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99: Behaviorism & "Cog Sci" - Oh No!
25 Plays3 years ago
In this podcast, Nick and I are continuing our foray into random topics of progressive education! Today's episode centers cognitive science, research movements, and "studies of the brain." Within, we'll be talking about what's currently going on at HRP, articles and books that Nick and I have been reading recently, what's going on in our classrooms, Q&A from listeners via Twitter, and then a pop-quiz for who stays alive.
And we discuss:
- Mary-Helen Immordino-Yang's work and development in neuroscience
- Audrey Watter's Teaching Machines, and the history of B.F. Skinner/behaviorism, especially his behaviorist "Utopian" book Walden Two
- Nick using the "Tier List Maker" for class assignments
- Chris using Floop for workshoping and ungrading
- Responding to "How do you motivate reluctant learners?" and "What does a student-driven curriculum look like in practice?"
- A game show(!) featuring "Doug Lemov (Teach Like a Champion) said what!?" and "Ungrading: The Research." Who will be sent out of the airlock?
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 99 of our podcast at Human Restoration Project.
00:00:10
Speaker
My name is Chris McNutt.
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm a high school digital media educator from Ohio, joined by Nick Covington, a social studies teacher from Iowa.
00:00:17
Speaker
Before we get started, I want to let you know that this is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are Monty Sairi, Sarah Pasour, and Travis Gautau-Zanel.
00:00:25
Speaker
Thank you for your ongoing support.
00:00:27
Speaker
You can learn more about the Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org, or find us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
00:00:49
Speaker
In this podcast, Nick and I are continuing our foray into random topics of progressive education.
00:00:54
Speaker
Today's episode centers cognitive science, research movements, and quote-unquote studies of the brain.
00:01:00
Speaker
Within, we'll be talking about what's currently going on at HRP, articles and books that Nick and I have been reading recently, what's going on in our classrooms, a Q&A from listeners via Twitter, and then a pop quiz for who stays alive.
HRP's Current Projects and Achievements
00:01:14
Speaker
How are you, Nick?
00:01:15
Speaker
What's going on?
00:01:16
Speaker
I'm coming to you from a hotel room in Lincoln, Nebraska.
00:01:19
Speaker
So that's kind of fun, kind of enjoying the daylight savings hour.
00:01:24
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I came in last night to come to a concert happening downtown.
00:01:28
Speaker
And then, yeah, we'll record the podcast and then I'll head back home later today.
00:01:33
Speaker
So we'll start off by talking about what's currently going on at Human Restoration Project.
00:01:38
Speaker
We've been relatively quiet on the, I guess, like the constituent end.
00:01:44
Speaker
People haven't been seeing maybe as many writings or as many podcasts coming up.
00:01:48
Speaker
But that's because behind the scenes, we've been working on a lot of grant stuff and a lot of kind of cool course development stuff.
00:01:57
Speaker
I don't know how much we can share based on that partnership that you've been developing, Nick.
00:02:01
Speaker
We've been developing out a course for ungrading that may or may not award graduate credit.
00:02:06
Speaker
And that might turn into more progressive classes based around learning different systems and how you can change them in your class and get university credit for it.
00:02:15
Speaker
So that's pretty cool.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's awesome.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, so the partnership hopefully will be through...
00:02:20
Speaker
The Iowa State Education Association, their ISEA Academy, which traditionally just helps to offer continuing education credits.
00:02:29
Speaker
Sometimes you can take those for grad credit as well.
00:02:32
Speaker
So we're going to put together a syllabus for an ungrading course, and hopefully then teachers can sign up for that.
00:02:38
Speaker
I think probably a requirement is that you might have to be an Iowa resident to do that, but that's just kind of where
00:02:44
Speaker
our connections lie.
00:02:44
Speaker
But if we get this thing going, it could be something that we can pitch elsewhere and hopefully spread the word.
00:02:52
Speaker
Right.
00:02:52
Speaker
It's coupled with two other pretty major things that are going on.
00:02:56
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One is we are attempting to finalize a pretty serious grant that could help us develop coursework for classrooms for students to engage in this work.
00:03:06
Speaker
A lot of our work so far has been very teacher-centric
00:03:09
Speaker
In the sense that we're still centering students, but the materials are aimed at educators.
00:03:14
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This grant would have us creating materials for students that educators could then use.
00:03:19
Speaker
And it also dictates some of our research into progressive education.
00:03:23
Speaker
And kind of with that coupled, Human Restoration Project was recently shortlisted for the QS Reimagined Education Conference via Wharton.
00:03:33
Speaker
university.
00:03:33
Speaker
And that's, that's pretty cool.
00:03:35
Speaker
It's the top 12% of applicants.
00:03:37
Speaker
I can't remember off the top of my head.
00:03:37
Speaker
I want to say it was 1200 people applied and we're in the top 12%.
00:03:40
Speaker
So it's pretty darn cool.
00:03:43
Speaker
You'll be seeing something out of that in likely the next month or so.
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:48
Speaker
Big things on the horizon, a lot of things going on.
00:03:50
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Just not a lot to show for it so far.
00:03:53
Speaker
Yeah, not on the public-facing end, right?
00:03:54
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Because, you know, given the fact that we are full-time classroom teachers, I mean, our entire, you know, staff has other things that we do full-time, you know, the time that we put in behind the scenes then kind of takes away from the public-facing stuff, so...
00:04:09
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One thing that we are releasing that you can check out is via 100daysofconversations.org.
00:04:15
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Go there.
00:04:15
Speaker
You can see the insights that are coming out of it.
00:04:17
Speaker
I believe since this last podcast, we released the equity conversation.
00:04:20
Speaker
It's really cool.
00:04:21
Speaker
Not only did it take a ton of time and analysis and work from our partners,
00:04:26
Speaker
You'll just be able to find a host of different resources, organizations, concepts to explore with students about what equity means in education and what that means going forward.
00:04:36
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And there will be the same concept coming forward here with about seven other insights.
00:04:39
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There's a lot of work going on there.
Discussion on Cognitive Science and Education
00:04:41
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Be sure to check that out.
00:04:46
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There it is.
00:04:47
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Transition.
00:04:47
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You've got to get a better transition sound.
00:04:49
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That's the transition.
00:04:50
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It's a spaceship whoosh by.
00:04:52
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We're going to talk about some articles that we're reading.
00:04:54
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I have a feeling this might jump into that cog size stuff.
00:04:57
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Maybe.
00:04:57
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I think it will.
00:04:58
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Yeah.
00:04:58
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All right.
00:04:59
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Do you want to start?
00:04:59
Speaker
You want me to start?
00:05:00
Speaker
Oh, man, I can start.
00:05:01
Speaker
Now, I'll say it's early on a Sunday morning, so my brain is a little bit rattled by this.
00:05:07
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But the thing that I wanted to bring to the table here was, but maybe I'll again, since I'm addicted to context, I'll kind of share the context for this.
00:05:15
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But I went to two, I guess, allies of mine in this battle of, in this trivia battle that we're going to fight here.
00:05:25
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So I went to Trevor Elio and I went to Michael Weingarth.
00:05:27
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You can find him at Learning Pillars, I think, on Twitter.
00:05:30
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But
00:05:30
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I went to those guys and I said, hey, you know, Chris and I are going to have another episode coming up and it's going to be about cognitive science.
00:05:38
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It's going to be about kind of research ed.
00:05:40
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And I wanted them to maybe pull some stuff that I could use to stump you in the trivia.
00:05:43
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And as we were talking about that,
00:05:46
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I mean, they threw numerous resources at me that I had not been made aware of that I dove in headfirst into.
00:05:54
Speaker
And actually, it could be the case even that that partnership kind of turns into something kind of fun in terms of a future podcast series that we had talked about a little bit.
00:06:04
Speaker
And, you know, we're all just busy folks.
00:06:07
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So something to look out there in the future.
00:06:09
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But they turned me on to this podcast, Rethinking Education,
00:06:15
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And it's a podcast from, oh my gosh, who is the, who's the guy?
00:06:20
Speaker
I know who the guest is, but okay.
00:06:22
Speaker
The podcast is called Rethinking Education.
00:06:23
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I don't remember who hosts it because it doesn't list it on the, on the, on the episodes page, but Mr. Education.
00:06:30
Speaker
Yes.
00:06:31
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It's with, it's, it's with Dr. Education actually.
00:06:33
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He's got a PhD.
00:06:36
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But it's with Mary Helen Imordino Yang.
00:06:39
Speaker
And apparently this is a name that everybody needs to be familiar with in the realm of cognitive science because her work, not just as a like a neuroscientist, but she also I kind of get the vibe that she is also writing for more popular audiences as well.
00:06:58
Speaker
So obviously like a serious academic, but just listening to her speak and then the work that she has written and the books that she has published, also like wanting to bring that message to a broader audience other than just academic journals, right?
00:07:13
Speaker
And that's just apparent in the way that she speaks about education.
00:07:16
Speaker
But one of the things that has been really, I don't know, difficult about
00:07:21
Speaker
cognitive science and progressive education and kind of the way that those things have seemingly been at odds with each other is that cognitive science has kind of been used as a cudgel almost to replicate the tools of the laboratory classroom in schools.
00:07:40
Speaker
So, right, trying to control for various variables in order to control for outcomes that then we can measure and say that, you know, kids have improved their learning on X, Y, and Z thing.
00:07:50
Speaker
Now, the more variables that you add into that, or you start to talk about more qualitative ways that kids might think or talk about their learning, it's going to really confound the correlation between inputs and outputs, right?
00:08:03
Speaker
But she's trying to bring meaning and feeling back into education and really talk about how the way that kids feel about their learning works.
00:08:14
Speaker
is as important or maybe more important than the random bits of memorization that they would otherwise just come out of that.
00:08:27
Speaker
So for example, the popular phrase for the last decade or so has been, facts don't care about your feelings.
00:08:32
Speaker
And it turns out that they, facts really do care about your feelings.
00:08:36
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And she's done a lot of work that actually shows that the way that kids feel about what they're learning and the stories that they tell themselves about these can glean a lot, not just about how kids are learning, but also how kind of their trajectory for, for how
00:08:52
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what they will be in the future as well.
00:08:53
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So yeah, I would just really recommend that podcast for Rethinking Education.
00:08:58
Speaker
It actually came out on October 15th, 2021.
00:09:01
Speaker
Mary Helen Immordino Yang on the Neurobiological Case for Progressive Education.
00:09:06
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So it really is about bringing cognitive science to bear on the kinds of things that we've been talking about from a humane lens.
00:09:14
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And I'll just read a couple of different quotes that I pulled out of that
00:09:18
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pulled out of that thing.
00:09:19
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So she says, for example, here's a really great one.
00:09:23
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She says, what actually allows us to predict the growth, the physical growth and the change in function of teenagers brains across years and into adulthood, which in turn predicts their young adult happiness, how productive they are, how well they do in school, how much they like their close relationships, how coherent their identity is, how purposeful they feel their life is really important stuff about people's outcomes.
00:09:43
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What predicts that is not what they know.
00:09:45
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It's how they think.
00:09:47
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It's the dispositions they bring to the world as they engage with complex problems with open-ended problems without one answer.
00:09:56
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So again, she's bringing in that gray zone, that purpose-finding, that meaning-making into what has usually been a pretty sterile space.
00:10:05
Speaker
you know, what, retrieval practice, interleaving, and all of those other kinds of more traditional practices that justify traditional classrooms and saying, no, maybe the difficult, complex stuff that students do is more important for their future than the what it is that they can remember.
Critique of Behaviorist Approaches in Education
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah, it seemingly does not connect to a lot of the conversations that you tend to hear from
00:10:30
Speaker
cog-sci people, cognitive science people, which if you're not familiar, cognitive science people tend to focus on this back to basics, fact-based approach where kids do a lot of recall-based, cognitive load theory.
00:10:46
Speaker
It's all essentially based off of studies that have happened in labs where students have increased test scores based off of behaviorist style,
00:10:58
Speaker
like positive and sometimes even negative reinforcement metrics of just repeating the exact same thing over and over.
00:11:04
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However, in practice, in a classroom, those types of techniques don't really work.
00:11:13
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And they also ignore all of the other researchers in this field.
00:11:16
Speaker
Like I think of Kendall Cottonbronck, William Damon, what's the Susan Engel, who are doing the exact same line of work and counteracting
00:11:27
Speaker
saying like, hey, yes, this stuff increases test scores in a lab setting, but having a classroom that actually looked and felt like this would be someplace that you would never want to send your kids to because it would be sterile and boring and brutal.
00:11:41
Speaker
And there's a lot more that goes into a classroom beyond just memorizing a bunch of facts.
00:11:46
Speaker
It's a community space and it means a lot more than that.
00:11:49
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And
00:11:51
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This type of work showcases that the research is not all on one side.
00:11:56
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There is a plethora of research from a bunch of different people talking about a bunch of different things from different perspectives.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, what I think is so interesting is, and I joked about Trevor and Michael about this, but I was like, you know, it's taking neuroscience.
00:12:09
Speaker
Now we're coming full circle into, you know, finding the cognitive benefits of progressive practices that, you know, have been written about since the time of, you know, John Dewey up through the 1960s, the history of that that we always talk to and that we always connect to.
00:12:23
Speaker
But
00:12:24
Speaker
But I think a lot back about Frank Smith's book of learning and forgetting.
00:12:28
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And I'll talk about this book till the end of time, because he actually kind of breaks down the history of learning science, quote unquote, back to this dude Ebbinghaus and how he was able to kind of study the learning curve.
00:12:42
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Right.
00:12:43
Speaker
Like, oh, the more that you practice these things, then the more likely that you're able to learn them.
00:12:48
Speaker
And then the degrading of that of that memory over time with the forgetting curve.
00:12:52
Speaker
But this had happened back in the early 1900s with lists of nonsense words.
00:12:58
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So, you know, they were words like zug and just things that nobody would able to remember because it was really important for the study for it to be not...
00:13:09
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Out of context, right, to not have any meaning.
00:13:11
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Otherwise, you'd be studying people's background knowledge and, you know, their biases, etc.
00:13:16
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So, so Frank Smith says about this, he says, the laws of learning state that learning follows this predictable and replicable course, only when nonsense is involved, when there is no interest or comprehension.
00:13:27
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if there is interest in comprehension, then learning is inevitable and effortless.
00:13:32
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And he even says then, you know, if you want to study how people learn without the involvement of interest and past experience, study how they learn nonsense.
00:13:42
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And for
00:13:42
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I think for us, the criticism of, you know, cognitive science or maybe hashtag COG-Sci and the way that it's wielded in education and pedagogy is through that lens, right?
00:13:53
Speaker
Well, why would you want to bring practices that have people studying nonsense in the laboratory?
00:13:58
Speaker
Of what use is that to, you know, harness the meaningful experiences of the students that we have in our classroom in front of us?
00:14:06
Speaker
And so that's where we've been resistant to those ideas.
00:14:08
Speaker
But, right, if we can...
00:14:11
Speaker
um get the get kind of the neuroscience the cognitive science uh approach to that then maybe that can help bolster you know and kind of strengthen our case um not just for why those practices are more humane which you know we know that they are or um that they improve students experiences of school or mental health etc but you know hey here's actually the research that says that they learn better um and for some people that's that's really important too you know
00:14:38
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it connects to the book that I've been reading, which is Teaching Machines.
