If you visit public school classrooms today you are likely to see students slumped in their seats, paying scant attention to the teacher who lectures them on how to prepare for the upcoming state tests. The longer they stay in school, the less they enjoy it, and the further they fall behind their peers in other developed countries. At home their attention to homework is fleeting or non-existent, but even those labeled as having attention deficits devote endless hours to video games, music, movies, and other media designed for impatient young minds. Achievement disparities along lines of class and race stubbornly resist remediation, and even the motivated minority of students who compete for entrance into elite universities are often cynical about the system they have learned to game to get ahead.
Contrast that "one-size-fits-all" model, maintained at great taxpayer expense by millions of well-meaning educators, with a brighter possibility. Instead of the annual ritual of statewide multiple choice tests, students are assessed continually based on portfolios of their own creation, including weekly projects in writing, science, multimedia, and either art or music. Collaborative work is the norm rather than the exception; personal portfolios contain individual contributions to group projects. Students spend at least an hour a day reading for pleasure, choosing from a wide variety of approved, age-appropriate books, articles, and websites. Teachers spend most their time in class coaching individuals and small groups instead of lecturing to the class as a whole. When students and teachers cannot gather at school because of epidemics, weather, or lack of funding, education continues via Internet teleconferencing, and there is no interruption in assignments because they are customarily delivered over the Internet anyway. Science instruction is designed to emulate the thinking of great scientists; instead of forcing "correct" ideas of science onto students, teachers help them recognize inconsistencies in their preconceptions, and use logic and evidence to evolve scientifically robust understandings. After school they play free science video games that exercise their powers of observation, categorization, calculation, inference, communication, and application of scientific principles.
Science fiction? No, all of the above are possible with current technology, except for science video games, for which the technology exists, but engaging content is lacking.
Effective? The underlying pedagogical principles, especially social constructivism, are very well established. The technologies used to implement this vision are merely tools for educational reform, and are worthless unless the goal of collaborative, personalized learning is clear.
Cost-effective? If we look at the long term, yes, definitely. Ballpark figures to implement the technologies and teacher training for all of the above, including a one-to-one laptop program and extensive professional training for teachers, might cost roughly two thousand dollars per student in the first year, and perhaps five hundred per student thereafter. Those costs are dwarfed by the long-term costs of dropouts, the achievement gap, and education that fails to prepare students for the global 21st century economy.
--Doug Grimes
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