as a whole, expenditures have increased 53 per cent – or 5.3 per cent a year, a rate much higher than inflation. In Australia, The Australian Teacher Magazine reports that the government is in the midst of a debate over the funding of education. While the government has committed to a new educational funding system for four years starting from 2014, officials are debating the timeline for the new funding system as well as the question of whether the funding should go to private schools as well as public schools. Meanwhile, The Norway Post reports that the Norwegian government is making plans to increase spending on teacher training.

Early Childhood Education

In Bulgaria, http://www.novinite.com reports that, in order to avoid a loss of EU funding, new legislation is being drafted and must go into effect by September 2014. Legislation includes revisions to a draft law on pre-school education, which include making pre-school education non-compulsory for 4-year-olds. Meanwhile, The Helsinki Times reports that Finland, where approximately 63% of children aged 1-6 attended daycare in 2012, is considering a new law that would “secure the high quality of early childhood education,” as well as all other issues, including funding and teacher quality.

New Schools and School Closure

According to Norway‘s The Foreigner, Conservative Education Minister Torbjørn Røe Isaksen has proposed lifting current restrictions on establishing private schools. Meanwhile, in Scotland, the government has amended the Children and Young People Bill in order to defer decisions about school closures to new review panels. The aim of establishing these panels is to improve transparency and remove allegations of political bias from the process. In Lithuania, the Education and Science Ministry has approved a network of Russian-language schools, emphasizing that education programs of foreign countries and international organizations must be consistent with the education goals and principles in the Education Law of Lithuania, as well as the law on national security and other legal acts.

Curriculum

In Finland, The Helsinki Times reports that a high school reform task force delivered a proposal to the Minister of Education and Science in which they proposed reducing compulsory subjects, such as the study of Swedish, and introducing new interdisciplinary studies. The proposal has been met with resistance from some teachers and politicians. Meanwhile, in The New York Times, questions about the relationship between identity and the curriculum surface for Palestinian children who are educated in Israel, and Muslims who are educaed in Germany. The debate over language instruction is ongoing in countries such as The Netherlands, Latvia, and Japan.

In Australia, Australian Teacher Magazine reports on a new review of the national curriculum, which leadership feels should be pared back to basics. Kevin Donnely, one of two men who will conduct the review, raises concerns over teaching and learning, and considers the relationship between educational spending and learning outcomes. As he explains, “We really do need to know whether the millions and millions of dollars that’s gone into education over the last 20 years, where results have flatlined or have gone backwards – we want to know how effective that money has been.”

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Educational Testing in China, France, and Singapore

Posted on July 1, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Reports in news publications focusing on Singapore, China, and France, show that prominent educational researchers and politicians are raising questions about educational testing, and even introducing reforms that drastically alter the testing landscape.  * Links are embedded as hyperlinks below.

China

According to a new document released by China’s Ministry of Education, the efforts of various education reform efforts over the past few decades has had no impact on China’s “tendency to evaluate education quality based simply on student test scores and school admissions rates.” In order to address the problems brought about by high-stakes testing, the Ministry of Education is taking steps to implement more serious reforms to change how schools are evaluated. Their new evaluation framework, which is called “Green Evaluation,” will end the use of test scores as the only measure of education quality and focus on five new indicators: moral development, academic development, psychological and physical health, development of interests and unique talents, and academic burdens.

France

Ed Alcock for The New York Times

Ed Alcock for The New York Times

As The New York Times recently reported in their article, “Rite of Passage for French Students Receives Poor Grade,” criticism of the baccalauréat in France is building. The weeklong national test is “better known simply as the ‘bac,’ the exhaustive finishing exam that has racked the nerves of France’s students since the time of Napoleon.” It is the “sole element considered in the awarding of high school diplomas,” but many critics such as Emmanuel Davidenkoff, the editor of the education magazine L’Étudiant, say the test does not evaluate the most relevant of students’ capabilities. “In France,” he says, “we evaluate essentially only hard knowledge, not all abilities.” The center-left government wants to reform the national school system, but is focused on primary schools. Education Minister Vincent Peillon believes that the tests will evolve as the country continues to reflect on it.

Singapore

Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond

Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond

The Sunday Times reported on a recent visit from Professor Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University, who was recently appointed a Visiting Professor to the National Institute of Education in Singapore. Darling-Hammond shared her impressions of the Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE) on a visit to the country earlier this month. On the one hand, the examination system in general earned her praise as it places an emphasis on the testing of higher order thinking skills such as application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. On the other hand, Darling-Hammond has reservations on how the results of a examinations taken at a particular stage (12 year olds) are used to determine the academic future of the children. She is of the opinion that a broader range of modes of assessment be used, including, for example, interviews and portfolios. While the latter approach is “less tidy … more time consuming,” positive results could be yielded from such a broader approach to testing.