00:14:45
Speaker
I finally started Teaching Machines by Audrey Waters, which I feel like I'm kind of behind the curve there.
00:14:50
Speaker
That came out in August and it's been sitting literally on my shelf since then and hasn't moved.
00:14:55
Speaker
There was actual dust on it.
00:14:58
Speaker
And I really wanted to read it.
00:14:59
Speaker
But if you can see my desk right now, there are at least 30 books on this desk that are just randomly stacked with me.
00:15:05
Speaker
But yeah, Audrey Waters, if folks aren't familiar, she's pretty much spent the majority of her writing...
00:15:14
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focused on ed tech and the quote unquote like personalized education movement and kind of debunking a lot of the history and promise behind those endeavors.
00:15:28
Speaker
So teaching machines is about the history of personalized learning.
00:15:31
Speaker
I'm not through it yet, I'm about halfway through.
00:15:33
Speaker
And it traces essentially Khan Academy, which was promised by the Gates Foundation to be this thing that was going to revolutionize education because kids could just work at their own pace and everybody would be kind of doing their own thing.
00:15:45
Speaker
And kids would just watch Khan Academy videos all day.
00:15:50
Speaker
And traces that back to Sidney Pressey, which is mid-1920s.
00:15:56
Speaker
He invented the first teaching machine,
00:16:00
Speaker
which kind of looks like a cache machine, like a thing that you would check people out with.
00:16:06
Speaker
It's like this weird receipt machine where you plug in certain slots and it will tell you the right or wrong answer based on how you manipulate the slots.
00:16:15
Speaker
And how that's all rooted back with the Thorndike-Dewey argument.
00:16:20
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Thorndike really wanted there to be this machine that could automatically tell a student if they were right or wrong.
00:16:26
Speaker
And Dewey was all talking about like, no, it should be experiential learning and draw upon student experience.
00:16:31
Speaker
And Waters says, rightly so, that Thorndike won this argument because we are still using Thorndike's resources in most classrooms across the United States.
00:16:41
Speaker
This focused on standardization, a focus on kind of everyone doing the exact same thing at the exact same time, a focus on just kind of like this very right and wrong based approach to education as opposed to experiential creative endeavors.
00:16:54
Speaker
The problem is that this personalized quote unquote solution to education, which also was adopted by B.F.
00:17:02
Speaker
Skinner in the 50s and 60s and a little bit earlier, is all really gross and behaviorist and controlling.
00:17:10
Speaker
It's not really personalized.
00:17:12
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It's more like, hey, we're going to force all these kids to sit in a room and they're all going to go through their times tables or whatever.
00:17:19
Speaker
They're going to memorize it and then they're going to walk out and they're going to be brilliant.
00:17:24
Speaker
All of this to say, what I did end up actually reading was in the first chapter of Teaching Machines, she mentions the fact that B.F.
00:17:33
Speaker
Skinner, the founder of Behaviorism, wrote a utopian sci-fi book.
00:17:40
Speaker
called Walden 2, which is so fringe.
00:17:45
Speaker
And I was like, B.F.
00:17:46
Speaker
Skinner, the guy that made the Skinner box that trained animals to react and have positive behaviorist approaches that teach like a champion uses.
00:17:55
Speaker
That guy wrote a utopian book.
00:17:57
Speaker
So I read Walden 2.
00:18:00
Speaker
It is about, I don't know, like 150 pages in very large type font.
00:18:04
Speaker
It's available at archive.org.
00:18:06
Speaker
It was written...
00:18:07
Speaker
I want to say like late 40s, early 50s.
00:18:10
Speaker
I can say that it reads like bad pulp.
00:18:14
Speaker
And I'm a huge fan of like pulp sci-fi.
00:18:17
Speaker
And it's terribly written.
00:18:19
Speaker
Here's the plot.
00:18:20
Speaker
All right.
00:18:21
Speaker
So the plot is that the main character is like living in this, I guess, poor kind of decrepit society.
00:18:30
Speaker
And him and his friends are so sad because society just sucks in general.
00:18:36
Speaker
And he reconnects with one of his old college friends named Frazier, who has started this society called Walden 2, based off of like Thoreau, is like where that name comes from.
00:18:47
Speaker
So they go and visit Frazier at Walden 2, and Frazier spends the next literally 150 pages just describing how Walden 2 is set up.
00:18:57
Speaker
There's no plot.
00:18:58
Speaker
Like this is no like hero's journey.
Innovative Classroom Practices
00:19:00
Speaker
This is no like, it's like someone read Brave New World,
00:19:05
Speaker
And didn't get the fact that it was a dystopia.
00:19:08
Speaker
That's what it reads like.
00:19:09
Speaker
The whole thing is like, okay, yeah, but when are they going to figure out that this is all a farce and it's all bad?
00:19:16
Speaker
No, they never do.
00:19:16
Speaker
It's just like, Walden 2 is great.
00:19:18
Speaker
And it's very funny because the entirety of Walden 2 is based off of behaviorism.
00:19:25
Speaker
The idea is that little young kids from birth are raised in this very controlled environment where they are rewarded for doing
00:19:34
Speaker
small repetitious tasks over and over again.
00:19:36
Speaker
Well, and as a result, as they grow older, they are all very personalized, autonomous human beings that don't need anyone to control them because their entire lives they've been like predisposed to just doing the things that they know how to do.
00:19:51
Speaker
And they just do those things like without question.
00:19:56
Speaker
And it's meant to be like this, like anarchist society where people just like live like on their own.
00:20:03
Speaker
But the irony of it is that this dude, Fraser, turns out to control everything.
00:20:10
Speaker
He develops the economic systems.
00:20:12
Speaker
He develops how people live.
00:20:13
Speaker
He develops every single little thing, which is...
00:20:16
Speaker
It's like a dictatorship or like fascism or like some kind of like ultra authoritarian state.
00:20:22
Speaker
Because what happens if you don't listen to the behaviorist teaching?
00:20:26
Speaker
Like that's never brought up.
00:20:28
Speaker
So it's seriously like an Orwellian type society as if someone wrote it with missing the point of what George Orwell was trying to talk about.
00:20:36
Speaker
But think about it, right?
00:20:38
Speaker
Like the emphasis on laboratory controls, if we think this is the best way to create human beings is to have them push levers and get the reward or whatever is to incentivize everything else and basically treat human beings like Pavlov's dog.
00:20:56
Speaker
Well, then, yeah, like that naturally leads to controlled environments and controlled situations where people aren't thinking about what
00:21:05
Speaker
what it is that they want to do, because if they have to think about what it is they want to do, they might not do it in the best way possible.
00:21:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:13
Speaker
But that's what we've modeled our classrooms over, isn't it?
00:21:15
Speaker
So you could say that this, the Walden two is basically the, that's like the precursor to teach like a champion writ large for society.
00:21:25
Speaker
You know, it's just that teach like a champion and it's kind of ilk is, is that brought into the classroom to be used.
00:21:32
Speaker
It's, it's the Skinner box for kids, you know?
00:21:35
Speaker
Yeah, and I think the best way to see this from a B.F.
00:21:39
Speaker
Skinner standpoint is B.F.
00:21:43
Speaker
Skinner early in his career, and Waters mentions this in the book, one of his first inventions was this lab-style crib for babies.
00:21:53
Speaker
And he raised his own kid like this.
00:21:55
Speaker
So he built ostensibly a hamster cage.
00:22:01
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So this cage that a baby would rest in.
00:22:04
Speaker
that was heated so it like felt like you were like being held or like a blanket was on you and the idea was the baby could hang out inside this box without a blanket without anything that could like potentially hurt them they literally just sat inside the box with their diaper on that's it and then oh my god
00:22:22
Speaker
The only thing the parent had to do was at designated times throughout the day, like spend time with their child.
00:22:29
Speaker
And the idea was you would get rid of all the crappy stuff you had to do, like monitor, like their food habits or keep them warm, et cetera, like things that you do to like raise a child.
00:22:40
Speaker
So this is the guy that came up with behaviorist tendencies that thinks that that's
00:22:46
Speaker
and not weird and not super creepy and child abuse quite frankly child abuse and very brave like that's actually a scene from brave new world like he actually talks about in walden too about
00:22:58
Speaker
like the community raising children and like getting rid of like a familial like parent style relationship, which is the plot of brave new world on how they raise their children.
00:23:10
Speaker
This has me thinking all kinds of, we should just abolish, you know, like skinnerian approaches in education entirely.
00:23:18
Speaker
Like it, like what?
00:23:20
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:23:20
Speaker
I'm, I'm flabbergasted.
00:23:21
Speaker
Well, the whole thing was that he was discredited.
00:23:24
Speaker
Like there was like a whole thing where a,
00:23:26
Speaker
bunch of different researchers came in and said, yo, this guy's like nuts.
00:23:29
Speaker
Like the stuff that he's talking about is not accurate.
00:23:32
Speaker
But then in the last, I don't know, maybe since like the eighties nineties, when behaviorist approaches became more and more common, it's not uncommon at all to find Skinner as a reference point for folks that are working in classrooms.
00:23:47
Speaker
And a lot of professional development is based around his ideas, especially teach like a champion, which I may or may not get to later.
00:23:54
Speaker
My God, I think back to the last episode we recorded, right?
00:23:57
Speaker
We were talking about Carl Brigham and IQ tests and ACTs and all those kinds of things.
00:24:01
Speaker
Think about these guys that we've modeled our education systems around, you know?
00:24:06
Speaker
And they're connected.
00:24:06
Speaker
Eugenicists and wackos and people who just had the most corrupted vision for human behaviors and interactions.
00:24:15
Speaker
Like, how have we not figured out a better way that doesn't involve connecting these behaviors
00:24:22
Speaker
weirdos and their outdated notions of human interaction from education systems.
00:24:28
Speaker
It's an insane thing.
00:24:29
Speaker
Yeah, it actually is.
00:24:31
Speaker
It is one of, I encourage anyone to check out that book.
00:24:34
Speaker
Do not read Walden too.
00:24:35
Speaker
It's entirely a waste of your time.
00:24:37
Speaker
I just thought it was fascinating.
00:24:38
Speaker
Let's then shift into, let's talk about what we're doing in our, oh wait, I almost forgot here.
00:24:44
Speaker
It sounded like that book share out hit the mark.
00:24:51
Speaker
Those are laser beams hitting the mark.
00:24:52
Speaker
It doesn't stop.
00:24:54
Speaker
All right, there we go.
00:24:55
Speaker
Sounds like an old, if you've ever had an old amplifier that had a reverb module built into it, it's got that spring, and that's what that spring sounds like when you twang it.
00:25:05
Speaker
Well, it's a laser.
00:25:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:08
Speaker
All right, let's talk about what we're doing in our classrooms.
Engaging Reluctant Learners
00:25:14
Speaker
So, yeah, I got kind of a cool idea.
00:25:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:18
Speaker
AP Euro is such a content-heavy course, and there's so much that you've got to try and do.
00:25:26
Speaker
There's part of me that just entirely rebels against that idea, but at the same time, wanting kids to be able to be successful on an AP test that they're going to pay $94 for.
00:25:37
Speaker
and know how the stakes are high for college costs, which we don't seem to want to do anything about from a policy level.
00:25:42
Speaker
So, you know, I always struggle with how to teach like this era of absolutism because, I mean, God, it's a thing that I still struggle with.
00:25:51
Speaker
I told my students that I took an English history class in college.
00:25:55
Speaker
It was the worst class that I ever took.
00:25:57
Speaker
I didn't learn a single thing about it.
00:25:58
Speaker
I learned more from Monty Python than I learned from my English history class.
00:26:03
Speaker
And so I was really open with my kids about like, hey, this is a tough thing to teach.
00:26:08
Speaker
There's just a lot of names of families and accomplishments.
00:26:14
Speaker
And I did a new thing where...
00:26:17
Speaker
I was experimenting with those tier lists.
00:26:19
Speaker
You know, you've seen them on YouTube where they'll be like, let's rank all of the Led Zeppelin albums, like S, A, B, C, D, T, or whatever.
00:26:28
Speaker
And I had done with my eighth hour econ class a couple times.
00:26:31
Speaker
Just when we had some time at the end of class, we did, you know, Pop-Tarts one day.
00:26:35
Speaker
We did Halloween candy another day.
00:26:38
Speaker
And it's just always kind of like a good...
00:26:41
Speaker
I don't know, a good experience, good kind of classroom culture building thing.
00:26:45
Speaker
And kids are, kids are clamoring for it.
00:26:47
Speaker
Whenever we have time now at the end of class, they're like, come and just do a tier list.
00:26:50
Speaker
Um,
00:26:51
Speaker
And so I made a tier list for absolutist rulers and kind of just had them set up.
00:26:56
Speaker
I picked 11 absolutist rulers, you know, that would be from their textbook section or whatever.
00:27:01
Speaker
And we looked at the criteria for absolutists and basically I turned them loose just to do some research using the resources that we had to try and figure out, you know, who...
00:27:12
Speaker
Depending on how they answered it, who was the best ruler?
00:27:15
Speaker
Because sometimes they said the people who were the most absolutist were the worst rulers.
00:27:19
Speaker
Or who was the most absolutist?
00:27:21
Speaker
So they put Ivan the Terrible as S-tier.
00:27:23
Speaker
Louis XIV as S-tier.
00:27:24
Speaker
Ivan the Terrible is S-tier.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, but they'd be like, oh, I wouldn't want to live under these things.
00:27:31
Speaker
Like, okay, so maybe there's an inverse relationship to that.
00:27:33
Speaker
But that's what I'm getting at here is it's the first time I'd ever done anything, you know, like that.
00:27:38
Speaker
I don't know, call it project-based, call it whatever.
00:27:40
Speaker
But the thing that was so cool about it was hearing the conversations and kind of the pre-work that went into that.
00:27:47
Speaker
Because I had students record the video of their tier lists.
00:27:51
Speaker
So they had to do a lot of preparation and kind of work going into that.
00:27:56
Speaker
And just the debates that they had.
00:27:58
Speaker
in their groups as they were doing it.
00:28:00
Speaker
And then as they were recording their videos too, really justified the whole thing to me.
00:28:05
Speaker
Because then again, I think, okay, if they're talking through and they're going through their evaluation and they're discussing that evidence and kind of debating who should go where on that, then that to me shows that they're making the connections and that they're doing the learning.
00:28:20
Speaker
So I kind of just turned it over to them for a week to
00:28:23
Speaker
do that research and to create those tier lists.
00:28:27
Speaker
And I think overall, it was a super successful way to teach something that historically for me has been kind of a slog and kind of dull for kids.
00:28:39
Speaker
But I think it's something I'll definitely do in the future.
00:28:41
Speaker
Yeah, I know you had shared out doing tier lists just for fun, you know, before with those Pop-Tarts.
00:28:45
Speaker
And I did the same thing with my class just for fun one day because I found if there was something that was lost in the last couple of years, it's maybe communication.
00:28:56
Speaker
I just feel like the kids just don't talk to each other as much as they used to.
00:28:58
Speaker
Or if they do, they only talk to their little tiny closed friend group.
