The 2 Sigma Problem

IP&T 692R
Section 5
Winter 2010
Brigham Young University

Tuesdays, 4:00-4:50 p.m.
112 SWKT

In 1984, Benjamin Bloom identified a learning dilemma he dubbed the “2 Sigma Problem”–tutored students perform two standard deviations better than students who learn via conventional methods. Noting that one-to-one tutoring is “too costly for most societies to bear on a large scale,” Bloom challenged researchers and teachers to “devise teaching-learning conditions that will enable the majority of students under group instruction to attain levels of achievement that can at present be reached only under good tutoring conditions.”

The purpose of this seminar will be to reexamine Bloom’s dilemma and challenge after a quarter Century of intervening innovation and research. Beginning with Bloom’s 1984 article, the class will conduct a meta-analysis of the student performance literature.

The class product will be a multi-authored article aimed at answering these questions:

(1) Are we any closer to closing the 2 sigma gap?

(2) If not, Why?

(3) How cam researchers and teachers facilitate broadly realized levels of achievement on par with those realized via one-to-one instruction?

EXPECTATIONS

Each class participant is expected to keep up with assigned readings. Each participant is also expected to create a personal reading list and share an annotated bibliography with the class. Participants will write at least one blog entry per week about their readings and the class discussion. Participants are strongly encouraged to read and comment on their classmates’ posts.

READING LIST

Week 1 (for discussion in class on 1/12)

Bloom, B. (1984). “The 2 Sigma Problem: The Search for Methods of Group Instruction as Effective as One-to-One Tutoring,” Educational Researcher, 13:6(4-16).

Mott, J. and Wiley, D. (2009). “Open for Learning: The CMS and the Open Learning Network,” in education, 15:2.

Other Readings

Bush, M, and Mott, J. (2009). “The Transformation of Learning with Technology: Learner-Centricity, Content and Tool Malleability, and Network Effects,” Educational Technology, March-April.

Christensen, C., Horn, M. and Johnson, C. (2008). Disrupting Class. New York: McGraw-Hill. [Online Excerpt]

Reeves, T. (1999). “A Research Agenda for Interactive Learning in the New Millennium,” Ed-Media Keynote Address.