Project Description
Customize Learning: Engage Students, Textbooks Not Required
Philip Kovacs, Ph. D.
The educational reforms of the last 100 years are predicated on information scarcity. Today, much is the same. Tomorrow? We can choose differently.
TEDxHuntsville | Tedx Talks | Published on September 25, 2014
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. The educational reforms of the last 100 years are predicated on information scarcity. Today, not unlike the early 1900s, Children go to schools where they download facts that administrators then ask them to regurgitate, sometimes using computers. The world we children in now is information dense. We no longer need fact-distribution centers. We need spaces where children learn to identify, access, and utilize information from various knowledge systems in order to create change.
Dr. Kovacs earns a living asking difficult questions. What does it mean to be educated? Do we still need factory schools? Are we memorizing the past or imagining new futures? A high school English teacher turned university professor, his research focuses on higher order thinking and intelligent behavior.
When not in his office at University of Alabama Huntsville he can be found at Appleton Learning, a Huntsville start-up that manages educational talent, or working in some capacity with regional school districts.
About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
For Transcript (Click on the button)
0:05this is a full complement of text books that a ninth grader would need this year
0:08they were going to high school weight 265 pounds this is a scantron invented
0:12in 1972 patented in 1973 and inflicted with alarming regularity on students
0:18today
0:19a few years ago I wrote an op-ed suggesting that we didn’t need to use
0:23that stuff that we are smart enough to come up with material and an assessment
0:26on our own without big test in people thought I was crazy
0:31people showed up in my office to teacher showed up in my office
0:35op-ed in hand marked up they were English teachers you know English
0:38teachers mark stuff up
0:39they had marked up they slap down they say prove it
0:42come true that you can do this in our classroom and I’m thinking to myself
0:46it’s time to start writing op-eds with pen names because I don’t want to be
0:50bothered out here in the ivory tower
0:52I’m up here for a reason I want to be dropping thought bombs out my window
0:55on the unsuspecting plebeians right I don’t have time for commoners
0:59get out of my office so
1:04so at the same time though there’s a voice in the back of my head is acquired
1:08test subject objection such human subjects human subjects
1:12they want you to come in and work with human subjects so I agree
1:16right human subjects come on and I get a brilliant academic to work with me
1:20outgoing charming with the organized
1:22all the things that I am NOT and we go in we go in we work with ninth-grade at
1:27risk students
1:28to it the dark when is the control
1:31the red one is the experimental their ninth grade
1:35the reading between the fifth and sixth grade level the control group was talk
1:38the same way had been taught for seven years
1:40the experimentalist taught almost the same way we had a variable
1:44the variables this sixty minutes twice a week
1:47wait for it its rocket science Rocket City rocket scientist
1:51sixty minutes twice a week we had to read and write
1:54about whatever they want to read write about that’s all we did
1:5814 weeks we gave them a break from this
2:01and we let them get online and whatever the school’s
2:05filters would let him find right they got to read and write about
2:10so forty opened in the head stand up and present
2:14three times so 14 weeks later damn
2:18all what happen well it might be that the tests suck
2:22willing to acknowledge that the test might be a Florence man but we know from
2:26observing these individuals are they were actually learning
2:28we knew before they went in for the post test that they were gonna knock it out
2:31the water how do we know
2:32attendance discipline parents showing up the parent teacher night saying things
2:36like
2:37oh yeah boy logic class because you never have to do any work her
2:40foolish mortals kinda we knew you were doing work all the time
2:46but this really aren’t change the res my research RK city and politics and by the
2:51way if you want to discuss yourself kit inside
2:54educational politics because it is really disgusting
2:57so I I left it think I and
3:00um now I’m kinda vaughn’s evangelical to in here it is
3:04we gotta meet students away from memorizing regurgitate we gotta moving
3:07towards
3:08Research In N gauge alright thank
3:11thank you I accept that thank you
3:20so there’s actually a great deal of cognitive science behind what we had
3:24encountered
3:24unfortunately the world education is really far removed from the world
3:28love as cognitive neuroscience a fortunately that gap is closing
3:32but the research says that if you give children some autonomy
