Going off road

Veering off the beaten track is something I often do. Beaten tracks are too 'safe' and restrictive for me. I like to go off road and explore, and I often find myself down some backstreet in a city I've never visited before, chatting to locals or taking photos of strange new sights.

I can't help it. I have never been comfortable when I'm confined. Nor have I been happy simply 'towing the line' where important things like teaching and learning are concerned. I suppose that's also why I've always been uncomfortable with lesson plans. I always have an idea of what I'm going to cover in my lectures and seminars, but I rarely write anything down, preferring to keep several ideas in my head so that I can respond quickly and flexibly if the situation demands it. As a result, my teaching is now more responsive than it was when I was less experienced, and used strict frameworks and defined resources to conduct my lessons.

This kind of free-wheeling approach to teaching isn't for everyone, of course. We show our education students how to create lesson plans, schemes of work and other closely defined documentation to track and manage teaching, and they are trained to adhere to these. I wouldn't encourage any teacher to depart from them... unless of course they see a need to do so. In such cases, I advocate flexible, agile lesson plans from which teachers can change direction, when they need to, or when they sense they have to. That flexibility should extend to the introduction of ideas you may not be familiar with (learning together with your students), the sequence of the content, and also the learning outcomes you have identified. Ultimately, it should also embrace assessment of learning. If you come up with a better (or more appropriate) way to assess than the method you have outlined in your lesson plan, do it.

Lesson plans are a little version of the curriculum. They are created to provide suggestions and should not be treated like stone tablets. They should be used to interpret content and activities, and as a guidelines rather than as rules to follow regardless of whatever is happening. Ultimately, it's your students' learning that is the most important element of teaching, and if the lesson plan gets in the way of that, ditch it.

Image/graphic text by Miot Sheremeti


Going off road by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Tested to distraction

Should we put our children through so much stress?

Get ready for a rant. Here's the bottom line: More testing doesn't lead to better learning. In fact, over-testing distracts from the real business of learning. This is something all governments should understand and accept, but unfortunately, most do not or will not. It would certainly help if those who were in charge of running our education systems were former teachers. In England, the current Education Secretary - not a teacher - is considering introducing (or rather re-introducing) testing for 7 year-olds. This is a scheme that failed and was withdrawn in 2004, but is now being proposed again. According to her speech, in recent news reports, Nicky Morgan admits she wants to be able more closely to monitor the 'quality of schools' in England.

So there we have it. For the current UK government, testing is not there to support better learning. It's there to ensure schools are doing well. Ultimately, it will indicate how far off the pace we are in the world education rankings. It seems that governments care more about league tables such as PISA than they do about the quality of children's learning. Schools are political footballs. Governments are more interested in ensuring that their statistics and metrics continue to rise, than they are about children's learning. For them, testing is a mechanism that keeps schools in check, and they care little about the collateral damage caused.

The side effects of over-testing are that children become victims of the scramble to be best in the league tables. Teachers are pressurised to deliver better all round results. They are forced to teach to the test, which detracts from good pedagogy and also leads to higher stress and anxiety levels, not only for the teachers themselves, but also for many of their students. Everyone is forced to perform at a level that aligns to what those in power expect. A narrower curriculum also results from the regime of over-testing. Everyone is distracted from the business of learning by the need to 'perform'.  I have already written about the superficiality and inappropriateness of many tests in a post called Who put the ass in assessment? so I won't bore you further here. But when performance counts more than learning, then education systems are in a lot of trouble.

How are we going to prepare our children for the future if all we cause them to do in the classroom is suffer anxiety as they prepare for tests? How are we going to teach a wide and all embracing curriculum when teachers are so over-burdened with marking, administration and compliance with standards that they have no freedom to teach? How can we expect children to learn well when all they are thinking about is their grades? No wonder schools are haemorraging experienced and new teachers at a faster pace than we can train and replace them. Yes, assessment of learning is an important part of formal education, but the current system of testing is destroying schools. Over-testing is akin to a gardener who is constantly uprooting his plants to monitor and record their growth. He will look very busy, and there will be plenty of statistics, but ultimately, plant growth will be compromised.

