I teach I think.

instant polling tools for the classroom

Earlier I wrote about the problem with hindsight bias and how it hinders meta cognition in students--big words that mean students don't know what they don't know and think they know what they don't know. When reviewing for an exam, many activities enable this mess by encouraging weaker students to passively observe the more accomplished students demonstrate their competence. The truth will come out in the exam, but wouldn't we all be happier if this truth revealed itself to all parties in the review process?

This is why I love pollanywhere.com. Rather than review by asking questions, I can quickly set up a series of poll questions in pollanywhere.com and project them on the screen in the front of class. Here's an example of a Hamlet identification question.

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Rather than one student volunteering to answer the question, all students are required to submit their answers either by sms text message or through the web on their laptop, smartphone, or mobile internet device. Once all of the answers are submitted, I can reveal how the class did by displaying a chart of the classes answers.
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Those who got the answer wrong are not publicly ridiculed because all answers are anonymous in front of the students, but the visual element of the graph undermines the hindsight bias. There's clear visual evidence that the answer they chose was incorrect.

As I teacher, I'm instantly notified of what topics are sinking in to my students and what are going over their heads. As an added bonus, I can set it up so I know who scored what answers, and can intervene and help the struggling students.

There are similar dedicated devices specifically made for this application, but they are quite expensive and only do one thing. I see pollanywhere.com as another among many reasons to push for each student in the classroom to have access to some web enabled device.

We're not there yet, but I believe that we're about to see a rush of tablets with nimble operating systems that I'd like to see in more classrooms. The mythical Apple tablet? Chrome OS? Android? Please?

The 12th Century Classroom

Some of my favorite moments teaching have been when we've decided to take class outside. Get away from the desks and technology and simply have a conversation. When the weather's right, I find that I'm able to reach my students in a different way. However (as I'm sure you know) there are drawbacks, even beyond weather. If the class is too big, it's difficult to hear each other. Distractions are enormous.

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I feel that there is a need for a space where I could take my class that would be like going outside, but protected and sacred. I'm all for teaching in a 21st century classroom, but I'd also like to spend some time in a classroom with 12th century technology. A Yurt. A simple structure with just meditation pillows where a class could sit together and share a conversation and a cup of tea. It could create the equivalent of having class outside--a place where being thoughtful triumphs over being fast. A place (like our school's chapel) where the silence is as important as the conversation.

The essence of of a good school experience isn't embracing new technology (although that's very important), nor is it really academic content (also very important). Good schools are based on relationships and conversations among teachers and students in which inquiry and independent thinking are esteemed. A classroom designed with 12th Century Asian technology could serve as a sacred(?) space reserved for conversation, exploring ideas, and embracing thoughtfulness. Such spaces are increasingly scarce.

A place where gadgets are turned off and minds are turned on is a place where one can practice attention and focus. No glowing rectangles allowed.


Such a place would be a place that could nurture the less quantifiable elements of our work as teachers. Take students out of the classroom and they're more likely to feel inspired and creative. Again, this would be a place that honors the community of the classroom and where deeper, even quiet, thinking (as seems more common in past centuries) is honored.


Balloon boy, hindsight bias, and the problem with raised hands

My Sociology 101 professor taught me something over ten years ago that has stuck with me ever since. I struggled in that class, and once again I raised my hand and expressed my confusion. "Kevin, you know the secret to academic success." Really? I was fighting for my B+ at the time. "You know what you don't know." Later I would learn that he was referring to meta cognition--thinking about thinking--knowing what you know and don't know.

Fast forward to fall 2009. I'm reviewing for a Hamlet identification test in which I supply a series of passages from the play and my students would be required to identify the speaker and the significance. Typically I would read a quotation and ask the class to volunteer an answer. When I'm at my laziest, I call on Student A, the one who raises a hand. She responds with the correct answer. When I think about it, this accomplishes very little for any of my students. The girl with the raised hand already knows the answer so reviewing that particular item does nothing more than affirm what she already knows she knows.

Student B doesn't raise his hand, even though he knows the answer. It's safer for him to let Student A answer.

Student C knows she does not know the correct answer and naturally wants to avoid exposure to her teacher and peers. She will not raise her hand. If we're lucky she will learn the correct answer from Student A, recognize that she has some studying to do and will prepare diligently for the exam. Another possibility is that she is discouraged, feels like she's just not good at English, and decides that Shakespeare is stupid. Either way, there is no mechanism for me to intervene.

I want to focus on Student D. He does not know the correct answer, but when student A reveals the correct answer, he thinks to himself, "Oh yeah, I knew that." He is a victim of what my colleague and AP Psychology teacher, Cammy Torgenrud, identified as hindsight bias: the tendency for people to have false memories of errant predictions. Hindsight bias and meta cognition do not get along.

Many of us were victims of hindsight bias during the balloon boy fiasco. I was eating lunch at the time when my wife IM'd me about it, so we spent the next 15 minutes watching the CNN feed in horror with millions of other gullible Americans.

At some point I did write, "He's hiding in the garage. I know the type. I was a hider as a kid." However later Ria Mengin who is an editor at The Salinas Californian posted on Facebook:

Reporter instincts say: The whole "my kid's in our UFO balloon!" thing was planned to get fame/sponsors.

I noticed my brain performing fantastic gymnastics to convince myself that I too had identified the family as a fraud. In truth, I was actually suffering confirmation bias, believing that the boy was like me when I was a boy. I liked to terrify my parents by hiding. I've gotten over that. My hindsight bias struck when I (Student D) pretended that I had recognized the family's fraud once I read Ria's (Student A) post on Facebook.

In my classes, Student D needs my attention. Not just because he's not prepared for the test, but more importantly, his mindset prevents him from recognizing that he's not prepared. I'd like to provide that attention before the test, not after. In a future post I will present a cool little piece of free technology that will help me accomplish this so we could all know what we don't know.