A few days ago, I learned from Leonie Haimson who learned from Susan Ohanian about a grant from the Gates Foundation to Clemson University to conduct research into the uses of a “galvanic skin response” bracelet. This is a wireless sensor that tracks physiological reactions. What made this grant of special interest was that it was directly connected to the Gates Foundation’s premier teacher-evaluation program, Measures of Effective Teaching (MET). The Clemson team won a grant of $498,055 (wonder what that $55 is for?) to “determine the feasibility and utility of using such devices regularly in schools with students and teachers.” The GSR bracelet, in short, could be used to measure physiological responses to instruction, and such responses might provide yet another metric to add to test scores, student surveys, and observations when evaluating teacher effectiveness.
The story got more interesting when someone on Twitter discovered another Gates grant, this one for $621,265 to the National Center on Time and Learning, ” “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.”
And then a reader noted that the GSR bracelet was unable to distinguish between “electrodermal activity that grows higher during states such as excitement, attention or anxiety and lower during states such as boredom or relaxation.”
Thus a teacher might be highly effective if his students were in a statement of excitement or anxiety; and a teacher might be considered ineffective if her students were either bored or relaxed. The reader concluded, quite rightly, that the meter would be useless since a teacher might inspire anxiety by keeping students in constant fear and might look ineffective if students were silently reading a satisfying story. In the first instance, a tyrannical teacher might be rated effective on the GRS scale, while an excellent teacher might appear ineffective in the second instance.
The idea that this powerful foundation is setting in motion a means of measuring physiological responses to teachers is deeply disturbing. The act of teaching is complex. It involves art, science, and craft. Learning is far more than can be measured by a GRS bracelet. At any given moment, students may be engaged or disengaged. They may be thinking about what happened at home that morning or a spat with their best friend. They may be worried about their mother’s illness or looking forward to going to the movies. They may be hungry and feeling anxious or they may be hungry and excited about having lunch.
Some aspects of the human experience are more important than teacher evaluation. Like our human dignity, our right to privacy, our need to be treated with basic respect as individuals with the power to shape our own destiny, not just as creatures to be tested, measured, and shaped by the will of others.
Yes, there is a Brave New World quality to the prospect of using wireless sensors to measure physiological reactions to teachers. Yes, there is a line that separates educationally sound ideas from crackpot theories. Yes, there is reason to be concerned about the degree of wisdom–or lack thereof– that informs the decisions of the world’s richest and most powerful foundations. And yes, we must worry about what part of our humanity is inviolable, what part of our humanity cannot be invaded by snoopers, what part of our humanity is off-limits to those who wish to quantify our experience and use it for their own purposes, be it marketing or teacher evaluation.
The line has been crossed.
Diane
What the f**k? Pardon the inferred language but what’s next? Ankle GPS bracelets? This is NUTS? What does Bill Gates think he’s doing? When I think of Bill Gates, I don’t think of superb intellect! I think of someone lucky enough to be born at the right time, with the savvy around computers and the knowledge needed to now make him wealthy enough to afford his own planet! And how may I put this thought without sounding purile: Does Bill Gates remember what pre-teen and teenage boys become obsessed with? They talk about it as kids but think about it alot as teens, girls do too. So will alarms go off every time someone thinks about THAT? What about boys at the stage when the body plays tricks on them and they don’t want any reason to get up and go to the chalkboard….What ever happened to those big box SRA tests? And the pass/fail ratio? Doesn’t that count for anything?
Gates is showing his clear lack of understanding of scientific research and design, his education goals not withstanding. Functional Magnetic Resonance brain scans are all the rage in terms of applications to learning research but methodologies and wide over interpretations of results have deeply troubled neuroscientists and others. There is currently no basis to set educational policy on such a method even as wonderful the images that come out of these studies. The technology is not yet there. I am afraid that Bill and Melinda may have had excellent private school educations and have some level expertise in their own personal fields but in the intervening years, they should have gotten a primer on scientific methods and research. They are steering so many projects to go their direction. that it is bastardizing science research which is even more chilling then what is going on in education itself. Bill and Melinda apparently are lacking fundamental analytical skills otherwise a basic understanding of the flaws in the grants they are funding would be glaringly obvious. One of the richest mrn in the world is again publicly declaring that he is a fairly ignorant person- no shame in ignorance but wallowing in ignorance while steering education and scientific research over a cliff smacks of something unlike benevolence and more like noblesse oblige.
Before my above post reads as if I am quibbling with MRI research but am in agreement with the galvanic bracelet fiasco, previous responses would indicate my opinion of such research applications. ( I haven’t fully gone down the grief scale yet and am still at rationalizing ).
