{"id":9941,"date":"2020-06-19T15:27:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T15:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/discover.abre.com\/?p=9941"},"modified":"2023-01-16T15:32:36","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T15:32:36","slug":"what-works-in-education-what-doesnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discover.abre.com\/blog\/what-works-in-education-what-doesnt\/","title":{"rendered":"What Works in Education (What Doesn’t)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Every influence has an effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This simple tautology sometimes gets lost in the many debates about what works in education. Nearly everything works \u2013 sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad \u2013 but the act of doing something produces an outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everything might work. But is it worth it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nSay, for example, that this amazing computer program was found to be statistically significant in changing student achievement. Sounds good, you\u2019d say to yourself, and you consider purchasing or adopting it. But then you learn that it only increased students\u2019 performance by 3 points on a summative assessment (and the research had data from 10,000 students). If it were free and easy to implement this change, it might be worth it for students to get a tiny bit better scores. But if it were time-consuming, difficult, or expensive, you should ask yourself it to go through all of this trouble for such a small gain.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
That gain, quantified, is the effect size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n[The effect size] represents the magnitude of the impact that a given approach has. We think about it like the Richter scale, which is used to measure earthquakes. In California we have about 10,000 earthquakes per year. But we don\u2019t feel all of them because their impact is small. They register very low on the Richter scale. In the language of learning, they have very minimal effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Visible Learning for Social Studies by John Hattie, Julie Stern, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
As with many things in life, the question boils down to, \u201cHow should I spend my time?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Time Consumption<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
I once participated in a committee tasked with determining a change in the start times of schools. We held engagements, read piles of emails, listened to passionate parents who attended board meetings, and sank hours and hours into shifting start times by 30 minutes. The experience was not acrimonious (well, not very) and generally resulted in building better bonds within the school community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which would be fine if that was the point of the experience. But our stated goal was to make the change to improve academic performance for our students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was it worth the time when the effect size of modifying the timetables of school results in an effect size of .09 (recall that we generally view an effect size of .4 or higher to have a sizable impact<\/a>)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My point with this post isn\u2019t to stir up controversies. I believe it prudent to ask, before starting a process, \u201cIs it worth it? If so, why?\u201d Nearly everyone develops opinions about education through their experiences, shaped by time spent as a student, family member of a student,\u00a0 or through cumulative years of teaching. As humans, we form opinions based on these experiences.\u00a0 But learning is very human as well. We can change our views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n