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Education Research to Guide Product Development

More Than Just A Good Idea:
Education Research to Guide Product Development

Ed Table Talk will be broadcased Tuesday, November 18th, 2014

Ideas abound for new teaching methodologies, and curriculum, and each claims to
be innovative and effective. Governments throughout the world fund a wealth of
research into educational strategies and instructional design every year, yet we find
that these communities often don’t communicate well with each other. It is not
unusual for popular educational solutions to lack research into their effectiveness
and how best they can be applied. Equally unusual, many educational research
programs, in which curriculum is developed, never see the commercial light of day,
or broad distribution.

We will examine what educational research brings to improving products today and
in the future and how publishers can take advantage of research findings to improve
their offerings.

Host Michael Jay and our leading education thinkers will contemplate the following:

How closely tied is today’s research programs to educational practice?
Where are there challenges for the research community in working with commercial vendors?
How are requirements at funding agencies changing to bring these communities closer together?
How are our universities and research institutions working to accommodate the commercialization of products from their research?
How can publishers reach out to the research community to improve their offerings and gain greater credibility with the educational community?

Guests at the table:

1. Jeremy Roschelle– Director, Center for Technology in Learning, SRI International

2. Chad Dorsey– President and CEO, Concord Consortium

3. Tammy Sumner – Executive Director, Digital Learning Sciences

Big Publishers

June 2014 — Big Publishers:

Can the Spanish Armada transform into the British Fleet?

Can big publishers change enough to address how today’s students learn, educators teach, and shifting business models associated with both? In the US textbook market we have three very large players. Big publishers have process, coordination, and business accountability issues which are far less of a hindrance to smaller organizations. The result is that larger organizations can’t change quickly. While all publishers are concerned with making quarterly numbers and hitting academic deadlines, a large corporate infrastructure, while necessary for a large organization, limits the ability of that organization to adapt to market demands. How does the move from print to digital look different for large publishers versus smaller organizations? Schools continue to adopt instructional resources and either ask that the electronic version be included with the print, ask for a class set of print and a digital version for all students, or only want the digital version… sometimes only a few chapters! We will discuss how publishers, small and large, can make it through this morass and emerge successfully in a digital first world. We’ll touch on tools and technical standards that can ease this transition. Take a seat at the table as guests take a bite out of questions like:

What role are big publishers playing in the future?
What opportunities does this leave for smaller organizations?
Is it sustainable to provide both print and digital assets?
Is it the job of the publisher to lead innovation or to reflect innovation and change?

Indulge your appetite with host, Michael Jay, and our guests at The Table! Guests at The Table:

Jaume Barceló, Director, Vicens Vive
Dick Casabonne, CEO, Casabonne Associates Inc.
Dan Caton, President, Wittel/Morris Strategic Consulting

Listen: Big Publishers Watch:

Science Education: The Next Generation

April 2014 — Science Education: The Next Generation

What does it take to implement a science standard at a national level? National scale standards in the US level have been controversial and the science standards are no different. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have taken an inventive approach to describe and represent the inherently complex process of how we engage learners in making sense of the world around them.

Science benefits from having a degree of universality like mathematics making the content somewhat less controversial than language arts or the social sciences. However, helping educators understand what it looks like to integrate those standards into their teaching, engage their students in learning and develop understanding is no small task. The NGSS delves into the process and content of science, while incorporating other standards. How is this reflected in pre-service and in-service programs that will support educators and school administrator’s practices to embrace the intent of these standards?

What are the expectations of publishers implementing the standard? How can educators use the standard to support their teaching methods, and how should parents expect that science teaching would look different? Join Michael Jay and guests as they discuss Science Education and how it will change science education for decades to come.

Guests at The Table:

Peter McLaren, Science and Technology Specialist, R.I. Department of Education
Pat Shane, Ph.D., Executive Director, North Carolina Science Leadership Association (NCSLA)
Ted Willard, Program Director, National Science Teaching Association (NSTA)

Resources

Handouts of NSTA products, services, and additional resources.
Link: http://ngss.nsta.org/nsta-products-and-services/#handouts

Listen:

Watch:

Digital…More or Less?

September 2014 — Digital…More or Less?

During Ed Table Talk’s inaugural show, host Michael Jay and guests had a lively discussion where they chewed on the topic Digital…More or Less? In addition to segments about the general education market, they discussed whether it’s really less expensive to produce and distribute digital resources than print resources? And, what should schools pay?