Like Paired Coding, Paired Learning Is The Way To Go
At Grockit we employ some pretty serious agile development, or extreme programming. Just a few examples include...
1. Our developers code in pairs that rotate almost daily.
2. We write code to pass tests, not tests after writing code.
3. We iterate, iterate, iterate.
I would like to take a moment to discuss the first point. Our developers code in pairs.
Grockit's MMOLG is about students teaching students (yes, it's ok if you're a teacher, you can play too). And recently, I've had some discussions with folks around my comments about the problems in education and the re-design it badly needs.
I realized, in these discussions, that paired coding is what I'm talking about. Because we code in pairs, all our devs get in on the action. This means that every dev is constantly teaching and learning from the other devs. We don't do peer reviews, we don't need to.
Does every dev come to the table with the same skills and skill level? NO.
Does paired coding work despite individual differences? YES. In fact, it works because of it.
People think that students teaching students is impossible because, 'Where do you start?'. It seems to imply that half the students need to already know the material if they are going to teach the other students. Not at all. Let's look at what our devs do.
When the team is faced with a challenge that nobody has the immediate know how to address, someone starts doing some research. This is what happens in real student to student learning. The first thing you need to do if you're going to teach someone is to learn it yourself.
When Russell Ackoff was asked by a group of students to teach them systems, he said 'No, but you can teach me.' Well, teaching Russell Ackoff about systems is a serious challenge. Nevertheless, after many months of studying and working together the team put on a seminar for Ackoff that he described as the best course in systems he's ever seen. In fact, one of the students is now a major planner for Brazil.
In paired coding, or paired learning, the group continually builds on top of its strengths. In this modality of learning it would be impossible for students to graduate illiterate. As it stands, an alarming number of 8th graders can't read and write. We've been trying this education design for about 100 years now and quite frankly the bar has not risen much. I think it's time for a change. I think it's time that students take the responsibility to teach each other. Can our students handle it?
Well, before the modern industrial revolution, people began having families as early as 13 or 14 years old, and certainly carried far graver responsibilities than children do now. We are sadly mistaken in thinking that young people are not motivated or capable. We take on this view because we place them in an environment that they finding very demotivating and that strips them of their responsibility to contribute. Strangely enough, when it's a matter of their own well being, people can make the personal choice of caring or not. When our responsibilities are to other as well as ourselves, we often care quite a bit more. In fact, some parents might argue that their kids care only about the thoughts and wants of their peers. What a wonderful leverage point to help students teach each other.
Farb
4 Comments
Reader Comments (4)
Right on my friend! I also remember reading somewhere that two people, when working together, do not achieve twice as much work. Instead, they achieve something like 2.2 times as much work. This increases exponentially the more people you put together. (Sorry, I don't have the exact statistics on this, but I'm sure that you could look it up).
This is yet another reason why it is valuable to work in pairs. :O)
Jan, a shared friend, just told me a bit about Grockit and I'm excited and checking it out. I'm teaching geometry to high school students and I am committed to the idea of group work. Would it help for me to point my students at grockit?
I have also done some research on partner quizzes that I am writing up. Jan suggested that it matches up well with what you are doing. I'm happy to send you a summary, with more detail than you probably want (I have a lot of open questions). I wrote something up to include here but decided it is too long to post.
Not only parents feel this way: The fact that more mainstream educators, and Grockit, seem to be realizing the advantages of "kids-teaching-kids" and (obviously)represents a shift in thinking. As this seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom :), "kids teaching kids" (albeit, in a carefully crafted learning environment) seems to go hand-in-hand with the needs of "modern" family structures, especially in low-income homes and kids without parents (e.g.: latch-key kids), as well as kids of the Internet age who may simply be explaining the tricks of some new video game (in my day, it was repairinga flat tire on my bike, or similar). My own life experience found me learning "life skills" from "the 'hood", amongst those I trusted the most (my friends). In fact, I may not have chosen to attend "tech school" back in 1982 had one friend not shown up at the burger joint I was working in (he showed up to "show off" his new clothes for work, explaining how he went to a trade school and got a "real job"). Working with homeless kids today, I continue to experience better success when peers give "advice" to other peers, such as: Why it's important to obtain their GED, or obtaining a job through our Job Assistance program, or going to one of our clinics to see a Doctor. Obviously, these are "only the first steps" along a path toward realizing long-term goals and dreams. In other words, even (especially?) in these dire situations, I find that kids listen more to each other than "adults", and I'm confident that "trust" has more to do with it than we might be willin gto admit. Further statistics are, likely, available and could help substantiate these claims and improve your offerings. Information might be available from groups like "Rock the Vote" or similar org's which are dedicated to spreading "the message" amongst young voters (they'll explain how they get better results when other young people explain why they should care about their vote, while my associates rarely seem to get past the "I don't trust them" attitudes). Beyond the scope of this post, however, are the reasons this "shift" has occurred which is a quite intersting study, IMHO (and one "we" should be examining carefully: Trust is key!) Finally, your "culture" mirrors my own product development "style" (I've been developing computer and networking hardware and software products since 1984, and always with a bent towards impriving communication, education, productivity, quality and remote collaboration/distance learning). I look very much forward to learning more about your EDU products in the near future and passing along lessons learned to my family, friends and associates! Thanks for the opportunity to express these opinions. I'll stay tuned to this site!
As a standardized test prep instructor, I agree with so much of this post. To expand on the statement that "The first thing you need to do if you're going to teach someone is to learn it yourself," I would add that one of the best ways to learn something is to try to teach it--which is your point, really. I'll be very interested to see where Grockit goes. Good luck!