00:29:02
Speaker
And I was trying to figure out ways, well, how can I get these kids laughing and talking with each other about silly things?
00:29:07
Speaker
So we did tier lists for Halloween.
00:29:10
Speaker
We did like candy and pop tier list, that kind of stuff, which Sour Patch Kids won every single time.
00:29:16
Speaker
Heavy agree, by the way.
00:29:17
Speaker
That is an S tier candy.
00:29:20
Speaker
By far my favorite.
00:29:21
Speaker
Swedish fish for me.
00:29:23
Speaker
It was really funny when I was going through, because some kids didn't know what tier lists were when I introduced the AP Euro activity.
00:29:30
Speaker
So I just pulled up the Halloween candy list and I started ranking them how I would rank them.
00:29:35
Speaker
Oh my God.
00:29:36
Speaker
You...
00:29:37
Speaker
there was going to be like a riot.
00:29:38
Speaker
They were going to carry me out of the room because, you know, yeah, like my 35 year old tastes do not match the tastes of, you know, today's 15 and 16 year olds.
00:29:47
Speaker
So they'd be like, Oh, Covington.
00:29:50
Speaker
I don't know.
00:29:51
Speaker
What did I put as, as like D tier, something that they, they all love.
00:29:55
Speaker
I'd put it out like D tier, but that candy is trash.
00:29:58
Speaker
And so I kind of just let that go for maybe five or 10 minutes as I was going through and kind of changing things in response to that.
00:30:03
Speaker
And I was like,
00:30:04
Speaker
You see how that went?
00:30:05
Speaker
We're going to do that, but with the absolutist rulers.
00:30:07
Speaker
You guys all have experience with candy, right?
00:30:10
Speaker
You have your own preferences and you can make those arguments.
00:30:12
Speaker
So we're going to have to figure out who these rulers are, what they did, what makes them good or bad or somewhere in between and rank them in between each other.
00:30:24
Speaker
And then they were like, oh, that sounds so cool.
00:30:25
Speaker
So yeah, it was nice.
00:30:28
Speaker
Awesome.
00:30:28
Speaker
I also plan on using that to do feedback from my class for end project units.
00:30:33
Speaker
So like after we do, we usually do maybe eight or so major projects during a year.
00:30:38
Speaker
So I'm going to make a big list out of those.
00:30:40
Speaker
You can make your own tier list onto your list maker.
Game Show Segment and Cognitive Science Quiz
00:30:42
Speaker
Just put like screenshots of all of them.
00:30:43
Speaker
And that way I can figure out what projects were good and what projects were really bad.
00:30:48
Speaker
Or at least like such a great idea how they're going.
00:30:51
Speaker
The funny thing, though, is that.
00:30:53
Speaker
when kids were asking, oh, are we going to watch these in front of the class?
00:30:56
Speaker
Because they're all anxious about hearing themselves talk.
00:31:00
Speaker
And so I said, no, but I am going to put your videos on a shared slideshow so you can watch each other's and kind of see where other groups put them.
00:31:08
Speaker
And then somebody had the idea to make a tier list tier list.
00:31:11
Speaker
Nice.
00:31:12
Speaker
And I was like, I'm totally going to do that.
00:31:14
Speaker
But I'm only going to do the S and A tiers.
00:31:18
Speaker
I wouldn't put anybody on the spot by putting them any lower, but
00:31:21
Speaker
I think that would be kind of fun just to make a quick video of like, okay, so group one, second hour, yours was S tier over here.
00:31:29
Speaker
I love what you did with this, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:31:31
Speaker
Just make a quick video with some of the better exemplars.
00:31:35
Speaker
And then that way I have that feedback going into next year if I do this too.
00:31:38
Speaker
So that's kind of a fun thing, just evolves.
00:31:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:42
Speaker
Speaking of projects, we've been working on workshopping magazine spreads.
00:31:49
Speaker
So students, every project outside of the very first one, I have students vote on.
00:31:54
Speaker
So I'll give them four or five, maybe six different options.
00:31:57
Speaker
Then we just go with the majority.
00:31:58
Speaker
And that's the project that we work on for about the next three or four weeks.
00:32:01
Speaker
And that gets more and more open ended as time goes on.
00:32:04
Speaker
I teach a digital media class.
00:32:06
Speaker
So it's pretty step by step on learning the software.
00:32:10
Speaker
So we have to go a little like baby steps towards the beginning.
00:32:12
Speaker
And then it gets more hardcore as time goes on.
00:32:15
Speaker
Anyways, the students voted to do magazine spread.
00:32:17
Speaker
So they're making hypothetical templates for a magazine over whatever they want in Adobe InDesign.
00:32:24
Speaker
We spent the last, I don't know, maybe two or so weeks learning how to use the software through practice activities, that kind of thing.
00:32:32
Speaker
But then the last week has been workshopping, which the way I do workshop in my classes, students always work on stuff, obviously.
00:32:39
Speaker
I give them a huge list of resources with all the hotkeys, walk around, help them, assist them.
00:32:44
Speaker
And then they turn in their drafts to Floop, which Floop one day will maybe sponsor me because I feel like I rep them all the time.
00:32:54
Speaker
So it's floopedu.com.
00:32:57
Speaker
And Floop is a software that allows you to turn in assignments, just kind of like a normal Dropbox, and then you leave little dots of feedback throughout the assignment, which is hyper useful for an art style class because I can point to very specific elements on the page.
00:33:14
Speaker
If I try to leave feedback through an LMS or something, it's like,
00:33:17
Speaker
describing like a foreign object, like alien objects.
00:33:20
Speaker
People like you should move the left line one inch further to like, it doesn't make any sense.
00:33:26
Speaker
So it's very visual.
00:33:27
Speaker
And what I like about it is one, you can leave as much feedback as you want.
00:33:31
Speaker
I mean, I live a lot of feedback on those things, both good and bad.
00:33:36
Speaker
You can store that feedback in bank, because I tend to say the exact same thing over and over again.
00:33:41
Speaker
You can see if students have read the feedback,
00:33:45
Speaker
Every now and then there'll be a student who I've left like 20 things of feedback for and it says 0% feedback read and they turn it back in.
00:33:51
Speaker
I'm like, no, you gotta listen to these things so I can help you get better.
00:33:56
Speaker
And they can also reply to the feedback right within the software.
00:33:58
Speaker
So you'll get like a little notification in that way.
00:34:00
Speaker
Like if someone's like, I don't know how to do that or I don't understand what you are saying here.
00:34:04
Speaker
I can respond to that any hour of the day.
00:34:06
Speaker
as opposed to just during class.
00:34:07
Speaker
Because usually during class, I have to be helping everyone because it's confusing.
00:34:11
Speaker
So I'm always going around and helping different folks.
00:34:13
Speaker
And that's kind of an asynchronous way that they can then submit things and interact with me if I'm maybe not available.
00:34:19
Speaker
And as a result, maybe by the third or fourth different turning, because I've gotten used to at this point, the fact that it's never good enough.
00:34:26
Speaker
It's always a resubmission.
00:34:27
Speaker
I'll be nice about it.
00:34:29
Speaker
But we always try to make things better no matter what level you're at.
00:34:32
Speaker
By the third or fourth submission, they are vastly improved.
00:34:35
Speaker
And that's how I do ungrading.
00:34:38
Speaker
I still have to assign a grade, but your grade is determined off of how you implement that feedback.
00:34:43
Speaker
So if you turn in something that's maybe a comparison to, I guess, the norm, not so great.
00:34:49
Speaker
Maybe you're just not so good with computers.
00:34:51
Speaker
Maybe you're just not used to doing art.
00:34:53
Speaker
Your improved product is not going to look the same as someone who maybe has taken a digital media class before and knows exactly what's going on.
00:35:01
Speaker
Their initial submission is going to be pretty darn good, but they also have to make theirs better.
00:35:05
Speaker
So we're operating from a sizable gap versus a small gap to improve.
00:35:09
Speaker
But in that case, both students would obtain A's.
00:35:13
Speaker
The last thing that's nice about Floop is you don't have to assign numbers or a letter grade.
00:35:17
Speaker
So I just give a smiley face every single time until it's at an A. I never give a grade.
00:35:22
Speaker
It's just smiley face, smiley face, smiley face.
00:35:24
Speaker
And eventually you get an A once you finally turn in the last time.
00:35:27
Speaker
And the vast majority of students are really good about turning those back in because they won't see that A pop up.
00:35:32
Speaker
Right.
00:35:32
Speaker
I love the idea, too, that it's just it's not done until it's done.
00:35:35
Speaker
Like, hey, what kind of things can we do?
00:35:38
Speaker
Not just turn it in and get a C minus, right?
00:35:41
Speaker
Oh, I got a 72%, just move on to the next thing, right?
00:35:44
Speaker
That just, that doesn't teach them anything.
00:35:47
Speaker
But if they're constantly going through that iteration and having to then start to think
00:35:54
Speaker
that will start to imprint those habits of mind and those sort of heuristics for themselves where they'll begin to ask themselves to preempt that feedback.
00:36:03
Speaker
Because my guess is that students don't generally want to be like, oh, I have to do more work to fix this.
00:36:09
Speaker
So they'll start to check themselves, which is to say, okay, if I'm McNutt right now and I'm looking at this, or they'll start to put on like a peer lens too, which is to say like, oh, if I were someone else looking at this, which then
00:36:21
Speaker
right?
00:36:21
Speaker
They're starting to think about their thinking.
00:36:22
Speaker
That's a meta skill that's kind of important.
00:36:26
Speaker
And then, yeah, just kind of think, okay, is this done yet?
00:36:28
Speaker
Is this done yet?
00:36:29
Speaker
What could be done better?
00:36:31
Speaker
And the products that you've shown for that, Chris, are awesome.
00:36:33
Speaker
Like the work that kids did, you could say that those were professional magazine spreads, and I would believe it entirely.
00:36:41
Speaker
Like there's just stellar work.
00:36:43
Speaker
And that's not
00:36:44
Speaker
That's not the product of grades and grading.
00:36:46
Speaker
That's the product of iteration and feedback.
00:36:49
Speaker
That's the power of those things.
00:36:51
Speaker
Right.
00:36:51
Speaker
Workshopping is so powerful in general.
00:36:53
Speaker
Just the ability.
00:36:54
Speaker
I would say there's like three major things that make this work.
00:36:57
Speaker
One is delaying the grade.
00:37:00
Speaker
which is an ungrading technique, as in I basically
Controversies in Educational Research Communities
00:37:04
Speaker
don't give a grade until it's added A. Now, when like, yes, the semester's over and I have to report a grade, I'll meet with those students that never turned it in and say, you know, I need something from you and we'll negotiate that and figure that out.
00:37:15
Speaker
But I would say maybe for those last assignment, 80% of students are at NA right now.
00:37:20
Speaker
So the vast majority get there.
00:37:22
Speaker
That means that everyone's constantly iterating upon and improving their work.
00:37:25
Speaker
The second thing is I give them a ton of time, arguably too much time at points.
00:37:31
Speaker
They have...
00:37:32
Speaker
almost a week and a half to go through this workshopping process of resubmitting things in.
00:37:36
Speaker
That does mean that some students will finish early.
00:37:39
Speaker
So what I do is, it's kind of tongue-in-cheek, but it does work, is I have them identify a special friend.
00:37:46
Speaker
And their special friend has to also finish the assignment at an A before they can do anything else.
00:37:52
Speaker
So it forces the students to work with each other, to improve with each other.
00:37:57
Speaker
Because the student who finished it super fast, who already has an A that's killing it, can then teach the other kid, hey, how to do this better.
00:38:03
Speaker
Because again, usually I'm answering questions all period.
00:38:05
Speaker
I can't necessarily sit next to a kid for 45 minutes and help them, but their special friend can't.
00:38:11
Speaker
So it works.
00:38:13
Speaker
The kids kind of get a kick out of it because it's very, it's a little cynical, but they get used to that and they improve with each other.
00:38:21
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:38:22
Speaker
Think about the power of that, though, because then like then kids are there being the instructor for their peers, you know, peer instructors in that case.
00:38:31
Speaker
And then they are right as they are teaching their their peers in that context, they are reinforcing that learning for themselves.
00:38:39
Speaker
So, I mean, I mean, how how often do we say like teaching teaching something is the best way to learn it?
00:38:44
Speaker
Well, how often do we actually get kids to do that in the classroom?
00:38:47
Speaker
And like you said, it doesn't make sense for you to have to be available to all 30 some odd kids every single class period.
00:38:54
Speaker
It's impossible.
00:38:55
Speaker
So empowering kids through that collaborative process, not just, I mean, makes for a better classroom environment for everybody, but then kids are learning more and learning better than they would be if they just had to rely on you as the sole source of that stuff.
00:39:10
Speaker
So that's a special friend strategy.
00:39:12
Speaker
That's a great strategy, man.
00:39:13
Speaker
That works.
00:39:14
Speaker
And the final thing I'll say about that is a lot of people, whenever they try to tackle ungrading, say, hey, I don't know how I would ever have time to do this.
00:39:21
Speaker
Well, the initial day or two when I get all those fluke submissions starting to turn in, I see like 120 fluke submissions I need to get through.
00:39:29
Speaker
One, the bank helps a lot.
00:39:30
Speaker
I can get through them really quick with the bank because most people tend to make the same errors.
00:39:34
Speaker
But two, that's the day where I say, hey, you all really need to work with your special friends today because I'm going to sit here and I'm going to finish all of these.
00:39:41
Speaker
And it's all done during class.
00:39:42
Speaker
I rarely give any feedback at home, if at all.
00:39:45
Speaker
And I just super transparent with the kids and tell them I don't have time to do this.
00:39:49
Speaker
So I just need to do it right now.
00:39:50
Speaker
And you can all work on each other on something and I'll be with you in a second.
00:39:54
Speaker
That's perfectly fine.
00:39:56
Speaker
That's such a smart strategy.
00:39:57
Speaker
I kind of try to do something like that with AP Euro DBQs, which are infamously tedious to grade, especially if you have as many AP Euro kids as I do, 85, 90 kids.
00:40:09
Speaker
So I do something similar where they have to peer review two other...
00:40:14
Speaker
two other essays that somebody else, other peer submissions, right?
00:40:18
Speaker
Which means that they're going to get at least two other sets of eyeballs on their own work.
00:40:22
Speaker
And then they have to go back through and like respond to that feedback in there and then turn it into me.
00:40:28
Speaker
So that by the time I see it, their stuff is already all annotated.
00:40:32
Speaker
It might even go through a round of revisions if they need to do that.
00:40:35
Speaker
So then by the time I'm seeing it,
00:40:38
Speaker
You know, it's probably a better product, but then it has annotations on there that are going to help me get through that more quickly.
00:40:45
Speaker
So that way, you know, say the AP Euro DBQ is scored out of seven points.
00:40:50
Speaker
Well, if they already have two sets of peer scores on there, you know, say one says it's a...
00:40:57
Speaker
three and one says it's a seven, well, that means, you know, for me that there needs to be some recalibration and the inter-rater reliability there.
00:41:05
Speaker
But also then I'll spend more time giving feedback on those.
