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Introduction
The goal of this brief post on Melinda Gates and her PBS interview concerning the cultivation of highly effective teachers in the United States, is to take a position on the video’s material in terms of its 21st Century real world implications. After providing background on the core content required for the discussion in this post, your author’s position will be identified and supported with relevant educational research.
Video Background
In the video entitled “Melinda Gates on the Importance of Evaluations in Teaching” Gates explains her foundation’s past and current educational goal. When discussing her organization’s past goal Gates explained that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation once focused on assisting districts with creating schools in which class sizes were very small. They did this operating under the idea that small class size was the quintessential factor in allowing effective learning to take place (Shear et al., 2008). The foundation has updated their goals in accordance with research they conducted while investigating student achievement gains in schools with small class sizes. That research reflected a fact that is currently accepted by masters of education. Namely, that the most important element of an effective classroom (and effective instruction) is the teacher. In turn, Gates explained that the foundation’s new goal would be to aide in the development of highly effective teachers in all schools within the United States. Gates does acknowledge that there are other factors that lead to effective learning (namely strong administrational leadership and parent support) but maintains that these factors are dwarfed when compared to the positive influence of an effective teacher.
Gates on highly effective teaching
In the interview made available on the PBS web site, Gates explains that the foundation’s goal of aiding schools in the development of highly effective teachers can be best described by detailing the three educational items that teachers are in the greatest need of.
What to teach. Gates explains that the first major need of teachers is to be told what they need to teach and by (e.g. a date or time in the school year) when they must teach it. This led to Gates’ foundation to working with other organizations to fund the Common Core State Standards Initiative which according to Gates, 48 states have adopted as their primary set of educational standards.
Curriculum Support. Gates explains that the second major need of teachers is curriculum support in the form of modules. These modules are educational teaching materials made available to teachers and are aligned with the established common curriculum to ensure students are taught the required material. A need for such alignment is discussed in Martone and Sireci’s (2007) research article.
Professional Development via Teacher Evaluations. Gates explains that the third need of teachers is professional development which according to her, would be gained through effective teacher evaluations. According to Gates, the current evaluations in which administrators observe and check boxes reading satisfactory or unsatisfactory should be replaced by more in-depth tools that allow observers to acknowledge teacher behaviors and teaching practices identified as being highly effective. She advocates for peer teachers who are able to recognize these practices and are then able to coach fellow teachers in effective teaching practices if needed (in essence, to have a discussion about how the teacher is progressing).
Your Author’s Position
Your author is in agreement with Melinda Gates that the three educational items, detailed by Gates during the PBS interview described, are indeed needed in some shape or form by various teachers. What is not agreed upon, however, is that these items are able to be put into place as a realistic across-the-board solution to the problem of ineffective teaching.
On What to Teach. A standard curriculum does have benefits. Gates’ vision of school districts across the country being able to decide on, and require all students to learn, a set curriculum that contains the most important educational items could be positive. An alignment of the country’s curriculum (and in turn, the standards) would ensure students graduating from any district in the US would have learned the most important educational material. However, according to Martone and Sireci not all content standards for a state “can typically be assessed through large-scale standardized assessments” (p. 1355). Such large-scale assessments would come hand in hand with state standards. An across-the-board curriculum also brings with it a concerning question: what if the decided upon curriculum is flawed? In a system where schools have the flexibility to decide for themselves exactly what the core curriculum should be, the district’s hands would not be tied by a flawed curriculum. No matter how seemingly perfect a standardized curriculum and standard may appear, one must keep in mind that a singular group (or a small collection if groups) of individuals and organizations typically create these standards. That being a given, there is a likelihood that not all educational material within the standard curriculum will be seen as necessary by the district and its teachers. In turn, districts and district teachers should have the ability to modify any conflicts.
On Curriculum Support. Just as an available (but not required) standardized curriculum could benefit teachers, available curriculum support could as well (the educational modules described earlier). The issue here is if these units are required to be taught by the classroom teacher, they could limit the ability of the teacher to utilize his own units that have been designed to present the material as he sees fit. This aspect of Gates’ solution allows the possibility for the standardized curriculum to overshadow the instructor, his expertise, and his specialty whatever it may be. Rothman et al. (2002) also notes that when aligning a standard curriculum in this way, the effect may be a negative one as described.
On Professional Development via Teacher Evaluations. Gates explains that the school districts need a teacher evaluation system that acknowledges effective teaching strategies and a process in which peers (e.g. other teachers) observe and evaluate fellow instructors. While the former is realistic as the Pennsylvania public school system is taking on a new evaluation tool (Neuschafer, 2012), the latter does not factor-in the common inner-workings of public schools’ faculty. In public schools where peer evaluations are used, it is common for faculty to provide positive ratings for fellow instructors regardless of teaching skills in the name of teacher solidarity. A more realistic solution would be to hire a singular teacher supervisor who would focus on observing and coaching teachers (though this may prove to be impractical for some districts when district finances are evaluated).
