TABLE 23. MIDDLE SCHOOL CLUSTERS: CHARACTERISTICS OF COMPUTER USE, STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
 |
Five clusters of high school teachers show high levels of computer expertise and use computers professionally more than
other high school teachers do. (See Table 24.) A typical Cluster 3-4 teacher is a science teacher in a middle class
community whose students mainly use computers in pairs, but relatively infrequently, to find information on Web sites. Not
surprisingly, Netscape is the program most often mentioned as "best" in this cluster. However, teachers in Cluster 3-4 are
less likely than average to report student use of computers for schoolwork outside of class. In contrast, Cluster 3-7 teachers have students who are more
likely than average to use computers outside of class. A Cluster 3-7 teacher is typically an English teacher whose above-average ability students use computers in a variety of ways but distinctively by doing electronic
mail. Yet, their three "favorite" programs were all word processing programs— ClarisWorks, Microsoft Word, and Word Perfect.
Cluster 3-8 is composed of English, social studies, and computer teachers whose students use a wide variety of software
including word processing, Web and CD-ROM information sources, graphics output, and presentation software and who
emphasize presentation objectives more than other teachers do, using primarily Macintosh computers. The software most
often mentioned as best for students by these teachers are Netscape and Powerpoint. Thus, information acquisition and
communication of that information are both prime uses of computers in these academically-oriented classes. Students of
Cluster 3-8 teachers are among the most active in using computers for class tasks outside of the class period and outside of school.
Students of teachers in Clusters 3-9 and 3-10 have the most intensive computer experiences, primarily on Windows computers, and a majority of them are computer education or business education teachers,
(computer teachers forming an absolute majority in Cluster 3-10). Teachers of both clusters emphasize computer skill objectives rather than academic competencies like writing or gaining knowledge or authentic accomplishment such as presenting and communicating one's understandings to reach a real-world goal. In both clusters, the most commonly named "best" software is Microsoft Office.
There are several interesting contrasts between Clusters 3-9 and 3-10. In terms of the cluster-defining statistical algorithm
which distinguished contrasting patterns of software use, teachers in Cluster 3-9 involve their students in greater use of the
World Wide Web and more game-playing and somewhat more spreadsheet/database work, while Cluster 3-10 teachers'
students make greater use of graphics software, presentation software, and simulation software. Those distinctions are not easily interpretable.
However, we also found three other factors that quite sharply differed between the two sets of teachers. Students of Cluster
3-9 teachers are typically from somewhat lower socio-economic-status communities, they most often work individually at
computers, do their work in their own classroom and do not do computer-based schoolwork outside of class time. In
contrast, Cluster 3-10 students are typically high achieving students from relatively wealthy neighborhoods, they are very
active in using computers for classwork outside of class time, and during class they most often work in pairs or groups in specialized computer labs.
Yet, interestingly enough, it is the Cluster 3-10 teachers who most clearly define their objectives for student computer use in
terms of skills and attitudes (computer skills and learning to work independently) rather than goals of academic
understandings or communicating those understandings. In fact, Cluster 3-10 teachers explicitly eschew goals such as
improved student writing or information acquisition. Looking ahead to data that will be presented in more detail in a future
report in this series, we also found that Cluster 3-10 teachers were far more traditional in their actual pedagogy than they
were in their personal teaching philosophy and that they were particularly likely to select as disadvantages of using computers that students are not careful with the equipment and that computers let students cheat more easily.
The best picture we can get so far is that the former group of teachers, in Cluster 3-9, are providing their somewhat
economically disadvantaged students with a good but conventional education in using mainstream computers, thus helping
them gain technical skills valuable for economic and social mobility. On the other hand, Cluster 3-10 teachers, for all of their
personal expertise about computers (by far the most knowledgeable, experienced, and professional users of computers) and
despite having students with backgrounds and perceived abilities that suggest adolescents at the start of successful careers
and adult lives, seem to lack a vision for how the computer skills that they provide to students can be linked closely to
academic core objectives and to developing young people's talents for engaging in collaborative action to affect real-world situations.
TABLE 24. HIGH SCHOOL CLUSTERS: CHARACTERISTICS OF
COMPUTER USE, STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
 |
Our analysis of teacher clusters defined by patterns of software use will be continued in future reports that examine other aspects of teachers' philosophies, teaching practices, and working conditions. This "cluster approach" serves as a sometimes-confusing, sometimes-clarifying alternative to the more conventional analysis of the interrelationships among individual variables. But it is required by the complex nature of the dimension of practice defined by the teacher's pattern of in-class student-use of computer software, and we suspect that in the long run, it will prove highly enlightening.