Sharing Impedes Progress

Join me on a trip to a time and world in which sharing was expected, and done almost universally.  We watch how the medical profession used sharing to improve patient care.

This world, known to inhabitants as “Flux Major”, is quite small but the technology is wonderful.  The doctors have both Snype™ and IntEx™ which are used to collaborate with colleagues (and occasionally work with patients).  Now, even though small, the planet has about 10,000 doctors; we’d like to observe all of them — even with great technology that is not practical.  So, we will use three doctors as representative specimens.  Below are partial transcripts from a recent sharing session between Dr. Newton, Dr. Turing, and Dr. Zhang; please forgive the inexact translation.

Dr. Newton:

Twenty patients recently presented symptoms associated with viral infections apparently flu-like.  All 20 agreed to be treated with my mixture of cinnamon bark and amoxicillin over a 10 day period.  At the end of the 10 days, all had improvements in their symptoms and 6 were symptom free.  In addition, there was a marked improvement in their attitude towards medical care.

Dr. Zhang response: That is interesting, and sounds helpful.  I will try a similar treatment with my patients.

Dr. Turing: Yes, it does sound good.  Were you able to quantify the improvements?  [I am also working on this computing device, so I like data. :)]

Dr. Newton:  As it turns out, yes.  We measured the basal body temperature over the 10 days.  The mean basal temperature was 99.8 degrees (F) at the start, and 99.0 degrees at the conclusion.

Dr. Zhang:

My colleagues and I are focusing on psychological factors in illness.  We recently treated 30 patients with generally shared symptomology centered on digestive issues.  Twenty-nine of the patients agreed to a course of treatment involving the use of our copyrighted “Positive Music” CD (available for purchase at zhangpositive.com), specifically 3 treatments daily for at least 30 minutes each time.  Twenty patients completed at least 5 days of treatment, and all of them reported partial or total remission of symptoms.

Dr. Turing response: Thanks for the data.  I can see this being implemented in my own practice.

Dr. Newton: Can you share some technical data on the Positive Music CD?

Dr. Zhang:  Absolutely.  The CD contains 20 tracks which vary in length from 30 seconds to 6 minutes.  The tempo of all tracks is between 90 and 120 beats per minute, with a preponderance of major keys and limited use of sharps and flats.

Dr. Turing:

My partner and I are focusing on social factors in wellness. Currently, we have 25 patients in our care with the most common condition being recovery from conversion therapy.  Treatment is completed within a residential setting where we focus on developing security and acceptance followed by increasing confidence in advocating for personal needs.  Of the 25 patients, 15 have been with us for over 3 months; they each report marked improvement in personal health along with self-efficacy.

Dr. Zhang response: This is very interesting, though I don’t see how I an apply it to my non-residential practice.

Dr. Newton: So, you are saying that patients will observe an improved modal health condition if they feel safe and accepted regardless of personal differences?

Dr. Turing: Yes, absolutely.  We see those as the primary ingredients in personal health.

Obviously, the medical practice on Flux Major is not similar to Earth, in most cultures.  In developed countries, improvements in health care are informed by research (especially ‘gold standard’ research) combined with professional standards which have been developing over decades (if not centuries).  Most of us are relieved that our health care provider does not base their treatments on what they heard from other providers.

However, “sharing” is the prevalent form of professional development among teachers.  I am especially concerned with mathematics in the first two years.  Our conferences, publications, and ‘standards’ place the highest priority on sharing of practical ideas.

So, what’s the problem?  The problem is that sharing is both non-scientific and non-intellectual.  Somebody does a session describing their ‘flipped’ classroom and shows good results … what is the scientific basis for the results?  We have no idea, in general; we just know ‘it works’.  How about co-requisite classes?  We see an anecdote about what works and what did not, but we do not gain any significant understanding of the process or problem involved.  How often have you tried a promising practice that was shared, only to find that it did not ‘work’ for you?

This is an issue of professional development.  Most of us experience professional development (PD) as a sharing process.  Not only do we not develop a framework for understanding what we are doing, we do not generally do any critical thinking about what we hear.  When people share their best practices, they don’t expect an intellectual exchange which might involve classic tools (like classification, compare/contrast) nor general theories of learning.  As a result, we treat buzz phrases as if they were theory — student centered, active learning, and so on.  Improving the practice of mathematics education at the college level moves at a snails pace, when it moves at all; we likely have as much regression as we have progression.

I’ve been thinking about these issues for a while.  Recently, I was directed towards a book — from 1991.  The book was titled “The Academic Crisis of the Community College” by McGrath and Spear (see https://books.google.com/books?id=eiyJL7z0nAgC). One of the quotes from this book is shown here:

Sharing a commitment to teaching, but without a shared notion of what effective teaching might be, with strong affective ties to one another, but without the intellectual guidance and constraint provided by disciplinary cultures, faculties take on the aspect of a “practitioners’ culture.”  They come to undervalue intellectual exchange and mutual criticism, and to overvalue “sharing” as sources of professional and organizational development.”  (pg 147-148)

As a group, we who teach college mathematics have a much larger toolbox compared to 30 years ago but with little additional understanding of the process of selecting tools to achieve our purposes.  We march forward, not knowing whether we approach a precipice or a grand vista of success.  We congratulate ourselves on sharing our work, without developing a framework to understand that work.  Feeling good about the sharing does not change the fact that we don’t understand, sufficiently, the work we are engaged in.

Sharing, in the absence of a framework for understanding, impedes progress.

2 Comments

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  By Larry, December 8, 2018 @ 12:49 pm

  This puts into words something I’ve been sensing for a long time. In my “past life” as an engineering researcher, I would attend conferences where new results were seriously discussed; when I switched careers and started attending AMATYC conferences and such, I was taken aback by the lack of real challenges or criticism. Questions about data are asked, of course, but it’s the anecdotal evidence delivered with enthusiasm that wins the day. Thus the profession grows increasingly hectic and chaotic, and standards suffer, as more new ideas presented with increasing enthusiasm are smilingly accepted as great ideas. We may be caring teachers, but honestly, we as a group do seem awfully susceptible to fads.

  A coincidence motivates my response. This blog post showed up in my inbox at about the same time as an email from the Carnegie Foundation, which opened like this: “What if students who test 2-3 levels below college math could complete a college-level course in a single year, or even a single semester? Six years of classroom data show that they can.” Now that’s enthusiasm! I mean, if they’re really promising this could be the new normal, that students placing three full semesters below college math (which is what, 7th grade?) will complete a full, semester-long college math course right away in their first term of college, then gee, I guess we should all switch to whatever they’re doing… until, of course, we all need to chase an even more enthusiastic claim that comes along.

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  By Jack Rotman, December 10, 2018 @ 8:24 am

  Thanks for the comment … you made good points, and I appreciate your perspective!

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