Too Simple to Fail presents a startling dissection of what is wrong with our educational system and a set of simple, common-sense steps for improving it. This simplicity, Bausell argues, characterizes both the schooling process and the science of education, as witnessed by legions of researchers who have discovered precious little that their grandmothers didn't already know. Yet surprisingly, based upon the author's own studies and a review of the past 30+ years of educational research, these discoveries boil down to a simple but powerful theory: The only way schools can increase learning is to increase the amount of relevant instructional time for all students. Here, Bausell demonstrates that classroom instruction is hopelessly obsolete, as are our current testing practices, both contributing to the widening opportunity gap between socioeconomic and racial groups. But with an understanding of what is wrong with education today comes the revelation that the answer to these deficiencies has been available to us all along in the form of the tutorial model, the most effective instructional paradigm ever developed. Only in recent years has it become feasible to simulate this extremely effective instructional medium as a universal option that, in effect, would allow schools to provide relevant instruction as a rule and not an exception. If implemented, a new world of opportunity and potential will finally be available to children, whose learning is so crucial for our future. The new model presented in this book has implications for identifying not only what is wrong with the way we educate our young, but also why it is wrong, and how the educational process can be made more efficient, effective, and fair.
Show moreToo Simple to Fail presents a startling dissection of what is wrong with our educational system and a set of simple, common-sense steps for improving it. This simplicity, Bausell argues, characterizes both the schooling process and the science of education, as witnessed by legions of researchers who have discovered precious little that their grandmothers didn't already know. Yet surprisingly, based upon the author's own studies and a review of the past 30+ years of educational research, these discoveries boil down to a simple but powerful theory: The only way schools can increase learning is to increase the amount of relevant instructional time for all students. Here, Bausell demonstrates that classroom instruction is hopelessly obsolete, as are our current testing practices, both contributing to the widening opportunity gap between socioeconomic and racial groups. But with an understanding of what is wrong with education today comes the revelation that the answer to these deficiencies has been available to us all along in the form of the tutorial model, the most effective instructional paradigm ever developed. Only in recent years has it become feasible to simulate this extremely effective instructional medium as a universal option that, in effect, would allow schools to provide relevant instruction as a rule and not an exception. If implemented, a new world of opportunity and potential will finally be available to children, whose learning is so crucial for our future. The new model presented in this book has implications for identifying not only what is wrong with the way we educate our young, but also why it is wrong, and how the educational process can be made more efficient, effective, and fair.
Show moreR. Barker Bausell, Ph.D., a professor at University of Maryland, Baltimore, was born into a family of teachers and originally trained as an educational researcher, becoming one of the first investigators to contrast tutoring to classroom instruction under carefully controlled, randomized conditions. He also experimentally manipulated teacher experience, teacher training, teacher knowledge, parental teaching, and numerous other schooling variables before authoring, with his mother and wife, the three volume Bausell Learning Guides: Teach your Child to Read, to Write, and Math based upon their recognition of the preeminent importance of the home learning environments to children's educational futures. He has served as the editor in chief of the peer-reviewed journal Evaluation & the Health Professions for over three decades and is the author of several other books, including Snake Oil Science and Power Analysis for Experimental Research.
"Mr. Bausell has emerged with a book about his true intellectual
passion - how we teach, how kids learn, and what would give us
better results...His vision of the learning lab - with students
touching computer screens as they follow computerized lessons, each
of them learning at his or her own pace, and with tutors providing
individualized instruction as necessary - suggests a more efficient
model for learning, particularly for children already behind the
curve, and real urgency about the future." --Dan Rodricks, The
Baltimore Sun "Dr. Bausell provides a comprehensive analysis of the
lessons to be drawn from classic schooling research. It would be
difficult to dispute Dr. Bausell's central premise - that
one-on-one instruction is the best guarantor of improved academic
performance. But Dr. Bausell's exhaustive research summary leaves
one with no other plausible conclusion." --IEducationNext "I
applaud the author of Too Simple To Fail: A Case for Educational
Change for establishing simple strategies to improve K-12
education. Too Simple To Fail
would serve as a good resource for parents, teachers, principals,
school board members, and educational psychologists." --
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