00:41:08
Speaker
But if one says it's a six and the other one says it's a six, well, then I can kind of skim through that just to kind of secure it.
00:41:14
Speaker
But there's really not a lot of feedback I need to give that kids haven't already nailed.
00:41:18
Speaker
And then kids are doing that evaluation.
00:41:20
Speaker
You know, if you want to think about that, the old school kind of Bloom's taxonomy, right?
00:41:24
Speaker
Well,
00:41:25
Speaker
What do we want kids to be able to do?
00:41:27
Speaker
We want them to create, to evaluate, to do all those high level thinking skills.
00:41:31
Speaker
Well, they're doing that with their peer work when they do peer review.
00:41:34
Speaker
So it's like that's not just a way to improve classroom practice for ourselves and kind of decrease that burden.
00:41:41
Speaker
But if kids are doing the thinking and they're doing the teaching and they're doing the evaluating, well, then they're doing better learning in the first place.
00:41:47
Speaker
It's just a better pedagogical strategy to use.
00:41:53
Speaker
All right, so let's move into... Is that a Space Panther?
00:41:56
Speaker
What is that?
00:41:57
Speaker
It's a spaceship that goes by.
00:41:58
Speaker
It's the same transition I've been using the whole time.
00:42:01
Speaker
Again, there's no sound in space.
00:42:03
Speaker
We got to get...
00:42:06
Speaker
There you go.
00:42:09
Speaker
So next we have some Q&A questions.
00:42:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:15
Speaker
We're going to address two right now for time purposes.
00:42:19
Speaker
I'll open us up with the first one here.
00:42:21
Speaker
This comes from Jeff.
00:42:23
Speaker
Jeff asks via Twitter, can you give tips or reading suggestions on helping reluctant learners to engage in the
00:42:33
Speaker
So I've been thinking about this one.
00:42:36
Speaker
And I have three things I thought about the top of my head that I think could help.
00:42:40
Speaker
And all of them are fairly obvious, but I think it's worth reiterating.
00:42:44
Speaker
One is cheesy, one serious, and one is kind of like a classroom strategy.
00:42:50
Speaker
So the first cheesy one, and I feel like this has to be said is the building relationships component.
00:42:57
Speaker
But I think it's worth mentioning that
00:43:00
Speaker
A lot of us tend to build relationships only within the first three days of the year.
00:43:04
Speaker
And then all other relationship building solely comes through content in our class, which is something.
00:43:11
Speaker
But I think there's also space for stopping at various points throughout the year.
00:43:15
Speaker
I would even say like once a month to just play games and hang out and make class something that's not content or stress related.
00:43:23
Speaker
Because in my experience, the most reluctant students are also the ones who are not doing very well.
00:43:29
Speaker
And as a result, they are probably not doing very well in the majority of their classes.
00:43:34
Speaker
And the last thing they want to do is build a relationship with you in a class that's not going well.
00:43:40
Speaker
So taking some time throughout the year to just pause and stop and just do something silly to get to know that student better, because you might be able to use that to figure out, well, what's going on?
00:43:50
Speaker
How can I help you in some way so you're the trusted individual?
00:43:53
Speaker
There have been many times, I'm sure, where teachers have identified a student who is failing every other class, but is passing or at least doing decent in your class.
00:44:01
Speaker
And usually that's because of relationship building.
00:44:03
Speaker
So that's kind of a cheesy one.
00:44:05
Speaker
It's always sad, but I think it's worth reiterating.
00:44:08
Speaker
The second, which is more serious, is nine times out of 10, students that are reluctant learners to the point that they're failing have something else that's going on that is not school related.
00:44:20
Speaker
And being able to forward them on to guidance, mental health, folks that they can talk to is vastly more important than anything academic that's going on.
00:44:28
Speaker
There has been
00:44:29
Speaker
many circumstances where we've had students either repeat grades, repeat classes, etc.
00:44:34
Speaker
And it's been totally fine because they've been talking with a mental health counselor for twice a week for the last year.
00:44:39
Speaker
And that's where their focus is right now.
00:44:41
Speaker
There's no rush to get through school.
00:44:44
Speaker
We need to focus on those underlying factors first before we can even think about caring about some academic course.
00:44:51
Speaker
Like who cares about digital media if you're homeless, for example?
00:44:53
Speaker
Like it's irrelevant.
00:44:55
Speaker
So centering that.
00:44:57
Speaker
Finally,
00:44:58
Speaker
In terms of a classroom strategy, I kind of I'm just going to repeat the exact same thing.
00:45:03
Speaker
That special friend strategy actually does help a lot, because if students aren't motivated by me, they tend to enjoy being motivated by their peers.
00:45:13
Speaker
I've had a lot of success where students who maybe just tend to not do much in the classes, they just don't enjoy it.
00:45:19
Speaker
They don't want to do it.
00:45:21
Speaker
With their friend being there who they enjoy being with, they will start doing things.
00:45:25
Speaker
It's like, hey, you know, this is fun.
00:45:27
Speaker
We should do it together.
00:45:27
Speaker
Let's try this thing.
00:45:28
Speaker
And they teach them how to do it because they get along with their friends.
00:45:33
Speaker
They want to do something with their friend.
00:45:35
Speaker
It's any way that we can get peers interacting with each other where the peer can show the other peer, oh, hey, this isn't that bad or it's actually pretty cool or let's do something fun with it.
00:45:45
Speaker
the better, because they tend to kind of hone in on that and see the value and the activity more than maybe the authoritative figure.
00:45:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think those are great tips.
00:45:55
Speaker
I think to take a step back, like my initial response to this
00:46:01
Speaker
when I saw this question too, was initially like, well, what is a quote reluctant learner?
00:46:05
Speaker
Right.
00:46:06
Speaker
You know, is, is that, is that even something that, that exists?
00:46:09
Speaker
And in that I can kind of remember that being a turning point for me too.
00:46:13
Speaker
I can remember the specific student and the specific year he was he was a, he was a football player and, you know, he was failing my then world history class.
00:46:22
Speaker
But he was, you know, playing varsity football and doing incredibly well in that endeavor.
00:46:27
Speaker
And, and that for me,
00:46:29
Speaker
was the biggest thing in kind of challenging that reluctant learner because he was a kid who was not a reluctant learner.
00:46:33
Speaker
He was a voracious learner.
00:46:36
Speaker
He was an adept learner when it came to football plays and the stuff that mattered to him on the field.
00:46:43
Speaker
And world history just didn't enter into the picture for him most of the time.
00:46:48
Speaker
So really it was about kind of decentering
00:46:51
Speaker
myself in that picture and just trying to meet the student where they were at just to say, hey, I know that football is a thing that's very important to you.
00:46:59
Speaker
How can I help in making this class matter?
00:47:04
Speaker
Because whether or not you like it or like me or whatever, you have to have this class to be able to do that thing.
00:47:11
Speaker
So how can we make this a place where you can be successful in here so that way you can be successful in
00:47:17
Speaker
in the things that you want to do on the football field.
00:47:20
Speaker
And which is really surprising that it took me so long to want to do that, because in a lot of ways, I can think of myself in high school as a reluctant learner.
00:47:29
Speaker
I didn't want to do math, but you know what I was doing?
00:47:32
Speaker
I was trying to figure out how many, you know, I knew to the exact, you know, decimal point, how many, how much experience points I got for killing a character
00:47:42
Speaker
in, you know, my online RPGs that I was playing back in the early 2000s.
00:47:47
Speaker
And I knew how many of them I would need to kill in order to rank up to the next level.
00:47:51
Speaker
And so those were the kinds of things I was thinking about and drawing on my paper in math class.
00:47:56
Speaker
And, you know, I think in a lot of ways, my math instructor saw me as a reluctant math learner.
00:48:00
Speaker
And yet here were the ways that I was, you know, applying that to the things that were important for me.
00:48:06
Speaker
So I think just maybe taking a step back and putting things in perspective and just saying, you know, kids aren't kids might be reluctant to talk about economics, but yeah,
00:48:15
Speaker
or to learn economics in your class, or to do the work when they're given the opportunity to do so.
00:48:20
Speaker
But I'm willing to bet that they're not reluctant learners as a whole.
00:48:24
Speaker
Find the thing that they can really sink their teeth into, or that you can help ignite in them and partner with them to realize either here's how the things that we're doing in class could be important for reaching those goals, or just to level with them and say, hey, I understand that this might be irrelevant for you.
00:48:44
Speaker
But how can I help you get through this so that way you can get on to the thing that is going to be important for you in your life?
00:48:52
Speaker
And that's been kind of a successful strategy for me, too, on that front.
00:48:57
Speaker
Right.
00:48:57
Speaker
That's a really good point.
00:48:58
Speaker
I think that's worth mentioning that, like, yeah, because I didn't really bring this up in my answer, but it's
00:49:04
Speaker
being careful behind labeling students from a deficit angle.
00:49:08
Speaker
Like you wouldn't want to send a kid to the guidance counselor that's failing your class that otherwise is doing great in all other aspects of like their other classes and their like their friend group, et cetera.
00:49:20
Speaker
That's kind of like a circumstance where we just need to talk to them about what's going on, trying to be transparent, figuring out sometimes just what's the bare minimum that they need to do.
00:49:28
Speaker
Like I've leveled with kids many times where they just don't care about digital media.
00:49:32
Speaker
That's fine.
00:49:33
Speaker
It can be frustrating sometimes as a teacher because that's what you're passionate about.
00:49:36
Speaker
That's what you like doing.
00:49:37
Speaker
And you feel a need that most students need to learn or else you wouldn't be teaching it.
00:49:41
Speaker
But the exact same time, I know in the back of my head that the vast majority of students probably aren't going to use this.
00:49:47
Speaker
Um, and sometimes that's just a matter of taking a step back and saying, Hey, this is what I, I know I have to have you do.
00:49:53
Speaker
Um, and students are very responsive usually to, to you kind of fighting in their court and trying your best to help them out.
00:50:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:01
Speaker
At a certain point, you know, I've done this a lot for kids where you were saying earlier, you'll work with kids to, you won't grade them out until they get an A. And then for kids who, you know, don't engage in that process or, or can't for whatever reason, then you can kind of
00:50:15
Speaker
grades as negotiable.
00:50:17
Speaker
And that's where honestly like ungrading or even contract grading is super flexible and super useful for kids is then you can actually work to kind of establish here's a floor, right?
00:50:29
Speaker
Let's at least get this groundwork going here so that way you can get credit for the class.
00:50:33
Speaker
And a lot of times that's empowering for kids then who want to do a little bit more because you can say, hey, here's the bare minimum that I can, when I go to put grades in at the end of the semester, I'll give you a D if you hit these boxes, you know?
00:50:45
Speaker
And then a lot of times they'll they'll figure out that that's not actually too difficult for them.
00:50:51
Speaker
And then they'll unlock that D and they'll say, like, OK, what what else can I do?
00:50:54
Speaker
And then so you can actually kind of raise the bar for them.
00:50:57
Speaker
progressively through that rather than just have them languish with an F for something else for the whole semester.
00:51:04
Speaker
And then at the last minute, again, be like, hey, what do I have to do to pass the class?
00:51:07
Speaker
You know, as teachers complain about it, you know, if we're proactive with it, we just say, hey, here's what you need to do.
00:51:12
Speaker
And then if you hit that bar and you want to work on something else, great, you know, you're secure in at least passing that class.
00:51:18
Speaker
But I found in my experience that kids will want to at least do a little bit more because they feel energized and motivated by that.
00:51:24
Speaker
Let's move into question two.
00:51:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:27
Speaker
Can I take the lead on that one?
00:51:28
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead.
00:51:29
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:51:29
Speaker
So it's from Chandra Roberts.
00:51:31
Speaker
Send it on Twitter there.
00:51:33
Speaker
She said, what a student, I was wondering to know what a student-driven curriculum looks like in practice.
00:51:38
Speaker
She said, I'm super interested in this, but get quickly overwhelmed when I try to think about implementing it.
00:51:43
Speaker
And gosh, that was one that I think, Chandra, if you're listening, the previous 20 minutes where we were talking about what that looks like can actually be very helpful, right?
00:51:53
Speaker
That Chris's special friend strategy and some more of those cooperative learning things can actually be pretty secretive ways to help unlock student-centered classrooms.
00:52:03
Speaker
But I think the theory behind that too, or the pedagogy behind that, is you've created safe places where kids feel safe.
00:52:12
Speaker
emotionally, intellectually, physically safe in order to contribute and collaborate because they know they're not going to be punished or accused of cheating by helping out each other.
00:52:22
Speaker
You know, you're creating a collaborative space.
00:52:25
Speaker
But I want to take a step back too and say that for me, I guess a student-centered classroom can really look like a lot of different things.
00:52:32
Speaker
But the way that I approach it in my classroom is really more along the lines of a democratic classroom environment.
00:52:39
Speaker
So I start out the year just asking kids,
00:52:42
Speaker
Some questions about expectations.
00:52:44
Speaker
What are expectations you have of your peers?
00:52:46
Speaker
What are expectations you have of yourself?
00:52:48
Speaker
What are expectations you have of me?
00:52:50
Speaker
And we actually use those things to build a set of collective commitments that I write a draft up and kids, I give that to kids.
00:52:59
Speaker
I give them all the data that they had submitted there.
00:53:01
Speaker
You know, it's been anonymized and we can just see straight up, Hey, what, what goals do we have for ourselves in this classroom space?
00:53:07
Speaker
And you kind of build a social contract with kids in that process.
00:53:12
Speaker
I have them vote on it.
00:53:13
Speaker
You know, we, we do a poll.
00:53:14
Speaker
It's like, Hey, do you agree with the expectations for yourself, for your peers and for adults?
00:53:19
Speaker
as outlined in the draft document that you looked at.
00:53:23
Speaker
And unanimously, generally, 100% of kids say, yeah, that's what I want.
00:53:28
Speaker
And that's, I think, a way then that you can show that you're not only soliciting feedback from kids, but you're being responsive to it.
00:53:36
Speaker
And you're saying, here's how I'm going to live up to the expectations that you've laid out for me.
00:53:40
Speaker
Here's how I'm going to lay out the expectations that you have for each other and for yourself.
00:53:44
Speaker
And
00:53:45
Speaker
And really then you can build in whatever projects, PBL, kind of whatever the curriculum that you have around that in the student-centered maybe strategies.
00:53:56
Speaker
But I think it just starts with understanding that democratic classroom.
00:53:59
Speaker
The more that kids see that you're not just interested in getting their feedback, but also being responsive to it, I think can then really help not just build relationships, but build a more collaborative classroom culture.
00:54:12
Speaker
What do you got, Chris?
00:54:13
Speaker
Very similar thing.
00:54:14
Speaker
And just taking that then over to the curriculum where you let students know like, hey, this is what I have to cover.
00:54:22
Speaker
But the way that we cover it is really in your court and figuring out what it is that you're interested in.
00:54:28
Speaker
So I was saying before that.
00:54:30
Speaker
Usually the first project in my class is very teacher centric.
00:54:33
Speaker
I tell them like, hey, I need to teach you how to even start so you even know what's possible.
00:54:38
Speaker
And we spend about three or four weeks where it's very much fairly traditional.
00:54:43
Speaker
It's just like, hey, here's how you do this.