Photo by Sarah Horrigan on Flickr


Tested to distraction by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Piece by piece

I'm continuing the challenge that was featured in my last post Off the Rails. The #blimage challenge is where people send me an image/photograph and I have to write a (reasonably intelligent) learning related blog post about it. This image was sent to me by Simon Ensor, (his blog Touches of Sense is well worth reading by the way) and here is my response:

The is a photo of jigsaw puzzle pieces, which brings three things to mind about education that are key to our understanding of good pedagogy. Firstly, all learning has the characteristics of an incomplete jigsaw. You don't really know exactly how you're going to get to the end (if there ever is an 'end'), or how long it will take, but you do have a an image on the front of the box that contains the pieces, as a reference point to what it should look like when completed. The box top image is a little like a curriculum map in education, where the subjects or the schemes of work are described, and teachers are expected to use it as guidelines to deliver content and facilitate experiences that help the students to achieve their learning outcomes. Testing is then applied to measure whether the students have indeed reached the ideal standard. This ultimately represents a product based approach to education.

Secondly, the means by which an individual successfully completes a jigsaw can be almost infinite. There are methods that people adhere to. Many people start a jigsaw off by finding and assembling all the edges. Others are more prescriptive in their approach to a jigsaw puzzle, preferring to gather together all the colours or shapes that match, and then assembling the jigsaw on the basis of similarity and pattern. Still others adopt a more random approach. Who is to say which method is a) more effective and b) more enjoyable? Whatever methods are employed, it is likely that each of us would complete a jigsaw in a different sequence, which of course is also true for most learning processes. Individuality is a key component of all learning.  Wouldn't it be sad (and very boring) if each of us had to complete a jigsaw in the same sequence, piece by piece? This is a very idiosyncractic approach to education, where the student is central to the process, and where the teacher acts as one resource amongst many.

Thirdly and finally, we could accept that the image above is quite an eye catching image in its own right. Abstractly, it has a beauty and a form that derives entirely from its incompleteness. The discussion then can turn to the question of whether all jigsaw puzzles should be completed. Ostensibly this is the intention of the jigsaw manufacturer. But should it always be the intention of the person who builds the jigsaw? What if the jigsaw is more aesthetically pleasing when only partially complete, or not complete at all? What about the value of missing pieces? Do they not also add some appeal? What about the beauty that is inherent in the chaos and uncertainty of the jigsaw? Isn't the process by which you put together the pieces more enjoyable than the ultimate satisfaction of completing the puzzle? And... what would happen if we threw away the box cover image and there were no guidelines as to what the jigsaw should look like? These questions are reminiscent of a postmodern perspective on education - where learning is random and chaotic, has multiple layers and diverse possibilities, and where the rules might just as easily be thrown out of the window. Ultimately, we know that not everything that is taught is learnt, and not everything that is learnt is taught.

I'm sure there are many other messages that could emerge from the image above, but I'm going to stop at this point to give someone else (perhaps even Simon himself?) a chance to interpret it in a pedagogical context. So what are your ideas? (And what image will you send me that will present a challenge for me to interpret?)

Photo by Simon Ensor


Piece by piece by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Assessment, but not as we know it... #EduTechAU

Eric Mazur's keynote presentation at the opening session of EduTech Australia was predictable, but welcome none the less. He spoke on the purposes of assessment and exposed the roots of the examination regime that many of us in schools, colleges and universities are oh so familiar with. Harvard physics professor Eric Mazur is well known for his rejection of traditional educational models, so his attack on assessment was anticipated by many of the large audience of several thousand educators, who nodded sagely, but probably won't be able to do much to change things. What do we assess for? he asked. For Mazur, assessment today is simply to give grades, for as he pointed out, students don't study to learn, they study to earn their grade. What is in a number? How can something as complex as learning be reduced to a single figure? Why doesn't assessment provide more to the learner than a grade? Because it was established at a time when knowledge was the main currency for education, and where employers demanded knowledgeable workers. That has changed now, and the new, transferrable skills employers demand go beyond the recounting of facts, but the education system has lagged behind, he argued.


Mazur then moved on to the subject of testing and cheating, declaring that it is not the student that is the problem, it is the assessment regime we impose that causes the issues. Testing exerts huge pressures on students, who are expected to perform flawlessly in high stakes examinations, which they endure in isolation. No wonder there is cheating, he argued, but we should not blame the students. Children who learn to tie their shoe laces, or feed themselves with a fork don't cheat, he pointed out. And neither do students who own their learning, and who see specific, daily purposes for it. Why can't assessment be made more relevant to the new requirements of learning in an age where students need to be problem solvers, inventive and creative. Assessment destroys creativity he declared, and again his audience of educators nodded sagely.

