Technology leaders in schools understand the benefits of technology in teaching and learning. A student knowing their way around a computer and knowing how to create things with it is as integral a part of college and career readiness as any other type of literacy. Every student today needs a computer simply to do their job of being a student. Students get the most from their learning experience and become the most prepared for their future when they can use computers to create new media and as resources in taking on authentic projects through which they drive their own learning experience. But, in some ways, PARCC is working against its own mission, college and career readiness, due to the inauthenticity of the testing environment and the sheer amount of time that computers won’t be used for more authentic tasks.

Schools are now preparing their systems so that millions of students from the twelve remaining PARCC participating states can take these online exams. Each student will take just a few tests in English Language Arts and Mathematics and each test will take about an hour to complete. But, schools will likely need every hardware resource they have on hand to carry out the online testing. Preparing hardware entails putting almost every computer available in a school in a locked-down kiosk state so that students cannot access the normal parts of the computer during the exam. PARCC security specifications block access to the web and prevent certain functionality such as taking screenshots so that the tests can be kept more secure and more valid. This is despite the fact that every good educator knows that any test that can be beat by Googling an answer just isn’t a genuine test.

While schools have known the hardware needs and expectations for a while now, few have actually added any hardware to accomplish the task of the PARCC testing. From a practical standpoint, this means that ALL of a school’s technology hardware resources may be dedicated solely to this testing for significant amounts of time. Most schools will dedicate their computer labs and carts to testing for weeks or months. Many schools will need to reserve every single lab, laptop, notebook, and tablet in the entire school for up to twenty-five to thirty percent of the school year just so that they can administer the assessments. Staff will need time before each administration to configure and test their technologies for use with the PARCC infrastructure and after each test to return things to their normal state. This all amounts to time that computers won’t be used as they’re best used in schools, as tools that can be used for far more creative tasks.

PARCC has also done a dubious job in how they’ve presented their “sophisticated” online testing environment. They’ve renamed normal computer functions that nearly every student understands by the time they reach kindergarten to ones that sound far more intimidating. Each student will need to know how to use test taking features like the Answer Eliminator (point and click on a button to eliminate an answer), Equation Editor (allows for math notation like superscript), Text Extraction (highlighting), and Solution Set Graphing (clicking points on a graph). To that end, many schools have added more lessons in how to use these and other fancy sounding features in place of other computer instruction.

Some schools have even reintroduced programs that stress using what will soon be legacy tools like a computer mouse and hard wired keyboards. Some districts are buying mice for devices that don’t normally use a mouse as an input device for fear of placing some students at a disadvantage, essentially wasting money on old technology. Instead of using computers as the creative and transformative tools they can be, schools are returning to the skill and drill ways of teaching simple input methods. Again, students will be getting the short end of the stick as they spend more time learning how to use the fancy-sounding PARCC features and outmoded skills, and less time learning things like coding and digital citizenship.

So, while each student may only take a few hours to complete the exams, the repurposing of entire fleets of computers and spending time learning superfluous proficiencies will result in a reversal of what has taken years to realize, that computers are powerful tools necessary in the creation of authentic student projects. PARCC was supposed to be a different kind of test, one that skill and drill won’t help. But, at the end of these tests, students will have honed obsolete skills and students will not have created anything…except answers to a test.

Johnny’s new math teacher, Ms. Mathematica, has a reputation.  She is a twenty year veteran in the classroom and she is known for having a tough and very disciplined approach to teaching mathematics. She has even had three students go on to earn doctoral degrees in mathematics and another two of her students actually have gone on to become math teachers themselves.  Ms. Mathematica is one that doesn’t believe in partial credit. Either the entire problem is done correctly or it is wrong.

After a strong first few weeks in class, Johnny soon reverts to old “habits.” Ms. Mathematica’s class is highly structured.  Even when students are working together in groups, they are all expected to be doing the same thing at the same time.  Johnny can often be seen gazing out the classroom window during class.  He hasn’t caused any disruptions during class, but despite Ms. Mathematica’s reminders to stay focused on the work, he has simply lost concentration.

Instead of doing his homework after school, Johnny goes to his room and plays video games.  Interestingly, he is good at one particular game called World of the Sorcerer’s Magic. Typically, he plays for about an hour and a half after school, then breaks to come to dinner. He eats hurriedly, but not fast enough for his parents to tell him to slow down. Throughout dinner he is always just so anxious to get back to playing. Between chatter about the day with his family, his mind is thinking about the maneuvers that will get him to the next level of the game. Because he participated in the family discussion and he didn’t eat too too fast, somehow it doesn’t seem impolite for him to excuse himself to go back to his room to play some more.

So then, where and how did Johnny become more apathetic toward math and more interested in his video game? The answer to both, I believe, is all about motivation, and, more specifically, his ability to envision his own success in each endeavor.

How is the motivation to succeed in math any different that motivation to succeed at video games? The rewards for both seem to be about the same. You don’t ordinarily and immediately win money when you play video games, nor do you if you are good math. You can win praise from your peers for both; I’ve heard just as many students praise a friend for being good at math as I have the same for video games.  Johnny’s not necessarily going to find a nice girlfriend just by virtue of being good at one or the other.

Motivation, by the way, to those outside of the education profession, is THE KEY to learning.  So many education research studies point to motivation as the main factor in student learning, but most of the education world is slow to catch up.

You see, I don’t believe that motivation in this sense is innate or intrinsic.  In fact, anything you’d probably say is intrinsic about motivation is probably due simply to earlier experience and successes.  But, I do believe it is closely linked to vision on the part of the young person. If someone can see themselves succeeding at any task, they can become motivated to achieve.

In video games, players can easily envision success and can also SEE and FEEL evidence of it quickly.  New levels of performance are constantly obtained.  Although people may spend hours trying to get passed that one level, they will continue onto the next because they have done something similar before. Wow, just writing this is bringing me back to the journey to navigate Super Mario Brothers as I did as a kid.

Now let’s take this out of the learning math and video games context and talk about what it looks like in trying to develop one’s ingenuity.  Technology and engineering teachers are among the few in schools that are willing to let students set their own direction for projects.  Ultimately, it works best when students can choose and frame their own projects and constraints.  Choosing and directing projects of their own is about as motivating for young people as it can get.  It’s not uncommon to find a teacher that is encouraging their students to write down information about everyday problems with the hope they can focus on one of them for a class project.

Even if the project work is contrived or set by the teacher, motivation is enhanced because the hands-on nature of the work allows more students the chance to be able to succeed. No matter what the project is, the fact that there are many many different possibilities in terms of how to approach and solve a design problem allows students to see just as many possibilities for success. Even though there may be constraints of the problem to deal with, there are still so many possibilities.

So then, is there any hope for Johnny in Ms. Mathematica’s class?  Where Johnny saw no chance to succeed, his motivation disappeared.  He was feeling some success earlier that summer with his tutor because in that one-to-one situation it was much easier to succeed and in that particular setting the motivation appeared much faster.  But, this is why I try to advocate for learning about technology and engineering and for the development of the ingenuity of our young people. It’s because the motivation that I’ve witnessed students feeling in these settings not only helps them to develop and apply their ingenuity in a real and more motivating context, I’ve also witnessed how it can help students envision success in other school subjects.

So, where we would normally say “he’s got a lack of concentration,” we should be admitting there’s a lack of motivation. And, we’ve got to lose this attitude that all kids should want to learn just so that they can better themselves.  The lack of concentration comes more from the school itself, so then the school itself should take responsibility for the motivation.  Let’s also hope that Johnny is able to feel some success in mathematics by applying it in his technology and engineering class.