Why schools need technology to teach writing: Jeff Scheur at TEDxGunnHighSchool
Summary
TLDRThe speaker recounts an incident where a student's confidence was almost shattered by poor writing feedback. He highlights the current flawed system of writing education, where students receive minimal and rushed feedback, and suggests technology could revolutionize writing instruction by providing creativity, immediate feedback, and personalized learning. He criticizes standardized tests for their negative impact on writing skills and advocates for a more collaborative and authentic approach to writing assessment.
Takeaways
- π The speaker almost destroyed a student's confidence by not considering the student's perspective on their own work.
- π The script highlights the issue of students not receiving adequate feedback on their writing due to the high volume of papers teachers have to grade.
- π The speaker points out that writing scores on standardized tests like the SAT and ACT are consistently low, indicating a systemic problem in how students are taught to write.
- π The current process of writing instruction is likened to a conveyor belt, where students are passed from grade to grade without improving their writing skills.
- β° Time is a critical factor; teachers do not have enough time to provide meaningful feedback on student writing due to large class sizes.
- π€ The script suggests that technology could revolutionize writing education by providing immediate feedback, adapting to individual needs, and promoting collaboration.
- π‘ The idea of using technology for authentic assessment is proposed, where students can type their own responses and be evaluated based on previous responses.
- π« The speaker criticizes the use of standardized tests for writing, arguing they do not accurately assess a student's writing ability.
- π₯ The script emphasizes the importance of collaboration in the writing process, suggesting that students should be able to evaluate each other's work.
- π The speaker shares his experience of using technology to help students with grammar, showing that it can be an effective tool for personalized learning.
- π The impact of technology in education is significant, as evidenced by the rapid adoption of the speaker's tool and the millions of questions solved by students.
Q & A
What was the issue with the student's paper that Mr. Sawyer mentioned?
-The student's three-page paper was one long sentence with no commas, periods, or capitalized words.
How did the student, Tony, feel about his paper?
-Tony felt proud because he had never turned in a paper before.
What is the percentage of students below grade level in writing according to the script?
-73 percent of students are below grade level in writing.
Why are writing scores low on standardized tests like the SAT and ACT?
-The low scores are due to a lack of effective feedback and practice loops for students to improve their writing.
What is the 'conveyor belt' analogy mentioned in the script referring to?
-The 'conveyor belt' refers to the process where students are passed from grade to grade without the resources or time to improve their writing skills.
What is the common piece of feedback students receive on their papers that indicates a deeper issue?
-The feedback 'blend your quotes' indicates that students need to learn to integrate evidence into their writing effectively.
Why is the current approach to writing education described as inefficient in the script?
-The current approach is inefficient because it involves teachers grading papers with limited time, leading to rushed feedback that students often discard without incorporating into future work.
What is the potential role of technology in revolutionizing writing education according to the script?
-Technology could promote creativity, provide immediate feedback, adapt to individual strengths and weaknesses, encourage collaboration, and offer accurate and authentic assessments.
How does the script suggest using technology to improve writing education?
-The script suggests using technology to create interactive and personalized learning experiences that provide immediate feedback and adapt to student needs.
What is the issue with standardized tests for writing according to the speaker?
-Standardized tests focus on identifying errors rather than finding solutions, which is not conducive to improving writing skills.
How can technology help students with grammar and punctuation as described in the script?
-Technology can provide interactive exercises that allow students to practice grammar and punctuation in context, receive immediate feedback, and focus on specific areas where they need improvement.
Outlines
π The Struggle with Writing Education
The speaker recounts an incident where a student named Tony submitted a poorly structured paper, sparking a discussion on the state of writing education. The author points out that many students are below grade level in writing, as evidenced by SAT and ACT scores. The current educational system is criticized for its conveyor belt approach, where students receive minimal feedback on their writing. Teachers are overburdened with grading, leading to rushed feedback. The feedback itself is often unclear, exemplified by the common but vague instruction to 'blend your quotes.' The speaker suggests that technology could revolutionize writing education by providing creativity, clarity, and immediate feedback, adapting to individual strengths and weaknesses, and encouraging collaboration.
