Ahead of the course Global Blindness: Planning and Managing Eye Care Services, lead educator Dr Daksha Patel of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, discusses the major yet solvable problem of cataract blindness in low and middle-income countries.
Cataract is a clouding of the lens in the eye, mostly linked with ageing, which impedes the passage of light and reduces the clarity of vision. Treatment involves a relatively simple procedure (in trained hands) to replace the clouded lens with an artificial intraocular lens (IOL). It is one of the most cost-effective medical interventions.
The unacceptable tragedy is that most of the blindness seen in low and middle-income countries is due to cataract. The proportion of blindness from cataract in people aged over 50 ranges from as low as 5% in developed countries to more than 50% in poor and remote areas of the world.
Is the solution more cataract surgery?
In a way, yes, but many low and middle-income countries must first overcome competing challenges in their health systems.
Limited health budgets are spent on infectious conditions and non-communicable diseases, which have higher mortality and morbidity. And there is an acute shortage of human resources for eye health. Some low-income countries have less than one ophthalmologist per million population, compared to over 100 ophthalmologists per million in many high-income countries.
In circumstances like these, specialist clinical knowledge and surgical skills in eye care will never be enough. In addition, public health approaches, to promote and provide targeted eye health care, are central to eliminating cataract blindness.
Success depends on building partnerships
Waiting for the blind patient to “find their way” to eye care services is the least effective model of eye care service.
Instead, delivery of eye care must be built on partnerships:
At the community level: to understand and address barriers to uptake of surgery
Through referral networks: by developing capacity within a health system, to support patients and ensure they know when and where to go
With surgical teams: perhaps the only stage at which an eye specialist with surgical training is required. The multifunctional team at the hospital level, will manage and coordinate availability of appropriate infrastructure and technology.
Via training partnerships: for capacity building, to meet the eye health human resource shortage and strengthen long-yerm development in training for eye care.
Partnerships between governments, non-governmental organisations, charities and religious institutions: these are instrumental in supporting and strengthening an eye health system.
As the world population continues to grow and age, we need to balance our traditional clinical and surgical approach to cataract treatment with radical new ideas at a global and local level.
The course promotes a shift in thinking – going beyond the needs of a single patient in front of a clinician, towards eye health service provision at a population level.
You will discover the models of care provided through interesting case studies from India, Madagascar, Nigeria, Tanzania and Pakistan. The key lessons learnt from these settings are applicable globally in low and middle-income health systems, as well as in hard-to-reach population groups.
I became a scientist quite unintentionally. Growing up as a black (Indian) woman in segregated South Africa, without a TV in our home, and in the pre-internet days (yes, some of us remember those days!), I knew very little about the scope of careers that were available for a young person who enjoyed science at school. Coming from a typical middle-class community, teachers, doctors, and nurses were the people I looked up to. So it’s not much of a surprise that my love of the natural sciences meant I aspired to be a high school science teacher.
But when I started university my eyes and mind were opened to the wider world of science, and I realised that I too could actively contribute to this knowledge. In my 3rd year I discovered fossils, and I immediately felt the field of palaeontology beckoning me. So began my love for understanding earth’s history and biodiversity, and my fascination for understanding the origins of our modern biodiversity.
Exciting discoveries
My research involves unravelling the biological signals recorded in the microscopic structure of bones. As an undergraduate student, I recall being completely fascinated when I first saw a thin sliver of a dinosaur bone under a microscope, and realised that its structure was directly comparable to what we see in the bones of modern animals i.e., that even though fossil bone could be millions of years old, the integrity of the bone microstructure was preserved. By studying modern animals we know that there are many aspects of the biology of an animal that are “recorded” in its bone microstructure. For example, we can deduce how an animal grew, whether it was affected by seasonality, or disease, and we can also work out the rate at which the bone formed. This information is directly deducible from the bones of extinct vertebrates (i.e. all animals with an internal bony skeleton), and therefore allows us to deduce various aspects of the biology of extinct animals.
The bone microstructure of Massospondylus, a 190 million year old dinosaur from South Africa.