00:54:44
Speaker
Here's how you do this.
00:54:45
Speaker
Here's how you do this.
00:54:46
Speaker
And
00:54:47
Speaker
We get through it and the kids know that like on the horizon, they'll have a little bit more self-selection.
00:54:52
Speaker
Then we go through that exact same kind of democratic classroom selection where they choose between various things that kind of I'm comfortable with doing.
00:55:01
Speaker
Like I tell them like, hey, this is what I know how to do.
00:55:03
Speaker
And we can propose other things too.
00:55:04
Speaker
And that's, it's not just like a Google form where it's like vote once.
00:55:08
Speaker
It's more of like, hey, we're going to brainstorm something together.
00:55:11
Speaker
And here's some different ideas.
00:55:12
Speaker
What do you think about this thing?
00:55:13
Speaker
It's just a class discussion.
00:55:14
Speaker
Then we have a form.
00:55:15
Speaker
Then we vote on it based off of
00:55:17
Speaker
what we populated there.
00:55:19
Speaker
And I always give students an opt-out as well.
00:55:21
Speaker
So if they all vote on something and they, like three or four kids were really passionate about doing something else,
00:55:29
Speaker
say, hey, propose it to me.
00:55:31
Speaker
Let's talk about it during that workshop time.
00:55:33
Speaker
Let's figure out what exactly you want to do with that.
00:55:36
Speaker
However, I will say that almost every single time, once all the students start working on something and those students realize what it is and they see their friends doing it, they tend to just go along with what they were doing anyway.
00:55:49
Speaker
There's maybe three students per year that actually do an alternative to
00:55:55
Speaker
what everyone else is doing because typically students are going to pick things that are cool like or else they wouldn't have voted on to begin with um and as a result that does take away some of your power as a teacher because some of the things that maybe you thought were really cool aren't um i was going to do a unit on uh like generative art so like where you take like different eyes different ears and you put them in a photoshop file and it makes like 10 000 different images based off the combinations
00:56:18
Speaker
I personally think that's super cool.
00:56:20
Speaker
The kids said, no, that sucks.
00:56:22
Speaker
I have no desire.
00:56:23
Speaker
I have literally three kids out of 125 that were like, oh, that sounds cool.
00:56:28
Speaker
So finding ways to put the power in the students' hands to guide that curriculum.
00:56:35
Speaker
And you can still have authority as a teacher.
00:56:37
Speaker
You can still say like, hey, this is the theme or this is the concept I need you to explore because that's what the standard is.
00:56:43
Speaker
And it doesn't mean that everyone has to go off and do their own thing either.
00:56:46
Speaker
They can all be collectively deciding on something that they're all going to do.
00:56:49
Speaker
That's okay, because that teaches that democratic cooperative behavior that we want them to develop.
00:56:56
Speaker
it's just finding more and more ways to make that work student-centric without it devolving into more of a faux choice where it's, I'm giving you all of the information and then you have the choice to make a poster or like make a song.
00:57:12
Speaker
Because a lot of times when you do that, it's trivial.
00:57:15
Speaker
Like it doesn't feel authentic.
00:57:16
Speaker
Instead, when I say like we're proposing projects, like we're doing like a full-on project.
00:57:21
Speaker
It's a professional piece that everyone's deciding on if they want to do.
00:57:26
Speaker
Now we're going into game show mode.
00:57:27
Speaker
Space people.
00:57:28
Speaker
So I'm pretty sure last time you started off our game show, but this time I feel like I need to start.
00:57:35
Speaker
I don't have, I have music, but I'm not going to play it just yet.
00:57:38
Speaker
Last time you stumped me a little bit by having a ton of context in your quote unquote lightning round, which took like 35 minutes.
00:57:47
Speaker
So this time I'm going to bring in.
00:57:48
Speaker
Ball lightning.
00:57:49
Speaker
I'm going to develop some ball lightning questions of my own here.
00:57:54
Speaker
So the theme of this pop quiz, which the plot is that whoever loses this gets pushed off the spaceship.
00:58:03
Speaker
They get sent out of the airlock.
00:58:05
Speaker
So this is a life or death scenario.
00:58:06
Speaker
So stress is on.
00:58:09
Speaker
The theme of our quiz today is cognitive science and research and studying the brain, the things that we've been alluding to over the course of this podcast.
00:58:21
Speaker
And my quiz is called Doug Lamov Said What?
00:58:28
Speaker
So this is a game show based around Doug Lamov, author of Teach Like a Champion.
00:58:36
Speaker
If you're not familiar, Teach Like a Champion is the best-selling professional development book for educators, both in the United States, but also in Europe.
00:58:46
Speaker
Teach Like a Champion features all these different strategies to
00:58:51
Speaker
try it down a little bit, all these different strategies to essentially help, quote unquote, help students learn.
00:58:59
Speaker
It's been criticized for being very authoritative.
00:59:03
Speaker
A lot of the techniques involve literally controlling students' bodies.
00:59:08
Speaker
I think many people will be familiar with the concept of slant, which has been popularized from that, which is sit up, lean forward, ask and answer questions, nod your head and track the speaker.
00:59:20
Speaker
The idea being like, you raise your hand, everyone's supposed to look at you and supposed to like nod their head yes, like when someone gets the answer right.
00:59:28
Speaker
It's used by a lot of like charter schools that tend to focus on test scores where kids sit in rows.
00:59:37
Speaker
It just feels very, very labby, very lab style, very BF Skinner.
00:59:42
Speaker
Walden 2.
00:59:44
Speaker
Yeah, very Walden 2.
00:59:45
Speaker
This is the Walden 2 dreamscape is Teach Like a Champion.
00:59:49
Speaker
So my game is based around, did Doug LaMob say this or not say this?
00:59:56
Speaker
So here's question one.
00:59:59
Speaker
Okay, Teach Like a Champion is about to release Teach Like a Champion 3.0.
01:00:06
Speaker
I believe 2.0 came out like more than 10 years ago.
01:00:10
Speaker
So 3.0 is in development and it centers itself on rebranding a bit.
01:00:15
Speaker
For some background, I have listened to about four different podcasts each hour long featuring Doug Lamov.
01:00:24
Speaker
And I also have been reading Doug Lamov's blog.
01:00:26
Speaker
So there's been a lot of research into this.
01:00:28
Speaker
I had to rake a lot of leaves yesterday.
01:00:31
Speaker
So I put that in and I got very frustrated listening to Doug Lamov.
01:00:35
Speaker
So 3.0 is in development.
01:00:37
Speaker
It's focused on rebranding around equity and inclusion and backing up its information more with research.
01:00:46
Speaker
Labov on various occasions has prided himself on understanding the research and not only drawing from cognitive science, as we've been referencing here, but also social scientists and economists.
01:00:59
Speaker
In 2019, he wrote this article called Who's Reading the Cognitive Science?
01:01:03
Speaker
And he writes in there, quote, Cognitive science has learned more about how people learn in the last 20 years than the previous 300 years combined.
01:01:11
Speaker
But you visit a school or a district and talk about research on memory or perception and people haven't read it.
01:01:18
Speaker
Few people are pulling out their copy of Kahneman out of their bag.
01:01:21
Speaker
You only see that in some parts of the high-performing entrepreneurial school sector, where people are serious about proving a concept, but not in the average in school.
01:01:30
Speaker
Instead, you often find people carrying around the baggage of unfounded or discredited ideas, dewy, multiple intelligences, and vague platitudes about learning by doing or teaching your peers about the best form of learning.
01:01:43
Speaker
Vygotsky's writings from 1918 count as science."
01:01:47
Speaker
So that's a that's a common theme across most of Lamar's blog and work.
01:01:52
Speaker
He works with entrepreneurs and has charters and just a focus on economics and kind of global competitiveness in the marketplace.
01:02:02
Speaker
That's besides the point, though.
01:02:03
Speaker
Nick, do you know who Kahneman is that he's writing about there?
01:02:07
Speaker
I feel like I've seen the name, but I couldn't tell you what concepts are associated with Kahneman.
01:02:12
Speaker
Okay, so brief descriptor.
01:02:13
Speaker
This is like super brief.
01:02:16
Speaker
Kahneman's a psychologist.
01:02:19
Speaker
He mostly applies his work to business and how businesses operate, but his most famous work is Thinking Fast and Slow, which is the thing that he published.
01:02:28
Speaker
He developed this idea behind two different thought systems.
01:02:32
Speaker
There's system one.
01:02:34
Speaker
System one is like fight or flight.
01:02:36
Speaker
It's how we survive.
01:02:37
Speaker
It's our first thing that we think about whenever we think of something.
01:02:41
Speaker
And then there's system two, which is slow and logical thought.
01:02:46
Speaker
And the cognitive science crowd, the folks that run these behaviorist style classrooms have connected.
01:02:52
Speaker
Skinner and Lamov's work centered around the research by Kahneman behind the system one fight or flight and system two, which is slow and logical thought.
01:03:02
Speaker
So here's the actual question.
01:03:04
Speaker
Here's the Doug Lamov says what.
01:03:07
Speaker
Okay, so did Doug Lamov write this?
01:03:12
Speaker
Quote,
01:03:13
Speaker
In particular, it underscores a couple of points.
01:03:16
Speaker
Kahneman writes that decision making starts with perception and so systematic exposure to situations where players learn to perceive and recognize viable solutions is critical.
01:03:25
Speaker
This is why it's necessary to build knowledge.
01:03:28
Speaker
You want to build problem solving ability.
01:03:31
Speaker
The biggest single misperception in education today is that problem solving is something that you can develop without background knowledge.
01:03:38
Speaker
Hmm.
01:03:40
Speaker
Oh, that's totally something Lamar would say.
01:03:42
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:43
Speaker
Yes, he did say that.
01:03:45
Speaker
I didn't cue up the you're right sound.
01:03:46
Speaker
I only have you're wrong.
01:03:48
Speaker
You're right.
01:03:50
Speaker
There it is.
01:03:50
Speaker
You're right.
01:03:52
Speaker
Doug Lamov does believe that.
01:03:54
Speaker
This is a give me question because this is kind of the basis behind behaviorist cognitive science driven classrooms.
01:04:01
Speaker
That you have to do a ton of rote memorization, aka use those teaching machines until you memorize all the right background knowledge to firmly operate doing anything.
01:04:12
Speaker
So if you do a creative project that's open ended and kids have to work together to do it,
01:04:17
Speaker
it's not an effective strategy because students don't have all of that core background knowledge.
01:04:22
Speaker
The overall idea is centering on Kahneman that you need to like drill, literally drill students into understanding all this information so that their system one, their fight or flight response is they just automatically know the right answer.
01:04:38
Speaker
They don't have time to get to system two because it's going to take too long and they don't have that background knowledge yet.
01:04:44
Speaker
Instead, focus on system one, get them to know everything.
01:04:47
Speaker
So that way they can do system two work down the road because they'll have such an extensive background knowledge there.
01:04:54
Speaker
And it also gets into like, well, the cognitive load of system two is too much.
01:04:58
Speaker
You just need to make sure you have all that information up front.
01:05:01
Speaker
That kind of thing.
01:05:02
Speaker
You know what's really interesting, though?
01:05:03
Speaker
I mean, I mentioned that Mary Helen Immordino Yang interview, and she addresses that perfectly because in certain contexts, maybe like England and stuff, they're really heavy on like that cognitive load management, etc.
01:05:16
Speaker
And even in that interview, she says, this is a direct quote from from from Emery Nguyen here.
01:05:21
Speaker
What if things like regurgitating memories and factual or procedural information that's been curated by someone else?
01:05:28
Speaker
What if knowing all that stuff doesn't make you a better person?
01:05:30
Speaker
What if it doesn't help you know what to do in the world?
01:05:33
Speaker
And there's actually excellent evidence that it doesn't.
01:05:36
Speaker
So it's increasingly again, right?
01:05:39
Speaker
I feel like the cognitive science, hashtag COGSCI, say of the last 10 years, is exactly what you were talking about with Skinner back in the 40s and 50s, right?
01:05:50
Speaker
What if we built our education system?
01:05:53
Speaker
around what Skinner had imagined in Walden or in Walden 2.
01:05:59
Speaker
We would abhor it.
01:06:01
Speaker
We would view it as a total failure of humanity if we had built it along his model.
01:06:07
Speaker
And yet, we've taken the very narrow interpretation of cognitive science
01:06:13
Speaker
From from folks like Lamov, not that he's a cognitive scientist, but we get it filtered through him.
01:06:19
Speaker
Right.
01:06:19
Speaker
In terms of building schools around just a few cognitive science principles and results, managing cognitive load and retrieval practice.
01:06:27
Speaker
And we've built our whole school system around managing your memory.
01:06:31
Speaker
Oh, my God.
01:06:32
Speaker
Right.
01:06:33
Speaker
We're going to look back at this in shock and horror.
01:06:36
Speaker
And, I mean, you don't have to go far to find schools that do operate like this.
01:06:39
Speaker
Like, the mob has the Uncommon Schools Network.
01:06:42
Speaker
Right.
01:06:43
Speaker
Which, like, they release videos.
01:06:45
Speaker
You can find them on YouTube of, like, how to effectively cold call on people.
01:06:50
Speaker
And it's just, like, it's a whole thing where I was going to put this in as a question, but, like...
01:06:56
Speaker
how you're supposed to ask cold calling questions.
01:06:58
Speaker
And that cold calling is actually a way to develop relationships because cold calling is a way of saying that you matter and that the research says that cold calling ensures that students do better on tests.
01:07:10
Speaker
But I did a quick Google when I read that.
01:07:12
Speaker
I was like, does the research actually say that?
01:07:16
Speaker
And the research overwhelmingly, just for like a quick summary of 10 different things, I was reading the abstracts, that cold calling leads to so much anxiety
01:07:24
Speaker
that students that are cold called on don't perform as well as students who are not cold called on.
01:07:31
Speaker
Because one, in order to do cold calling in the first place, you have to have a school environment that's very lecture driven because you would just be talking at your kids all day and eventually they'd answer the questions.
01:07:41
Speaker
But two, anyone who ever has been in a class that's had cold calling knows how stressful that is, especially in high school where
01:07:50
Speaker
You just like are always worried that someone's going to judge you for getting the answer wrong.
01:07:54
Speaker
Like, why would that even be an effective strategy to begin with?
01:07:57
Speaker
You know, what's funny is you mentioned that social stress and that social anxiety and that part, that's going to play a very important role in my three questions to follow.
01:08:09
Speaker
So we'll have to come back to that.
01:08:12
Speaker
All right, so let's get on to question two.
01:08:14
Speaker
So question two, teach like a champion, like almost every single book on education, will tell you that relationships are incredibly important to the classroom community.
01:08:25
Speaker
Teach like a champion 2.0 features 62 different techniques to improve classroom instruction.
01:08:32
Speaker
So here's the, Doug Lamoff said what?
01:08:35
Speaker
So Lamov writes in Teach Like a Champion about Technique 31, developing relationships at the beginning and ending of class.
01:08:44
Speaker
Did he say, quote, in order to best get to know your students, it's important to build a space where they are respected and welcomed.
01:08:52
Speaker
Before every class, be sure to greet every single student with a firm handshake.
