I.
Description of visit
In
January 2013, Jefferson Pestronk and Peter Fishman traveled to the State of
Veracruz, region of Zongolica, to observe the work of the Estrategia Integral
para la Mejora del Logro Educativo (EIMLE). We spent a full day at each of three schools:
1)
Telesecundaria “La Libertad” in the community of Atlanca (Los Reyes)
2)
Telesecundaria “Jose Vasconcelos” in the community of Xaltititla (Rafael
Delgado)
3)
Primaria Indigena “Adolfo Lopez Mateos” in the community of Tehuipango
(Tehuipango)
At each school, we were fortunate to meet
students, faculty, staff, and parents, speaking with them about their
experience with las relaciones tutoras. We were also fortunate to be tutored by
several exceptional students, engaging in nearly a dozen temas.
● At Telesecundaria “La Libertad,” Jefferson
engaged in the tema, “The Will,” with
Victor, learning several key rules of Spanish punctuation. Peter worked with
Lucero on the story of “Oetzi,” pulling out main ideas and supporting evidence
from a Spanish text.
● At Telesecundaria “Jose Vasconcelos,” Jefferson
engaged in two mathematical temas --
plotting coordinates on the Cartesian plane and finding the area of a circular
segment -- with Miguel. Peter also
engaged in two mathematical temas --
resolving quadratic equations and finding the area of a circular segment --
with Luz del Carmen. Later, Peter
read “Aplastamiento de las gotas,” a piece by Argentine writer Julio Cortazar,
with student Joel.
● At Primaria Indigena “Adolfo Lopez Mateos,”
Jefferson worked on a science tema --
stages of human development -- with student Ana Gabriela. Later, he engaged in the tema “Ying Yang” with Maria Jose, a
student from Secundaria Tecnica Agropecuria #126. Peter was also tutored by a student from the secundaria,
Vladimir, on the coordinates of the Cartesian plane, and worked with a primaria
student, Kevin, as he learned to calculate the area of a circular segment from
a secundaria student, Juan.
The following sections include our
observations and reflections about the tutoria
model. It is important to note
that our takeaways are necessarily limited by the period of time that we had
with students and the number of schools that we visited. Both within and between schools, we
witnessed a range of implementation of the model -- from some student
engagement that very closely approximated the conceptual underpinnings of the
model to other engagement that seemed to capture the process, but departed from
the spirit, and other engagement that captured the spirit, but departed from
the process.
II.
Observations (when the model is done well)
Focus on the instructional core: In their seminal book, Instructional rounds in education, Elmore, City, Teitel, and
Fiarman define the instructional core as “the relationship between the teacher
and the student in the presence of content” (Elmore, et al. 2009). As those authors describe, any
large-scale initiative intended to improve student learning must focus
attention on the instructional core.
Initiatives that do not in some way impact the relationship between
teacher, student, and content, are unlikely to change student learning
outcomes. More than most other
educational reforms that we have had the opportunity to study or experience,
the tutoria model focuses on the
instructional core. Indeed, the
entire model depends upon the teacher (tutor), student (tutored), and content (tema). No extraneous resources are required or envisioned by the
model. Instead, the model
functions by focusing the attention of all stakeholders (teachers, students, parents,
administrators) on the student’s engagement with content.
● Is the content rich and rigorous?
● Does the tema
sit within the student’s zone of proximal development?
● Does the student carry the cognitive load of
engaging with the tema?
The tutoria
model demands that stakeholders ask, and answer, each of these questions.
Personalization: One of the central promises of the tutoria model is increased
personalization of instruction for each student. As the EIMLE leadership
described in our kickoff meeting in Mexico City, good learning requires both
interest from the learning and knowledge/competence from the teacher. By
allowing individual students to select the areas of content in which they want
to work, the design of tutoria can
use individual interest and engagement to its advantage. The one-to-one or
small group structure of tutoring also provides individualized attention, not
just simply choice of content. Extensive research has documented tutoring as
one of the most effective pedagogical structures when done effectively (see,
e.g., Benjamin Bloom’s 1984 paper, The
Two Sigma Problem), in large part because an effective tutor can diagnose
and address students’ idiosyncratic needs at the earliest possible moment and
with customized strategies.
One of the persistent challenges in
providing one-to-one tutoring, however, is its resource-intensive nature.
