Education Week - February 8, 2017 - 11

DIGITAL DIRECTIONS > Tracking news and ideas in educational technology
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Cuban Sees Tech Improving Teaching
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

port learning, rather than on adopting technology for
technology's sake.
That's not to say Cuban is optimistic that such models will be scalable. Nor does he see technology dramatically reshaping the fundamental building blocks
of school, despite the frequent claims of those who
believe tech-driven personalized learning can disrupt
and transform the "factory model" of education.
But what Cuban is seeing are "meaningful, incremental improvements in how teachers organize and teach
a lesson."
And that, he says, is worth paying attention to.
This transcript of the conversation has been edited for
length and clarity.

Has what you've seen made you less skeptical?
What I saw impressed me greatly. Teachers are
regularly and easily integrating technology. It's now
in the background, as common as paper and pencils
and blackboards were decades ago. The fact that
it's moved from the foreground to the background,
to, "What are the learning goals of this lesson?" and
"When and how can I use these technologies to best
achieve those goals?"-I saw that going on and was
very impressed.

The types of classroom lessons you've been
describing on your blog are not "transformative"
or radically new.
"Transformative" is the language of hype, of vendors,
promoters, and technologically driven reformers. I am
not advocating for that.
Public schools in a democratic, capitalistic society
serve multiple functions: making kids literate, preparing
them for the workplace, passing on the moral values
of community. The socialization that schools must
perform, that's where a lot of the stability in classroom
practice comes from. So what I see is generally not
transformative. I do see changes, however. I do see new
additions to teachers' repertoires.

You describe observing a spectrum of
approaches to personalized learning. Can you
explain that?

The last major effort to try to transform teaching
occurred in the early part of the 20th century, with the
progressive education movement. There were two wings
of the movement. One was focused on pedagogy, with
John Dewey's idea of learning through doing and the
whole child. The other wing was focused on efficiency:
measuring everything, testing, and making sure that
schools are efficient mechanisms for preparing students
for adult society. Both of those wings continue today.
When it comes to personalized learning, at one end, you
have competency-based education, or the behaviorist
approach of a Teach to One (a program that personalizes
middle school math instruction through algorithms.)
That's the efficiency-driven wing of the progressive
movement.
At the other end of the spectrum are the pedagogical
progressives, who believe in more student decisionmaking
and more project-based, independent learning where kids
are following their passions.
In the middle, of course, are a lot of hybrids.

You described AltSchool as one of the few existing
examples of that pedagogical-progressive
approach.
I saw four classes over two mornings, so this is my take
on a narrow observation. What I saw was pretty close to
what John Dewey described. He would have nodded his
head next to me.

The company is very aggressive about collecting
massive amounts of student and classroom
data to inform its approach. Did you come away
from your observations optimistic that such an
analytics-driven technology infrastructure can
support progressive pedagogy?
I saw the efficiency wing of the progressive movement,
too, in the way the company has hired software
engineers, and they are on-site and constantly helping
the technology platform become more efficient. But
the teachers they've hired are generally five to 15
years into their careers. They're risk-takers. And they
mostly seem to have already had these progressive
pedagogical beliefs in their heads. So I think AltSchool
marries both the efficiency and the pedagogy wings of
the progressive educational movement in an unusual
way. And I think it's promising, yes. But it also costs

'Net Neutrality' Critic Tapped to Lead FCC
By Sean Cavanagh
& Benjamin Herold
President Donald Trump has appointed Ajit Pai, a determined critic
of recent decisions to overhaul the
E-rate program and protect "net
neutrality," to chair the Federal
Communications Commission, an
agency that wields sweeping powers
over the telecommunications sector.
Pai, a Republican, has been a commissioner on the FCC since being
appointed by then-President Barack
Obama in 2012. He will replace Tom
Wheeler, a Democrat who shepherded
broad changes touching schools and
libraries nationwide. His appointment
does not require Senate approval and
will signal a return to a Republican
majority for the commission.
"I look forward to working with the
new administration, my colleagues at
the commission, members of Congress,
and the American public to bring the