With the advent of wearable technology, he mused, will students soon be required to sit their tests naked? It was a throw away remark, and the audience laughed politely, but the underlying thought was quite serious. Should students now be allowed to enter the exam room with devices? (This is a question I also recently posed on this blog) After all, should we be testing their knowledge of facts, or should we be testing their ability to use these facts in particular contexts, such as problem solving and critical analysis of daily activities? Our grading and testing practices, said Mazur, are incompatible with creativity.

Generally, although Mazur's presentation was predictable, it was also a useful set up for three days of dialogue around the future of learning in all sectors - primary, secondary, tertiary, vocational and corporate learning are all represented at this event. EduTech Australia is a large event, probably the largest of its kind in the whole of Australasia. This Brisbane based conference would be a nightmare for traditional educators, but is a strong affirmation for those of the more progressive persuasion.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


Assessment, but not as we know it... #EduTechAU by Steve Wheeler was written in Brisbane, Australia and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

#GBL - the suspension of reality

"Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won!" - Theodor Geisel (Dr Seuss)

Games based learning is a hot subject right now. Listening to James Paul Gee and Nichola Whitton speaking about video games has me thinking about the impact of games on education. How for example, can we justify the inclusion of computer games in school lessons and what benefits might they accrue for learners? How can games be integrated into the education, and in what ways might learning from games be assessed?

Gee's work focuses on the processes of learning through games playing, and highlights the active control gamers can exert, as well as other benefits including meta-level thinking, identity manipulation and discovering knowledge about oneself. For me, by far the most powerful principle Gee has identified is the psychological moratorium (PM) - an adaptation of a concept originally proposed by psychoanalyst Erik Erikson. For Gee, the PM represents the capability of a game to suspend reality, so that the gamer can go where they wish, be whomever they want to be, and perpetrate acts for which there is no lasting consequence. Putting aside the less desirable outcomes of this principle for one moment, we can see that the suspension of reality can encourage students to take greater risks, pose themselves problems that would otherwise be unrealistic, and explore terrains and ideas that would be virtually inconceivable outside of a video game.

Nichola Whitton's work overlaps considerably with the principles Gee identifies. She presents a 'magic circle' within which all kinds of scenarios are possible within games based learning. With video games, students can make believe and be someone else, through the avatar affordances of the technology. The game psychologically transports them to other places. They are able to take risks and experiment, and learn through failure, strengthening their skills and knowledge continually. They can make any number of choices, all of which have different consequences. Trying to beat one's own previous best score is an addictive aspect of many video games, and keeps the learner engaged. This leads not only to self testing but also embraces ipsative forms of assessment, where students measure their performance against their own previous achievements.

There are other elements of gaming such as the social connections and competition features of games that make playing so appealing. We have also to consider some of the subversive elements of games based learning, such as hacking and modding that appeal to so many gamers.

All of these are very powerful motivators. They are an important part of youth culture and teachers can no longer ignore computer games or believe they are irrelevant to education. They are staring us in the face and won't go away. Our challenge now is to discover how we can fully harness the power of these kinds of engagement and the potential for new forms of assessment in formalised settings. Each of these possibilities make learning through games playing highly motivational, but beyond this, they also enable learners to explore new ideas, reflect deeply in their actions, and ultimately, they are fun.

Photo by Sherif Salama on Flickr


#GBL - the suspension of reality by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Opening up #learning: Google in the exam room

Learning is changing, but are schools systems and testing methods keeping pace with these changes? Should they? In a recent BBC TV interview, the head of the examination and qualifications organisation OCR, Mark Dawe, argued that exams and other testing should change to accommodate the new ways of learning that are emerging. He suggested that we should now allow internet access into the exam room, because 'it reflected the way pupils learned and how they would work in the future.'  His ideas were immediately shot down by Chris McGovern ,representing the Campaign for Real Education, who remarked that this proposal was tantamount to dumbing down education. 'We have to test what children are carrying in their heads,' he said.