01:08:56
Speaker
Establish and build rapport.
01:08:58
Speaker
Ask them about how their day is going and make a note of this later in the lesson.
01:09:02
Speaker
Do not let any student avoid the handshake or ignore the question.
01:09:05
Speaker
It's vitally important that every single student understands your respect and that you are the head of the classroom.
01:09:12
Speaker
That is some Harry Wong stuff right there.
01:09:14
Speaker
I firmly believe, with a firm handshake, that that has definitely dug them off.
01:09:19
Speaker
The answer is no.
01:09:21
Speaker
That is not Doug LaBeouf.
01:09:22
Speaker
Get ready for this.
01:09:23
Speaker
If you thought Teach Like a Champion was extreme, here you go.
01:09:27
Speaker
So Lamov states on the podcast, Mind the Gap, episode nine, one of the many podcasts I listen to, an anecdote about his second grade daughter, who seemingly his second grade daughter just really hates school.
01:09:41
Speaker
She's very frustrated by everything that goes on.
01:09:43
Speaker
It's almost like he's using her as kind of a scapegoat to criticize teachers.
01:09:49
Speaker
So Lamov recalled a story where his daughter was in class, which I'm assuming this is a remote class, and the teacher spent time asking all the students how their weekends went.
01:10:00
Speaker
And Lamov states that this is a useless piece of class time because the teacher's role is just to teach, his words.
01:10:08
Speaker
Building relationships in this manner isn't useful because students don't see the teacher's role as someone who needs to know what's going on the weekend.
01:10:17
Speaker
Instead, the teacher should just build relationships by starting class and learning about students through the content.
01:10:22
Speaker
So the teacher's only role is teach content.
01:10:25
Speaker
That's what the students like.
01:10:26
Speaker
That's what they're used to.
01:10:27
Speaker
So the way that they're going to get to know you is by asking questions about biology, which is the reference that he uses.
01:10:32
Speaker
Which I mean, that kind of speaks for itself for what Lamov thinks the purpose and value of a classroom is.
01:10:40
Speaker
Does Lamov also think that putting an infant child inside a warmed crib that you don't have to interact with it at all would grow it to be a better human?
01:10:49
Speaker
Put a little hamster feeder in there.
01:10:51
Speaker
It just feels so connected.
01:10:53
Speaker
Everything about that quote blows my mind because how many kids...
01:10:58
Speaker
use like how many kids develop a community by being in the class like are they not allowed to have friends at school are they not allowed to be friends with their teachers are they not allowed to like have another trusted adult in their lives that they can talk to things about wow like in this hypothetical world of uh doglamov teach like a champion school
01:11:18
Speaker
The only thing kids talk about outside of at lunch is the content in the class.
01:11:24
Speaker
Any other information is completely useless.
01:11:26
Speaker
Like it's wasted time.
01:11:29
Speaker
I couldn't believe that quote was real.
01:11:30
Speaker
He doesn't believe in any of that stuff.
01:11:31
Speaker
You shouldn't ask kids how their weekend went because that's just you're wasting your time.
01:11:35
Speaker
He says something along the lines of like, I understand why a teacher would do this because they're trying to do the right thing.
01:11:40
Speaker
But ultimately, you know, my kid doesn't care about that.
01:11:43
Speaker
They just want to get class started because you're wasting content time.
01:11:46
Speaker
That's not your job.
01:11:47
Speaker
I'm like, whoa, that's a belief, that's for sure.
01:11:52
Speaker
So we are one for two.
01:11:54
Speaker
All right.
01:11:55
Speaker
You'll enjoy this next question.
01:11:57
Speaker
Let's do it.
01:11:58
Speaker
Okay.
01:11:59
Speaker
So in Doug Lamov's desire to have a more research-backed Teach Like a Champion 3.0, he's also reaching out and networking with the research ed organization.
01:12:10
Speaker
Way back in 2015, Tom Bennett, who is the founder of Research Ed, posted on Doug Lamov's blog about the movement.
01:12:18
Speaker
Since then, Research Ed has been featured in Lamov's work in almost all of the publications.
01:12:24
Speaker
I should say Research Ed has featured Lamov's work, as Doug Lamov is referenced all the time in Research Ed.
01:12:29
Speaker
So Lamov wrote about Bennett.
01:12:32
Speaker
This is a direct quote from his blog.
01:12:34
Speaker
He writes brilliant stuff like this recent piece on group work, which examines the research that, spoiler, allegedly supports the practice and then examines its strengths and limitations.
01:12:44
Speaker
He notes that he uses group work himself and then gets down to brass tacks, like someone who
01:12:48
Speaker
works every day in the classroom.
01:12:50
Speaker
When and why would you ever use it?
01:12:52
Speaker
With what cautions and how can you address them?
01:12:54
Speaker
You know, another balanced, pragmatic, sensible, informative, instantly useful piece for teachers, the kind you see every day.
01:13:00
Speaker
With useful pieces like that popping up from him regularly, really the only reason not to like him is that he's both trenchant and funny at the same time.
01:13:09
Speaker
Anyway, if you've read Tom's stuff and thought like me, more like that for teachers, please.
01:13:14
Speaker
You're in luck.
01:13:14
Speaker
He's coming to America as founder of Research Ed, an organization that's about bringing research to teachers in useful ways.
01:13:20
Speaker
He's gone global and is running a conference that I highly recommend.
01:13:23
Speaker
End quote.
01:13:24
Speaker
So ResearchEd, if the listener is not familiar, is an organization.
01:13:30
Speaker
It's quite a large following, especially in the UK, that focuses almost entirely on behaviorism.
01:13:38
Speaker
They use Skinner as a primary reference in their work.
01:13:42
Speaker
They have multiple publications I was reading where they're defending Skinner, talking about how we need to go back to Skinner.
01:13:47
Speaker
And they kind of write pieces that blend together, teach like a champion, Skinner and some other economists like Kahneman.
01:13:55
Speaker
and say, hey, this is the reason why we need to change classes to be more like those uncommon schools, more of these schools that are very rote-driven, that focus on quote-unquote core knowledge.
01:14:06
Speaker
In addition, they've also come underneath a lot of scrutiny.
01:14:10
Speaker
Benjamin Dockstatter has a piece on this, which I highly recommend, the education critic.
01:14:16
Speaker
He references it as equity backlash.
01:14:19
Speaker
For example,
01:14:21
Speaker
In 2019, the research ed group had made this very large infographic.
01:14:25
Speaker
Nick, I don't know if you remember this.
01:14:27
Speaker
I have this pulled up right now because I was finding it as you were talking about it.
01:14:31
Speaker
So there's maybe like 100 people on that infographic.
01:14:34
Speaker
I don't know the number.
01:14:35
Speaker
But I'm pretty confident that all of them are white.
01:14:38
Speaker
So in response, the research ed leaders and many of their followers, instead of apologizing or saying, hey, we need to focus more on this.
01:14:45
Speaker
It's a great point, et cetera.
01:14:47
Speaker
They basically just made a bunch of flippant comments about how this didn't matter, how our presentation wasn't important, things like, we should add more people from Nordic countries on there, that kind of stuff.
01:14:59
Speaker
The leaders had on numerous accounts...
01:15:03
Speaker
They've been aggressive towards identity.
01:15:05
Speaker
Like they make transphobic remarks.
01:15:07
Speaker
They comment a lot on diversity initiatives.
01:15:10
Speaker
A lot of the research ed crowd, a lot of its speakers that are often at their events, including Tom Bennett himself, have a lot of overlapping commentary with conservative pundits like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro.
01:15:24
Speaker
They've been associated with the intellectual dark web, the IDW folks.
01:15:29
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:30
Speaker
So for example, Robert Cragen, perhaps, he's one of the speakers that talks at research-ed conferences.
01:15:39
Speaker
He recently retweeted the Chalkboard Review.
01:15:43
Speaker
Our friends over there, Chalkboard Review.
01:15:46
Speaker
Chalkboard Review is a publication that is connected to James Lindsay that publishes anti-CRT work and a lot of very questionable comments about equity in education.
01:15:57
Speaker
Or recently, Tom Bennett, who is the founder, he retweeted a piece from Jonathan Porter about how schools shouldn't teach multicultural religious ideas because of depth over breadth and cognitive load, and that students have to understand Britain's Christian heritage.
01:16:12
Speaker
And when you start teaching about all the other religions, that's just going to confuse them and they're not going to know what's going on.
01:16:17
Speaker
So instead, just focus on Britain's Christian heritage, because that's who the primary people in Britain are.
01:16:23
Speaker
That's a real article.
01:16:24
Speaker
You should Google it.
01:16:25
Speaker
It's incredibly interesting how this behaviorist, cog-sci, kind of authoritarian crowd also happens to be taking a stand on the culture war that is essentially like a white supremacist lens.
01:16:39
Speaker
It's almost like all of that cognitive science behaviorist research is rooted in white supremacist ideas, which, spoiler alert, it is.
01:16:47
Speaker
All of this stuff comes from eugenics.
01:16:51
Speaker
So here is the dog Lamov said what.
01:16:56
Speaker
So.
01:16:57
Speaker
Okay, you want to say I'm addicted to context, Chris?
01:17:00
Speaker
What was that?
01:17:00
Speaker
So this is the dog Lamov said what.
01:17:02
Speaker
I need a backstory on who research ed was.
01:17:04
Speaker
I was going to say, is there a Doug Lamov question at the end of that?
01:17:07
Speaker
So here's the Doug Lamov.
01:17:08
Speaker
In 2021, Lamov, this was like a couple months ago, Lamov wrote a statement on his blog.
01:17:13
Speaker
Quote, in my work as an educator, coach, and business owner, I have been fortunate enough to be informed by great thinkers across the globe.
01:17:21
Speaker
and work to make Teach Like a Champion a force for good, ensuring that students reach their full potential.
01:17:25
Speaker
In that mission, I have consistently used research and promoted others that do.
01:17:29
Speaker
In one instance, I had referenced Tom Bennett, founder of the Research Egg community.
01:17:33
Speaker
Regretfully, in recent years, the Research Egg community has consistently promoted messages of hate towards marginalized communities, and I wanted to state that myself and the Teach Like a Champion movement are unequivocally opposed to these statements.
01:17:46
Speaker
So I have to say, did Doug Lamov say that?
01:17:48
Speaker
Yes.
01:17:48
Speaker
Did he say that?
01:17:49
Speaker
I will say that that is fiction.
01:17:52
Speaker
I bet he has not distanced himself from that.
01:17:54
Speaker
You got it.
01:17:55
Speaker
That's a, you got two out of three because you better believe.
01:18:01
Speaker
Doug LaMov is constantly referenced by Tom Bennett and his followers.
01:18:07
Speaker
In fact, if you were to just like Twitter, like hashtag research ed and then Doug LaMov or LaMov, you'll find it constantly.
01:18:15
Speaker
They talk about it all the time.
01:18:18
Speaker
And he's never said a word about any of this stuff.
01:18:22
Speaker
He in fact has referenced research ed other times now.
01:18:26
Speaker
And it's likely, because he keeps talking about Teach Like a Champion 3.0, that he will utilize a lot of that exact same research and questionable content to back up his practices that he talks about.
01:18:38
Speaker
Right.
01:18:39
Speaker
And I got blocked by Tom Bennett a year or so ago because of that exact reason.
01:18:44
Speaker
I asked him, I said, why is the hashtag research ed founder Tom Bennett so concerned with competing sociological and biological definitions of gender?
01:18:53
Speaker
And he promptly blocked me for the exact same things that Benjamin Dockstatter was writing about.
01:18:58
Speaker
They're very anti-trans and have very, very problematic ties to
01:19:06
Speaker
to those kinds of movements and ideas.
01:19:08
Speaker
It's like legit racism and transphobia.
01:19:10
Speaker
Like it's not even like a pseudo, like talking about like structural, like anything.
01:19:16
Speaker
It's just like flat out.
01:19:18
Speaker
The conservative commentator, she wrote about like pumpkins as genders.
01:19:23
Speaker
Yes.
01:19:23
Speaker
What's her name?
01:19:25
Speaker
Catherine Burblesing she goes yeah Miss Nuffy yeah she had tweeted this joke said this is the best joke of the year and it showed a picture of a basketball and on the basketball written in Sharpie it says like I identify as a pumpkin yeah and right the to which my response was what's the joke
01:19:43
Speaker
Right.
01:19:44
Speaker
Somebody please explain the joke.
01:19:46
Speaker
Oh, the joke is supposed to be the right that trans people are the butt of the joke because they only have one joke.
01:19:52
Speaker
Right.
01:19:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:53
Speaker
That's that's the only joke.
01:19:54
Speaker
And it's interesting that all of their work, like just to read a few of the articles recently published by the Chalkboard Review.
01:20:03
Speaker
which are also heavily based inside of this research ed community because it's almost like, again, that research is just connected to some hyper-authoritarian, purely white supremacist lens.
01:20:18
Speaker
So published on November 3rd, report, wokeness comes for math in Seattle.
01:20:24
Speaker
11.1, inclusive education isn't working.
01:20:27
Speaker
1028, of course CRT is in schools.
01:20:29
Speaker
1031, antidote to activist teaching.
01:20:34
Speaker
1023, from salesperson to school board member.
01:20:37
Speaker
1024, vocational training for the soul, bringing the meaning of work to schools.
01:20:42
Speaker
So there is an obvious timeline from
01:20:46
Speaker
eugenics, these like hyper white, hyper like privilege takes on education back in the 1920s and excluding people who are different and that people that are educated look a certain way because they're civilized and even like getting into like white man's burden, that kind of stuff.
01:21:04
Speaker
There's a direct line from that to Taylorism and industrializing schools through the various different culture wars over the years to today.
Impact of Grading on Learning
01:21:16
Speaker
where you have publications like this and folks that are using lab-based science, which is not based out of a classroom and ignores a sizable amount of research because they pick and choose.
01:21:29
Speaker
They always go like, well, if anyone could show me research that says otherwise, I would go ahead and go along with it and then promptly ignore all research that goes against what they're saying.
01:21:38
Speaker
And then basically publish everything that's all based around like culture war nonsense.
01:21:44
Speaker
It's all based around like like anti-masking.
01:21:49
Speaker
Their big thing now is teachers that are getting fired or let go because they refuse to get vaccinated, refuse to wear a mask or something like that, as opposed to just looking at basic research.
01:22:01
Speaker
And honestly, I think it's all just in the interest of making money.
01:22:04
Speaker
It's all just about like how quickly can I get fired and then go on Fox News and make a lot of money like like a Dave Rubin.
01:22:10
Speaker
The grift is real.
01:22:11
Speaker
Yeah, they certainly have weaponized, you know, hashtag cog sci for for the culture war, certainly.
01:22:19
Speaker
Right.
01:22:19
Speaker
Because they'll say, oh, you know, the teachers don't want to teach reading, writing and arithmetic.
01:22:24
Speaker
They want to teach about gender identity as though.
01:22:27
Speaker
You can't also learn to read and then how to understand gender identity.
01:22:32
Speaker
Those are competing ideas.
01:22:34
Speaker
There's not enough room in the child's brain to learn about more than three things.
01:22:40
Speaker
Yeah, we have to balance their cognitive load.