Recently, I had the wonderful opportunity to work with colleagues from the USA and China on a fossil bird from China called Confuciusornis. Usually fossil birds are quite rare in the fossil record, but this creature is known by hundreds of individuals.In fact, at the locality two different types (morphs) were recognised, one with long tail feathers and the other without. When I began working on these birds, there was much debate about whether these morphs represented sexual dimorphism i.e. males and females look different from one another, or whether they were two different species. My colleagues and I were interested in understanding its growth dynamics, and we began by examining many different sized bones of Confuciusornis. While studying the microstructure of these bones, I fortuitously came across a bone that had medullary bone: this is a bone tissue that is formed in the medullary cavity of the bones of ovulating female birds, and is used to make the calcium-rich eggshell of the egg. Thus we were able to identify the sex of the bird, and then by extrapolation work out that Confuciusornis was a sexually dimorphic species with males being the ones with the long ornamental tail plumes.
Research is for sharing
My research is immensely satisfying, but sharing it even more so. Throughout my career I have gained a lot of personal satisfaction from sharing research with a wider public. I think it was because of my late entrance into the world of science that I feel quite strongly about making young people aware of careers in science, and how science works. All through my career, in addition to the required work that is essential for progressing in an academic career, and despite the lack of clear professional rewards for communicating with the public, I have always felt a deep commitment to spreading the joy of science.
So far I have done numerous public talks, written articles and have done plenty of media interviews. I’ve also published two books for a non-academic audience (Famous Dinosaurs of Africa and Fossils for Africa). When I was busy with Fossils for Africa, I thought about doing a website in which I could share other information, like interviews with scientists in the field, in a more engaging way, but in the end that idea fell by the wayside. Soon after my book was published, my interest was rekindled by the new wave of online learning.
That’s why I’m so excited to finally help learners the world over discover paleontology with the Extinction course, especially since the consequences of the 6th extinction will have far reaching effects worldwide.
There are many books about extinctions, but majority of these deal either with the past ones, or with the current 6th extinction. On the course we will intimately dissect all the previous 5 mass extinctions events, and we will see how each event shuffled the existing biota, and how they have ultimately shaped the current biodiversity of our planet. I should mention too that the course is not just me delivering lectures. I have sought to make it as engaging and exciting as possible – you will meet some extraordinary scientists involved in “extinction” research.
In this post find out more about our partnership with the British Council, the Study UK campaign, and whether you might be eligible for a free certificate.
Update: the Study UK Campaign on FutureLearn has finished. We’re happy to say we’ve given away 10,000 certificates to those who need them. We’ll post about any future campaigns on the blog, so keep an eye out.
A few weeks ago we announced that we were partnering with the British Council as part of the Study UK campaign.
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. They work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society.
This year the British Council launched the Study UK campaign, which aims to share the benefits of UK education with learners all over the world. We’re playing our part by offering free Certificates of Achievement, so eligible learners can celebrate their learning and get a taste of learning in the UK.
Who can get a Certificate?
When we launched the campaign with the British Council you needed to live in one of 37 countries to get a free certificate, but due to overwhelming demand the campaign is extending to include over 140 countries!
Here’s the full list:
Afghanistan
Madagascar
Albania
Malawi
Algeria
Malaysia
Angola
Maldives
Antigua and Barbuda
Mali
Argentina
Marshall Islands
Armenia
Mauritania
Azerbaijan
Mauritius
Bangladesh
Mexico
Belarus
Micronesia
Belize
Moldova
Benin
Mongolia
Bhutan
Montenegro
Bolivia
Montserrat
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Morocco
Botswana
Mozambique
Brazil
Namibia
Burkina Faso
Nauru
Myanmar
Nepal
Burundi
Nicaragua
Cambodia
Niger
Cameroon
Nigeria
Cape Verde
Niue
Central African Republic
Pakistan
Chad
Palestine
Chile
Palau
China
Panama
Colombia
Papua New Guinea
Comoros
Paraguay
Congo (Dem. Rep.)
