Accountability or Learning?
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From: eileeneckert@hotmail.com
Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1852] Re: education and learning
Date: Monday, January 03, 2005 07:38 PM
Andrea, you said it sounds like I was getting at organizational learning when I wrote about examining finance, policy, administration, etc. in light of the extent to which they are organized around and support learning as a goal and as a process. A couple of comments.
"Organizational learning" as a term becomes a kind of shorthand for a whole set of assumptions, theories, and practices. This list regularly features discussions in which someone uses a word or phrase, assuming it will mean the same thing to all the readers as it does to the writer, only to find him/herself caught in a storm of controversy because that innocuous bit of shorthand means something different to everyone and everyone assumes their meaning is "the" meaning--I exaggerate, but probably not by much. It's certainly happened to me enough, and probably will again with this message.
That said, many of the individuals and teams in an organization, or different organizations in a system, can focus their efforts on a common goal or issue and they might demonstrate "organizational learning" around that issue, but that content (the goal or issue) doesn't have to be learning. I'm talking about all the different people and departments and areas of organizations (and the systems of which they are a part) focusing on learning--organizational learning about learning--META-learning.
Let me give you an example. There are others, but this one comes to mind. In the last several years, especially since the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, but it started before that, there has been a lot of effort--and, I think--organizational learning, focused on the concept of accountability, as defined by the government and developers of the NRS and research and training activities. However, this effort around accountability is not an effort around learning; in fact, I'd argue it's detrimental to a focus on learning learning by siphoning money, time, and energy away from learning activities and into testing and record-keeping activities. A whole lot of smart and practical program leaders have become very savvy (demonstrated organizational learning) about playing the accountability game, but are they and their programs correspondingly better than they used to be at focusing on, fostering and supporting learning? Has that organizational learning led to more learning for students? Has it made instructors better at teaching? Has it made program directors more expert at setting up the conditions to support learning on the part of students, teachers, and themselves?
So no, I'm not just getting at organizational learning, I'm talking about making learning the focus of all an organization's, and a system's, efforts. If we had that at the top, if WIA and the NRS were about learning, it would make it much easier at every other level to focus on learning; but that's still not an excuse not to focus on learning.
Eileen
From: AWilder106@aol.com
Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1854] Re: education and learning
Date: Monday, January 03, 2005 08:43 PM
Eileen,
I'm still not sure if you are talking about organizatinal learning or student learning--if student learning then I am with you all the way in your observation. Or organizational learning bent to student learning. I think that is the point of what you are saying? If so, yes,the student is being given short shrift.
Andrea
From: eileeneckert@hotmail.com
Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1855] Re: education and learning
Date: Monday, January 03, 2005 10:07 PM
Andrea, I'm talking about learning as the <content or focus> of effort and organizational learning--certainly student learning; that's what adult basic skills, ESOL, all adult ed. programs are there for. But we shouldn't ignore the power of making our activities supportive of staff, teachers, and administrators learning, individually and together, <about learning>--that also has an effect on student learning (see the West Ed report, Teachers Who Learn, Kids Who Achieve). Learning and meta-learning.
Another example: it's kind of a cliche to say that feedback facilitates learning, but Kluger and DeNisi found that the effects of feedback can vary widely. Kluger and DeNisi’s (1996) meta-analysis examined the effects of feedback interventions (FIs), that is, “actions taken by (an) external agent(s) to provide information regarding some aspect(s) of one’s task performance” (p.255). Kluger and DeNisi found that on average, feedback had a moderate positive effect on performance (ESsm = .41). They also reported that over 38% of calculated effect sizes were negative. So in almost 40% of studies, people did worse with feedback than without it! I'm quoting my own dissertation here, which went on to review research on how feedback affects the development of proficiency.
It helps to know something about what research shows of the effects of feedback on learning, and what characteristics of feedback support learning (and what kind has a negative effect). It also helps to look at other disciplines that address learning and performance, as well as education, to find out what the research shows. And it helps to apply it, whether to student learning or to supervision of teachers or even to performance/compliance reviews of programs (there's an interesting study by Pajak and Glickman on how teachers received feedback with slight changes in wording). And to try it out, and to have time to reflect and evaluate how well it works when you try it, and revise based on that reflection...
I didn't pick that example because everyone should know about feedback--it's just one example of how the research is much more informative than the best practice of giving feedback on student work.
Eileen
P.S. Here are the references if you want to look them up: Kluger, A. N. & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254-284.
Pajak, E. & Glickman, C. D. (1989). Informational and controlling language in simulated supervisory conferences. American Educational Research Journal, 26(1), 93-106.
From: rkmcknight@comcast.net
Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1856] Re: education and learning
Date: Monday, January 03, 2005 10:53 PM
Good points, Eileen!
Thanks for raising these questions. I will add some more:
You are right on target asking if learning is the focus of our efforts. On a broad scale, ARE publicly funded organizations accountable to educators who work in these systems and to the public? Who monitors publicly funded programs? What results do they report? Do they even bother, or is it like insider trading - only known to a privileged few? Do the results demonstrate learning? Are they concerned with validity?
Perhaps its time to take a more proactive position - to ask for an accounting of publicly funded initiatives. Like the bills before congress, are we reading the annual reports? Where are the annual reports? Perhaps we need something like a "three day rule"? Here in Virginia, as in many states, technology and other initiatives have evaded the scrutiny of accountability. Though everyone is aware of this, nobody is willing to put their head on the chopping block by asking questions. As the saying goes, "never bite the hand that feeds you", and asking questions can have a negative effect on job security.
So I ask you now, is this how learning works? Does intimidation have a place in learning? Is it possible for learning to take place when questions are repressed? As surely as these questions need to be asked, publicly funded organizations need to be accounable, particularly those that are outsourced. An illustrative example can be found amid the clamor for charter schools. Though few results have been reported, and the integrity of some reports have come into question, a steady flow of funding and legislation continues to promote vouchers.
Who is minding the store? When funding is allocated, what results are achieved? Has public accountability fallen by the wayside? Must we wait for a crisis before we ask for public accountability? With so much banter about evidence, what evidence demonstates organizational accountability - organizational learning? Are we afraid to ask these questions? Whatever happened to learning organizations? This concept, so widely described, has not been part of my recent experience - how 'bout you? Are publicly funded organizations, learning organizations? Should they be? And, whatever happened to integrity - has it become an outmoded concept, too?
With hopes for accountablility in 2005,
Roberta McKnight Healthcare Multimedia Design http://www.hcmmdesign.net
From: rboone@vineland.org
Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1857] Re: education and learning
Date: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 10:46 AM
>>Has public accountability fallen by the wayside? <<
Working in Adult Education an enormous amount of time is spent generating reports. The problem being, the amount of time actually "teaching" is inversely proportional to the volume of reports that must be submitted to various agencies each month. But in the name of accountability, we persevere. It seems that the reports are an end to themselves. It feels like no one even reads the reports. This is not just a problem with Adult Education, but with a ubiquitous information overload in the "computer age."
My question would be, is the accountability accountable?
What is the ultimate goal of accountability? Is it to help the student or to
build job security into an administrative layer that can demonstrate the
ability to quantify results?
richard boone
From: James.Parker@ed.gov
Subject: [NIFL-AALPD:1858] Re: education and learning
Date: Tuesday, January 04, 2005 10:54 AM
Richard, an excellent question. I think Public Accountability should travel both ways (up and down).
Parker, James
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