I’ve got to beg of Tom the answer – what’s the “most obvious idea on the Internet?”

And – I hope you’re spending time in your studies, Dan, trying to answer the question that ends this post. It’s important – how do we help people to 1. Work from good theoretical foundations and 2. Do so when it’s not necessarily the “easiest” thing to do. Can social software make that easier? I don’t know – but it’s worth spending time thinking on and fiddling with.

It *is* difficult to organize a system for planning a curriculum. Do you put units ahead of individual lessons? Do objectives/outcomes belong at the top? I think I fundamentally think with “Greek glasses” on, and want definitions up front, then gradually work towards particulars.

Dan, I couldn’t agree more about worksheets and other “documents”. Like you, I am completely amazed at the statement that they are essential lesson building blocks. Adjuncts, followup resources, maybe. Building blocks? Never!

So, what does belong first in a good lesson? How about “engagement in thinking” – by teacher and students?

Dan:

I respect your relatively hands-off approach to math instruction. I also respect what the folks at BetterLesson are trying to do, and suspect your visceral reaction against scaffolded resources such as handouts requires a bit more evaluation.

First, it’s worth clarifying that BetterLesson does not actually develop content, but provides a mechanism–and, I think, a very good one–to help teachers share materials. If these take the form of worksheets, or PowerPoint presentations, or even a text file with suggested prompts, BL is agnostic. Indeed, the word “worksheet” does not appear in the first ten words of their post, nor in the second ten.

That said, and as someone who legitimately admires your own contributions to math education, I think that an anti-curriculum curriculum approach is just as limited as the most scripted textbook, just in the opposite direction. WCYDWT-style problems are great. Yet at least from what I’ve seen, they’re also limited to what are effectively brain-teasers: How long will it take to fill the tank with water?; How many people attended Burning Man?

Which leads to the larger question: what are we here to do? If our goal is simply to help kids solve puzzles, and if we agree that this would constitute an entire curriculum, then sure, let’s get rid of all the scaffolding: worksheets, handouts, etc. (Indeed, maybe we should get rid of the puzzles altogether, since the real fun is in the asking of the question).

On the other hand, if our goal is to use math to teach something else–to use a hammer to actually build something–then structure can help. We recently began collaborating with a major TV broadcaster to develop math lessons around their news programming. The first lesson explores the math of product warranties, and then uses this framework to better understand health insurance and healthcare reform.

How would you teach this (or rather, how would you create something for someone else to teach)? As I understand it, a WCYDWT approach would ask, “How is AppleCare like health insurance,” and leave it to students to come up with expected value and adverse selection. And if they do, perfect. But what if they don’t?

Herein, I think, lies the difference between posing questions (pure) and developing curriculum. Yes, the handout and PowerPoint and teacher guide collectively rob some of the authenticity from the experience, but they add something as well. Purity vs. compromise. Punditry vs. governance.

Scaffolding vs. exploration? Handouts vs. “go.” I’m not saying that one is right, nor am I saying that one is wrong. What I am saying, though, is that structure can play a role and, if not suffocating, a helpful one. Worksheets aren’t your thing? I respect that. You prefer Play-Doh? That’s cool. But as rigid as it may be, I’d still rather build a house with wood.

BetterLesson isn’t espousing a philosophy. They’re providing a tool. They’re not “espousing the superiority of worksheets,” but simply the virtues of sharing.

MBP said: “What I want is a user-submitted virtual filing cabinet, with an editor-in-chief and with voting/comments.”

I think you mean you need a delicious account :)

http://www.delicious.com/

“Quick comment re worksheets and scaffolding: I don’t have problems with either per se but when the scaffolding a) distorts how a real person would go through the problem..”

Well put. Again, though, developing content for other people requires compromise. Some teachers feel insucure in their own content knowledge. Others simply feel rushed. If scaffolding is what convinces them to teach a given lesson, then the other part of the compromise is ensuring that it still fosters the actual learning.

In terms of the apparent radioactivity of the healthcare prompt, this highlights two very different approaches to math ed or, better, its purpose. Is the real world a tool to learn about math, or is math a tool to learn about the real world? Both valid, and the emphasis informs how you view things like worksheets, etc.

Lastly, @MBP, I really like what you wrote about the need for more instructional guidance, and think that good materials invite those misconceptions and actively address them. Where that’s cumbersome, good teacher guides–not answer keys, mind you, but behind the scenes whisperings–are great.

Actually, yesterday morning I was thinking that we need is this:

http://blog.tomeuvizoso.net/2011/01/wrap-up-python-gnome-hackfest-2011.html

Except substitute, say, “WCYDWT” and “The Imaginary Open Source Math Curriculum” for “Python” and “Gnome,” educational companies for computer ones, etc.

Yes, I know this won’t make any sense to most people, but that’s what comments are for!

Maybe I’m just late to the game here, but the post and comments brings me back to some of my own thoughts a few days back.

What is a worksheet? And inside that question, I ask the question what is it that makes them so bad?

I hear the term and I have a knee-jerk reaction. If I hear my students say “worksheet” or “packet” I have to fight the urge to tell them to be quiet so no one thinks I’m just having my students do endless repetitive problems.

Is it the photocopied paper that is bad?

Is it mindless rule memorization?

Or, the students going into a “survival mode” with the only goal to finish and if they learn something that’s just a bonus?

Is a photocopied “packet” that asks leading question to guide them towards a pattern or asks them to draw a conclusion based on an exploration still bad? Does that still fall into the same category as the dreaded “worksheet?”