3:36a sense of purpose and a chance for mastery but they don’t need discipline
3:40don’t do the work because they love doing the work no I don’t want you
3:44thinking back I shouldn’t just like it’s going to really do whatever they want
3:47una cena k the guy he said that actually won a TED Prize in a million dollars
3:52I’m not saying that i right the through it’s true
3:55I’m not saying that and the reason I’m not saying that is because I have a
3:585-year-old son
3:59and if he had complete autonomy let me tell you what he’d set up
4:04he’d set up to IV drips in one
4:07there would be an iPad in the other there would be honey bun to the notes
4:12and he would overdose %uh these two IV drips right
4:16so the research says some autonomy not total autonomy
4:20unfortunately in schools today %uh students are under
4:23intense micro-management as micro-management is a holdover from
4:27factory style schooling factory air schooling
4:29factory a Rustler schooling served a purpose that purpose has been served
4:34it’s time to move on I hate to do it but I can talk for less than one minute
4:39about the Common Core State Standards
4:41at somewhat controversy on the state of Alabama
4:44I I’m ladies and gentlemen it’s still a standards-based reform movement
4:48we have been standardizing our students
4:51since bill clinton over 20 years
4:55a standardized education on our children that is too much time
5:00now give supporters this
5:03and age were information is scarce
5:07and you can only fit so much information into a building
5:10into a library into increasingly
5:13obscenely large text books there is a certain logic
5:17to having elites select information
5:20and then make sure the a test in
5:24that this logic or this information is sticking to kids
5:27but we don’t live in that world our wills
5:31information we dance you could live ten times and never
5:34cover all the fat people are dealing important
5:38so instead of knowing what we need to know how and when
5:43yesterday education men to recall
5:46to recall and to prove that you can recall but film when these things out
5:51today educated means to be able to identify
5:55access and utilize information from various knowledge systems
5:58to implement change to make something beautiful
6:02to cure cancer to save the bees
6:05to clean the oceans to and radical fundamentalism
6:08abroad and at home so instead have
6:13thank you instead love I incentive
6:16comin standardization I wanna talk about
6:20uncommon customization a neuroscientist tell us know to rains like
6:26are like they’re very similar but they’re worried a little differently
6:30and reality tells us the person sitting next to you
6:34has a different past than you and that different past
6:38that different wiring the husbands
6:41the lost child the lost jobs the shaman
6:45the therapist whomever the encountered the shape than
6:49in unique ways if you’ve been in a lengthy relationship
6:52someone you know that you can stand side by side and seen event unfold
6:56and look at each other and argue about that
6:59exact event that shit is often for them from Indian
7:02so we’re unique creatures that nature
7:07because worry unique where rare
7:10that which is rare has value our differences therefore
7:15our greatest asset we need to be building our differences out
7:19customizing them studying them
7:22so up until now
7:26finding content for what we have 450 people in here
7:30450 people to build a program around
7:33would’ve been impossible there’s no way you could fit on a book
7:37and it be almost impossible to track however
7:41handheld computers have changed all that most to be sitting here today someone
7:45you’re using right now shame on you
7:47have one of these have one of these in your pocket
7:50it has a number ups on it has
7:53messenger something market called phone
7:57and a connection which mom I do use
8:00a what at least weekly a man in a connection to this thing called
8:03internet internet is us
8:08its us and that should be the course of study
8:11us we’ve been trying to figure out this problem love
8:15finding the good stuff and ordering it some sort of a logical sequence that you
8:18ate for the past four years
8:21there’s a number of individuals and teams and groups and companies doing
8:24that but
8:24their competitor so I’m not going to talk about them it’s going to talk about
8:27what we’re doing
8:29vastly is a search tool that allows teachers and students to search the
8:33internet according to grade level
8:35so if your ninth grade teacher and your fifth grade readers
8:39and you wanna just slightly challenge some you could search for something just
8:42outside of their ability
8:46$25 to $35 billion dollars a year
8:53twenty-five to thirty five dollars a a year $25 $35 billion dollars a year
8:57and knowing on textbooks in standardized tests
9:00does a lot of money your money spend on stuff it’s not really that interested in
9:05or informative when is the last time you were talking to someone
9:10and you’re stumped any said wait a minute I’ve got the answer