π The Flaws of Multiple-Choice Writing Assessments
The speaker argues against the use of multiple-choice questions for assessing writing skills, as they force students to choose between wrong answers rather than finding solutions. The author proposes a more authentic form of assessment where students can type in their own responses and be evaluated against previous answers. The speaker shares an anecdote about a student named Jamal, who was encouraged to find controversy in his writing topic. The author emphasizes the importance of writing being a collaborative process and the need for technology to facilitate peer evaluation and feedback. Activities that help students improve their writing, such as cutting fluff and understanding grammar, are discussed, along with the challenges teachers face in providing individualized feedback.
π‘ Leveraging Technology for Writing Improvement
The speaker discusses how technology can be used to improve writing education by creating interactive and personalized learning experiences. The author shares their experience of creating an educational tool that adapts to students' interests and provides immediate feedback on grammar and punctuation. The tool allows students to make revisions and receive hints, with the system generating new questions to help them practice until they master a concept. The speaker highlights the importance of educators' involvement in creating educational technology and shares the rapid growth of their tool's user base. The potential impact of such technology on education outcomes is emphasized, with the speaker expressing optimism about the role of technology in enhancing writing skills.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Confidence
π‘Writing
π‘Feedback
π‘Grade Level
π‘SAT and ACT
π‘Conveyor Belt
π‘Technology
π‘Collaboration
π‘Standardized Tests
π‘Authentic Assessment
π‘Grammar
π‘Data-Driven
Highlights
A student's confidence was almost destroyed due to a lack of proper writing skills.
The student had never turned in a paper before, indicating a potential systemic issue in education.
73% of students are below grade level in writing, as per SAT and ACT scores.
The current writing education system is likened to a conveyor belt, lacking resources for improvement.
The lack of time and feedback in the writing process is a significant issue.
Common writing feedback like 'blend your quotes' is often too vague for students to improve.
Literacy technology is underfunded compared to other educational areas.
Proposed technology-based curriculum would promote creativity, clarity, and collaboration in writing.
Standardized tests may be hindering effective writing education.
Technology could provide immediate feedback and unlimited practice for writing improvement.
The importance of authentic assessment in writing education.
Writing should be a collaborative process where students evaluate each other's work.
Original, controversial ideas make for compelling writing assignments.
Technology can help students understand grammar through interactive activities.
An 80-page manual was created to help students with grammar misconceptions.
Technology can provide personalized grammar practice and feedback.
Data can be used to show students and teachers areas needing improvement in writing.
The technology has been rapidly adopted, with over 40 million questions solved by students.
Educators and teachers must play a key role in creating effective educational technology.
Transcripts
my second year teaching I almost
destroyed a kid's confidence
it was the third week of school and
three page paper that he turned in was
one long sentence no commas no periods
no words capitalized and I tried to
think of how to start my conversation
with him and I asked Tony when you turn
this in how did you feel about it and he
said well mr. Sawyer I guess I felt kind
of proud and I said tell me more and he
said well I I never turned a paper in
before and if an 11th grader can slip
through the cracks because our
classrooms are that crowded then clearly
we're not doing enough 73 thank you 73
percent of our students are below grade
level in writing and for the last eight
years on the SAT and the AC T the lowest
scores are not in math they're not in
reading they're on the writing section
so let's analyze how we got here like
why do we have this problem in the first
place this is how students learn to
write most kids work on their papers
independently then they turn them in to
a teacher who grades them in a dark room
probably around 3:00 in the morning then
that happens then students get the
papers back they feel guilty for a few
minutes they look at the red marks and
then they usually throw the papers out
or they lose them and then before
they've even gotten the paper back
they're asked to write another one and
they have to continue through this loop
without actually being able to
incorporate feedback into future drafts
also somewhere in the building is an
administrator who's worried about the
fact that test scores aren't improving
and another way that we could
conceptualize this is a conveyor belt
where students are passed from grade to
grade and never actually have the
resources or the time to improve time is
really the operative word if you think
about the fact that most high school
teachers have a hundred and seventy
students in their classes if every
teacher spent 15 minutes just 15 minutes
grading each paper
that would be 42 hours of grading after
school every time they gave an
assignment so that means that students
aren't getting a lot of feedback and
then the feedback that you are getting
is going to be kind of rushed and a
really good example of that is this very
common piece of feedback that students
get on their papers blend your quotes
