Home Computers Equal Lower Test Scores 278
An anonymous reader writes "Politicians and education activists have long sought to eliminate the 'digital divide' by guaranteeing universal access to home computers, and in some cases to high-speed Internet service. But a Duke University study finds these efforts would actually widen the achievement gap in math and reading scores. Students in grades five through eight, particularly those from disadvantaged families, tend to post lower scores once these technologies arrive in their homes."
Well, no shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Without a computer you have to learn how to think.
Re:Newsflash (Score:0, Insightful)
If i'd had removed myself from computers and internet access i would have gotten MUCH better performance on my programming assignments.
Re:from the article (Score:5, Insightful)
>>In disadvantaged households, parents are less likely to monitor children's computer use and guide children in using computers for educational purposes.
Which is why the entire digital divide issue is stupid, in my opinion.
Unless a kid is growing up without any exposure to computers at all, he'll be technologically proficient by the time he graduates. Study after study show that using technology often hurts, instead of helps, student performance.
I say this as someone who teaches teachers how to use technology in the classroom, and I start every lecture by saying, "Only use it when there's a damn good reason to do so."
And there *are* good reasons to do so. Sometimes. But the way that most schools use computers is nothing short of neglect.
The focus has to be on guiding students (Score:5, Insightful)
Young children are thirsty for knnowledge. Anyone who has had any exposure to a 6-8 year old in the "why daddy" stage knows this. The problem is this is not fostered in many kids. If, at this stage, children are taught how to answer their own questions, using the tools available to them, then it will foster a lifetime of learning.
This is what my parents did with me, although in my day it was "why don't you go get the encyclopedia and we will look it up together?". Nowadays it should be "why don't we go look at the computer together". Guided by a parent, from a YOUNG AGE, this helps in several ways
- It teaches kids that, if they have questions, the materials are available to help them. They don't have to sit in ignorance just because they don't know the answer.
- It teaches kids how to find information when they need it
- It teaches kids how to think critically about that information, and discard the good from the bad.
One Word (actually three) (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:from the article (Score:5, Insightful)
I find there's often no good reason to use a computer. I see people with their $200 PalmPilots and it takes them twice as long to make notes as I do with a free pencil-and-paper. I see students carry laptops into classsrooms and same deal - they are slower than old fashioned note taking
Internet-capable devices are good for lookups of wikipedia, but I doubt that's needed in a classroom setting below grade 9. The computer becomes a way to goof-off.
Re:Well, no shit (Score:5, Insightful)
More and more school districts and states are moving towards using standardized tests to measure "learning". If you only teach students to score well on those tests then they aren't "learning" as much as they are "memorizing facts". Teaching kids how to think, critical thinking, reasoning, etc will benefit them (and the rest of us) much more in the long run
You teach a kid 'how to think' and then sit them in front of 'World of Goo', 'Gears', etc and you'll see they can 'think'.
Re:from the article (Score:1, Insightful)
It's nice to see that you are dependable and take responsibility for your decisions.
Makes you wonder how the country could have possibly had a housing bubble and a credit crunch.
No quite (Score:4, Insightful)
The "activists" contribute their moral outrage but don't much care if the kids actually get an education. It's the opportunity to display moral outrage that's the pay off for the activists. If the kids don't learn anything that's another opportunity to display moral outrage.
The politicians want to look like they're doing something and preferably with other people's money - getting something for nothing, even something useless, is politically worthwhile. Does it matter if the kids learn? Obviously not.
There's really only one group that has an unquestionable claim to be concerned primarily with education and that's the parents. They're not consulted because they might ask uncomfortable questions like "Will the computer do anything worthwhile?" Neither the activists nor the politicians are interested in having to answer questions like that.
Computers are tools, not miracles (Score:5, Insightful)
This shows the uselessness of test scores (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, no shit (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Well, no shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:from the article (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes sure, people *really* organize those notes afterward.. like putting them in a folder called eco101? I had a notebook called eco101 too.. shockingly I was always able to later find my notes from that class without any problem.
Re:Well, no shit (Score:4, Insightful)
higher test scores != learning more More and more school districts and states are moving towards using standardized tests to measure "learning". If you only teach students to score well on those tests then they aren't "learning" as much as they are "memorizing facts". Teaching kids how to think, critical thinking, reasoning, etc will benefit them (and the rest of us) much more in the long run ... there just aren't any easy ways to measure that kind of performance.
You teach a kid 'how to think' and then sit them in front of 'World of Goo', 'Gears', etc and you'll see they can 'think'.
Test scores are a poor indicator of future achievement, this is why many colleges (even at the upper tier) only want to know that you took the SAT and could care less what the scores were. In fact, our school system kind of resembles the 1950s and 1960s without as much racism and segregation. It is perhaps the most backward piece of our whole society. Schools need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era. It is not enough to mix technology with outmoded, outdated thinking. You can have all the fancy bling in the world, but if you use test scores as benchmarks without looking at teaching, you fail miserably.
Re:from the article (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps the parents are using the computer as a cheap babysitter, the way our parents used the television.
I guess the difference is that television in our day was somewhat educational.