Dawe of course disagrees with this conclusion, preferring a more progressive approach to testing. He suggests that Google and Internet enabled devices in the exam room is inevitable. He argued that 'when we are asking a question and we know there is access to the Internet, we could ask a different question - it's about the interpretation, the discussion.' This is a fundamental challenge to the way examinations are conducted, and a positive nod in the direction of the new ways of technology enabled learning that some educators find entirely problematic.

What are your views on this debate? Do you think children should be able to access the Internet during their exams? Or should we be cautious and continue to maintain the status quo? If Internet access is made available during exams, will the questions need to change? If so, what will be the benefits and the challenges? The comments box below awaits your views.

Photo by Alejandro Caicedo on Wikimedia Commons


Opening up learning: Google in the exam room by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Fair measures

Last week I wrote about the issues and challenges of assessment. There are many. One is to understand that measuring is not the same as providing good feedback. Yesterday at the London Grid for learning Conference I asked my audience of over 400 teachers if they knew what ipsative assessment was. One teacher raised their hand. This is a standard response. Ipsative assessment is not a commonly known method, and yet most of us use it just about every day to measure ourselves. Here's what Wikipedia says (and it's accurate):

In education, ipsative assessment is the practice of assessing present performance against the prior performance of the person being assessed. One place where this might be implemented is in reference to tests used with K-12 students in the United States, where teacher performance is currently popular. 

Ipsative assessment is used in everyday life, and features heavily in physical education and also in computer games. Encouraging pupils to beat their previous scores can take peer pressure out of situations and eliminates the competitive element associated with norm-based referencing. It can be particularly useful for children with learning disabilities and can improve motivation.

Let me expand on this. In games playing, children (and adults) are often in a battle with themselves. Gamers are constantly obsessed with trying to better their own scores. Ask an avid gamer what level he has achieved on XIII or Call of Duty and they won't hesitate to tell you. When you go to the gym or out for a run - and especially if you are training for a marathon or competition of some kind - you become very focused on your times and you strive to improve them. Teachers of physical education use ipsative assessment regularly with their students, to motivate them to become faster, higher, stronger, more skillful. It's the ethos behind the spirit of the Olympic Games. You participate to better yourself and winning is the icing on the cake. Children play games and sport all the time. They are fascinated by how far they can go and how many points they can score. It's a natural part of their every day experience.

Here's John Kleeman on the benefits of ipsative assessment:

.... an advantage of ipsative assessment is that it measures progress and development – a test-taker can see if he or she is improving and whether or not he/she is taking advantage of feedback from previous assessments. Using ipsative assessment can help all test-takers improve: A weaker performer will be encouraged by seeing performance improvements over earlier attempts, and a stronger performer can be challenged to do better. This can deal with the risks of the weaker performer becoming demotivated from a poor test result and the strong performer complacent from a good one. Ipsative assessment can be used for objective measures (e.g. did I get a better score?) and also for more subjective measures (e.g. am I more confident about something?)

From my professional experience, I would argue that Ipsative assessment is by far the fairest, and most relevant form of assessment there is. Students are competing against themselves, and only themselves. Imagine what might happen if, instead of measuring children's maths or science knowledge against some arbitrary benchmark (criterion referencing), we assessed them on how well they had personally progressed against their previous attainment levels. We might have ourselves a fairer assessment system for learning. Will it happen? Criterion referenced assessment is deeply ingrained within the fabric of the school system in most countries now. Whether we can effectively replace our current system of assessment with ipsative assessment is another question entirely.

If it happened, it would be a seismic shift in education.

Photo by Areta Ekarafi on Flickr


Fair measures by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The numbers game

When you mark a student's work, do you give them a grade or do you offer them advice? Both, do I hear you say? If you are offering both, then you're doing well. But not all teachers do, and I should point out that there is a big difference between assessment of learning and assessment for learning. Assessing students' work can be tedious and time consuming, and it turns out to be the bane of many teachers' lives. But it is a vitally important part of pedagogy.

Assessment of learning focuses largely on the student's work and offers metrics - awarding a grade with a numerical value - that reflect how the work is measured against specific criteria. By contrast, assessment for learning focuses on the student - particularly recognising that their learning is an ongoing process - and seeks to inform learners on how they can improve their work in the future. Some would argue that giving grades reflects a product-based pedaogogy, while offering feedback supports a process-based pedagogy.