I just feel this is such a depersonalized way of communicating learning. It’s ridiculous. Whatever happened to teacher-student meetings? When I went to school (1966-1979) and college (1984-1989), I found communication between myself and teachers and professors the key to making success in the classroom. You communicate interest by discussion and further reading (books or internet), field trips (if applicable) and speakers visiting the college. Not my skin temperature. This Gates idea belongs on the SyFy Channel!
[…] And here I think there’s more potential than some critics have acknowledged. One can certainly imagine the worst, envisioning a new world in which teachers will be judged based on their ability to evoke a change […]
When will this craziness end?? I just don’t
have any words!!
[…] imagine my dismay when I read on Diane Ravitch’s blog that the Gates Foundation is putting serious money into testing […]
With respect to MRI studies a quite interesting study was published in the journal “Nature” last October which was conducted in London and led by Cathy J. Price. “Verbal IQ vs. Non-verbal IQ in the Teenage Brain” was a longitudinal study conducted over 4 years that measured verbal iq and non verbal iq in a group of 33 teenagers ranging in age from 14 to 17 when it started and compared the iq’s with MRI imaging. The results were quite remarkable. A very strong correlation was noted between fluctuations in the scores and the amount of grey matter in various parts of the brain which indicated that as iq dropped or shot up, there were physical changes taking place in the brain as well. I think that this finding certainly has implications concerning the use of standardized tests especially for high stakes outcomes and teacher evaluation. The study made it clear that more research needs to be done to see if this is just a teenager phenomenon or if the brain’s plasticity changes at other ages as well. Also, although the correlation was discovered, no causal relationship was implied or explicitly stated. So, as far as we know a drop in a certain area on test scores could very well be caused by what might just be part of the physical developmental process of a normal human brain beyond the ability of a teacher or anyone else for that matter to control. In any case I wish I would hear more about this study when testing comes up in the debate, which these days is pretty much every debate.
[…] Why We Should Care About Galvanic Response Skin Bracelets (dianeravitch.net) […]
As noted in the Washington Post blog that links to this post by Diane Ravitch, there were two grants by GF last November. The smaller, to Clemson, was for the GSR study. The larger was to the Nat Ctr on Time and Learning in Boston, which adds the term “fMRI” to the summary. It should be noted that MRI and fMRI are not the same study, so Jim’s reply, above, is interesting but doesn’t pertain. There’s a nice brief description of fMRI on Wikipedia (of course) for anyone interested. It is very difficult to get figures on the cost of a single fMRI but it is a challenge for researchers just to decide how many subjects will be needed to get a statistically significant result. Let’s guess $5,000 per fMRI, and try to imagine the disparity between this cost and that of the GSR bracelet as one component of the overall cost of the study.
The first functional brain image I’m aware of was done on a PET scanner (even more expensive than fMRI) done at UCLA about 30 years ago to test for differences between trained musicians and listeners without such training in a test memory for simple melody. Since then, there has been an explosion of functional brain imaging involving musicians, mostly because the underlying goal is to understand the neurological underpinnings of human motor behavior (including skill). Huge strides in the study and treatment of disorders like Parkinson’s disease and dystonia have been made as a result of this work.
But the technology has become a ravenously expensive, subject-hungry monster, and the interest in subject groups like musicians (coupled with their eagerness to collaborate, since they might gain a competitive advantage) is now paving the way for escape of this hungry technology (think non-native carp) into the education world. My advice is: WATCH OUT!!
The Gates grant, seen from this perspective, is in no way a sign of how ridiculous their thinking has become. Gates is actually on the cutting edge of a new and potentially hugely profitable exploitation movement sponsored by the “medical-industrial complex”, now merging with the “educational-industrial complex” and becoming far bigger and more invasive than Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex.
Yes, these are excruciatingly difficult times in education. It is fair to ask whether, as Diane says, the line has now been crossed. School kids are now merging with more traditional inmate populations as an exploitable pool of cheap experimental subjects for the pharmaceutical industry (cf the current NYT series on Adderall for SAT tests, etc), for behavioral experimentation, etc etc.
Dr. Wilson, Thank you for sharing your expertises and pointing out the differences with respect to the MRI studies….I guess that’s why I joined this blog….to learn something new. Are you familiar with the study I mentioned? I heard an interview on NPR with Cathy J. Price shortly after it was published and that was kind of the end of it. I would be interested in hearing you thoughts.
Couldn’t find your email address. Would be very happy to tell you what (little) I know and continue this conversation.
Dr. Wilson,
my email is surb26@yahoo.com
In 2008 Microsoft filed a patent application for a system that monitors employee metabolism: “one or more physiological or environmental sensors to detect at least one of heart rate, galvanic skin response, EMG, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, movement, facial movements, facial expressions, and blood pressure.”