01:22:43
Speaker
It's a moral panic.
01:22:44
Speaker
They want to treat child's brains as this moral panic.
01:22:48
Speaker
All right.
01:22:48
Speaker
Are you ready for my take?
01:22:49
Speaker
I was going to say, there's one more thing about CogSci that I briefly want to mention, which is...
01:22:55
Speaker
I think it's worth reaffirming the fact that B.F.
01:22:58
Speaker
Skinner and these ideas have already been discredited.
01:23:01
Speaker
Like if you read the research on this stuff, they are trying to defend ideas that are 50 years old while simultaneously saying that the research supports the work that they're doing.
01:23:10
Speaker
And the place that they draw their research from is almost entirely economists.
01:23:15
Speaker
It's about how you operate a business effectively and how do you make as much money as possible, which in businesses, there are winners and losers.
01:23:24
Speaker
And a lot of this research is like, well, if someone, you know, sucks at their job, you need to let them go.
01:23:28
Speaker
There's a lot of noise.
01:23:29
Speaker
Kahneman writes about, he has a book called Noise, which is about like two people doing the same job and how you need to get rid of some person who's like not doing the same thing.
01:23:36
Speaker
Very, uh,
01:23:38
Speaker
like neoliberal style, cutting down on businesses, et cetera, or just positions that don't matter.
01:23:45
Speaker
And it just so happens that a lot of these charter schools are run based off of entrepreneurial style leadership models.
01:23:53
Speaker
So what does that mean if you build classrooms that double down on competition and ranking winners and losers and getting rid of people who don't conform or forcing them to conform?
01:24:05
Speaker
as opposed to treating classrooms as public community spaces that are not businesses.
01:24:10
Speaker
That's the reason why it's education and not a job.
01:24:14
Speaker
It's not meant to be a business.
01:24:17
Speaker
I think it's so important for folks to tease that out and look at these different issues and think about, you know, is this a business endeavor or is this a classroom?
01:24:24
Speaker
Because they are very different.
01:24:25
Speaker
So let's see.
01:24:26
Speaker
So the number to beat is two out of three.
01:24:29
Speaker
So you've got to do a clean sweep on me here in order to get it.
01:24:32
Speaker
One thing we might have to plan for in the future is a tiebreaker question.
01:24:35
Speaker
That's true.
01:24:36
Speaker
So we'll just kind of see.
01:24:37
Speaker
I can brainstorm one.
01:24:39
Speaker
Yeah, I have a feeling that it could be, I might get you with one of these and a couple of the other ones you might knock out of the park.
01:24:45
Speaker
So mine actually involve, I was kind of inspired by David Buck's ungrading camp, something to check out on his account in particular, but he's been running a discord and hosting some events in the Twitter spaces for people to talk about ungrading strategies, impacts on
01:25:06
Speaker
equity, a lot of great topics.
01:25:09
Speaker
So it's something to check out there.
01:25:10
Speaker
But I was kind of inspired since our topic is research ed, cog sci, et cetera, because grading is really just one of the most central conventions in formal education.
01:25:20
Speaker
We just do it without any sense of
01:25:23
Speaker
of the reason for why.
01:25:24
Speaker
So even in our modern so-called research-based data-driven world, we stick with traditional grading schemes or the compromised standards referenced or standards-based methods that Alfie Kohn would call lipstick on a pig, even as we study and understand more about the consequences of grades and grading on many of the unmeasured outcomes of school.
01:25:43
Speaker
So my three questions today deal with some of the recent research on the impact of grading on three things, on group problem solving, group coordination, and confirmation bias.
01:25:54
Speaker
Gotcha.
01:25:55
Speaker
So I'm going to walk you through some methods here real quick, and then I'll get to the question.
01:26:00
Speaker
So in a 2015 study, European researchers were looking to evaluate, quote, what happens when educators and managers want to promote cooperation because of its potential for innovation in a system that consistently and pervasively assesses group work with individual normative grades.
01:26:17
Speaker
The task, as explained to participants, was to study, quote, how people who work in teams get to solve criminal cases, quote,
01:26:24
Speaker
The participants were provided information about a traffic accident and had to collectively determine who was responsible for the accident among numerous suspects.
01:26:33
Speaker
So the crux of the experiment here was that participants were each given 21 pieces of shared information and six pieces of unshared information, making pooling the unshared information vital to crack the case and nab the correct suspect.
01:26:48
Speaker
Does that make sense?
01:26:49
Speaker
So does one group then have all the information or do different groups have that different information?
01:26:56
Speaker
So, so, uh,
01:27:00
Speaker
Each participant was given that amount of information.
01:27:03
Speaker
Okay.
01:27:03
Speaker
So you had 27 pieces of information total, six were unshared and 21 were in common.
01:27:09
Speaker
So you had to figure out which ones you had in common and which ones were unique to you.
01:27:12
Speaker
Within your own group.
01:27:14
Speaker
Within your group.
01:27:15
Speaker
Yes.
01:27:15
Speaker
Yep.
01:27:16
Speaker
Okay.
01:27:17
Speaker
So, um,
01:27:19
Speaker
They wanted to look at these three different conditions to kind of assess the impact of these things on there.
01:27:25
Speaker
So the different groups that they ran through this were in first a graded and visible condition where the teams were told, quote, although I'm interested in your team product, I will observe your work and at the end also give each one of you a grade from one to six as a function of each one's contribution to the investigation.
01:27:44
Speaker
Another one was a non-graded visible condition in which teams were told the experimenter was only interested in the group solution, but that individual contributions would not be assessed.
01:27:53
Speaker
And then a non-graded, non-visible condition where the teams were told the experimenters were only interested in the group solution and explicitly pointed out that the cameras would be off, so nobody would be observing them either.
01:28:06
Speaker
So here's the fact or fiction.
01:28:09
Speaker
As a result of this work, the researchers concluded that visibility itself has no deleterious effects and that it is the use of grades that hampers cooperative group work.
01:28:20
Speaker
Hmm.
01:28:21
Speaker
Well, I'll walk through my thought process a little bit here.
01:28:24
Speaker
So I know for a fact that, well, not for a fact, but I know based off of research that I've read in the past, that cooperative learning is hampered by assigning grades.
01:28:34
Speaker
I know that if you individually grade different students based off of working cooperatively, they tend to contribute less.
01:28:40
Speaker
There's multiple research on our website that shows that when you grade, people tend to share less information, even though they're being individually graded for it, which is very interesting.
01:28:51
Speaker
So I want to say that for sure the grades would not help.
01:28:56
Speaker
However, the question about visibility is interesting.
01:29:03
Speaker
That's not my answer.
01:29:04
Speaker
I want to think that visibility does matter because you feel like you're being watched and therefore you might feel less prone to like saying things you wouldn't normally say.
01:29:16
Speaker
But the exact same time,
01:29:19
Speaker
there is potentially a motivating factor to being observed in the sense that like, I know I'm being watched, so therefore I want to make sure I'm doing well.
01:29:30
Speaker
Based off of the grading component, I feel like it's relatively similar.
01:29:34
Speaker
Like the idea of being watched, the ideas of being judged, et cetera.
01:29:36
Speaker
So I'm going to say...
01:29:39
Speaker
I think this is the false is as in that it did matter, as in you shouldn't have, as in the last category was the better category, not watching people not grading them.
01:29:54
Speaker
Okay.
01:29:55
Speaker
So let's see here.
01:29:57
Speaker
So you would agree with the statement, quote, visibility itself has no deleterious effects and that it's the use of grades that hampers cooperative group work.
01:30:04
Speaker
You think that's a fact?
01:30:06
Speaker
Yeah.
01:30:06
Speaker
So visibility does not matter.
01:30:08
Speaker
And like, as in you, you don't want, it doesn't matter if you have visibility or not, but the grades are the problem.
01:30:13
Speaker
All right.
01:30:14
Speaker
Yes.
01:30:14
Speaker
And that is a fact.
01:30:15
Speaker
Nice.
01:30:15
Speaker
So you nailed that one.
01:30:16
Speaker
Cause I, cause that's where I wanted to bring that back to what you had said earlier.
01:30:19
Speaker
Remember I had said visibility would come back into this, but yeah, they found that visibility was not damaging, but the grades that hampered cooperative group work.
01:30:28
Speaker
In fact,
01:30:28
Speaker
They actually ran a separate experiment designed to eliminate the confounding variables based on visibility or not visibility.
01:30:37
Speaker
And they found on the second experiment replicated the same results.
01:30:40
Speaker
Here's what they said.
01:30:41
Speaker
The second study provides supplementary evidence that in a cooperative group situation, grades interfere with the group's cooperative behavior.
01:30:48
Speaker
And they conclude, this is a quote.
01:31:04
Speaker
As the expectation of grades may prioritize individual interests and personal success, it is also possible that it induces cheating behaviors, even when group members are encouraged to cooperate.
01:31:15
Speaker
With this in mind, we can only recommend to avoid grading individuals in cooperative groups.
01:31:22
Speaker
So, yeah, that was the result of all the other research.
01:31:25
Speaker
I know.
01:31:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:31:27
Speaker
But I liked it.
01:31:27
Speaker
That was 2015 from the Journal of Social Psychology.
01:31:31
Speaker
The title was Grading Hampers Cooperative Information Sharing in Group Problem Solving.
01:31:37
Speaker
So we want to talk about ungrading as an evidence-based practice.
01:31:40
Speaker
How often do teachers grade individuals in group projects?
01:31:44
Speaker
Is that an evidence-based practice?
01:31:45
Speaker
Why are we not responsive to that?
01:31:47
Speaker
Sure.
01:31:48
Speaker
Now, this one's going to come pretty quick because the same team of researchers also hypothesized in 2015, and I'll paraphrase, that grades elicit disruptive interactions and reduce performance in cooperative tasks that require group coordination.
01:32:05
Speaker
So what do you think here?
01:32:06
Speaker
Fact or fiction?
01:32:07
Speaker
The researchers found that grades improved group interactions and performance.
01:32:12
Speaker
Well, grades would not improve interaction.
01:32:17
Speaker
Yeah, it would actually, if it encourages you to cheat anyway, then I would imagine that there's no way that it would improve how you interact with each other.
01:32:24
Speaker
Okay, so what about the performance lens?
01:32:26
Speaker
Because maybe it's the case that being graded can actually help your performance.
01:32:32
Speaker
That would be very interesting if they found that given that in the past they've done studies that show that the product that students produce as a result of being ungraded tends to be better.
01:32:43
Speaker
And they tend not to try as hard on assignments that are graded.
01:32:46
Speaker
So I would say that that's also fiction.
01:32:49
Speaker
All right.
01:32:49
Speaker
And you got it.
01:32:50
Speaker
That is fiction.
01:32:52
Speaker
Nice.
01:32:53
Speaker
I got these.
01:32:54
Speaker
I could do a grading thing.
01:32:56
Speaker
Last week was...
01:32:59
Speaker
whatever they're called, Teach for America.
01:33:00
Speaker
That's a little bit outside of my wheelhouse.
01:33:02
Speaker
I can do this.
01:33:03
Speaker
That was pretty good.
01:33:04
Speaker
So the title of that paper they released about that study is called Grades Degrade Group Coordination.
01:33:11
Speaker
And the researchers found, quote, that although pupils were set to work cooperatively, priming grades versus neutral concepts harmed inter-individual coordination by eliciting more negative dominant behaviors among pupils, which decreased group performance.
01:33:26
Speaker
So that competitive environment that was prompted by the grades actually led to behaviors that decreased performance.
01:33:36
Speaker
coordination, and then subsequently decreased performance.
01:33:38
Speaker
So there's kind of a chain of causation there.
01:33:40
Speaker
So it was a really interesting experimental design.
01:33:44
Speaker
Maybe I'll even have to send you a picture of it or something.
01:33:46
Speaker
But they had fifth graders use a paper track and a pulley system that drove a ballpoint pen and a line around the track.
01:33:53
Speaker
So the pen was in the middle, and there were ropes that went or lines that went to the different pulleys.
01:33:58
Speaker
And so if I pulled my version of the pulley, well, that would move yours as well.
01:34:03
Speaker
And we would have to coordinate our interactions to be able to drive the pen, quote unquote, around this paper track.
01:34:09
Speaker
You see what I'm saying?
01:34:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:34:10
Speaker
Makes sense.
01:34:11
Speaker
And you would get a point for each square that you were able to keep the pen in the middle lane.
01:34:15
Speaker
So the groups were able to keep it in the middle and better coordinate, got higher scores.
01:34:20
Speaker
Zero points if it went to an outer lane.
01:34:22
Speaker
You didn't get punished by it.
01:34:23
Speaker
But you got minus one point for going outside the track entirely.
01:34:28
Speaker
Okay.
01:34:28
Speaker
Sounds kind of like fun, actually.
01:34:30
Speaker
Yeah.
01:34:53
Speaker
more floor-taking control and intrusive behaviors to direct others.
01:34:57
Speaker
And additionally, they found priming the pupil with grades from the outset of the game indeed resulted in lower group performance that they attribute to the increase in negative dominant behavior.
01:35:07
Speaker
So, you know, that scoring system, they actually performed worse due to the lack of cooperation in that case.
01:35:13
Speaker
Yeah, they're stressed.
01:35:15
Speaker
I just imagine if I put some of my kids together in a room and said, if you don't do this, you're going to fail.
01:35:20
Speaker
Like chaos would ensue.
01:35:23
Speaker
It just doesn't work because that's not in a cooperative environment, right?
01:35:27
Speaker
Like one kid starts doing it all for themselves.
01:35:30
Speaker
And then, you know, that breaks up the the cooperative sort of nature.
01:35:34
Speaker
And then some kids drop out or whatever.
01:35:36
Speaker
The research behind that was pretty fascinating because the way that they measured the negative behaviors was like in qualitative ways.
01:35:43
Speaker
So they have examples of things that the kids would say, like when they would complain about others behaviors or or some of the other things, too.
01:35:50
Speaker
So it was it was pretty.
01:35:52
Speaker
It's kind of funny to read.
01:35:53
Speaker
Like they put one participant telling another, pull the pulley exclamation point while simultaneously dropping his or her own pulley in order to mime the action or verbal interventions with tones of emotional negative tension, i.e.
01:36:07
Speaker
annoyed and scornful tones, e.g.
01:36:09
Speaker
argh.
01:36:10
Speaker
No, not that way.
01:36:11
Speaker
And are you stupid or what?
01:36:14
Speaker
Those were things that the students had said to themselves that they coded as negative.
01:36:17
Speaker
Well, I'm just happy I can't get something out of the airlock now.
01:36:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
Podcast Conclusion and Reflections
01:36:22
Speaker
It's a tie.
01:36:22
Speaker
So yeah, it's like the thing right now we got to figure out who it is.
01:36:27
Speaker
So let's see here.
01:36:28
Speaker
So the last one.
01:36:29
Speaker
So now we've seen how grades negatively impact group problem solving and information sharing, as well as increased dominant intrusive behaviors that negatively impact group performance.
01:36:40
Speaker
let's talk about the phenomenon of the preference effect or more commonly known as confirmation bias.
01:36:47
Speaker
So that's the tendency to seek out evidence that confirms your initial preferences.