Peru
Cook Islands
Philippines
Costa Rica
Rwanda
Côte D’Ivoire
Saint Lucia
Djibouti
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Dominica
Samoa
Dominican Republic
São Tomé and Príncipe
East Timor
Senegal
Ecuador
Serbia
Egypt
Seychelles
El Salvador
Sierra Leone
Equatorial Guinea
Solomon Islands
Eritrea
Somalia
Ethiopia
South Africa
Fiji
South Sudan
Gabon
Sri Lanka
Gambia
Saint Helena
Georgia
Sudan
Ghana
Suriname
Grenada
Swaziland
Guatemala
Tajikistan
Guinea
Tanzania
Guinea-Bissau
Thailand
Guyana
Togo
Haiti
Tokelau
Honduras
Tonga
India
Tunisia
Indonesia
Turkey
Iraq
Turkmenistan
Jamaica
Tuvalu
Jordan
Uganda
Kazakhstan
Ukraine
Kenya
Uruguay
Kiribati
Uzbekistan
Kosovo
Vanuatu
Kyrgyzstan
Venezuela
Laos
Vietnam
Lebanon
Wallis and Futuna
Lesotho
Yemen
Liberia
Zambia
Libya
Zimbabwe
Macedonia
How does it work?
You need to live in one of the countries above.
Join a course from a United Kingdom Higher Education Institution that starts between 2 January and 28 March 2017.
Complete 90% of the steps on the course and score at least 70% on all the tests.
Get your free certificate.
You can get up to five certificates – so get learning!
The Study UK Campaign on FutureLearn has finished but you can still keep learning for free. Browse courses.
Codecademy’s very own Nick Duckwiler (left) and Ryan Tuck from Warby Parker (right) in our office. (📷: Mitch Boyer)
Last month, Codecademy and Warby Parker came together to work on a special Learn SQL from Scratch Capstone Project. It was during this time when I met Ryan Tuck, a Data Engineer at Warby, who played a major part in this partnership. So when he decided to drop by our office for the final QA round, I had to break out my notebook and ask some questions. Enjoy.
Hey Ryan, let’s start off with a question I’ve had for a while — what is a Data Engineer? (Is it similar to a Data Analyst or a Software Engineer?)
At Warby Parker, data engineers are responsible for creating and maintaining the plumbing required to support the data and reporting needs of the business. We use software engineering practices to automate the work of data cleaning, normalizing, and model building so that data is always ready to be consumed by data analysts in every department.
What languages/frameworks do you use at Warby?
On data engineering, we use Python as our general purpose programming language, as do most of the other teams in our Technology department. When it comes to databases, we use PostgreSQL for the majority of our SQL needs, and are beginning to use Amazon Athena and Google BigQuery for some of our larger datasets. We use Looker as our exclusive business intelligence entry point to all of this data.
What are some of the projects you worked on?
I’ve had the privilege of working with a lot of of smart people in every department at our company to help them solve their varied data needs, from reconciling financial data with the Accounting team to automating and modeling standardized performance metrics for our team of over 200 customer experience advisors.
As part of a team of five supporting the data needs of a rapidly growing company, I’ve tried where possible to focus on helping our analysts solve their own problems. This includes helping people learn Python and commit to our codebase, guiding the creation of data models in SQL, and encouraging people to submit pull requests to add features in Looker, our BI tool.
Seeing dozens of otherwise “non-technical” colleagues opening up PRs on a daily basis, and consequently being part of the democratization of tech that we value at Warby Parker, is probably the most rewarding “project” I’ve been a part of.
One project finished recently during our first annual “Hackweek” is called Pipes, which allows anyone at the company to easily move large amounts of data from wherever to wherever (Looker, Google Sheets, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, etc) on a regular cadence, or manually through a simple one-line chatbot interface. The adoption has been overwhelmingly positive and we’re looking to grow this sort of tooling out even more.
“We use software engineering practices to automate the work of data cleaning, normalizing, and model building so that data is always ready to be consumed by data analysts in every department.”
What got you into the data field?
I’ve always been drawn to analytical fields like math, and became pretty proficient in Excel during some internships in college. Once I had learned to program and learned more about data science and its applications in artificial intelligence, I knew that anything I could do to immerse myself in the world of data would be a step in the right direction.
Three and a half years ago, I landed a job as a junior software engineer at Warby Parker not fully knowing what I was in for, but am so glad I got the opportunity to help build tools to support an interesting and ever-changing data-driven culture here.
Where did you learn SQL and Python?