Ever stopped to wonder why we give grades? What value do students place on numbers, or letters? What does it mean to get a 'B' for an essay, or to achieve 50% in an exam? In higher education, students' efforts - whether they take the form of essay, project or an exam - are 'marked' on a 100 point scale. Anything below 40 is a fail, and anything above 70 is a first class result. The majority of students achieve grades somewhere between these two scores, because more often than not, students tend to produce average work. Sometimes it's because lecturers mark conservatively and don't like to fail students (that could reflect badly on their own academic reputation) or draw attention by awarding an outstanding piece of work a 95 or even a 100.

Why do we need to attach a number to someone's work? Is the numbers game teachers play a meaningful exercise or a nonsense? To reduce a student's work - which they have often painstakingly constructed over a period of several weeks or months - to a single number, seems a little unfair. Although a student's grade can be accompanied by comments on their work, it is the grade that usually takes centre stage, because ultimately, over a period of time, grades determine the classification of degree the student will be awarded. Whether employers value degree classifications as much as universities, is a moot point, and to be debated elsewhere. Assessment for learning can also incorporate grades, but the emphasis is on the feedback (some might say feed-forward) which is a form of scaffolding to support students as they strive to do better in their academic endeavours.

In the final analysis, marking of students' work is either about how their work measures up against standards, or it is about how well the teacher can get them to understand what they need to do better next time. The two outcomes are vastly different. They represents a clash of ideologies on how education should be conducted. They have their roots in the same battle for education I have previously articulated. Unsurprisingly, there were a few antagonistic responses to these posts, because some disliked my argument that there might be a binary and saw it as too simplistic. The arguments remains - that although we can all choose how we teach and assess, our decisions are often influenced by ideology and the culture we find ourselves immersed within. Personal views on the purpose of education shape professional practice. In reality, a range of assessment practices do exist, but as educators we should acknowledge that personal philosophy in education drives everything a teacher does. Without adequate feedback, students find it difficult to progress. Simply placing a number at the top of an assignment does little to support their development as learners.

Assessment is at the heart of education. If measurement of learning is done well, not only can teachers be reasonably sure how well their students are doing, they can provide evaluation on the effectiveness of the curriculum, teaching methods and resources. However, we know there is no substitute for good scaffolding of learning, and useful feedback is central.

Photo by Andy Barrow on Flickr


The numbers game by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Battle lines

In yesterday's post entitled 'The Battle for Education', I showed a chart that characterised two opposing educational philosophies - traditional and progressive. I argued that educators are in a battle over how education is conducted, and this will determine our children's futures. Often, the differences between the two philosophies determine how students are treated, how they are assessed and ultimately, how they view their education and their own achievements.

Some comments on Twitter and on my blog have suggested that the binary between the two positions is unhelpful. There have been arguments that teachers switch between the two positions according to context. I'm not denying either of these two kinds of argument. But I will say this: it matters not whether or not individual teachers switch between modes, what matters is that there are indeed two opposing philosophies, and they both heavily influence the way schools are run. The tension between the two stances has previously caused disagreement, and will continue to do so, among educators. A binary does exist, and if leaders of schools subscribe to say a traditional approach to education, generally the school they manage will tend to follow that pattern of delivery. I have visited schools that are fully traditional in their approach and I have also been to schools where the ethos is wholly progressive. The differences are stark. Individual teachers do have a choice to determine their approach in the classroom, but realistically, these choices are limited, particularly if they are expected to tow the party line of their leadership.

One of the most marked distinctions between traditional and progressive approaches - and a battle line that will play increasing importance as the debate continues - concerns the role of the teacher. In the purest format of traditional education, teachers act as experts who deliver content to their students. They generally take a position at the front of the classroom and this is where all the action takes place. The whiteboard and other teacher resources are located here. Students are physically oriented toward this position by carefully planned seating. They are expected to pay attention to the expert, and learning is largely passive. The teacher's responsibility is to ensure that all students receive the same knowledge, at the same time. Later they are assessed on what they have remembered, and are given a grade to show how well they have been able to do so.

