TITLE: Theory and Practice in Education Classrooms
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: October 01, 2010  3:00 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
The Fordham Institute has just published
<A HREF="http://edexcellence.net/index.cfm/news_cracks-in-the-ivory-tower">
   Cracks in the Ivory Tower?</A>,
a national survey of K-12 education professors.  The
publication page summarizes one finding that points
out a gap between what happens in education courses
and what many of us might think happens there:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
The [education] professors see themselves as
philosophers and evangelists, not as master craftsmen
sharing tradecraft with apprentices and journeymen.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have seen this gap in my own university's College of
Education, with many of its required courses not adding
much to the daily practice of teaching.  Unfortunately,
I've seen another gap in the tension between programs
focused on teacher training, like the one at my school,
and theoretical research-driven education programs at
our R-1 sister schools.  Many of the professors at
those schools view what is taught at our school as too
applied!

Most of us in computer science who are looking to help
K-12 teachers use ideas from CS in their courses tend
to be focused on helping teachers in the trenches.
There isn't much value in us teaching, say, high
school teaches a bunch of CS theory that is disconnected
from what they do in their classrooms.  They already
have so much to teach and test that there really isn't
room for a bunch of new content, and besides, most of
them aren't all that interested in CS theory for its
own sake.  (That's true of many CS people themselves,
of course.)

With help from Google
<A HREF=http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2010-07.html#e2010-07-04T15_49_44.htm">
   this summer</A>,
my department offered
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/connections/cs4hs/">
   CS4HS Iowa 2010</A>,
to introduce computing to K-12 science and math teachers
using simulations in Scratch.  The course looked at
some CS ideas at the abstract level, but the meat of
the course was practical techniques, both technical
and pedagogical.  Our hope was that an 8th grade math
teacher or an 11th grade science teacher might be able
to use computing to help them teach their own courses
more effectively.

Mark Guzdial
<A HREF="http://computinged.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/whos-teaching-the-teachers/">
   responds to the Fordham Institute report</A>
with several thoughtful observations.  I certainly
agree with this caution:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
On the other hand, I don't share the sense in the report
that if we "fixed" teacher education, we would "fix"
teachers.  I learned when I was an Education graduate
student that pre-service teacher education is amazingly
hard to fix.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

I learned this only in the last few years, by participating
in statewide meetings aimed at improving the state of
STEM education in Iowa.  The number and diversity of
stakeholders at the table is often overwhelming, almost
ensuring that little or no practical change will occur.
Even when you narrow the conversation to professors at
all the universities who teach teachers, you run into gaps
of the sort highlighted in the report quote above.  Even
when you narrow the conversation even further to professors
at a single university, there can be big gaps between what
education professors want to do, what STEM professors think
is important, and what the state Department of Education
requires.

Guzdial again:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Education professors seek to avoid being merely "vocational
instructors," so they emphasize being "change agents" (a
term from the report) rather than focusing on developing
the tradecraft of teaching.  Doesn't this sound a lot like
the tensions in computing education?
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, indeed.  In a field like CS, students need to learn
both theory and application if they hope to find ways to
use their knowledge upon graduation <EM>and</EM> be able
to stay relevant as the discipline changes over the course
of their careers.  But there are many challenges to face
in trying to meet this two-headed goal.  Four (or five)
years is a short time.  The foundational knowledge that
CS faculty has tends to stay the same as the applications
of that knowledge change the world, which over time makes
it harder for faculty to 
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2009-04.html#e2009-04-13T19_36_10.htm">
   keep up and not settle down</A>.
Without periodic immersion in applied tasks, how can a
prof know the patterns of software their students need
to know tomorrow?

Education professors face many of the same challenges in
their own context.  My wife has long argued to me that
both CS professors and education professors should be
required regularly to work in the trenches, whether that
is developing software or teaching a bunch of unruly
7th-grade science students, to keep them grounded in the
world outside the university.  When I think about the
challenge facing graduates of our Colleges of Education,
I often wish that more of their education would be
devoted to studying their craft at the feet of masters,
spending their four years in college moving from
apprentice and journeyman and finally to master
themselves.  They should be learning the patterns of
learning and teaching that will help them progress
along that path.  Building a few courses around something
like the
<A HREF="http://www.pedagogicalpatterns.org/">
   pedagogical patterns project</A>
would be a great start.

I think you could apply the last three sentences of that
paragraph to CS education and improve our outcomes as
well.
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