Again maybe I’m late to the discussion, and this has been answered, but I wonder if we all have a different vision of what a “worksheet” looks like…

“A pedagogical decision hides behind every design decision. ”

I think this just became my favorite quote.

“I hear the term and I have a knee-jerk reaction. If I hear my students say “worksheet” or “packet” I have to fight the urge to tell them to be quiet so no one thinks I’m just having my students do endless repetitive problems.”

Indeed. No one–except for Dan, at first–said “worksheet.”

Be honest. Please.

Blocks of a good lesson:

– A “maker” platform supporting something students will be making; play-dough or paper are good platforms
– A “sharing” platform, turning made objects into social objects
– A “discussion” platform for reflection
– Invitation to go back to making/remixing after reflection

Well yeah, some of the social objects can be documents. At the last math club, I invited kids to draw infinity, and their drawings can be thought of as documents. The format is beside the point, though.

First, is betterlesson’s form really a problem?
Structurally, I don’t see much difference between a betterlesson lesson and your own curriculum. (http://geometry.mrmeyer.com/)
They call them “lessons,” you call them “weeks.” They have a place for documents. You have a place for documents. If a user created a lesson on betterlesson’s but put powerpoints instead of worksheets, couldn’t they recreate your own curriculum website?

Second, I’m not sure I agree with your statement about Steve Jobs:
“we’re going to grab the high end of the market and make something that will be actively hostile to lousy pedagogy.”
Take Keynote. Did he really prevent people from making bad presentations or did he simply guide people to making decent presentations? I’d argue you can still make bad presentations on keynote just as you can make bad pedagogy on betterlesson. In fact, in any of Apple’s products, have they succeeded in preventing people from making bad design choices? Take the iPhone. They have a review process to weed out bad apps. Their tools don’t prevent the inevitable garbage from being created.

Third, on the idea of creating and sharing lessons…. in my mind, it’s critical to address creating before sharing. A product must satisfy a teachers own self-interest by being super easy, FAST, and providing an easy way to organize activities/lessons. If a teacher uses a product to create, its trivial to invite them to click the ‘make public’ button and share.

IMO, BetterLesson doesn’t add value to the creation process and this is the reason we don’t see large usage numbers from them (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/betterlesson.org/ Even if compete is off by a factor of 10, its still drawing < 2% of the national teaching corp). If a product does add value to the creation process, it forces the sharing process to be non-value added. Uploading lessons to BetterLesson isn't a value added activity. Sharing lessons with colleagues isn't very value added either, as it's easier to use dropbox.

Any system that isn't a natural, value added part of the teaching planning process will see relatively little use and traction. Ideas like stackoverflow, edufy, teachers posting lessons to blogs, etc are great but they limit their audience to teachers who have the time and desire to do the non-value added activity of uploading content.

So, starting from the premise that we must solve the creation problem before we can address the sharing one, what is the creation process and how can technology help make it better? Specifically, how do teachers record "engagement thinking?" and how could a product make that recording better?

I like the work that asana.com is doing with task management. They're focusing on making individual user task management better. Check out their video demo–it's excellent. They point out the tension between simplicity and structure. Post it notes are simple. Project management software is complex and structured. They note that people never give up the simple (post it notes, notepad.exe, strings on fingers, wikis, etc) and thus duplicate what's on the structured system. A great deal of time is spent updating the simple systems to align with the structured. Asana has reject the dichotomy between simple and structured and created a rather impressive product that is both simple and structured.

I think a similar product needs to happen in lesson planning. Most lesson planning web apps are on the structured side. Teachers seem to prefer simple and use Microsoft Word to do most of their planning. A web app has to reject the false dichotomy and create a simple tool that also created structured data.

Finally, in full disclosure, I'm also working to "make something agnostic enough to sell to every charter network in the US." I'm curious what you think of it. We built our product around a menu based approach to curriculum design. For every concept, we've believe there's an array of activities that can be used to teach it. Sadly, this approach doesn't prevent lousy pedagogy, but we think it makes it possible for excellent pedagogy to flourish. Also, we're different from BetterLesson in that we're not focused on teachers; we're focused on helping the curriculum writers (either full time central office staff or teachers doing it after hours) distribute their curriculum to teachers. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts, especially because I think you'd be remarkably critical. Let me know if you'd like to see a demo.

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your comments You wrote:
> If BetterLesson has made a point, internally, of saying, “There are some teachers who make junk and our DNA will not let us ship it,” I’d be surprised.

I agree.

I’m fascinated by the question we seem to be talking about, “Can we prevent junk?” Whether one looks at stackoverflow, message boards, or even dribble, there’s always junk. Dribble, a site to share screen shots of designs, perhaps does the best job of any site out there. They prevent junk by making it referral only, thus preventing the masses from signing up. However, making a site exclusive and referral only isn’t a technical decision–it’s a business one. So, could BetterLesson design a system which used technology or UI to prevent junk? I’m not sure.

To truly prevent junk, I think you’d have to have an approval process, which is a business decision, not a technical one. Naturally, there are implications of an approval process. An approval process presents a barrier which could limit uploading and creates possibly contentious situations where one users materials were not approved and one was.

I bring this all up because I think asking, “Can we prevent junk”, while fascinating, isn’t a helpful question to ask. I think it’s a more profitable discussion to figure out how to bring the brillance to the surface and hide the chaff.

As in, I’m on Area 51 right now working on it. Anyone interested in the link when I’ve done it?