and all that means is that students need
to learn to integrate evidence so that
their paragraphs work well with the
quotes that they're using but there's a
lot to know in order to get this right
in order to blend ones quotes you need
to know how to cite the specific time
when the quote occurs who the speaker is
who the listener is you have to be able
to trim down the quote necessarily you
have to be able to cite it correctly
you also have to be able to make sure
that you can modify the quote for
clarity and then of course you have to
know the punctuation that goes before
the quote and after the quote and you
have to have enough context clues to
explain to people why the quote is
necessary then you have to elaborate on
the quote afterwards and you have to
analyze why your quote helps explain the
point of your paragraph to begin with
it's a lot to know and that's all you
see so in math tens of millions of
dollars have been spent building
technology products to help with
education outcomes but there's very
little happening and literacy right now
and almost nothing happening in writing
so let's think for a second about if
technology could revolutionize the way
that we learned to write what would such
a curriculum look like well first of all
it would promote creativity because the
reason we write is that we want to share
ideas it would help us break down
difficult concepts and it would give us
unlimited practice and immediate
feedback so that we could get better
quickly then it would be able to adapt
to our strengths and weaknesses and it
would also encourage us to collaborate
with others and make sure that when we
finally got an assessment of our writing
that it was accurate and it was
authentic so instead this is what we
have 1.7 billion dollars every year are
spent on standardized tests on scantrons
and this is really bad for how we learn
to write and here's a specific example
when you look at a multiple-choice
question the goal is for you to identify
the error
more than it is for you to find the
solution and this specific question the
word there may be the problem but it's
really an agreement issue between the
word each which is singular and there
which is plural so if you were actually
asked to fix the problem you would end
up making a lot of edits to the sentence
that had nothing to do with what the
error was another example something that
multiple choice kind of forces you to do
is choose between not wrong answers and
definitely wrong answers so in this case
we have a long passage underlined and
what you're supposed to do is compare
all these possibilities and try to find
the answer that's least wrong it's a
very anxiety-producing experience but
given the way that Google search works
given the way that we're able to use
data now to power the engines that make
the internet work why can't we just give
a student a text box and let him type in
his own response and then use previous
responses to evaluate whether that makes
sense or not then we could actually get
rid of all this distracting non answer
stuff and we could have a much more
authentic assessment so to borrow a line
from John update the way that any
activity becomes creative is when the
doer cares about doing it right or doing
it better and writing really should be a
collaborative process right and the
reason the reason that we write is to
share ideas and so it only makes sense
that students would be able to evaluate
each other's work many years ago a
student Jamal was going to write a paper
about how Romeo and Juliet died at the
end of the play and I asked him well if
you're going to write that have you
found anyone who disagrees that that
actually happened because if everyone
agrees why write the paper and so he
went around and he surveyed every
student in the class and he came back to
me and he said well here's what I found
out everybody agreed that they died
except for Elizabeth
I asked why what happened to her well I
I don't think she read the play
so instead for his paper idea the
question was well why did they die right
and what I advised them to do is
actually think specifically about how
much blame each character had for the
deaths of Romeo and Juliet can you
divide up this exact amount of guilt and
then once you've made such a pie chart
of guilt go around again and survey
people and find out where they
specifically disagree with you that's a
paper idea because its original it's
controversial and it's something that
you understand and if you think about
good writing there's lots of reasons
that we should be leveraging the people
in the classrooms to help us first of
all good writing is clear and that just
means that your peers can understand it
second of all it's credible which means
your peers believe you after they read
it and it just has to be interesting
which means that they get all the way
through or at least halfway so teachers
are very good at giving interesting
prompts that get students excited about
describing things in a vivid way but
what's very overwhelming for the teacher
and much harder to do once a student
crafts a response is to parse it out to
look at specific parts of the paper that
are effective and not effective before a
grade but with technology we can all
simply allow students to vote
imagine plus wanting specific parts of a
paper that are good and also being able
to bring out for a student this
particular parts of a paper that aren't
effective an activity I used to do with
my students to help them cut fluff was
to paste wordy phrases all around the
classroom and students would go around
in groups with markers and they would
eliminate as many words as they could
and the students who had eliminated the
most words would get the most points and
