“Most human decision-making is inherently irrational, habitual, and predictable” (Knox et al., 2020)
Experiences with algorithms have been on my mind this week. I took great joy in the irony of attempting (successfully) to manipulate the adverts that were placed on my Facebook page and making a short video of my experience that was then removed by YouTube’s “algorithm Stasi” as it allegedly violated the firm’s spam policy. Let’s just say that I don’t feel my case has been fairly assessed.
I have also been quite sick and, after two sets of blood tests, was diagnosed with Ross River Virus (RRV) – a not uncommon ailment in these parts. I make the point of having to go for two sets of blood tests as the doctor didn’t initially request the RRV test. I’m not one to question a specialist but I googled the symptoms before my first visit (see my search via Pocket) and added “Queensland” and RRV was in over 70% of the search results. Equally, my father-in-law, a retired GP who LOVES diagnosing from hundreds of kilometres away, was certain I had measles or rubella. I’m the last person to come across as one of these “know-it-all” patients but it was interesting how two health professionals (one of whom has had the virus) missed the opportunity to diagnose correctly as if they had target fixation with the rash I had.
These scenarios motivated my research down a pathway that started with Biesta and ended with lots more reading (and viewing) on adaptive learning technologies. Biesta talks about learners being subjects of action and responsibility and it made me think about educators working in tandem with technology to have a more complete picture. Here are just two brief examples of where I had a similar oversight to the doctors in my own field of teaching:
- My class took an online PAT-R diagnostic reading test. The results of one girl highlighted a deficiency in vocabulary understanding that I had completed missed as she over-compensated in other areas of reading. Having had this identified, I changed her to a different intensive reading group, gave suggestions to her mother for home reading and closed out the gap.
- My class trialled Mathspace where students work on concepts at their own pace and the questions adapt to the responses they give. A couple of students were struggling with the concept of fractions but I’d misdiagnosed the fact that it came down to a basic misunderstanding of number sense. The data alerted me to this and I was able to work intensively with the children
Both of the above examples demonstrate how I worked WITH the technology and didn’t rely on it too heavily. The technology highlighted the issues quicker than I would have done by doing the mundane analysis (Bayne et al., 2020) that I generally hate, which is one of the reasons I missed the issues. In the case of Mathspace, the technology did some of the remedial teaching as I was able to assign tasks to the students in question to improve their number sense. I’m more and more convinced of the need and benefits of adaptive learning technologies in the primary school classroom.
Bayne, S., Evans, P., Ewins, R., Knox, J., Lamb, J., Macleod, H., O’Shea, C., Ross, J., Sheail, P., Sinclair, C., (2020) The Manifesto for Teaching Online, The Manifesto for Teaching Online.
Knox, J., Williamson, B. & Bayne, S (2020), Machine behaviourism: future visions of ‘learnification’ and ‘datafication’ across humans and digital technologies, Learning, Media and Technology, 45 (1) pp31-45
Hey Sean,
Very sorry to hear about your getting RRV. I’ve had a couple of friends contract it and it is a real bastard. Hope you’re feeling better and your immunity gets back into shape soon what with COVID-19 making it’s way through Australia and the rest of the world now. Stay well.
Really interested to hear about your experiences with adaptive learning platforms as I’ve always been quite skeptical of their efficacy. Good to hear some positive stories where you, the teacher, were partnering with the tech and your students to work out the best approach. I guess my reticence comes from accounts of adaptive learning platforms where they are deployed with the effect of isolating the student form their teacher and in some cases even removing the teacher.
I’ll comment on your artefact here too. It was really entertaining and quite humorous to see the lengths to which you went to get a reaction. Not so surprised that your amazon purchase didn’t have any impact because I take it that Amazon and Facebook are fierce rivals for the collection of our data!
Thanks a lot for the feedback. I completely understanding concerns you have about some learning platforms. Michael shared a couple of links in a comment below regarding Summit Learning. A lot of the concerns seem to be about the amount of deferral teachers make to the platform – all students seem to do is work independently and miss out on the benefits of having a teacher. On the limited occasions I’ve used platforms, I always taken the approach that it is an enhancement to me rather than a substitute. I have a great number of flaws as a teacher and the platforms have helped me close out some of those, such as diagnosing misconceptions etc. Despite having many flaws, I also have a huge ego and would hate a piece of technology to replace me in the things I like doing – I don’t believe it could replace me effectively. I feel I have quite a healthy attitude where I’ve reflected on what I need the technology to do and trust it to do these things. It’s certainly not a panacea and issues arise when it is viewed as this, particularly as a cost-cutting measure.
Thanks again for the comments and the best wishes regarding my health – the same to you. We had our first confirmed case of COVID-19 here in Cairns over the weekend so we’ll see how long it is before schools are closed.