EDITORS PODIUM

Drs. Don and Elizabeth Perrin

 

How do you define quality in education? It depends on whom you ask. Everybody is an expert in education because they have been through the system. They make judgments based on their personal experiences, and for many it may have been 20 or more years ago. In the interim, the world has changed a great deal. Today’s education must be designed for a multicultural global society living in the information age. It is different. The child is different. The curriculum is different. The methodology is different. The needs and goals are different.

We once asked Edward Deming how to identify a good teacher. We were discussing the validity of a “Teacher of the Year Award.” He was against such awards - said there was no way to make such a judgment in the present. It might be five years before you knew the results of what the teacher did and did not do. Furthermore, the results required data – a lot of very focused data.

Teachers prepare students for jobs – and living – in the future. It is a pity that our academic organizations are so steeped in the past. The expertise of parents and politicians and educational leaders is torqued by the fallacy of their own experience in a very different environment.

Teachers live in the reality of the present. They are confronted with overwhelming problems and there is no help in sight. Can we get rid of the baggage of the past in order to tackle the problems of the present and the future?

Many solutions have been attempted. In education, theories, practices, and technologies come and go. Education is like the sea. Each new wave washes some treasure and some trash on the shore and returns it to the sea. Tides rise and fall. The sun and moon continue their cycles. And education is so steeped in tradition that it reverts “back to basics” and practices not appropriate for today’s students.

Half a century ago parents bought encyclopedias to help their children to learn. Today they buy computers. Human tutors are replaced by tutorial software. Passive presentations are replaced by interactivity. Educational technology businesses and foundations are promising replace the folk arts and sciences of teaching and learning.

The best products are content-rich, highly-involving, and stimulate the learner. They provide teachers with tools for diagnostic and prescriptive teaching, individualizing instruction, and setting up Individualized Educational Programs. Who has the time to try them out or learn to use them? How do we separate the good from the bad? Edward Deming answered that question also. Test them, observe them, and gather data. Data! Data! Data!

An independent authority is needed to evaluate interactive courseware in a cross-section of education markets. Curriculum should be rated against national standards – not the standardized tests that have been administered since the early 20^th century, but the new Content Standards that integrate higher levels of learning with real-world application. The new learning is often called project-based learning because it requires hands-on mind-engaging participation – with visible and measurable results.

We do not have to wait five years to find out what was learned and what was not learned, and whether the learning is relevant. Industry has models we can follow. Products are tested as they are developed and human engineered to be simple, intuitive and effective. Development procedures used for video cameras and computer software can be applied to the pharmacopoeia of teaching and learning products for educational use. This, combined with continuous product improvement, will ensure rich and relevant resources that stimulate higher levels of learning. It will provide teachers with standards and validation data to assess the product for diagnostic / prescriptive teaching and learning, for individualized educational programs, adult learning, remedial learning, even recreational learning!

Thank you Edward Deming! Your advice has challenged us to gather meaningful data that measures the results, not the process. As a result, the future will be different. After all, the future is what education is about!