Several of the school leaders and staff we spoke with identified the tutoria model as a supplement to the
overall structure of the school, which is one way to address resource
constraints (e.g., time, people, funding). Students who desire enrichment, or
those in need of reinforcement or remediation, can receive tutoring to help
move them along, at a lower cost in resources than organizing the entire school
day as tutoring. In other cases, one tutor was able to work with multiple
students at the same time because there was often significant downtime for the
tutor while each student worked on components of the tema. Each of these strategies suggests different ways of
allocating limited resources to maximize the impact of the model and may
warrant additional investigation to see which is effective in what contexts.
Rigorous discourse: In her work on English Language Arts classrooms
in the United States, Pam Grossman of Stanford University has found that deep
student learning occurs when students have opportunities to engage in extended
discussions in which they develop their ideas and interpretations and in which
they are asked rigorous and challenging questions. Encouraging students to show their thinking increases
intellectual acuity and precision.
Too often, however, students are asked rote questions with only right or
wrong answers and, in many classrooms, are rarely pushed to show deep
conceptual understanding of content.
By asking students to carry the cognitive load and discover answers for
themselves, the tutoria model pushes
students to develop their ideas and to engage in intellectually precise
thinking. When tutors do not give
answers, but rather ask probing questions and when students do not stop at
simple solutions, but rather must demonstrate multiple layers of understanding,
they are deepening their engagement with content and increasing the likelihood
of genuine, sustained understanding.
An example helps to illustrate this
point. Kevin, a primaria student at Primaria Indigena
“Adolfo Lopez Mateos” was completing a tema
wherein he had to find the area of a circular segment. Kevin found the area by determining the
area of the whole circle and then using angles to determine the percentage of the
circle represented by the segment.
However, his tutor, Juan, did not let him merely show that he knew the
area of the segment. Instead,
since he had used pi to calculate the
area of the whole circle, Kevin’s tutor pushed him to demonstrate the derivation
of pi. Through a series of probing questions, Juan guided Kevin
through an exploration of the relationship between diameter, circumference, and
pi, showing how its value was derived
from the ratio between circumference and diameter. By the end of the relacion
tutora, Kevin could do more than calculate the area of a segment and parrot
back the equation representing pi. He could explain to other students the
derivation of pi.
Knowledge exchange and non-cognitive
skills: One of the most heartening experiences
of viewing tutoria in action was
invisible during the actual process of tutoring but emerged in conversations
after working with students. Multiple students indicated that one of their
favorite elements of the model was the ability to help their peers understand
content better and learn things that they otherwise would not have the
opportunity to learn. Put briefly, the tutoria
model expanded the leadership role of students in their own learning, and the
students grasped that role eagerly. Two brief vignettes help illustrate the
point:
● Miguel, a secundaria
student at Telesecundaria “Jose Vasconcelos,” wants to be a math teacher when
he grows up because the tutoria
approach has shown him how much he enjoys helping other students who are
struggling
● Ana Gabriela, a primaria student at Primaria Indigena “Adolfo Lopez Mateos,”
learned the tema about Stages of
Human Development because the only student in her school who knew that tema would graduate to secundaria shortly and Ana Gabriela did
not want that knowledge to be lost
Both of these examples show students
taking what is, in our experience, unusual agency both for their own learning
and for the learning of their peers.
This ownership of learning fits in with
other “skills” that we observed in some of the students with whom we worked,
all of which might fall under the umbrella category of the so-called
“non-cognitive skills.” These include skills like motivation (as discussed
earlier under personalization), and grit and persistence (overcoming challenges
in the learning process, for example). Similarly, redefining who has knowledge
worth knowing and teaching by making the role of teacher and student more
fluid, and emphasizing the primacy of wanting
to learn something over already
knowing something, the tutoria
model may have an impact on the development of growth mindsets as described in
Carol Dweck’s research. Ultimately, because the tutoria model aims to help students learn how to learn, these
non-cognitive skills may be just as important as the knowledge exchanged.
III. Challenges
identified
The takeaways described above were what
we saw when tutoring seemed to go well. However, it must be said that not all
of the interactions we observed demonstrated these positive characteristics. We
believe that at the heart of this may lie two interrelated challenges: the
ambitious expansion goals established for the tutoria program and the difficulty ensuring the right balance of
consistency and local adaptation inherent in such an ambitious expansion.
