Fallacy of fairness
2022 February 9 Wednesday 19:05
Laudable of 'ofqual' to publish 'exams guidance'in an attempt to resume normal summative assessment. However, consider the scenario: Students A, B, C, away during September and thus missed tuition of kinetics; whereas students X, Y, Z, were absent during November and missed thermodynamics. How does "reduced content" benefit a conceptually challenging subject such as chemistry, which is _deep_ in the need for synoptic comprehension? From one of the exam boards, the document 'advance information' published by aqa indicates that for example, biochemistry (e.g. amino acids) has higher rank importance that introductory organic; not sure how the former may be taught with insufficient appreciation of the latter.
Webmention: Has online learning gone backwards because of the pandemic?
Reply: Tony Bates
Online education is in regression, primarily because of the hegemony of the 'amgaf' "big tech" monopolists and questionable management. As society, education is rampant with various discriminatory practices. Attempts to apply the samr model were dismissed in spite of the opportunities that arose.
There has been discussions, announcements about the use of technology for summative assessment, often applied to maths for obvious simplicity. Still to this day, school students are not given much consideration to write chemical equations, draw organic molecules (complete with curl arrows for reaction mechanisms!), etc.: nothing yet to beat LaTeX.
The extended degree course: extension of the academic commercialisation strategy
2022 February 11 Friday 18:58
Whilst it was observed that another cohort of year 13 students continue to walk passively into the academic debt trap, a few year 12 students appear more open minded to alternatives. Tony Blair was a terrible prime minister (wait for it: worse than Thatcher!), with his dubious mantra "education, education, education" and associated, arbitrary, target "50 % of students in higher education". Although Gavin Williamson was yet another ineffectual education minister, he was at least correct to "abandon it"; typical of Blair not to mention any aspirations for the other 50 %! The sexism of the education sector continues, just as in society: review the demographic of any management structure...The corruption in UK universities remains unchanged.
Thankfully, it was a relief to hear some students begin to acknowledge the nonsense, for example upon discussion of the so-called "extended degree course", such those now being sold provided at University of Hertfordshire. Students are invited to enrol onto a course (ca. £ 6000; a bargain!), whereby the first year is outsourced to a local further education college.
A positive note: if the prospect of such fees to –in effect– repeat a level 3 (e.g. btec course) does not motivate student attitude, what would???
Webmention: Bang goes the book
Reply: Kit Chapman
No, textbooks should not be discouraged, for a number of reasons.
- If publishers continue to be sexist and racist in their recruitment, get that institutional bias changed, by employment of appropriate, diverse people, for the content and design to change accordingly;
- Students already waste time online and the pseudo-pandemic proved that teacher guidance is acknowledged as appreciated and efficient, perhaps in the form of preparatory curation of internet content;
- Development and utilisation of open educational resources has yet to be embraced by teachers, managers.
Webmention: Why aren't there more students in school sixth forms?
Reply: Dave Thomson
The analysis of the question caused irritation: what is the purpose to attempt an answer with omission of further education colleges and apprenticeships??? Perhaps the blog post was an attempt to demonstrate access to some data, to sell for prospective schools...
Educational technology, a history of failures
2022 February 18 Friday 17:35
Courtesy of a "fediverse" post by Rafa Gálvez recently read the book 'failure to disrupt'; just tried to add a commment on 'bookwyrm', without success:
An enjoyable analysis of the hype about technology to solve inequity in education, yet as the title suggests has been a failure, primarily because of innate inabilities to solve the root causes of educational inequity. Learnt about the Matthew effect within the education domain!Government it projects are always doomed to failure. Perhaps the prospect of large sales, profits, attracts big business. As a gnu/linux user, attempts to utilise technology and be innovative in the classroom are hindered by many obstacles.
- Management have been sold some product or service, paid for it and thus everyone is supposed to use it in the first instance, regardless if better and/or efficient alternatives exist
- Insufficient time to assess new product/service as being of benefit to students
- Significant variance in students' motivation, interest to utilise new product/service and the time needed to introduce; especially problematic compared to the time available for subject curriculum
Webmention: Can a coalition of the willing be put together to do this?
Reply: John Carr
"why has nobody worked out a way of making money from it [protection _against_ child abuse]?": the issue is not big tech, but how (who) polices "small tech"? Two men on private networks exchanging abusive content. What is more important, technology that facilitates such corruption, or the people involved in direct contact with the children? Need to change the culture of male privilege; technology won't do it...
Pseudo Palindrome post
2022 February 22 Tuesday 22:02
ЯR
Yes, a gratuitous post simply because of the date...