An education expert is criticizing online lessons the Alberta government has curated for students during a provincewide teachers strike as “incoherent.”
Maren Aukerman, an education professor at the University of Calgary, says the nearly 200-page “tool kit” hops from one topic to another without context and barely aligns with the provincial curriculum.
It tries to teach Grade 1 students how to multiply.
Grade 3 students learn how to count American money — not Canadian.
And Grade 4 students are instructed in drawing triangles — an activity for those in Grade 1.
“There are layers upon layers of problems with it … nothing makes sense,” Aukerman said in an interview.
“It is incoherent.”
The province’s 51,000 teachers at 2,500 schools went off the job Monday in the largest walkout in provincial history. The government then locked them out Thursday.
The two sides, set to resume bargaining next week, have been at odds over a new contract, with the main issues being wages, overcrowded classrooms and support for students with complex needs.
The strike affects about 740,000 students, and the government said it posted the online lessons to help parents teach their children at home during the strike.
There are lessons in math, literacy, social studies and history that span over two weeks, excluding weekends. Each includes an online link to another website.
The websites are random, said Aukerman. Some belong to non-profit educational services, including Khan Academy, and TVO Learn, which follows Ontario’s curriculum. Some links take students to the British Broadcasting Corp., the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and the Canadian Encyclopedia.
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The lessons jump from topic to topic each day. For example, students learn about ancient Egypt one day and Greek history the next.
In one week of social studies, Grade 6 students learn about plagiarism on a Monday, decision-making on Tuesday and how alcohol affects the brain on Wednesday. On Thursday, they return to decision-making before ending the week with a lesson on provincial governments.
“None of it makes sense,” Aukerman said.
Some lessons also don’t align with Alberta’s curriculum.
Grade 1 students are given Grade 3 lessons on skip-counting — multiplying numbers and reciting numbers backwards from 100.
“It is a very rare first-grade student who is going to be skip counting by sevens,” Aukerman said.
One lesson directs students to have a group discussion with peers.
“Hello? Teachers are on strike. Students don’t have peers at home,” Aukerman said.
She also pointed to a poem for high school students that uses an offensive word for Inuit people but doesn’t give students context or explanation.
Some of the weeks end with an assessment. But Aukerman said the tests ask questions about topics that haven’t been assigned in the lessons.
“There’s a lot of evidence that the way kids learn is through depth, exploration in particular context,” she said. “Teachers build on topics over days.”
The government lessons do the opposite, Aukerman said. “There’s no way that this material is going to work for many of the students that it’s really intended for.”
Aukerman, who has a child in Grade 10, said she and other parents aren’t using the government lessons. But with some following the province’s homework, there will likely be more issues for teachers when the strike is over.
“Teachers are going to have some kids who have encountered an idea and some kids that haven’t, which actually increases the level of complexity that teachers need to deal with,” she said.
“I honestly don’t think (the government tool kit) is better than nothing.”
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides said in a statement Thursday the lessons were developed for students to pick up where they left off.
“Of course, every classroom does not move at the same pace, but it is aligned with expected learning outcomes for this time of the year.”
Asked to respond to criticism that some lessons were curated by artificial intelligence, he said that’s not the case.
In a previous interview, he said the lessons were developed by his ministry’s staff and fully align with the Alberta curriculum.
“What’s most important at the end of the day is that we sustain our children’s learning as best as possible through this uncertain time,” he said.
Jacqueline Renfrow, a Calgary nurse with two daughters, said the lessons have been daunting. She barely has time to teach her kids at home and has hired a tutor to help.
She said she has also tapped her 70-year-old mother for help, adding the woman doesn’t know how to use a computer.
“I’m extremely overwhelmed,” Renfrow said.
“(The tool kit) makes no sense to me. It’s a big mess.”
Erika Filson of Airdrie said she’s considering not using the lessons for her child.
“The directions are unclear,” she said. “There’s no rhyme or reason. Assignments don’t have a lot of relevance.
“And if I wanted my child to be going to school 100 per cent on a computer, I would have already signed her up for learning online.”