9:14it’s on my bookshelf allow me to go get it
9:21never
9:22never have you said that not even a ninth-grade what was on your bookshelf
9:27now I will not ask you the last time the light energy you
9:32a scantron but I will say this:
9:36in June when we had to put our dog
9:39to sleep and my son asked will he be a sleep for long
9:45and will he be cold and can we paid him
9:48and then how are we going to find him in the neck slant
9:52well I would have preferred as questions multiple choice format
9:59by the way the answer to the last one is d GPS
10:08I’m closing with three challengers
10:10the first challenge is to the testing industrial complex
10:14the testing industrial complexes as poisonous is bad for us is big tobacco
10:19big tobacco Inc can stop sellin
10:22but we’ll have to we no longer have to be done at the very least
10:26I want warning labels on these things danger
10:31consuming mindlessly may eliminate your ability to ask big questions
10:34warning life is not follow the easy answers
10:38at the very least give us that big testing but they’re not going to do it
10:43this dealer they can start dealing I got challenge number two
10:47challenge number two is educational leaders from superintendent at the state
10:52level two teachers in classrooms across the country and that’s right I said
10:54teachers
10:55because if we don’t start reading teachers like leaders the mass exodus
10:59teachers from classrooms is going to continue unabated anne cooper profession
11:04thank you the new per profession
11:11the profession that makes all professions possible will be in a
11:14serious crisis
11:15politicians on both sides the I’ll be like to say education is a threat to
11:19national security
11:21you’re right threat number one this crap threat number two
11:24the teachers running away from it there the threats
11:27number three issue I don’t want you to think that I’m imagining the future or
11:32outlining a future
11:33that has kid stuck on screens all the time well I do like throwing my kid in
11:37front of a screen one
11:38I need a minute to brief I don’t want kids on screens all day long
11:42educated to Beale identify access and utilize
11:45so identify online access online utilize it in real time
11:49right if you
11:53you experts and I see you ICU
11:56I know that you like to fly drones I suggest you go to middle school started
12:01rowing club
12:02you will have a hundred kids come hang out with you once a week and they will
12:05pay you wrapped attention
12:07ICU Rebecca
12:10I know that you like underwater basket weaving I guarantee
12:17I guarantee you looking at thirty kids to pay their undivided attention
12:20underwater weaving baskets ICU
12:25mister dating I know you do cool stuff for software
12:28I guarantee you if you wanna now once or twice a month
12:32you would have an audience have kids treating you like the God that you are
12:38ladies and gentlemen we’re social creatures
12:41we have all together that’s why you’re sitting here in this room today
12:45there is a palpable tangible energy to being around people who believe fiercely
12:50and what they’re talking about
12:51start sharing that with people in your community
12:54little people and will rapidly change
12:58thank you the
13:06the
0:08they were going to high school weight 265 pounds this is a scantron invented
0:12in 1972 patented in 1973 and inflicted with alarming regularity on students
0:18today
0:19a few years ago I wrote an op-ed suggesting that we didn’t need to use
0:23that stuff that we are smart enough to come up with material and an assessment
0:26on our own without big test in people thought I was crazy
0:31people showed up in my office to teacher showed up in my office
0:35op-ed in hand marked up they were English teachers you know English
0:38teachers mark stuff up
0:39they had marked up they slap down they say prove it
0:42come true that you can do this in our classroom and I’m thinking to myself
0:46it’s time to start writing op-eds with pen names because I don’t want to be
0:50bothered out here in the ivory tower
0:52I’m up here for a reason I want to be dropping thought bombs out my window
0:55on the unsuspecting plebeians right I don’t have time for commoners
0:59get out of my office so
1:04so at the same time though there’s a voice in the back of my head is acquired
1:08test subject objection such human subjects human subjects
1:12they want you to come in and work with human subjects so I agree
1:16right human subjects come on and I get a brilliant academic to work with me
1:20outgoing charming with the organized
1:22all the things that I am NOT and we go in we go in we work with ninth-grade at
1:27risk students
1:28to it the dark when is the control
1:31the red one is the experimental their ninth grade
1:35the reading between the fifth and sixth grade level the control group was talk
1:38the same way had been taught for seven years
1:40the experimentalist taught almost the same way we had a variable
1:44the variables this sixty minutes twice a week