I had a background in C++, and was exposed to Python through an Intro to Data Science course. When Warby Parker hired me onto the Data team in 2015, I had never written a SQL query in my life, but picked it up quickly and within a few months started up internal SQL training classes, which I still teach on a monthly basis.
What does your tattoo say?
The ultimate cheatsheet.
This is Bayes’ Theorem, which is an equation that describes how to update probabilities given new evidence. Two summers ago I worked on building a tool to help predict weekly fantasy football performance. Some colleagues suggested a Bayesian approach would be appropriate, since there aren’t really enough data points in an NFL season to be able to use statistical approaches that require larger datasets, and I’d want to regularly update my predictions after each player’s latest performance.
I did a deep dive into understanding the (simple) math underlying Bayes’ Theorem and came out of that experience with a whole new worldview, understanding my entire knowledge of the world as a big and intricate probabilistic model that I was continuously updating with every experience I ever have. It was pretty transformative, and I figured that was worth a tattoo.
What is a concept in SQL/Python that’s essential to your work?
Donald Knuth said, “Premature optimization is the root of all evil.” I’ve generally found this to be true, and try to live by it in my work. For example, I’ll generally prefer to keep a data model simple by rebuilding it for all time on a daily basis using a single SQL query instead of making a more complicated model that requires iteratively adding to a table, keeping track of state, updated timestamps, when something last ran, etc.
A wise man once said, “Duplicating data makes things go fast,” but databases are already impressively fast to begin with, without implementing anything to improve performance. Ultimately, I almost always approach a problem thinking about optimizing for my time over machine time, for readability over performance, and for introducing as little cognitive overhead as is required by the problem at hand. Only once performance issues or readability issues present themselves will some code be worth a rewrite.
Last question! Since you wrote Warby Parker’s internal SQL training courses, I know there gotta be some inner Curriculum Developer in you. Can you teach a SQL concept in 2 minutes?
Sure! Have you ever written a query that yields some result set and you think, “I’d love to query the stuff I just produced like it was a table?” Enter the WITH clause.
Suppose I have a mega query that gives the transaction summaries:
select
transactions.date as transaction_date,
sum(items.price) as total_cost,
count(*) as number_of_items
from
transactions
inner join
customers
on
customers.id = transactions.customer_id
inner join
transaction_items
on
transactions.id = transaction_items.transaction_id
inner join
items
on
items.id = transaction_items.item_id
Using WITH, I can create a temporary table within my query that I can SELECT from and treat it just like a regular old table.
I will put everything from the previous query in a parentheses and use WITH to give it the name transaction_summaries.
Then I’ll apply the date and customer filtering down below for a more readable query, to separate out all the JOIN logic from the actual WHERE filters that I want to apply on that data.
with transaction_summaries as (
select
transactions.date as transaction_date,
sum(items.price) as total_cost,
count(*) as number_of_items
from
transactions
inner join
customers
on
customers.id = transactions.customer_id
inner join
transaction_items
on
transactions.id = transaction_items.transaction_id
inner join
items
on
items.id = transaction_items.item_id
)
select
*
from
transaction_summaries
where
first_name = 'beyonce'
and
transaction_date > '2018–01–01'
order by
total_cost desc
limit
5
If you’re familiar with subqueries, this does a similar thing but makes the SQL far more readable, even if your query isn’t quite as performant as it would have been. This is essentially an implementation of the mantra “Don’t Repeat Yourself” that’s common in the world of programming.
Incredible. And love the SQL styling! 😍
Huge shout out to Ryan and the whole Warby Parker team for making this partnership happen. Special hat tips for behind-the-scenes support from:
A Day in the Life of a Software Engineer (via Life of Luba)
With Airbnb came a revolution of sorts in the world of vacation travel and culture. We sat down with Luba Yudasina, a YouTuber, an opera singer, and a Software Engineer on the Airbnb’s Homes Platform team, to discuss software engineering and her programming journey—from Codecademy to Airbnb!
Hey Luba, let’s start with the basics! What does a Software Engineer on the Platform team do at Airbnb?
Homes Platform’s mission is to create the building blocks to power all Homes categories. Any project undertaken by our team should be reusable and extensible in some way. This means that as a backend engineer, I have a lot of opportunities to work on impactful technical projects that create systems and services to support Homes, as well as collaborate across teams to come up with the best architectural decisions and designs.
