This is a video of a teacher sharing an example of the PALS math curriculum in action. The pedagogy in this video though frustrates me though, and although the idea of Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) seems good, I don’t think the approach this teacher took is very good.
- She’s using rewards to encourage kids to work with each other. Alfie Kohn does a good job of explaining why this is problematic. "The smiley faces help you remember to mark points." She also spends nearly a minute describing to the kids how to do the task. My experience with kids this young (or any age really) is that they don’t have the attention span to remember something as complex and essentially arbitrary as the instructions necessary to this task "the teacher’s way."
- The students actually have very little interaction in this video with the numbers themselves. The symbols aren’t the numbers. In fact, I think they are an unnecessary layer of abstraction on the concept of number at this young age. Kids need representations of numbers that are more concrete, and once they have a concrete understanding of the concept, then you can move into the abstraction. The entire objective of this lesson seems to be to connect one abstraction (the verbalization of the numbers) with another abstraction (the symbols that represent the numbers).
If you want kids to learn about these two abstract representations, then you should pair them with a concrete representation with which the kids are more familiar. For example, the symbols should be paired with objects (ie 8 blocks paired with the symbol for 8). You should also teach the two abstractions independently of each other, if at all possible, at least when introducing them.
- It’s clear from the way the kids are reciting facts after this teacher asks questions that they do a lot of this. Reciting something verbatim doesn’t mean you understand what you are doing. In this entire clip, the teacher doesn’t give a single piece of feedback to the students about their learning. Learning is a process through which you incorporate feedback from the world into your existing schema of the world. The only feedback the kids get is the voices of the other children saying the same thing as them, which is minimal at best.
- Not a single kid gets to ask a question, like "why do the numbers look like that?" What would be the harm in the kids spending some time creating their own number system, and then matching it to our existing one?
- It seems like the interaction between the kids is forced. I’m sure there must be more natural ways of discussing the numbers and providing feedback to each other on understanding of the numerals than this contrived activity.
In fairness, I cannot tell from this video anything more than this particular 5 minute segment of this one teacher’s class could use improvement. There does seem to be some evidence that this is a typical 5 minute period, at least at the beginning of class, but it could be that the rest of her class is wonderful. I do think that I wouldn’t share this particular 5 minute clip as example of good pedagogy.
Jennifer B says:
Back in my grad school days, I had friends who worked on the first iteration of the PALS grant at Vanderbilt. My research work was slightly different but the message they drilled into to all of us was the importance of fidelity in education research. The idea that you can’t claim PALS doesn’t work if it’s only PALS in name only because you’ve decided to change everything else; the importance of schools and teachers understanding the framework behind a program that has shown to have an impact. My hunch is that this video is the research-based, strictly by-the-book-version of PALS, the directions on the back of the box as it were. That’s not to say a teacher couldn’t modify it to their own personality and classroom climate, but it’s helpful to see how Nestle suggests making the cookies before going off and adding your own spices. And of course, I recognize the flaw in this analogy – learning isn’t like cooking, sometimes the best learning occurs without a script or design etc. etc. Additionally, it raises questions about being a teacher or student in a school connected to a research institute. It was my experience that parents overwhelmingly valued having their child with a disability in a school associated with Vanderbilt because they knew the school was deeply committed to ensure their child received the best education possible. While Kohn does present some compelling arguments against using rewards, the PALS system was designed for students with disabilities who lacked the ability to connect a consequence to a behavior due to their cognitive limitations. Professors at Vanderbilt have spent decades researching increasing authentic inclusion of children with disabilities and PALS is a step in that process.
August 29, 2011 — 3:40 pm
Kevin Cunningham says:
I think it does feel like a contrived situation and I’m not sure how much the students are learning in this section. However, there is a bit of condescended in that the have to hold up their fingers to show ‘how many’. That goes some way toward making a connection. There are obviously better ways but at least it is not three layers of abstraction.
August 30, 2011 — 3:12 am
Chris Wejr says:
Hey David,
Thanks for that last blog post on numeracy for pre-schoolers. On my FB page, a teacher commented that she could add it to her PALS program. In BC, the PALS program is for Parents as Literacy Supporters and is an add-on program for early learners. Here is some info http://www.2010legaciesnow.com/pals/
Fantastic to note that your blog post has caused a teacher in my school to reflect! Another example of the power of social media. You->Twitter->Me->Facebook->Her.
August 30, 2011 — 2:32 pm
David Wees says:
Her comment on Facebook led me to search YouTube for the PALS program, which led to this blog post about this video… so she helped me find out something too!
August 30, 2011 — 3:17 pm