Here is the patent application. And here is an article about it.
Some years ago this kind of monitoring was being promoted as an external monitor akin to other biofeedback devices to improve the user’s conscious/immediate awareness of an inner physiologic state. An example of a legitimate medical application is in the preventive treatment of migraine: skin temperature drops in the hands just prior to the onset of migraine in many individuals, and by training with the device the user can learn to abort a headache before it starts. No kidding; this is a brilliant strategy that actually works in many patients. So now we have somebody like me trying to figure out a math problem presented by a software program, and before I even before the escape fantasies start welling up the computer detects that I’m in over my head and adjusts the presentation and explanation of material I’m having to master. Theoretically I never get to the point where I want to throw a heavy object through the monitor.
MS never launched this “learning aid” but maybe they’re thinking of trying again. For students in school taking courses they didn’t choose for themselves and driven to get good grades by the college-obsessed culture that has been built around them, BIG BROTHER is only too willing to help with whatever it takes to suppress a normal, healthy fight or flight reaction. The final result of all this is going to be lots of money for the gadgeteers, and a complete wresting away from any student of organic, spontaneous monitoring of their own attempts to get good at something that interests them. I am sooooo happy I’m in my 70’s!!
[…] there’s the potential for abuse and gaming the system. From Diane Ravitch’s blog: …a reader noted that the GSR bracelet was unable to distinguish between “electrodermal […]
This is a superb post. Yes, Gates is crossing a line here. And it gets worse.
Researchers at MIT, UMass-Amherst and Arizona State Universitty have been developing learning software with mood-detecting hardware. The software features “affect-aware tutors”–that is, cartoon characters that respond to a student’s mood. The sensors include a “mental state” camera, posture analysis seat sensor, pressure mouse sensor, and skin conductance sensor. There’s a 2010 article by Debra Viadero on this subject (“Scholars Test Emotion-Sensitive Tutoring Software”); I discuss the researchers’ own reports in the eighth chapter of my book.
This is invasive and bizarrely restrictive. We all need our times of engagement and disengagement. I need to let my mind wander at times. Had my teachers been judged on account of this, or if I had been confronted by a cartoon character every time I did it, I would have wanted to run away.
How many children will want to tear off those bracelets and run out of the room? Many, I suspect, and I wouldn’t blame them.
So what’s the correct response? Push back or just ignore them?
Respond as you see fit. I choose to push back. At this point my “pushing back” consists mainly of writing.
I guess I don’t understand the problem with measuring student attention. Isn’t a key part of the teacher’s job to overcome student distraction? No teacher is going to have all students engaged all the time, but isn’t one that keeps twice as many attentive at a given moment going to be more successful? And wouldn’t an objective measure like this be better than, say, student surveys that might be biased by popularity or other factors? As a conference speaker, I’d love this kind of feedback – it would help me get better by understanding exactly what maximizes engagement and what is less effective.
Blog post: Can Neuromarketing Revolutionize Education?
I do think teaching is an incredibly hard job – one has to be a subject matter expert, a psychologist, a skilled performer with great stage presence, and probably a lot more. That doesn’t preclude performance metrics, though.
As many teachers and parents have commented, physiological responses are not measures of effective teaching. A student may be stimulated by fear and anxiety, by erotic arousal caused by something not in the control of the teacher, by images of a film he saw last night…and it has nothing to do with your lesson!
These monitors can’t distinguish between genuine intellectual engagement (is that physiologically measured?) and anxiety, nor can they distinguish between boredom and relaxation. So what is it you hope to learn by reading the monitors?
Comparing simultaneous responses for a group of students should help sort out whether one student is off on a separate mental adventure. Commercial neuromarketing firms deal with this, apparently effectively, when analyzing response to ads. Some combine eye-tracking to further pinpoint what the subject is looking at when some kind of change occurs. If inflection points from biometrics match up with classroom actions (and those of other students), then it’s a likely bet the student is engaged in the material. That doesn’t mean learning is taking place, but paying attention is a precursor to learning. For one example of how neuromarketing data is interpreted, check out the brain movie in the link above. (EEG and eye tracking were used for that analysis, but the concept is similar.)
I’d add that the purpose of the study is to determine if the technique is useful. It’s possible that they will find there’s too much noise and that GSR isn’t a good way to measure engagement.
Next thing you know they will put a GPS in it…to track the wearer…not what I want ot have happen.
Bracelets will indeed be used for that–not in the classroom specifically, but just about everywhere:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/11/salesforces-benioff-biometric.php
I wrote another commentary on this topic:
http://open.salon.com/blog/dianasenechal/2012/06/19/tetrahedra_and_truth
‘ And yes, we must worry about what part of our humanity is inviolable’
This sums this up for me.. whatever next?