Recently, our team wrote a blog post on classifying Room Types into categories using Machine Learning and computer vision. The room-type classification problem largely resembles the ImageNet classification problem, except our team’s model outcomes are customized room-types.
After a few experiments with various models, the team chose ResNet50 due to its good balance between model performance and computation time. To make it compatible with our use case, we added two extra fully connected layers and a Softmax activation in the end.
Let’s rewind a little bit. Coming from a chemical engineering background in college, how did you make the switch into programming?
I went to the University of Waterloo in Canada—a university with the biggest co-op program in the world. Co-op means that to obtain a bachelor’s degree you must complete a certain number of internships. If you are in Engineering at Waterloo, you must complete 5 internships to graduate.
In my first and second years, I interned at chemical engineering companies and afterwards I couldn’t see myself working in the field full-time. That’s why I’m particularly grateful that I studied at Waterloo: if not for co-op, I probably would not have realized I didn’t want to work in chemical engineering until getting a full-time job after graduation.
I happened to have a lot of friends in Computer Science and Software Engineering right when I realized Chem Eng wasn’t for me. They really encouraged me to try coding, and when I decided to follow their lead I never looked back! My first online programming course was Web Development on Codecademy 🙂
“It’s a really cool time to be a software engineer and even cooler to be a female software engineer, because this is the time when women start to embrace their own unique identities and be ok with not being ‘one of the dudes.'” -Luba Yudasina
When I decided I wanted to learn computer science on my own, my goal was to get an internship in the field because working as a software engineer at a tech company would be the best test to really know if it was for me.
I happened to be in Munich, Germany on academic exchange for a whole year when I was learning how to code, so I hustled as much as I could while being there to get experience to learn quicker and have something to put down on my tech resume.
Almost immediately after arriving in Germany, I got a part time job as a developer at a game publishing company. I had a good friend in Computer Science at my German university: her and I ended up working on an Android app as a side project, etc. When I was ready, I started preparing for technical interviews. I then leveraged my network to refer me to companies and do mock technical interviews with me.
Yelp was really random though—a Yelp recruiter looked at my LinkedIn profile and didn’t even message me, but I messaged them anyway asking about internship opportunities, and that’s how I got my interview there!
Airbnb HQ in San Franciso
What is an essential app/item in your day-to-day?
Code searching! A lot of software engineering is problem solving and a lot of it is understanding other people’s code and the reasoning behind writing it a certain way. Searching through the codebases is almost essential to my day to day. Whenever I build something new or build on top of already existing tech, I need to understand how it works and is written, and code search is vital to this.
At Airbnb we use Google’s Codesearch for these purposes, but developers (myself included) also frequently use their IDEs to search for relevant code. I mostly use RubyMine or IntelliJ (depending on the codebase I’m working with).
In your videos, you’ve mentioned the intersection of gender and technology. Can you speak a bit more about that?
It’s a really cool time to be a software engineer and even cooler to be a female software engineer, because this is the time when women start to embrace their own unique identities and be ok with not being “one of the dudes.”
I think it’s particularly important to redefine the stereotypes, and I hope that with my own example I can show young girls and women interested in the field that you don’t have to give up your feminine side to be a software engineer and still be into fashion, or makeup, or art (I personally sing opera) and have other interests outside of coding and be successful in the field.
Before we wrap up, do you have anything else you would like to say to our learners?
Don’t be discouraged, learn and absorb as much as you can! If you don’t understand a concept or can’t build a project right away, know that with practice, perseverance and concentration you will get there!
Take advantage of such amazing tools as Codecademy that are there for you to take and learn. Learning anything new can be frustrating, but knowing that you can do it, staying curious, asking questions and not losing your motivation is the key to success.
Huge shoutout to Luba for this insightful interview. It’s always incredibly moving to see a Codecademy learner go on to do bigger things. Go subscribe to her YouTube channel, Life of Luba.
And thank you to the whole Homes Platform/Engineering team at Airbnb for the support. Check out their wonderful open source projects on airbnb.io.