By contrast, progressive education views the role of the teacher as a co-learner. The teacher may be a content expert, but the most important part of their role is to facilitate learning of that content rather than simply to present it. This might involve active forms of learning where students discuss, explore through making and through solving problems. In progressive education approaches, teachers stand back and avoid the delivery of content as much as possible, creating an environment within which enquiry can be undertaken and where students generally assume more responsibility over their own learning. Assessment of learning in progressive education is more likely to be assessment for learning. This focuses more on individual progress than to measuring performance against a specific set of norm referenced criteria.

Again this is a simplistic characterisation of the two positions and there are bound to be more objections, but the definitions of roles above resonate with my experiences of recent school visits. This is by no means a complete argument. You can see them as notes in an ongoing series of thoughts about how education is being shaped and how this will play out in the continuing battle over our children's futures.

Photo by Shakata Ga Nai on Wikimedia Commons


Battle lines by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Learning to love maths - moving away from ability grouping. Prof Jo Boaler

Jo Boaler is the Marie Curie Professor of maths at University of Sussex. She previously taught at Kings College London and Stanford University. She is author of ‘The Elephant in the Classroom: Helping Children Learn and Love Maths’.

See small u tube presentation by Jo Boaler ( Ideal staff meeting?)

An excellent and practical read - a resource being used by a NZ school run by an ex maths adviser. ( A school also using  Aust. Charles Lovett' s ideas) 

See this link to another blog about Jo Boaler


Another blog about why kids hate maths ( Anne Murphy).

Together literacy and numeracy takes up the greatest proportion of the school day , a situation cemented by the imposition of National Standards. One UK commentator has said that ‘literacy

Sir Ken

and numeracy are the evil twins that have gobbled up the entire curriculum’. Sir Ken Robinson writes that schools only ‘mine’children’s heads for literacy and numeracy ignoring other important learning areas – he believes creativity is as important as literacy and numeracy. Guy Claxton echoes Sir Ken’s thoughts saying that ‘learnacy’ is as important as literacy and numeracy. 

For all this emphasis too many students leave school unable to do basic numeracy and see themselves as maths cripples.

I have always believed two things have caused thissituation: an emphasis on ‘school’ rather than ‘real’ maths and the use ofability grouping. When I taught I refused to use ability grouping and did my best to introduce real or interesting maths topics to my class– integrating maths, where possible, with the current inquiry study. To cover myself we also did basic computation daily but I taught the students that this was to be seen as ‘practice’ not ‘real’ maths. The majority of the learning in my room was centred around the inquiry based study topics we chose. Literacy and numeracy were seen as ‘foundation skills’ necessary for students to complete quality learning in selected study areas - as well as for their own intrinsic value

I wish I had access at the time to Jo Boaler’s book (and also the research of Australian maths educationalist Charles Lovett   ) but I gained support from computer educationalist Seymour

Great book

Papert who had written that ‘all science and maths ought to be applied not pure'.  Dr Z P Dienes(of Dienes blocks) had also written that it is  time to 'shift from teaching to learning, from our experience to the children's, in fact, from our world to theirs'.  I had also come to the conclusion that the secret was to do fewer maths topics well – a lesson we now are now learning from Japanese maths teaching.

Jo Boaler writes, ‘far too many students hate maths. As a result adults all over the world fear maths and avoid it at all costs…. It’s the subject that can make them feel both helpless and stupid….Maths more than any subject has the power to crush children’s confidence.’

It’s time to remedy this situation and her book provides the knowledge and the details of the real maths children should be learning.

The ‘elephant in the room’ is the belief held by teachers that some people can do maths and some can’t and so, to help ‘slow’ learners, children are grouped byability. As a result the maths that is taught, she writes, has little in common with real maths. When ‘real’ maths is taught in context many more children are successful.

Testing!!!!!

But changing maths teaching has proven to be very difficult and as a result ‘many children are still subjected to an outdated and narrow form of teaching. With the imposition of national testing in the UK English students’ results (along with students in the US) are falling behind other countries and, as well, more student end up disliking maths. And to compound the problem ability grouping is increasingly being seen as the ‘way’ to teach maths. Ironically these ‘failing’ countries are the ones our government is emulating with its standards agenda!

The purpose of Boaler’s book is to make students and teachers excited about maths and to ensure more students are competent, equipped for a future that will require maths ability.

A key question to ask is what is maths? Real mathematicians see it as a study of patterns and relationships –a way of thinking and making meaning.