so that was a pretty good activity
except the problem was that I didn't
know who in the group actually
understood how to cut fluff and who
didn't who was just trailing along so
when Google Forms came out I posted this
online and I told students well each of
you is actually going to cut this each
quote down and I want you to do the best
you can and then we'll look at the data
and we'll see the variety of responses
that we get and what an activity like
this reveals if we just look at one
sentence the duty of a clerk is to check
and record incoming mail is that people
come up with some really interesting
responses that you wouldn't anticipate
so a bunch of people wrote a clerk
checks and records incoming mail others
clerk's check all mail and record it
a clerk checks and records the mail and
then clerks check and record mail lots
of ways of saying the same thing but the
point is that there are many right
answers right there's not one right
answer and a whole bunch of wrong
answers that's just not how writing
works and so that's not the way that we
should be trained so where I probably
had the biggest problem without
technology was how to help students with
grammar in fact I was so concerned about
it that I documented every single
misconception that students had on their
papers and I would give them numbers and
letters and then I put together an 80
page manual that they could refer to
after they graded after they looked at
what I wrote so thank you
but here's the thing that's not enough
as it turns out so 8.1 can refer to a
comma splice and 13.4 C can refer to
well you had a quote and you had
something before it but there was no
colon in the middle and even after that
students could have the opportunity to
go back and make specific revisions to
everything I pointed out but when you
think about the math if there's a
hundred and seventy students and
everyone does fifty revisions to his
paper that's eighty five hundred
Corrections that I'm looking at in a
dark room at 3:00 in the morning and
that made me sad and so I tried to
create activities to make this possible
I actually laminated a bunch of phrases
and parts of speech and I had students
kind of make turn the classroom into a
shrine of grammar and language except
that once I spent a thousand dollars of
the school's laminating budget I
realized that I probably couldn't
sustain this activity for very long
technology at scale can be a lot cheaper
so I hired an engineer to help me build
something that could actually take
students interests their favorite
celebrities the personal interests their
friends and to generate questions that
were about them so a Justin Bieber fan
would see Justin Beiber hollered my name
running toward me with the with the
oversized stuffed animal that he just
won and students can drag and
punctuation as you see they can click to
capitalize or uncapitalized they can
throw out what they don't need this is
an authentic assessment of what students
know and what they don't because they
have freedom and then let's say a
student makes a mistake in the sentence
about Barack Obama doing a handstand
maybe the student chooses to capitalize
handstand it's an interesting choice
rather than just marking him wrong we
can actually focus on the specific
problem that he has and then if he still
gets it wrong we can show him a hint and
if he gets it wrong again that we can
actually show him his specific mistake
give him a model of how to build the
sentence and then generate another
question with a different example but
the same programmatic substructure so
that he can practice it until he gets it
right this is what we need technology to
do and we can apply the same concept
helping kids with hyphens helping people
tell the difference between who's and
who's can even use it to help people
understand when to capitalize the word
aunt when it's a common noun and when
it's a proper noun and as students are
doing all this we can be crunching the
data giving students summaries of how
they're doing and then showing them
color coded heat maps to let them know
where they need more practice so in this
case conjunctive adverbs is where I made
a mistake and I need to do more work on
that particular topic now that would be
good in and of itself but teachers can
actually see how everyone in the class
is doing simultaneously and quickly use
that to inform instructional practice so
I can see in my class a lot of blue for
general contractions can't isn't
shouldn't but all that red over there
that's plural nouns
that's the sanchezes keep beating me in
Scrabble and the Joneses haven't given
to me my tape measure back and once we
know the specific problem the specific
area I can drill down further and look
at how many attempts it's taking each
student to answer questions correctly
and to achieve mastery and I can even
draw that and look at their specific
responses so what kind of impact can a
technology product have well my eighth
year I spent a few months building this
and then I shared it with 50 teachers at
a local event and 4 weeks later I logged
on and there were 1,500 people using it
in 9 weeks there were 15,000 I know
it's been 20 months since that that mark
and now students have solved over 40
million questions
so here's the thing I believe the
technology can play a very powerful role
in improving education outcomes and
specifically improving writing but it's
imperative that educators and teachers
play a fundamental role in creating the
products that we need because while
everybody talks about how it's important
to improve education there is nobody
who's more invested in what goes in your
papers than the people writing on and
the people who have to grade them thank
you
you
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