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Equality of access in math and science in Finland, Sweden, and the United State

Posted on June 3, 2013 by | 1 comment

In a recent paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, “Moving on up? A framework for evaluating equality of access in education, with illustrations from Finland, Sweden and the United States,” Jennifer von Reis Saari shared the results of a study of the ways in which schools in Finland, Sweden, and the United States, track students in math and science. In this post, von Reis Saari briefly describes some of the current concerns about inequality in Sweden and Finland, as well as some of the differences she has documented in the way these countries, and the US, approach tracking.

Jennifer von Reis Saari

Jennifer von Reis Saari

The recent riots in Sweden are drawing attention to how the assumption that Nordic countries, as well as their school systems, are equitable is oversimplified. Finland, for example, is often considered untracked.  However, visitors to Finland are sometimes surprised that the country has a system of competitive school choice at the upper-secondary level, after age 16.   In fact, despite the Finnish Minister of Education, Krista Kiuru’s resistance to the publishing of league tables of individual school performance, savvy students and parents are well aware of school rankings, and lists of upper-secondary school averages on national exams are published at the end of May each year. In addition, there is an increasing appetite for more differentiation and choice.  In neighboring Sweden, comparatively liberal school choice policies and the allowance of for-profit, publicly funded schools, have coincided with increasing social disparities in educational outcomes.  In a study of student persistence in mathematics and science, I found that students I surveyed and interviewed in both countries experienced ability grouping and tracking in mathematics and science during both compulsory school, and upper-secondary school. To characterize Finnish or Swedish school systems as equal, or un-stratified, obscures the ways these systems react to, and create, inequalities.

A closer look at the experiences of students I interviewed in Finland, Sweden, and the United States, however, highlights how critical aspects of these choice and tracking systems, such as the mechanism for allocation (the how, why, and when students choose, or are selected into, particular schools or tracks), the transparency of the system (how clear the different educational choices and their consequences are), and the permeability (the degree of mobility allowed between tracks and schools), can either promote or obstruct the pathways of students who aspire to careers in mathematics and science related fields. In particular, the Finnish education system can be described as more permeable than either Sweden or the United States; the Finnish secondary school students I studied could more freely choose advanced mathematics and science courses and tracks in contrast to their counterparts in Sweden or the United States.  They could make these choices even if they were not in advanced mathematics tracks before they reached the secondary level.   This seemed to result in a greater retention of passionate, interested students, particularly young men who may have struggled earlier in their school careers.

Focusing on permeability is important not only from a standpoint of equity, but also in terms of efficiency, for retaining and fostering skilled talent in STEM fields.   The lack of permeability of math and science tracks may be a particular concern in the United States, where the high cost of post-secondary education and widening disparities between universities and community colleges, which once served to increase opportunities for mobility, compounds lost opportunities during primary and secondary school. Fostering passion for mathematics and science among students may require structures that respond to increasing commitment and performance by providing clear, built-in pathways for upward mobility.

For more information:

“Equity trends in the Swedish school system: A quantitative analysis of variation in student performance and equity from a time perspective”

“School choice and its effects in Sweden”

“Middle class children’s choices to avoid local schools”

“Tracking Effects Depend on Tracking Type: An International Comparison of Students’ Mathematics Self-Concept”

 

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Guatemala

Posted on January 22, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Program to Promote Educational Reading Levels

Prensa Libre (January 11, 2013)

c9e9ad2a43a146355919a081f7560134_int470As Guatemalan schools begin the 2013 academic school year this month, teachers across the country are expected to implement a new reading program, entitled “Leamos Juntos” (the literal translation of which is “We Read Together”), aimed to promote reading and to involve students, teachers, families, and communities in the development of reading. The program has in common characteristics of earlier reading reforms from 2006 and 2011 – which, among their goals, served to promote healthy reading habits within families as well as to maintain Guatemalan oral traditions – and is a response to an “Ibero-American Educational Cooperation” conference) held last October 2012 . Within that conference, Spanish-speaking countries vowed to prepare a reading plan for the furthering of literacy in their schools.

With 90M Quetzales (a little over $11M) invested in the reform, one primary component of the program involves a normalized half-hour of reading per day within classrooms as a way to foment a love of reading among students. The money, borrowed from the International Development Bank, will be used for four purposes: 1) the purchase of 4.5M books, 2) materials to safeguard and deliver books to schools, 3) infrastructure for the storage of books, and 4) the eventual printing of e-books donated by UNESCO.