benefits of the digital age to all Americans," Pai said in a short statement issued following Trump's decision.
In recent years, the FCC has taken
dramatic-and according to many
school officials, overdue-steps to financially support the E-rate program,
which subsidizes telecommunications
services for public schools and libraries. The commission in late 2014 voted
to increase the program's annual
spending cap from $2.4 billion to $3.9
billion, as well as to approve a host of
regulatory changes aimed at prioritizing broadband and Wi-Fi, phasing out
federal support for older technologies,
and providing more options to rural
schools.
Pai, in remarks made during a
December 2014 FCC vote to expand
and attempt to modernize the Erate, said he backed the program's
mission. But he cast the changes
approved by the FCC majority as financially irresponsible and doing too

$26,000 [per student] a
year. How will it turn out
and will it have any impact
on public schools? It's too
soon for me to make any
predictions.

At Summit Public
Schools, you seem to
have been more taken
with the network's stable,
flexible leadership
than with its use of
technology.

Q&A
With Stanford University
professor LARRY CUBAN

Summit goes beyond a particular teacher in a
particular classroom. This was a whole school plan
to integrate technology and put it in the background,
not the foreground. I saw how they develop a school
culture, hire teachers, socialize everyone working
in that system to have that kind of direction. And it's
in a public school. I saw that at work and I was
impressed with it.

What stood out to you in the Summit classrooms
you observed?
There are three basic activities that teachers use
in any class: whole-group instruction, small-group
instruction, and independent work. What I saw at
Summit, compared to other schools, was less whole
group, and more small group and more independent.
And the technology helped with that small group and
independent learning.

Did that also apply to Summit's focus on "habits
of success" and other nonacademic skills?
A good chunk of that was also aided by technology. I saw
kids assessing how far along they were on goals they had
set. That's unusual and hard to do in a group of 25 to 30
with one teacher. I saw technology as making that more
possible in the hands of an expert teacher.

So have you gone from ed-tech skeptic to
believer?
I wouldn't go that far. Skepticism is in my DNA. n

to describe the idea of a
free and open internet in
which web traffic is delittle to help many of the
livered under equal connation's communities-
ditions, regardless of the
particularly in rural areas.
source of the content.
The FCC's action, Pai arWithout net neutralgued, was a missed opportuity, consumer advocates
nity to specifically channel AJIT PAI'S appointment fear that telecommunicamoney to rural schools and by President Trump shifts tions companies would
libraries and would allow control of the FCC to a
allow content providers
large and urban districts Republican majority.
to "throttle up" services,
to soak up too much of the
essentially creating a fast
E-rate's new funding. The commission lane for wealthy buyers, while relalso was failing to eliminate subsidies egating others with less means to a
to E-rate applicants that encourage slow lane.
wasteful spending, overlooking poliSome school officials feared the oncies that favor wealthy applicants, line academic materials they rely on
doing little to ensure the cost-effec- would get bottlenecked.
tiveness of the projects the program
Pai was one of two Republicans on
supports, Pai said at the time.
the five-member commission to vote
against changes to the E-rate in December 2014. He argued that the comBig Changes Ahead?
mission had done too little to check
Urged on by a mammoth surge waste and fraud in the program.
of public interest, the Wheeler-led
As speculation that Pai might
FCC in 2015 also approved steps to get Trump's nod as FCC chairman
preserve net neutrality, a term used increased, some ed-tech supporters

have questioned whether he might
seek to scale back the E-rate's recent
spending increases. Others believe
the program's recent successes, as
well as active bipartisan support at
the state level, make any dramatic
changes unlikely.
It appears almost certain, however,
that big changes are coming on net
neutrality. Pai was an ardent opponent of the FCC's recent rulings on the
issue, describing them as government
intrusion into the market, stifling for
business, and bad for consumers.
His ascension to the helm of the
FCC drew alarmed reactions from
backers of net neutrality, such as
Free Press President and CEO Craig
Aaron, whose organization strongly
supported the FCC's decision.
"Millions of Americans from
across the political spectrum have
looked to the FCC to protect their
rights to connect and communicate
and cheered decisions like the historic net-neutrality ruling," Aaron
said, "and Pai threatens to undo all
of that important work."

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