Ambition of scaling: The expansion goals laid out for the program are
truly astounding. As a central element of the Ministry of Education’s efforts
to improve Mexico’s lowest-achieving schools, EIMLE aimed to bring the tutoria model to approximately 9,000
schools. As a point of reference, this is nearly twice as many targeted schools
as the United States Department of Education’s School Improvement Grants (SIG),
which target 5,000 low-achieving schools in the United States. The SIG program
was initially funded with an investment of $3.5 billion, with additional
funding in subsequent years. There were few indications that a similar
commitment was made to the tutoria program.
To be sure, funding is not sufficient on its own to improve schools, but
resources to support additional staff, capacity-building at different levels of
the system, development of new instructional materials, and so on are enablers
of success.
Consistency of the model: In an expansion of the scale described above, it
is neither surprising nor (perhaps) bed that implementation was not consistent
across sites. What was concerning, however, was that the variation did not seem
to be the result of a planned process or in response to particular contextual
differences across sites. Across the different schools, we observed different
descriptions of the tutoria model,
different structures for carrying out tutoring, different beliefs about whether
the school should be creating its own temas,
different structures (and adherence to the structures) for demonstrating
mastery of content, and so on. Based on conversation with the Veracruz team, it
also seems that the level of support available to schools varies greatly
(perhaps related to the scaling ambitions): some ATPs support a handful of
schools and others tens of schools; some ATPs are former educators or other
professionals while others received the job through political connections; some
schools receive significant training from their regional offices while others
do not.
In our experience, reform efforts and
programs undergo a process of deciding what must be “tight” about the model and
what can be “loose.” Put another way, any school or state implementing tutoria MUST do some things while being
flexible on other things. However, what these particular components are was not
always clear. Federal leaders made clear that a core tenet of the model is that
the first tutoria experience must be
lived, but other than that laid out few non-negotiables. Hence, the
implementation of the model was inconsistent. Whether this should be the case is a separate question, but we observed it to be the reality.
IV.
Questions
Our observations about the model and our
acknowledgment of the challenges inherent in expanding this pedagogical
practice to rural schools across Mexico necessarily raised several questions
about the model going forward. We
present these questions within the framework of the four broad areas of
observation noted above.
Instructional core: The tutoria
model focuses attention on the relationship between teacher (tutor) and student
(tutored) in the process of content.
Elmore and his colleagues note that coherence among the elements of the
instructional core is key in increasing student learning. With this in mind, we wondered: How does EIMLE create coherence between
elements of the instructional core, while allowing for flexibility,
customization, and student-driven choice of temas? Coherence occurs
when teachers and students shared a common vocabulary and a common
understanding of the tutoria process
and when content is aligned with the process. The model’s vocabulary of temas, guiones, anticipacion,
and demonstraciones, when understood
commonly by teachers and students, contributes to the coherence of the
model. Moreover, there appears to
be an appropriate “grain-size” of content -- a discrete skill embedded within a
broader context with real-life application -- that is well-suited to the tutoria model.
As EIMLE seeks to scale the model, we
wondered what elements of the model must remain consistent and what elements
might be adapted for a local context.
For instance, when tutoria is
applied to the topic of carpentry, as the community of Atlanca intends to do,
does the “grain-size” of content shift or remain consistent? Could a tutor offer a tema on the building of a chair or must
he select a more discrete skill, such as the smoothing of a piece of wood? Implicit in this question is whether
the “grain-size” of the content is key to ensuring coherence of the model. The same question may be asked of
various elements of the model. For
instance, in at least two schools that we visited, use of the culminating demonstracion was infrequent. Students demonstrated their knowledge
to the tutor, but were rarely asked to present to the broader class
community. When we did witness demonstraciones, the format and depth of
each presentation varied widely.
This element of the model lacked coherence. We wondered whether expectations for a demonstracion should be consistently applied across students and
across schools or whether this element of the model was one that might be
highly differentiated based upon the individual school and the individual
student.
Our research and experience in scaling
programs in the United States suggests that there is not a simple formula for
determining when and how to be consistent and coherent and when and how to
allow for flexibility and differentiation. The critical practice is to be in the habit of consistently
evaluating when to be loose and when to be tight.
Personalization: We had the good fortune to experience tutoring
from students at both the primaria and
secundaria levels. The experience was
relatively different; the younger students we worked with were less likely to
treat the tutor’s role as the possessor of knowledge who should provide it when
the tutee struggled, rather than to help the tutee discover answers himself by
providing gentle guidance. This seems unsurprising that some of the specifics
of the methodology would be more difficult for younger children to grasp, but
it does raise the question of the extent of applicability for a single
methodology. Specifically, is the same tutoria
methodology equally appropriate for students of different ages?