I can see where 8+ hours a day of the kind of interaction common to WoW or IM would be a mind-numbing experience, eventually dumbing down a person.
Want better teachers? How about incentive? (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason that 'the best' are not going into teaching is because it rewards poorly as a career.
The money sucks, you have to deal with people's undisciplined brats, you get blamed for kids' failures (instead of the kids and parents getting their fair share of the blame)....
About the only benefits are job security (which is evaporating slowly) and 3 months off during summer--(which is also evaporating as schools go 'year round').
Not only that, as a teacher you have to endure the meddling and mandates of everyone who wants to 'fix' the educational system, until you are a powerless mouthpiece for the official doctrine, and must also deliver the dogma-of-the-week in a specified manner.
We get bad teachers in this country (USA) because we have made it a TERRIBLE job.
If you make it HARDER for people to enter the career, as you are proposing (without offering ANY incentive), you won't have ANY TEACHERS AT ALL, NOT EVEN BAD ONES.
--PM
Re:Well, no shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Computers DO NOT TEACH (Score:4, Insightful)
Educators need to stop thinking that some how another computer or faster connection is going to some how be a panacea for their problems teaching. The computer is just a tool and nothing more, it might help when properly employed but its not going to do anything but harm in the hands of someone who does not know how to use it. Primary school is a case where the computer and Internet are simply not needed, possibly useful but NOT needed.
The basics of mathematics, English, physical science, and history are all easily contained and since they don't often change maintained in books. Over the course of the better part of two centuries many in this country have successfully gained a good liberal studies background using only books, face time with instructors, and where appropriate hands on experience. The reasons for the achievement gap, at least at the primary school level, don't have much to do with access to technology. Learning is a discipline. It takes work to learn, even for those who don't need as much drill an practice they still have to be willing to invest the mental energy in thinking about the subject they are studying in a critical way and attempting to relate that information to what they are learning in other subjects.
The problem is the underprivileged class in our society is largely surrounded by a culture which does not value discipline, work, or even simply curiosity. In many cases it glorifies failure and dependence. Its no surprise to me that technology makes scores worse in such an environment. There is little you can wrong with a book on mathematics except fail to read it, and maybe if these kids get bored enough they give a problem or two a try, get a sense of some achievement if they have any success. The computer on the other had provides an infinite amount of distraction and virtual assures they never give algebra a second look.
If we want to plow tax dollars into education than we should focus properly. We should get these kids some good text books. We should attack the culture of failure and dependence. We need to be politically incorrect enough to tell these kids its bad to be on the dole because you are not in control of your life someone else is and if you have any dreams at all you need to be self reliant. Lets read Ralph Waldo Emerson in the second grade rather than high school even if we have to read it to them. Lets get some teachers hired who are paid well enough to spend some serious time with a small enough number of kids that they can use the Socratic method and are proficient in the subjects they teach. Lets stop advancing kids to the next grade when they have not mastered the material. That is how you fix primary education, high school yes kids need to learn to use tools at that point but they first have to understand what the tools are for and that is where we have been failing.
Re:Parenting (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, as for why computers exacerbate that problem...well, that I am not really clear on.
Re:Takes time to adjust (Score:4, Insightful)
That really depends on the child, teachers, and parents. For example, when I was in middle school, one of my teachers taught me a technique for computing square roots by hand, to arbitrarily many digits. I immediately began testing myself using a calculator, which helped to reinforce what I had learned (I would also amuse myself by computing more digits by hand than the calculator could process). In high school, I began using a geometry program on my computer to study constructions, beyond the very basic techniques that were taught in class -- and one of my teachers gave me hard/interesting problems to work on.
I might be an outlier, of course, but the problem is not PCs or calculators. The real problem is that a lot of schools are failing to use computers in a way that reinforces knowledge or helps build understanding. This might be an artifact of the approach we take to schooling, that it is just job training, and thus teaching how to use a calculator is to compute answers is more prudent than trying to get students to understand anything.
Re:Well, no shit (Score:4, Insightful)
1) A fact is something you believe to be correct
"Facts" correctness has nothing to do with what you believe. Facts are by definition correct.
Re:Well, no shit (Score:3, Insightful)
My cognition of a fact is an idea; the fact is not an idea. Are you saying that if I stopped thinking about my laptop, it would disappear?
Re:from the article (Score:1, Insightful)
I had the same issue. Then I realized that my real issue was that I never even looked at my notes afterward. The details were in my head, where they needed to be, and the notes on paper weren't anything that I needed. So, I stopped taking notes altogether and just listened. It paid off.
Re:from the article (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, but can you GREP a paper note?
Come back to me when you have completed organic chem at the 300 level, and we'll discuss the advantages of having GREPable notes then.
(That being said, one of my professors was a stickler for hand-writing tests, and then photocopying them instead of using word processing, which enabled a good deal of funny doodles on his tests, which made them more memorable; but the guy is older than Methuselah, and KNOWS his subject, and has no need to GREP his tests. For the students however, being able to rapidly search your 500kb collection of plain text notes quickly is a godsend, when you are confronted with a booked schedule, and high tuition costs pressuring you to NOT fail.)