1:47wait for it its rocket science Rocket City rocket scientist
1:51sixty minutes twice a week we had to read and write
1:54about whatever they want to read write about that’s all we did
1:5814 weeks we gave them a break from this
2:01and we let them get online and whatever the school’s
2:05filters would let him find right they got to read and write about
2:10so forty opened in the head stand up and present
2:14three times so 14 weeks later damn
2:18all what happen well it might be that the tests suck
2:22willing to acknowledge that the test might be a Florence man but we know from
2:26observing these individuals are they were actually learning
2:28we knew before they went in for the post test that they were gonna knock it out
2:31the water how do we know
2:32attendance discipline parents showing up the parent teacher night saying things
2:36like
2:37oh yeah boy logic class because you never have to do any work her
2:40foolish mortals kinda we knew you were doing work all the time
2:46but this really aren’t change the res my research RK city and politics and by the
2:51way if you want to discuss yourself kit inside
2:54educational politics because it is really disgusting
2:57so I I left it think I and
3:00um now I’m kinda vaughn’s evangelical to in here it is
3:04we gotta meet students away from memorizing regurgitate we gotta moving
3:07towards
3:08Research In N gauge alright thank
3:11thank you I accept that thank you
3:20so there’s actually a great deal of cognitive science behind what we had
3:24encountered
3:24unfortunately the world education is really far removed from the world
3:28love as cognitive neuroscience a fortunately that gap is closing
3:32but the research says that if you give children some autonomy
3:36a sense of purpose and a chance for mastery but they don’t need discipline
3:40don’t do the work because they love doing the work no I don’t want you
3:44thinking back I shouldn’t just like it’s going to really do whatever they want
3:47una cena k the guy he said that actually won a TED Prize in a million dollars
3:52I’m not saying that i right the through it’s true
3:55I’m not saying that and the reason I’m not saying that is because I have a
3:585-year-old son
3:59and if he had complete autonomy let me tell you what he’d set up
4:04he’d set up to IV drips in one
4:07there would be an iPad in the other there would be honey bun to the notes
4:12and he would overdose %uh these two IV drips right
4:16so the research says some autonomy not total autonomy
4:20unfortunately in schools today %uh students are under
4:23intense micro-management as micro-management is a holdover from
4:27factory style schooling factory air schooling
4:29factory a Rustler schooling served a purpose that purpose has been served
4:34it’s time to move on I hate to do it but I can talk for less than one minute
4:39about the Common Core State Standards
4:41at somewhat controversy on the state of Alabama
4:44I I’m ladies and gentlemen it’s still a standards-based reform movement
4:48we have been standardizing our students
4:51since bill clinton over 20 years
4:55a standardized education on our children that is too much time
5:00now give supporters this
5:03and age were information is scarce
5:07and you can only fit so much information into a building
5:10into a library into increasingly
5:13obscenely large text books there is a certain logic
5:17to having elites select information
5:20and then make sure the a test in
5:24that this logic or this information is sticking to kids
5:27but we don’t live in that world our wills
5:31information we dance you could live ten times and never
5:34cover all the fat people are dealing important
5:38so instead of knowing what we need to know how and when
5:43yesterday education men to recall
5:46to recall and to prove that you can recall but film when these things out
5:51today educated means to be able to identify
5:55access and utilize information from various knowledge systems
5:58to implement change to make something beautiful
6:02to cure cancer to save the bees
6:05to clean the oceans to and radical fundamentalism
6:08abroad and at home so instead have
6:13thank you instead love I incentive
6:16comin standardization I wanna talk about
6:20uncommon customization a neuroscientist tell us know to rains like
6:26are like they’re very similar but they’re worried a little differently
6:30and reality tells us the person sitting next to you
6:34has a different past than you and that different past
6:38that different wiring the husbands
6:41the lost child the lost jobs the shaman
6:45the therapist whomever the encountered the shape than
6:49in unique ways if you’ve been in a lengthy relationship
6:52someone you know that you can stand side by side and seen event unfold
6:56and look at each other and argue about that
6:59exact event that shit is often for them from Indian
7:02so we’re unique creatures that nature
7:07because worry unique where rare
7:10that which is rare has value our differences therefore
7:15our greatest asset we need to be building our differences out