01:36:52
Speaker
So kind of the question here in just a second will be kind of in which direction do you believe that grades and grading will have an impact on this bias?
01:37:00
Speaker
So essentially, this will be kind of a test of your own confirmation bias, Chris, but it might come with a twist.
01:37:05
Speaker
So be careful.
01:37:06
Speaker
Okay.
01:37:06
Speaker
So in a 2014 study, and I liked all of these because they're all within the last 10 years, researchers studying the notion of grades and confirmation bias, again, divided participants into three conditions.
01:37:16
Speaker
A graded visible condition in which participants were individually evaluated by an authority on a range of one to six, but in front of the group, so everybody knew what grades everyone was getting.
01:37:26
Speaker
A non-graded visible condition where there was the presence of an authority to oversee the work, but not an evaluation, and
01:37:33
Speaker
and then the last one was a non-graded non-visible condition in which no authority was present during the experiment and participants were not graded so the last two conditions are both non-graded but the difference is visibility okay
01:37:46
Speaker
So fact or fiction, the researchers found that the bias for confirming evidence, confirmation bias, was higher in the non-graded, non-visible group than the non-graded, visible group.
01:37:59
Speaker
So wait, what is the bias that they're concerned with?
01:38:04
Speaker
Okay, so basically the amount of information that they used that confirmed their previous hypothesis as opposed to including disconfirming information.
01:38:15
Speaker
Wait, what is the task?
01:38:17
Speaker
Like, what are they actually doing?
01:38:19
Speaker
Gosh, I was hoping that it wouldn't, it wouldn't, I was hoping that it wouldn't matter.
01:38:24
Speaker
So you're saying like they're like, they're working on some kind of like projects, some kind of problem.
01:38:28
Speaker
And the question is whether or not the group had more confirmation bias or not when gathering evidence for that, that product in a ungraded environment versus a graded environment.
01:38:42
Speaker
Well, in this one, both of the conditions that I said are not graded.
01:38:46
Speaker
So now this gets to visibility.
01:38:48
Speaker
So did they find that however they measure confirmation bias, like in percentage or raw figures or whatever, was they found more confirmation bias present in the non-graded, non-visible group
01:39:02
Speaker
So the ones which no authority was present during the experiment and participants were not graded.
01:39:06
Speaker
Then in the non-graded visible group.
01:39:09
Speaker
So that would be the one in which there was a presence of an authority, but not an evaluation.
01:39:13
Speaker
Clear as day.
01:39:14
Speaker
How that sounds.
01:39:17
Speaker
So there's two sides of this that I'm trying to fight.
01:39:20
Speaker
One side is I feel like my own bias would say that by having an authoritative figure there,
01:39:30
Speaker
that you would be less likely to have confirmation bias because you'd want to ensure the person who's an authority knows that you're thinking about different things and you're working with different perspectives.
01:39:41
Speaker
However, the other side of me also thinks about the fact that typically when you have people that are judging you, you tend to jump to conclusions faster because you want to find the right answer.
01:39:53
Speaker
And you want to hurry up and get to the end.
01:39:56
Speaker
So I could see an argument for both sides.
01:40:00
Speaker
I'm going to go with the fact that having visibility as in having an authoritative figure makes you more likely to have confirmation bias because you want to get the answer correct for that person.
01:40:14
Speaker
Okay.
01:40:15
Speaker
Now that's interesting.
01:40:16
Speaker
So I will tell you that this is... I think you had framed it in a way that would make what I had said fiction, right?
01:40:28
Speaker
So if we're talking about...
01:40:30
Speaker
The researchers found that the bias for confirming evidence, the confirmation bias, was higher in the non-graded non-visible group than in the non-graded visible group.
01:40:40
Speaker
And that is a fact.
01:40:42
Speaker
So they did have more confirmation bias when they were not visible.
01:40:47
Speaker
Correct.
01:40:49
Speaker
And I think that might be the opposite of what you said.
01:40:51
Speaker
That is the opposite of what I said.
01:40:52
Speaker
Okay.
01:40:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's going to make for great podcast content.
01:40:54
Speaker
It really is.
01:40:55
Speaker
Okay.
01:40:56
Speaker
And I'm going to put this up on the thing here.
01:40:58
Speaker
Can you see that V right there?
01:41:00
Speaker
Yep.
01:41:00
Speaker
That middle group in the, again, a visual prop for an audio podcast.
01:41:06
Speaker
There is a V going down that basically like one group is really high.
01:41:10
Speaker
One group is really low and the other group is like halfway.
01:41:13
Speaker
Yes.
01:41:13
Speaker
So the group in the middle is the non-graded but visible group.
01:41:17
Speaker
They had the lowest preference bias or confirmation bias compared to the graded visible group, which had the highest amount of confirming evidence.
01:41:30
Speaker
And the non-graded, non-visible group is that third one that you can kind of see.
01:41:34
Speaker
They had almost as much as the other group.
01:41:36
Speaker
Now, I thought this was fascinating, okay?
01:41:39
Speaker
So they found that the graded visible participants showed a far higher preference for confirming evidence than either of the non-graded groups.
01:41:46
Speaker
The paper I'm quoting from is called Grading Reduces Consideration of Disconfirming Evidence.
01:41:52
Speaker
So they did discuss what they called, quote, an interesting, although unexpected result was that the preference effect was higher in the non-graded non-visible condition compared to the non-graded visible condition.
01:42:03
Speaker
Chris.
01:42:26
Speaker
which I found fascinating, right?
01:42:28
Speaker
And kind of shows a lot of what we've talked about, which is, you know, making that work authentic and public facing and for an audience, be it for peers or for an internet audience or for parents or someone else, right?
01:42:41
Speaker
Kind of triggers in kids sort of that need to...
01:42:47
Speaker
that need to perform the task.
01:42:49
Speaker
So that way, you know, they kind of that social pressure factor of it here too.
01:42:54
Speaker
And the people who in the non-graded, non-visible group just didn't, you know, they were just like, yeah, kind of whatever about that thing.
01:43:00
Speaker
So I thought that was really interesting.
01:43:01
Speaker
I was on the right track and then I psyched myself out.
01:43:03
Speaker
I know, and then you flipped it.
01:43:04
Speaker
That's why I had to ask about it.
01:43:06
Speaker
But yeah, but even the non-graded.
01:43:09
Speaker
The not graded, but the visible, right?
01:43:11
Speaker
So the visibility, right, improved a kind of thought process that we would want students to participate in, which is, right, let's seek out disconfirming evidence for the things that we think.
01:43:21
Speaker
And then we'll, you know, put thesis, antithesis, and we'll come to better conclusions about that.
01:43:26
Speaker
But the graded visible condition just caused kids to look for evidence of things that they already think and believe.
01:43:33
Speaker
Right.
01:43:34
Speaker
So that creates, again, the kind of wrong, kind of critical thinking that we would want kids to be able to engage with, which is why I thought for as confusing as the study is, I thought it was really important to think about in terms of creating the kinds of thinkers and creating the kinds of kids that we want, you know, is, yeah.
01:43:52
Speaker
Well, let's do this really quick.
01:43:54
Speaker
Actual, actual lightning around.
01:44:00
Speaker
Whoa.
01:44:00
Speaker
All right, real quick tiebreaker question.
01:44:03
Speaker
All right.
01:44:03
Speaker
All right.
01:44:03
Speaker
I already got the tiebreaker question.
01:44:04
Speaker
I was thinking about it in that explanation.
01:44:08
Speaker
So here's the lightning round question.
01:44:11
Speaker
It's going to be an A, B, C, or D question.
01:44:13
Speaker
If you get this right, I'll get sent out.
01:44:15
Speaker
If you get it wrong, you're getting sent out.
01:44:18
Speaker
Okay.
01:44:18
Speaker
So here's the question.
01:44:19
Speaker
I'm going to tie this all back to some BF Skinner behaviorism.
01:44:23
Speaker
So...
01:44:25
Speaker
All of the studies that are referenced by behaviorist cognitive science people are almost entirely taking place in a lab, whereas all of the research that we just cited here for ongrading are taking place in classrooms.
01:44:37
Speaker
As in, we're taking groups of students who are working together, actual human beings.
01:44:42
Speaker
They might be in a lab-like setting, but they are still...
01:44:45
Speaker
like actual people, whereas the vast majority of behavior studies feature like animals or like individuals like seated in a room by themselves.
01:44:54
Speaker
It's meant to be hyper-controlled.
01:44:56
Speaker
So hopefully you don't know this, but you might already know it.
01:45:01
Speaker
So Pavlov was famous, a famous kind of like precursor to behaviorism for Pavlov's bell.
01:45:10
Speaker
The dog would ring the bell and it would get something and salivate.
01:45:13
Speaker
Right.
01:45:14
Speaker
What animal was B.F.
01:45:16
Speaker
Skinner famous for using in practically all of his experiments?
01:45:21
Speaker
In fact, they wrote about it all the time in like Science Weekly.
01:45:24
Speaker
He was known at Harvard for keeping a bunch of these animals for all of his studies.
01:45:29
Speaker
You know the answer already.
01:45:31
Speaker
I believe I believe the answer is pigeons.
01:45:34
Speaker
The answer is pigeons.
01:45:37
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:45:38
Speaker
Wait.
01:45:39
Speaker
All right.
01:45:39
Speaker
I'm the executive director now.
01:45:45
Speaker
It'll be even better than last time.
01:45:48
Speaker
You knew the answer before I could even do it.
01:45:51
Speaker
I didn't even give you the ABCD.
01:45:53
Speaker
But, you know, I had a thought because I was thinking of those Little Albert experiments.
01:45:57
Speaker
Do you remember hearing about those?
01:45:58
Speaker
Didn't they make a child deathly afraid of this mouse or a rat or something like this?
01:46:03
Speaker
I have no idea.
01:46:04
Speaker
What?
01:46:05
Speaker
Okay.
01:46:05
Speaker
Well, maybe I won't even say anything about that.
01:46:08
Speaker
Yeah.
01:46:08
Speaker
The Little Albert experiment.
01:46:11
Speaker
A controlled experiment showing empirical evidence of classical conditioning in humans.
01:46:16
Speaker
Yeah.
01:46:17
Speaker
So I believe that was...
01:46:20
Speaker
No, who was that?
01:46:22
Speaker
Oh, John Watson.
01:46:24
Speaker
I got you.
01:46:24
Speaker
Okay.
01:46:25
Speaker
But yeah, they made a little boy terrified of a mouse.
01:46:30
Speaker
And it's very difficult to watch.
01:46:32
Speaker
Fascinating.
01:46:33
Speaker
Wait, one more B.F.
01:46:34
Speaker
Skinner question.
01:46:35
Speaker
Bonus follow-up question for me to come back inside the airlock.
01:46:38
Speaker
Do you know what... Yeah, I'm knocking for air right now.
01:46:42
Speaker
Do you know what was the most famous experiment that B.F.
01:46:48
Speaker
Skinner did with his pigeons?
01:46:52
Speaker
Oh.
01:46:52
Speaker
It deals with World War II and the Cold War.
01:46:57
Speaker
With his pigeons?
01:46:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:46:59
Speaker
Well, I know that he had them.
01:47:01
Speaker
They hit a little lever, right?
01:47:04
Speaker
They could like peck the thing and then some food would come out.
01:47:07
Speaker
I don't know what tasks- What were they training to do though?
01:47:10
Speaker
Like what made that research so public?
01:47:12
Speaker
Because yes, they did hit the lever and they did get a piece of food for it.
01:47:14
Speaker
But what was the purpose of that?
01:47:17
Speaker
What were they training them to do?
01:47:19
Speaker
Yes.
01:47:19
Speaker
No, no, no.
01:47:20
Speaker
Um,
01:47:22
Speaker
Shoot.
01:47:23
Speaker
You know what?
01:47:23
Speaker
I don't remember.
01:47:25
Speaker
I don't know.
01:47:25
Speaker
What is it?
01:47:26
Speaker
You can come back in.
01:47:27
Speaker
I'm coming back in.
01:47:28
Speaker
All right.
01:47:29
Speaker
So this is another true BF Skitter fact.
01:47:32
Speaker
Despite being kind of a terrible person when you think about his legacy, the guy is hyper interesting.
01:47:38
Speaker
So he was on a project called Project Orcon, which is also known as Project Pigeon.
01:47:46
Speaker
The goal of this was to create pigeon-guided missiles, where pigeons would carry missiles with their feet, with their claws.
01:47:57
Speaker
And they were trained to carry these missiles and then peck to get the food.
01:48:00
Speaker
The reason why they were doing the behavior is pecking for the food.
01:48:03
Speaker
The idea would be they would dive bomb using a missile and just blow people up or buildings up or whatever.
01:48:12
Speaker
Oh my god.
01:48:13
Speaker
I know, how dark and weird is that?
01:48:15
Speaker
The project never got approved by the military, but it was funded by the military.
01:48:19
Speaker
So they really did do this.
01:48:22
Speaker
It just never was actually used in combat.
01:48:24
Speaker
My God, if that's not a commentary on the use of behaviorist techniques in the classroom, I don't really know what else to say.
01:48:32
Speaker
Like it speaks for itself.
01:48:34
Speaker
Wild.
01:48:35
Speaker
Oh, using classical conditioning, we can get people to want to blow each other up.
01:48:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, hey, using classical conditioning, we can make everybody hyper patriotic and they never question what their country does.
01:48:46
Speaker
And everyone will just get along because everyone will be the exact same.
01:48:49
Speaker
And then they'll carry bombs and go blow up people in other countries.
01:48:52
Speaker
Great.
01:48:53
Speaker
And then they'll get a little treat at the end for their hard work.
01:48:56
Speaker
Problem solved.
01:48:58
Speaker
With that, that's the podcast.
01:49:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:49:02
Speaker
So again, thank you.
01:49:03
Speaker
If you've gone on this long, I so apologize.
01:49:06
Speaker
The goal is to make this podcast five hours long by the time we're done doing them.
01:49:11
Speaker
Yep, exactly.
01:49:12
Speaker
It'll just be a full day.
01:49:14
Speaker
It'll be like the Lord of the Rings extended edition at some point, but, uh, my goodness.
01:49:18
Speaker
Yes.
01:49:18
Speaker
Thank you so much.
01:49:20
Speaker
Um, you know, feel free to share it, send us Q and a, if you thought that that was, I enjoyed answering those questions.
01:49:25
Speaker
So if you liked that, send us more questions.
01:49:27
Speaker
We can tackle those in future episodes.
01:49:30
Speaker
Um, yeah.
01:49:31
Speaker
Follow us at humores pro I'm at Covington edu and I'm at Nick nut edu.
01:49:36
Speaker
Nice.
01:49:36
Speaker
We corner the market on the edus.
01:49:38
Speaker
Uh,
01:49:39
Speaker
Yeah, and hopefully we can, you know, we'll do this again and together we can restore humanity together.
01:49:45
Speaker
Nailed it.
01:49:51
Speaker
Thank you again for listening to Human Restoration Project's podcast.
01:49:54
Speaker
I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to push the progressive envelope of education.
01:49:58
Speaker
You can learn more about progressive education, support our cause, and stay tuned to this podcast and other updates on our website at humanrestorationproject.org.