We Humans and the Intelligent Machines. Jörg DrägerЧитать онлайн книгу.
both groups usually end up unhappy: During the classic math lesson, the whizzes are bored, while the less gifted fight desperately to make sense of it all or have long since switched off. “Learning in lockstep, in my opinion that’s not how it should be in the classroom,” Stuthmann says. It was an insight she gained as a young teacher.6 That is why the 58-year-old has never simply stood at the blackboard, explained the subject matter and hoped that everyone would somehow understand it. Yet her ideal solution, creating an individual curriculum for each student, has proven overwhelming.
She is now closer to achieving her goal, thanks to the help algorithms can provide. When Stuthmann leads her class into the computer room at Hamburg’s Friedrich Ebert Secondary School, the 27 students are confronted with different tasks. The math aces warm up with two introductory questions and then jump directly to much trickier problems. Weaker students can stick with the basics, gaining more time to review and understand. Everyone learns at their own pace. Stuthmann follows the progress of each student on her screen. If she sees that someone is struggling with a task and is not getting anywhere, she goes and helps. The rest of the class is not held up by this intervention; everyone stays busy because the computer constantly provides them with new assignments appropriate to their level.
Bettermarks, a computer program made by a Berlin start-up of the same name, is what makes this personalized teaching possible.7 It works like an interactive math book. The software explains topics, shows sample calculations and assigns problem sets – the traditional approach, as in printed textbooks. What is new is that each student is guided through the problem set along a personal learning path. An algorithm selects the exercise that fits best from a database of more than 100,000. If the student solves the problem easily and quickly, the level of difficulty goes up. If they get stuck or select a wrong answer, the system analyses the knowledge that is lacking. “Students receive feedback at each step along the way and, if they make mistakes, they are offered a series of exercises that deepens the knowledge required,” says Arndt Kwiatkowski, founder and managing director of Bettermarks.8 The student no longer has to adapt to the textbook, since the program adapts to the student.
Elke Stuthmann and her students do not go to the computer room for every math lesson. She only uses Bettermarks in class every other week, but she assigns it regularly for homework. She also selects the exercises herself with a mouse click, not leaving it entirely to the algorithm. But even these first steps towards personalizing teaching are having an effect. According to Stuthmann, the high-flyers are two to three times faster than their classmates – and grateful not to have to wait. Instead, they can work on more demanding tasks or even jump to the next lesson. Yet the weaker students also benefit. “They feel less alone, especially when doing their homework,” she says. “The software gives them tips and as much help as they need.”9
If many students are unable to complete a certain exercise, the teacher can respond by repeating the material in class. Stuthmann firmly believes that the computer program increases the students’ motivation to learn. It even lessens the anxiety of doing math because students succeed more often and feel like their achievement is recognized. This is what Bettermarks hopes to achieve. It regards difference as normal, not as a problem. The company’s software is designed to avoid both under- and over-challenging the students and thus boring or stressing them. Bettermarks is now available in every classroom in Uruguay; in Germany in can be found in just a few hundred schools.
Educational systems like the one in Germany, however, would be well advised to abandon the illusion of homogeneity. People are different and they learn differently, too. Even if everyone had to achieve the same goal, their path, style and pace to get there would be very different. Schools too rarely take this into account and often still focus on the average learner. “You’re 12, it’s autumn, so it’s time to do fractions,” says journalist Jürgen Schaefer.10
In fact, the achievement range in mathematics for 15-year-olds spans several years, even at Germany’s more challenging secondary schools. Nevertheless, individual support and personalized learning plans are still rare. The result is that many students hate math. Whether fractions, algebra or calculus – once you have missed the boat, you rarely catch up again. Traditional teaching can hardly make up for this: Repeating the material until everyone has understood it would not serve the best students in the class; simply continuing on would leave too many behind. Teachers like Elke Stuthmann want to solve this problem and support each of their students individually by providing digital support. Even then, not everyone will love mathematics, but at least it will prevent a lot of frustration and many hours of expensive after-school tutoring.
Teach to One
What is just starting in Hamburg has gone full circle in New York.11 That is where the algorithmic personalization of learning can be found, hidden away behind a brick facade from the 1930s. From the outside, little suggests that the David A. Boody Intermediate School in Sheepshead Bay is already home to the math lessons of the future.
The ground floor reflects the American norm, with scuffed floors and fluorescent lighting in the hallways, which lead to classrooms on the left and right. On the first floor, however, a new world begins. There is just one large room where some 90 students from three grades can sit together. The building’s former classrooms have disappeared, replaced by a few work areas, separated from each other by dividers and containing chairs of different colors. Electronic monitors hang on the walls. In the morning, the 11- to 14-year-old students stand in front of them looking for their names and their individually assigned learning program for the day. Gazing up, they resemble passengers at an airport trying to identify the gate they are departing from.
The difference, however, to mass transportation could not be greater. All that matters at Boody are individuals and their individual needs. Simply put, the school has revolutionized mathematics teaching. Nine years ago, the traditional classroom model used for centuries was abandoned, the textbooks mothballed. In turn, the lesson plan was overhauled and digitized. The students now learn in groups or on their own, sometimes with a teacher as a tutor, sometimes with an educational game or explanatory video on their computer. Some eighth-graders still struggle with fractions, some sixth-graders can already handle material meant for their older peers. Everyone can learn as fast or as slowly as they are able. Every day, the students take a brief online test to see if they have reached their individual goal at the end of the lesson.
Algorithms in Manhattan evaluate the results. That is where New Classrooms is based. The non-profit organization has developed the new teaching concept used at David A. Boody School and almost 40 other institutions in the US, as a response to the enormous diversity among students. Teach to One is its programmatic name. Each day, New Classrooms collects data to see what students have learned. Which tasks have they mastered, which not? How long did it take? How often are videos watched? Are games preferred over text? The data are analyzed by computers in Manhattan and compared with the outcomes of other learners. In the end, a personal learning plan for the next day is created for each student.
The successes have been impressive. Before Teach to One arrived at Boody in the 2010/11 school year, the performance of the sixth-graders was just below the average of comparable schools in New York City. Two years later, the youngsters’ knowledge level was already 11 percent higher. By now, New Classroom students are learning 50 percent more per year than the American average. Boody hardly enjoys the advantages found at more privileged institutions. The student body is ethnically mixed with many newly arrived in the US. Parents often receive social assistance, 80 percent of the children are entitled to a free school lunch for financial reasons.
That makes Joel Rose, co-founder and chief executive officer of New Classrooms, all the more proud. “Our team has achieved what nobody has ever achieved before: We provide an individual curriculum for thousands of children – every day anew.”12 Thanks to its algorithms, New Classrooms reconciles what was previously irreconcilable; it offers personalized education even in large learning groups, eliminating the contradiction between mass application and excellence. Its algorithms do not replace teachers, but support them: Instead of imparting standard knowledge, educators can assist individual students or small learning