Conclusions
In her interview on PBS, and through this post, Melinda Gates presented several possible solutions to educational problems related to the need for effective teachers. While the three main solutions being attempted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are noteworthy ones, it is the opinion of your author that they will likely not work as the across-the-board solutions they are presented to be and that solutions allowing educational flexibility for districts are recommended.
References
![Advantages and Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence [AI]](https://www.simplilearn.com/ice9/free_resources_article_thumb/Advantages_and_Disadvantages_of_artificial_intelligence.jpg "Advantages_and_Disadvantages_of_artificial_intelligence image")
There are few technologies that are as eye-popping as Artificial Intelligence. When you see computers write an essay, recognize human faces, and detect objects, it seems like there are few things a computer cannot do with the help of machine learning (which is a branch of AI). This outward appearance hides a very convoluted mess of math and statistics. It is honestly a web of different implementations, frameworks, libraries, and everything else added together in a soup of technology. The applications of AI that include models that read and summarize texts, or models that can recognize faces look very interesting but the process of creating those models is anything but interesting. Now, a question arises, how can we make learning machine learning as “cool” as its applications so that students do not lose themselves in a web of programming, math, and statistics? Let us investigate how different educational technologies in the classroom try to solve this problem, from educational software that makes learning machine learning easier, to different platforms a teacher can use to upskill their knowledge in AI.
We should start from the basics of what makes modern AI All modern applications of AI stems from a branch called machine learning. Inside this branch of machine learning, there is a sub-branch called deep learning. If you have experienced anything with AI, it is highly possible that it was a product of deep learning. Deep learning utilizes what is known as neural networks to map a set of inputs to an output. What this means is that if you want to train a face-detection model, you will need many photos of yourself in various lighting situations, and poses. The neural network will take all those data and then “learn” your face. The end-product is a model that can recognize your face and nothing else. If you noticed from the example, it is very specialized. A model will never learn something on its own, an engineer will almost always need to feed data into the model.
Learning machine learning requires a foundation of mathematics, statistics, programming, and machine learning-specific libraries. There are too many requirements before a student can start learning machine learning. Machine learning might be a topic that is next to impossible to be taught right with traditional techniques. Educational technologies have devised a plan to circumvent all the steep learning curves and the requirements for learning machine learning. Sites like Machine Learning for Kids, and Teachable Machine are meant for kids to start learning machine learning immediately without the hassle of writing hours of code. They use visual-based programming languages like Scratch or graphical user interfaces to make it easier for students to learn. This way of learning machine learning will give the students an intuitive understanding of machine learning, and a very good foundation.
Modern AI models are not transparent. They are opaque and nobody knows how they work internally, or why the model decided to train itself this specific way and not the other way. The problem now is, how can we teach students something that not even the teacher can fully understand? There have been papers that mention the fact that teachers worry about AI teaching, and have a lack of confidence in their understanding of the topic due to pedagogical information not being readily available in the particular field. This problem can also be solved by educational technology platforms. The popular educational technology platform Coursera provides a course called Artificial Intelligence (AI) Education for Teachers, which in turn is offered by Macquarie University and the corporation IBM. Even teachers can make use of EdTech platforms to upskill themselves in the ever-changing subject that is machine learning.
After an educational institution as the ability to skill their teachers, as well as be able to afford the required IT infrastructure, the next thing is to pump out students who are skilled enough to apply what they learned in the real world. This is one of the hardest things to do in any area of teaching, but it is harder by an order of magnitude when the students do not understand how their own models work from the inside out. The true and tried method to create good machine learning engineers is practice. Google offers everyone free computing powers on their website called Google Colab. Students can utilize that website to practice how to use GPUs to train their own models. This decreases the financial pressure that an institution faces to buy a lot of computers with GPUs.
Although AI can be a force of good, it can be an even worse force for something bad. Elon Musk’s company OpenAI famously did not release a trained model of their architecture (GPT-2) because it was too good at creating written content that a bad faith actor would be able to create millions of misleading posts. Children from a young age should be taught about the bad effects of unmoderated AI Learning about AI ethics is a very important topic, and there is no better way to teach that than by showing them how AI models affect them online. A website, made by Mozilla, called Track This shows you how well the algorithms on the internet know you. They show this by fooling the algorithm into thinking that the user is someone else. Websites like these, along with others linked in The Algorithm and Data Literacy Program can be used in the classroom to show just how prevalent algorithms are in our lives. It just takes a few engineers in these companies to affect billions of people around the world.