The Guatemalan Ministry of Education has created a national commission on reading as well as departmental commissions that are in charge of their respective educational centers and schools (both public and private). These commissions are expected to devise the human resources necessary to follow through with the promotion as well as effective methods – including a systemization of “good reading practices” – for teachers to help children with acquiring and developing their reading skills. Those departmental commissions are also in charge of their own resources and materials, presumably divided from the investments mentioned previously.

Additionally the reform calls for a commission of integrated school reading that includes the director of the institution, two teachers, two parent representatives, and two students whose responsibilities include ensuring the appropriate use of materials (ensuring that they’re organized by theme, type, language, etc.). Teachers in all institutions have the major responsibility of carrying out lessons that involve student participation and activities related to the reading. Finally, periodic evaluations of reading departments, institutions, and areas are a part of the reform.

– Contributed by Tran Templeton

For more information:

Guatemala: National Reading Program “We Read Together”

90M Quetzales Invested in Reading Program

 

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Chile

Posted on December 13, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Chile must attract the best to the teaching profession

Marcela Andrés, Latercera (December 9, 2012)

*link in Spanish

Andreas Schleicher (Google Images)

Andreas Schleicher (Google Images)

Andreas Schleicher, Deputy Director for Education and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the OECD’s Secretary-General, has declared that Chile should embark on a campaign to obtain a better education system. He assured that compared to other Latin American countries, Chile has made gains according to PISA results; however, compared to economically developed countries, Chile presents much lower scores, and much higher disparities. Social context, such as public versus private education, has an impact on academic performance that is more significant than in many other countries.

Schleicher proposed measures to avoid the conditioning of the academic future of students according to social class. Additionally, Schleicher declared that Chile must attract the best to the teaching profession and place them in schools most in need of improvement to lessen current disparities.

Schleicher also professed modifications to the PISA test. He stated that in 2009, many students used computers and PISA assessed their ability to read digitally. In 2015, they will be evaluated on their ability to solve problems collaboratively and in  context.

For more information:

Chile should not be satisfied with being the best of the second division (link in Spanish)

 

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Vietnam

Posted on September 21, 2012 by | Leave a comment

VND15 trillion approved for national education and training

Nhan Dan Online (September 11, 2012)

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has announced that the government will dedicate $730 million to The National Target Program on Education and Training, which will be in effect until 2015. This program aims to standardize universal kindergarten, maintain and improve the standardization of primary and secondary education, and improve literacy rates (currently 90.3% across the population). This program also specifically targets development in disadvantaged regions, rural areas, and communities with ethnic minorities. The construction of a number of facilities, libraries, teacher workrooms, and boarding schools, is expected.

Related resources and background information:

VND 15,200 billion for education and training

PM Calls for More Investment in Education

Schools to Apply New Educational Model

City to Subsidize Education for Poor

Canadian International Development Agency video on “achieving education for all in Vietnam”:

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Scan of Education News: September 1st-18th

Posted on September 20, 2012 by | Leave a comment

The month of September has proven to be an eventful one for global news related to educational policy and change.

This back-to-school time of year has seen teacher strikes in places such as Chicago, England, Australia, Kenya, and Slovakia. These teachers are commonly concerned about new approaches to teacher evaluations and compensation, slashed education budgets, and working conditions. In contrast to many countries that seem to position educators and politicians on opposing sides, Norway announced that it will propose changes to their teacher evaluation system by working with teachers, and incorporating student input as well.

High school students have been staging their own dramatic protests worldwide as well. In Chile, the students occupied schools and government buildings to protest tax reforms that they said failed to devote adequate resources to education. In China, female students protested university gender quotas that eased entrance requirements for male students and kept women out. A similar issue arose in Iran, as 36 universities banned women from 77 fields of study in a move that prompted the UN to call for an investigation.

Innovation and reform in school curricula have also made the news this month. China will focus on vocational training to meet economic demands; France will introduce ethics and citizenship courses; Estonia’s first-graders will learn computer code; and Bosnia will introduce a plan to unite children of different ethnic backgrounds. Over the summer, Hong Kong introduced a controversial “patriotic” curriculum, but the plan was later quashed due to parent and teacher protests.

Singapore has also announced a major new initiative that will revolutionize measures of school effectiveness in the country. Moving away from a quantified approach to evaluating schools (based on test scores and a ranking system), the country will adopt a “student-centric, values-driven” approach to education in which best practices are developed and shared among educators in a new online system. Schools also hope to build relationships with parents and communities. Singapore’s new direction seems to be in stark contrast to the OECD Report, which created a global stir when released last week, as countries were ranked by everything from student performance to teacher pay.

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