— Or, go on a hunt through Times Machine, as we did in this post, putting in the search term “Valentine’s Day” to see how the holiday was celebrated, and reported on, in Times history.
— Just what are we celebrating when we celebrate Valentine’s Day? Where did this holiday come from and why do we care about it so much? Read this article about major Valentine’s Day theories, from ancient Rome to the present. Then, do your own research to see what other histories you can find. Which do you find the most compelling and why?
— Where in the world is Valentine’s Day, or a tradition like it, celebrated? How does it differ from celebrations in the U.S.? For instance, read “‘You Can’t Ban Love’: Pakistanis Defy a Valentine’s Day Prohibition” to learn about how the Islamabad High Court banned Valentine’s celebrations across Pakistan, deeming them “against the teachings of Islam” and a sign of growing Western influence — and how some are taking a risk by celebrating anyway. Or, read about the day sometimes called Russian St. Valentine’s Day and what it honors.
— The speed and the scope of the gay rights movement has been “astonishing” compared to that of movements for African-Americans’ or women’s rights, The Times wrote in a 2013 piece, “A Sea Change in Less Than 50 Years as Gay Rights Gained Momentum.” Two years later a Supreme Court ruling made same-sex marriage a right nationwide in the United States. What do you know about the history of this movement in the United States? Elsewhere in the world? Use Times search to learn more, and to see where L.G.B.T.Q. issues stand today.
More than 20 years ago, the psychologist Arthur Aron succeeded in making two strangers fall in love in his laboratory. Last summer, I applied his technique in my own life, which is how I found myself standing on a bridge at midnight, staring into a man’s eyes for exactly four minutes.
Read the essay and discuss whether or not you believe this could actually work — or put it to the test by experimenting with a partner and the 36 Questions That Lead to Love. After, consider the questions we ask in our related Student Opinion question: What makes two people fall in love? Is it fate or chemistry? Or could it simply be having the chance to get to know someone intimately in a short period of time?
— Or, read another of the most popular Modern Love columns of all time, “What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage,” and learn about the behavioral techniques the writer learned from a dolphin trainer to “nudge” her husband “a little closer to perfect.” You might then try out similar techniques, whether in the context of a relationship, a bad habit of your own, or as a way to “nudge” your school or community on a particular issue or behavior.
How do you feel about Valentine’s Day? Do you look forward to the opportunity to express your love — or do you despise the forced sentimentality of the holiday? Why?
How, if at all, do you plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year?
In “Against Romance: An Un-Valentine,” Judith Hertog writes about why she prefers to ignore Valentine’s Day instead of indulge in the fairy-tale romance:
One Valentine’s Day many years ago, my spouse, Gil, brought home a bouquet of roses. I am Dutch and he is Israeli, so neither of us had grown up celebrating Valentine’s Day. But it was our first year as graduate students in the United States, and one of his classmates, shocked that he was planning to spend the evening at the library, convinced him that he’d risk losing my love if he didn’t bring me a romantic gift.
He came home with a bouquet of overpriced supermarket roses that would be on sale the next day. I wasn’t as much bothered by the price — even though I’m Dutch — as I was offended by his unoriginality. I threatened him with divorce if he ever again brought me overpriced roses or chocolates in mid-February. Relieved to be able to go back to his books, he agreed and has never again tried to be romantic.
A lethal combination of Hollywood sentimentality, Victorian romanticism and bridal-magazine kitsch has placed an impossible burden on love. We’re supposed to subject our relationships to some recipe for unfading ardor and permanent swoon and are made to believe we are failing if we just live in reality.
I object to the tyranny of perfect romance. I’d rather have a flawed relationship of my own than the kind of fairy tale love in which the lovers are replaceable elements in an arrangement of candlelight dinners, red roses and walks on the beach. I prefer my love imperfect.
Students, read the entire article, then tell us:
— What are some of your most memorable Valentine’s Day moments — good or bad?
— How much of a romantic are you? Do you fantasize about falling in love, being swept off your feet and finding your soul mate? Do you love giving and receiving grand romantic gestures, like lavish gifts and love letters? Or, do you not give much thought to love and romance in your daily life?
— What is the most romantic thing that you have ever seen or read about, that has happened to you or that you have done for someone else? In your opinion, what made it so special?
