SassyLady
06-12-2012, 02:45 AM
Kathianne and Gabby, as teachers what do you think of this?
$1.1 million-plus Gates grants: ‘Galvanic’ bracelets that measure student engagement
In the ‘you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff’ category, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is spending about $1.1 million to develop a way to physiologically measure how engaged students are by their teachers’ lessons. This involves “galvanic skin response” bracelets that kids would wear so their engagement levels could be measured.
If this tells us anything, it is that the obsession with measurement and data in school reform has reached new nutty heights.
Here’s the description of the $498,055 grant to Clemson University (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants-2011/pages/clemson-university-opp1049604.aspx)that was awarded in November (but that just recently became widely known by Susan Ohanian (http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1321) and Diane Ravitch (http://dianeravitch.net/)):
Purpose: to work with members of the Measuring Effective Teachers (MET) team to measure engagement physiologically with Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) bracelets which will determine the feasibility and utility of using such devices regularly in schools with students and teachers.
And here’s the description of the $621,265 grant (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants-2011/pages/national-center-on-time-learning-inc-opp1028976.aspx)given at the same time to the National Center on Time and Learning:
Purpose: to measure engagement physiologically with Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Galvanic Skin Response to determine correlations between each measure and develop a scale that differentiates different degrees or levels of engagement.
That’s more than $1.1 million that could have been spent on things that schools actually need, such as books, teachers, librarians, etc.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/11-million-plus-gates-grants-galvanic-bracelets-that-measure-student-engagement/2012/06/10/gJQAgAUbTV_blog.html
$1.1 million-plus Gates grants: ‘Galvanic’ bracelets that measure student engagement
In the ‘you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff’ category, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is spending about $1.1 million to develop a way to physiologically measure how engaged students are by their teachers’ lessons. This involves “galvanic skin response” bracelets that kids would wear so their engagement levels could be measured.
If this tells us anything, it is that the obsession with measurement and data in school reform has reached new nutty heights.
Here’s the description of the $498,055 grant to Clemson University (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants-2011/pages/clemson-university-opp1049604.aspx)that was awarded in November (but that just recently became widely known by Susan Ohanian (http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1321) and Diane Ravitch (http://dianeravitch.net/)):
Purpose: to work with members of the Measuring Effective Teachers (MET) team to measure engagement physiologically with Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) bracelets which will determine the feasibility and utility of using such devices regularly in schools with students and teachers.
And here’s the description of the $621,265 grant (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants-2011/pages/national-center-on-time-learning-inc-opp1028976.aspx)given at the same time to the National Center on Time and Learning:
Purpose: to measure engagement physiologically with Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Galvanic Skin Response to determine correlations between each measure and develop a scale that differentiates different degrees or levels of engagement.
That’s more than $1.1 million that could have been spent on things that schools actually need, such as books, teachers, librarians, etc.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/11-million-plus-gates-grants-galvanic-bracelets-that-measure-student-engagement/2012/06/10/gJQAgAUbTV_blog.html