A second question is whether the
methodology is equally appropriate for all types of knowledge. The intellectual
roots of the tutoria model share much
with the “deschooling” movement articulated by theorists such as Ivan Illich.
Both are premised on the idea that individuals who are personally motivated to
learn and are given the opportunity to connect will glean valuable knowledge
from interacting. However, in Illich’s explication of his idea in Deschooling Society, he gives examples
of interactions that are more unstructured, such as individuals meeting through
the use of technology (in a pre-internet era) to discuss a book of common
interest. In this example, there are not right or wrong answers; what two
people take from a piece of literature is almost certainly going to be
different. However, the same is less true in subjects such as mathematics (see
below for an example), science, or in teaching principles of language such as
grammar. In these cases, more explicit structure or guidance may be valuable to
ensure that students retain accurate knowledge. Given these differences in
types of knowledge, need the methodology change?
In both of the cases described above, the
experience of the EIMLE team may suggest that the methodology is flexible
enough to accommodate learners of different ages and of different subjects. If
that is the case, then our experience in Veracruz suggests that schools and
students implementing the methodology may need more help understanding how to
apply it.
Rigorous discourse: As noted earlier, a key feature of the tutoria model is the depth of
exploration embedded within each tema. This depth is partly achieved through
scripting of the tutoria process. Each tema should include an anticipacion
section, wherein students access prior knowledge and predict what they will
learn. At the conclusion of each relacion tutora, the student analyzes
his or her learning process by answering four key questions (What did I
learn? How did I learn it? What difficulties did I encounter? How did I resolve these
difficulties?). Scripted
procedures such as these ensure that the student engages in meta-cognitive
reflection. The intention is for
learning to be dynamic and deep, not rote and shallow.
In several instances, however, we
witnessed student activity that was more procedural than substantive. This occurred both when students acted
as tutors and when they were tutored.
In one example, a secundaria
student answered an anticipacion question
by saying that he expected the tema to
be “interesting.” The tutor, who
was also a student, accepted this response and moved on to the next step in the
process, despite the fact that the answer lacked both substance and evidence of
deep thinking. The tutor might
have asked, “What do you think will be interesting? Why do you think it will be interesting.” However, the tutor seemed happy to have
“checked off the anticipacion box”
and to move on.
We saw this type of procedural thinking
play out again and again. It made
us wonder: How does the model ensure that the focus is on the learning itself
rather than the procedures underlying the learning? We wondered if more might be done with students to develop
understanding of the purpose behind each procedure. Indeed, at times, it seemed that students had learned a
procedure without knowing why, for instance, they might ask their tutees to
predict the content of a given tema. If a tutor knew, for instance, that he
was looking for evidence of prior knowledge applied to the a given topic, he
might be less likely to accept “interesting” as an adequate response to an anticipacion.
Knowledge exchange: As noted earlier, the interaction between students
and their desire to take collective responsibility for their own learning is a
strength of the tutoria model when it
is done well. However, there are risks to students, rather than more
experienced or knowledgeable teachers, taking the lead. (Note that we do not
assume here that all teachers are more experienced or knowledgeable, but it
seems a safe assumption that on balance teachers have more instructional
experience and content knowledge than students.) Most notably is the risk of
incorrect or incomplete exchange of knowledge, something that both of us
experienced or witnessed during our school visits. It is worth noting that our
colleagues who visited other states also indicated they experienced the same
phenomenon.
Specifically, during temas that we either received or observed, students taught content
that was explicitly incorrect, not simply a matter of questionable
interpretation or pedagogy. An example was a mathematical formula that had been
taught incorrectly to the student, which one of us discovered when our answer
did not match the answer that student, acting as the tutor, had recorded.
Fortunately, in this particular instance the error could be remediated because
the student had not tutored any other students in that particular tema yet, but that seems unlikely to be
the case in other circumstances.
This raises questions about how to catch
this type of misunderstanding quickly and systematically. At least in theory,
the presentation that the student performs at the end of the tutoring session
should be the check on mastery, but in our experience those presentations were
often much more focused on process than on content mastery; alternatively, some
other form of assessment could be conducted in an effort to identify
potentially incorrect knowledge.
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