Subject: School Model Under Construction

Posted by Bill Braun on 1/21/2014
In Reply To:School Model Under Construction Posted by Tim Joy on 1/20/2014

Message:

Tim,

A few things that caught my attention, and they can be considered along side of Martin's comments.

1. I don't see anything that factors in the mindset or disposition of the student (which could reflect exogenous factors such as home life and socioeconomic influences). Everything else could be aligned and those factors could stilt the classroom activity and efficacy.

2. I question Curriculum as a stock (at least as I interpret its use in the model) draining into Curriculum Delivered. Even if you changed the name of the stock to Curriculum Efficacy or Curriculum Relevancy it seems problematic (to me) to use the draining flow to represent the dynamic that increases Student Learning. The way it is modeled I assume that Delivering is a constant (no feedback loop from Curriculum). In theory, Curriculum to drop to zero or go negative.

Were you to add a feedback link from Curriculum (Efficacy/Relevancy) to Adjusting, and assuming that the stock represents some normalized range, the influence of Professional Development Sessions could raise or lower the stock. That would set up the equation for Increasing as (Curriculum[Efficacy/Relevancy]) x Instructional Efficacy). But that also assumes that Student Learning is a normalized range.

3. Pedagogical Skill as I understand it can both grow and decay (at least in terms of its relevancy). Consider some rate of decay as part of that stock.

4. I interpret Student Learning (the stock) to mean a bucket into which Curriculum stuff in poured with no chance of loss or decay. While I would be comfortable with the theory that all that is learned is retained (in the brain, somewhere, and which may be recalled under the right conditions), is that assumption good enough for your larger theory represented by the model as a whole?

And adding on to #2, if Student Learning is a normalized range, it should likely have a feedback loop to Increasing to create some goal seeking structure.

Finally, how does the model behave when a simulation is run? That would be interesting for all to see. Can you put this model on Insight Maker or Forio or the like so we can have a deeper look at it?

Bill Braun

Follow Ups:

Stocks in the School Model - Tim Joy 1/23/2014