— Ms. Hertog writes: “A lethal combination of Hollywood sentimentality, Victorian romanticism and bridal-magazine kitsch has placed an impossible burden on love.” Do you agree? Do you ever feel pressured to have perfect, stress-free, always-happy relationships with your romantic partners, friends or family?
— Do you ever feel that an overly romantic view of love is problematic? Why or why not?
Related Valentine’s Day lesson plans and student activities from The Learning Network:
Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
In this post Dylan Wiliam, lead educator on Assessment for Learning in STEM Teaching, discusses how the right questions at the right time make a big difference in the classroom.
When I was teaching full-time, the decision I made most often every day was this: “Do I need to go over this one more time, or can I move on to the next thing?” I made that decision dozens of times every day, and like most teachers all over the world, I made that decision by asking a question. I would make up a question right there and then, which I would then ask the class. Typically four or five students would raise their hands, and I would select one of those students for a response. If the answer was correct, I would say, “Good” and move on. In other words, I was using the response of a single student—a single, confident, generally high-achieving student at that—to make a decision about the learning needs of thirty or thirty-five students.
The response of a single student is not enough
I am fairly sure that if someone had asked me then whether the response of that single student was a good guide to the level of understanding of the whole class, I would have said it was not. I don’t think that I was that naïve even when I started teaching. But nobody did ask me that question, and so for years, I persisted with this rather strange idea that if one or two students had understood the idea, that the others did too, or, at the very least, that they were ready to move on having heard one of their classmates supply the correct response.
Part of this, no doubt, was wishful thinking. I had a syllabus to cover, and students who didn’t understand what they were meant to understand were going to hold up the class’s progress—a real problem in science in particular where most countries have stuffed way too much content in their curricula. Part of the problem, too, was that I knew that hearing from every single student in the class would take too long. Teachers often say, “I’ll just get every student to explain their answer” but no teacher in the history of the world has ever asked every single member of a class to explain an answer, because by the time you have heard from ten students, everyone, including the teacher, is losing the will to live.
Well designed questions can make a big difference
Of course my real failure was a failure of imagination; a failure to imagine being able to come up with questions that are so well designed that if students answer correctly, then that is a pretty good indicator that they have reached the desired understanding. Of course no question can possibly be so well designed that a correct response always indicates a good understanding of the material at hand, and an incorrect response always indicates a deficient or inadequate understanding. But by paying careful attention to the questions we ask our students—and in particular by planning them in advance—we can minimise the likelihood that students will get the right answer for the wrong reason, or that they will get a wrong answer for the right reason.
Now some people advocate using these questions with electronic voting systems, or ‘classroom clickers’ as they are sometimes called. Those who sell this equipment point out that with such systems, one can record every single student’s response. This seems like a bad idea to me for two reasons. First, if you want to create a classroom where students feel OK about making mistakes, the last thing you should do is record every single one of them in an Excel spreadsheet until the end of time. Second, recording every single student’s response gives the teacher more information than is usable, and is, in any case, unnecessary. What a teacher needs is evidence to support the decision she or he needs to take right now. Not so much “data-driven decision making”, but more like “decision-driven data collection”; collecting the minimum amount of information that you need to make the decision you need to make in a smarter way.
Of course, designing such questions is hard. It’s practically impossible for teachers to think up good questions “on the fly” and still pretty difficult when you have time to plan these questions as part of lesson planning. The good news, however, is that your questions will be much better if you plan them with others. And that is why designing high-quality questions, and getting feedback on the questions from others, is a key part of the Assessment for Learning course.
What we can do in a short online course will be rather modest, but we hope that by participating in this course, you will be able to get some ideas about how you can work with your colleagues to develop your practice of formative assessment in general, and in particular to get better at writing questions that give you useful and actionable information on your students’ learning. The work will never be finished—no matter how good you are as a teacher, you can always get better—but as I and my colleagues have worked on the course, we have become convinced that this is an excellent place to start.
In this post find great courses to help you achieve your teaching goals this year.
Whether you’re looking to develop your teaching skills or help your students learn exciting new topics in 2017, we’ve got courses to help. Best of all every course is broken down into manageable chunks so you can fit your learning around your timetable.
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