Maths in nature

One clear difference between the work of mathematicians and school maths is that mathematicians work on tasks that take a long time to complete usually collaborating with other mathematicians to devise solutions while at school students work alone on short ‘unreal’ questions with known answers. Teachers of ‘school’ maths might be surprised, Boaler writes, to know that mathematicians involve themselves in guessing at first and then setting about problem solving. This provides a clue for teachers who want to have their children working like junior mathematician; an approach encouraged by American educator David Perkins.

‘Bringing maths back to life for school children involves giving them a sense of living mathematics….posing and extending problems of interest to students means they enjoy mathematics more, they feel ownership of their work and they ultimately learn more’.

There seems like the need to make school maths a perpetual ‘maths fair’. ‘If students were to work in the ways mathematicians do, for at least some of the time- posing problems, making guesses and conjectures, exploring with and refining ideas, and discussing ideas with others they would be given a sense of true mathematical work….to enjoy mathematics…and learn in the most productive ways.’

Let's not label kids!

The biggest problem in school work in the UK, Boaler believes, is the desire to label children and assign them to a level (standard) and teach them in ability groups. Recent UK government policies, she writes, has ‘pushed the situation out of control’. 

Schools are now deciding who can and can’t do maths when they are only four years old and research show that most children stay in the low groups until they leave school. This grouping ignores all that is known about the variety in the individual development of children. Since target setting has taken over in schools children in the UK have dropped from eight to twenty fourth in international tests of mathematical problem solving. A lesson for New Zealand! Boaler believes it is important to replace this target driven approach, which labels and prejudges children producing ‘can’t do’ maths students, with real maths experiences.

What is required, she writes, ‘is to provide stimulatingenvironments for all children; environments in which children’s interests canbe peaked and nurtured, with teachers who are ready to recognize, cultivate and develop the potential that children show at different times and different areas.’

 This is difficult if children are placed in low groups – such students come to believe in their lack of ability. In NZ - once a weka always a weka!

Slow learners? I think not!

Such destructive ability grouping is not used in high achieving countries like Finland and Japan where schools communicate that everyone can be good at maths and teachers work hard to see it happens – working collaboratively to plan exciting maths and doing fewer things well.

It appears to me that in New Zealand schools the use of ability grouping is unquestioned and that many schools and, following the UK ‘lead, are’ moving into greater setting and streaming for maths. Boaler points out that  the International Mathematics and Science Study shows countries   ‘who leave grouping to the latest possible moment or who use the least amount of grouping by ability are those with the highest achievement.’ Japanese educators are ‘bemused by the Western goal of sorting students into high and low abilities’. In Japan what is important is balance. ’Everyone can do everything…..so we can’t divide by ability…Japanese education emphasizes group education, not individual education…we want students to help each other, to learn from each other…to get along and grow together.’ Add to this teachers who plan maths collaboratively and do fewer topics well and you have recipe for success.

 ‘Research’, Boaler writes,’ tells us that approaches that keep students as equal as possible and that do not group by ability not only helps those who would be placed in low sets, which seems obviously, but those who would be placed in high sets too.’

Inspiration for maths

‘Researchers consistently find that the most important factor is what they call opportunity to learn.

 If students are not given challenging and high level work then they do not achieve at high levels.’ ‘Students who struggle in mathematics are helped by engaging in discussions about maths with students who are working at higher levels.’ ‘In Japan students are not all expected to learn the same thing, which the unrealistic expectations in many countries; instead they are given challenging problems and each student get the most that they can.’ This reflects my own teaching approach.

Boaler writes ‘the impact that ability grouping has upon students’ lives – in and beyond school – is profound. Researchers in England found that 88% of children placed in ability groups at age four remain in the same groupings until they leave school. This is the most chilling statistics I have ever read.’ For schools to make these sort of grouping decisions, she writes, ‘is nothing short of criminal.’

Only by offering opportunities for rich challenges, by flexible system of grouping that does not pre-judge a child’s achievement, and by using multi-level mathematical that each student takes to the highest level will we ‘encourage smart and competent maths learners in our classrooms.’

One school studies Alice in Numberland!!

Maybe it is time for New Zealand schools to re-think their use of ability grouping in mathematics- and reading?

Time to let those wekas fly!


And if you aren't convinced read this!