7:19customizing them studying them
7:22so up until now
7:26finding content for what we have 450 people in here
7:30450 people to build a program around
7:33would’ve been impossible there’s no way you could fit on a book
7:37and it be almost impossible to track however
7:41handheld computers have changed all that most to be sitting here today someone
7:45you’re using right now shame on you
7:47have one of these have one of these in your pocket
7:50it has a number ups on it has
7:53messenger something market called phone
7:57and a connection which mom I do use
8:00a what at least weekly a man in a connection to this thing called
8:03internet internet is us
8:08its us and that should be the course of study
8:11us we’ve been trying to figure out this problem love
8:15finding the good stuff and ordering it some sort of a logical sequence that you
8:18ate for the past four years
8:21there’s a number of individuals and teams and groups and companies doing
8:24that but
8:24their competitor so I’m not going to talk about them it’s going to talk about
8:27what we’re doing
8:29vastly is a search tool that allows teachers and students to search the
8:33internet according to grade level
8:35so if your ninth grade teacher and your fifth grade readers
8:39and you wanna just slightly challenge some you could search for something just
8:42outside of their ability
8:46$25 to $35 billion dollars a year
8:53twenty-five to thirty five dollars a a year $25 $35 billion dollars a year
8:57and knowing on textbooks in standardized tests
9:00does a lot of money your money spend on stuff it’s not really that interested in
9:05or informative when is the last time you were talking to someone
9:10and you’re stumped any said wait a minute I’ve got the answer
9:14it’s on my bookshelf allow me to go get it
9:21never
9:22never have you said that not even a ninth-grade what was on your bookshelf
9:27now I will not ask you the last time the light energy you
9:32a scantron but I will say this:
9:36in June when we had to put our dog
9:39to sleep and my son asked will he be a sleep for long
9:45and will he be cold and can we paid him
9:48and then how are we going to find him in the neck slant
9:52well I would have preferred as questions multiple choice format
9:59by the way the answer to the last one is d GPS
10:08I’m closing with three challengers
10:10the first challenge is to the testing industrial complex
10:14the testing industrial complexes as poisonous is bad for us is big tobacco
10:19big tobacco Inc can stop sellin
10:22but we’ll have to we no longer have to be done at the very least
10:26I want warning labels on these things danger
10:31consuming mindlessly may eliminate your ability to ask big questions
10:34warning life is not follow the easy answers
10:38at the very least give us that big testing but they’re not going to do it
10:43this dealer they can start dealing I got challenge number two
10:47challenge number two is educational leaders from superintendent at the state
10:52level two teachers in classrooms across the country and that’s right I said
10:54teachers
10:55because if we don’t start reading teachers like leaders the mass exodus
10:59teachers from classrooms is going to continue unabated anne cooper profession
11:04thank you the new per profession
11:11the profession that makes all professions possible will be in a
11:14serious crisis
11:15politicians on both sides the I’ll be like to say education is a threat to
11:19national security
11:21you’re right threat number one this crap threat number two
11:24the teachers running away from it there the threats
11:27number three issue I don’t want you to think that I’m imagining the future or
11:32outlining a future
11:33that has kid stuck on screens all the time well I do like throwing my kid in
11:37front of a screen one
11:38I need a minute to brief I don’t want kids on screens all day long
11:42educated to Beale identify access and utilize
11:45so identify online access online utilize it in real time
11:49right if you
11:53you experts and I see you ICU
11:56I know that you like to fly drones I suggest you go to middle school started
12:01rowing club
12:02you will have a hundred kids come hang out with you once a week and they will
12:05pay you wrapped attention
12:07ICU Rebecca
12:10I know that you like underwater basket weaving I guarantee
12:17I guarantee you looking at thirty kids to pay their undivided attention
12:20underwater weaving baskets ICU
12:25mister dating I know you do cool stuff for software
12:28I guarantee you if you wanna now once or twice a month
12:32you would have an audience have kids treating you like the God that you are
12:38ladies and gentlemen we’re social creatures
12:41we have all together that’s why you’re sitting here in this room today
12:45there is a palpable tangible energy to being around people who believe fiercely
12:50and what they’re talking about
12:51start sharing that with people in your community
12:54little people and will rapidly change
12:58thank you the
13:06the
