Bloom’s 2 sigma problem confronts educators and researchers with the challenge of improving student performance/learning outcomes by 2 sigma based on a combination of 2 or 3 significant variables in instruction, learner, environment, or materials. This semester I am taking Jon Mott’s 1 credit course on the subject, and look forward to finding many enlightening articles and sources, as well as lively and provocative discussion.

I’ve read and though about Bloom’s 2 sigma problem before, but I think on this second read I actually got the point: It’s not that 1-1 tutoring is so potent (it is, but this should be obvious, Oxbridge, apprenticeship models), but that Bloom and his students proved that it’s possible to provoke remarkable improvements in the performance of the average student by altering just one or two variables. This suggests that our understanding of human potential may be misconceived, and that our standard practice of teaching and learning consistently fails to rise above mediocrity.

I’ve heard David Wiley say, why stop at 2 sigma? Why not 3 or 4? Why not indeed? And yet there are so many potentially significant variables in the Bloom study–or any other study that attempts to achieve similar results–that I am naturally cynical of finding a “break through”. (If there had been one already, we would have heard of it, surely?)

A few questions I bring in:
Are the Bloom’s students’ results reliable? repeatable? at least one suggests its not, and without greater details from Bloom et al it’s hard to reproduce the study.

What were the learning outcomes? How deep are they? How important overall to a student’s progress?

What is it about 1-1 that is so useful? Focused and immediate feedback? Q &A? Social aspect? Behavioral?

Should we ignore the 1-1 possibility? Computers, AI have long been thought the possible solution for the human tutoring problem.

Does some 1-1 have a significant effect? Say, 1 hour per week? Could some 1-1 positively affect performance in other areas by (1) motivating, (2) modeling? Say each student in a classroom of 15 gets 30 minutes one-on-one a day in one subject?

How relevant is the 2 sigma problem today? Have our media communications–indeed our culture–changed so much in the past decade that the act of teaching and learning must first be redefined?

We are used to the idea of a bell shaped curve, of low and high achievers. Bloom’s research tweaks that in favor of everyone’s success. As a teacher what narratives do I tell myself to justify student failure?

Definitions and Assumptions

“solitude”…
…is a neutral or positive state of aloneness (“loneliness” is a negative)
…is a form of disconnecting from others, not from information
…in (post)modern American culture (may be) diminishing (through social media)
…has (some) connection to (some kinds of) learning
…may affect some learners more than others
..may be naturally more attractive to some learners than others
…(may be) related to individualism, creativity, self-reliance, independence
…as a mode for learning can be tested and measured through experimental group(s)

The last assumption is the most tenuous, but I might get around to that yet!

Expansion, Rephrasing, and Refinement

(My brainstorming is far looser that those done in class last week.)

What (impact | affect) does solitude have on (learning | e-learning | creativity | attitudes toward learning, e.g. self-reliance)?
Does e-learning occur in more or less solitude than traditional learning?
Is there a historical trend visible in observations of teaching from solitude toward collective/collaborative learning?
How much solitude do modern learners prefer?
What are teachers’ attitudes toward solitary learning?
Is solitude a common observable element in the lives of high-achievers?
Is solitude a correlative to student achievement?
What are the cognitive processes of individuals in solitude?
(Define “solitude”?)
How is learning different from creating?
Is solitude an advantage or disadvantage for informal learning?
(When | why | how) do (solitary | self) learners seek input from (others | experts | peers)?
How do cycles of solitude and group interaction vary amongst different learners?
(Define “different”?)
What environmental design decisions may support learner solitude?
Does (development of | positive attitudes toward | proclivity to) (self-reliance | solitude) increase learner (interaction with | exploration of) (open) educational resources?
<Your question or variant here>

This was my first foray into any sort of concerted examination of this question, so I’m content that the results are all over the map. I don’t know if I’m closer to anything usable here in any pragmatic sense, but I certainly have more to chew on.

As I write these questions my mind can’t help but leap ahead to the question of support for such a study. Who would be interested in finding out the impact of solitude on learning? Organizations with interest in supporting creativity or the arts might be more interested, and so I may reconsider this question

Sfard explains how one’s choice of linguistic signifiers for teaching and learning may reflect, reveal, or even influence one’s thinking about education. The most prevalent of the two metaphors is the acquisition metaphor (AM). Recent discussion on learning and education has revealed the advent of a different metaphor, the participation metaphor (PM). Sfard’s acquisition metaphor is a categorization of speech about learning. The AM language pool describes learning by referencing objects that are transported to places. One self-evident example of this is the term “language acquisition”. Others are expressed in how we often talk about our learning, e.g. “When I store new words in my long-term memory, I enlarge my vocabulary”. Sfard describes the participation metaphor as one that tends to disobjectify learning by referring to processes and activities, and to knowledge as not a thing, but ongoing dialogue in the stream1 of existence. So, one may apprentice with a guardian of the craft; one may collaborate with co-learners; we take part in a class discussion, etc.

While Sfard suggests that the two metaphors do not fall out according to individualist / social theories about learning, it seems that PM has more love for conceptualizations that favor collectiveness, community, and interrelatedness. The impact of the apparent favor AM has held is problematic to Sfard mostly because it is political: AM focuses on the acquisition of objects, a capitalist endeavor that reinforces power structures and aggravates class disparities. PM, on the other hand, is more democratic in Sfard’s view. The PM allows for an idealistic egalitarianism where possession is dismissed in favor of the path.