In conclusion, artificial intelligence (which is used interchangeably with the term machine learning) is a technology that is very prevalent in our lives whether you like it or not. The new generation should be taught machine learning so that they are well educated when entering this world. AI is famously a very opaque system where nobody knows how a model works, but there are new technology applications that make the process of learning machine learning for kids easier. When the first step is easy and fun, they are more likely to not only learn more but also be keener in learning how everything functions internally. Another problem that educational institutions face is the fact that their teachers lack the proper resources for themselves to learn about AI This problem is also solved by companies such as Coursera which provides a world-class education for a fraction of the cost. In the end, it is also very important to teach the students about the negative effects of algorithms in the world. There are resources online that show how prevalent algorithms are in our lives and how easy it would be for them to affect billions of lives. Learning the ethics of AI is also a very important pillar in the education of students in the subject of AI.
5 Leading Products To Look Out For
Booth #3843
Welcome to the VIP InfoComm section. You'll see below we've expanded our HDBaseT offering, adding a new transmitter wallplate and more units you can see at Booth 3843. Next we started "Thinking Inside The Box" with our project wall box solution. This wall box will make your pockets happy and installers.
The Wire Marshall is your answer to under-table wire management from our award winning Table Boxes to our one of a kind Floor Boxes. Looking for a new piece of furniture to have a quick meeting, study group, or just relax? The Huddle Blox with our integrated wireless coaster can solve that and more!
1. HD-HPCUWP-Tx Wall Plate
Based on HDBaseT 2.0 Technology
Uncompressed 4K@60Hz UHD Video +
Analog Stereo, Power, Ethernet port, RS-232 USB 2.0 (Type A on front Hose and Device)
Two-way IR up to 100m/330ft
Will work with all 100m Receivers but Rx unit must be a USB Rx unit to use USB features
2. PWB-320 Wall Box 
Large Open Project Wall Box to fit 16" on Center Stub Bays
Provides Space for AC Connections, Routing Cables & Digital Media Products
2" KO's, Flush Cable-Tie Mounts, Tri-Usage Gang Opening for AC/AV/IT Applications
3. The Wire Marshall
Complete Under Table Cable Management System
For use with FSR's Table Boxes, Floor Boxes, Poke-Thru Boxes
Handles Multiple Low-Voltage AV/Data & AC Cables
4. Wireless Coaster
Wireless "Qi" Charger with Adaptive Fast Charge Power
Charges at Standard Rates When Used with Standard Power Chords
Fast Wireless Charging When Attached to Adaptive Fast Charge Power Supplies
5. Huddle Blox
Wireless USB Charging Station with AC Power all in one
Available in a 22" Cube or a 22" x 13" Cube
Finishes in Black, White or Maple
Booth #3843
We're sorry that we won't see you at Infocomm 2017. However, if you change your mind you can find us at Booth 3843. Interested in finding out some of the cool new products we'll be showing at the big show check them out HERE.
Our Mission:
FSR Inc. believes in supporting the needs of our communities by supporting nonprofit organizations that improve overall quality of life. We sponsor charities and events that enhance the vitality of our neighborhoods, celebrate our community’s success, and support local charities. Below you can find a few of the charities we support.
FSR's Tools For Schools
Every year FSR partners with the United Way of Passaic County to make sure that local students have the supplies they need to maximize their school experience. This year FSR donated 50 backpacks stuffed with pens, pencils, erasers, crayons and notebooks to United Way for "Backpacks For Kids", the organization's school supply program.
"It's our privilege to help the kids as they start a new school year" - Jan Sandri, FSR's president
Project Teddy Bear
Kindness Shared Happiness Squared
Donate $15 today at KindnessShared.com and a new Kindness Bear will be placed on the mobile crisis van for a child in need.
Kindness Shared Happiness Squared is a nonprofit, tax exempt 501(c)(3) corp. created to distribute happiness. They improve the lives of children challenged with disabilities and/or in severe financial need. Each season of the year is dedicated to a specific need. We collaborate with different agencies, working as a team, to positively impact the lives of children.
Donate Here: http://www.kindnessshared.com/make-a-donation.html
Established in 1981, FSR manufactures a wide variety of signal management and infrastructure solutions for the audio / video, datacom, education, furniture, hospitality, government, and religious markets, including floor, wall, table, and ceiling connectivity boxes, as well as a full line of interfaces, distribution amplifiers, matrix switchers, seamless switchers and HDBaseT & CAT-X signal delivery solutions.
The company complies with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to demonstrate its deep commitment to preserving the planet. FSR offers live technical and sales support throughout the country from expertly trained technicians and sales representatives.
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Woodland Park, NJ 07424
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