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Computer Use and Pedagogy in Co-NECT Schools, A Comparative Study  DOWNLOAD PDF FILE (74 KB) |
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THE TEACHING, LEARNING, AND COMPUTING: THE 1998 SURVEY
TEACHER-DIRECTED COMPUTER USE
Use of Computers for Class Work Outside of Class Time Professional Use of Computers by Teachers TEACHING PHILOSOPHY AND PEDAGOGY
Broad Categories of Practice Examined CHANGES IN PEDAGOGY AND TECHNOLOGY'S ROLE
The Role of Computers in Instructional Change The Role of Computers in Changing Teachers' Own Professional Practice PROFESSIONAL VS. CLASSROOM ROLE ORIENTATION SCHOOL CONTEXT: CULTURE, SUPPORT, PRESSURES APPENDIX A - TLC SAMPLING PROCEDURE AND RESPONSE RATE
In the spring of 1998, researchers at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Minnesota conducted a national survey of
teachers' pedagogy and use of computers. The Teaching, Learning, and Computing (TLC) survey, funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education, included, among the more than 4,000 teachers and
1,100 schools participating, a total of 21 teachers from 6 schools that were among the first to participate in the Co-NECT Schools program of whole-school, technology-infused reform. This special report from the TLC study
focuses on characterizing these early Co-NECT teachers in comparison with several other groups of teachers who participated in the national survey. Although the sample of Co-NECT teachers is quite small, the schools and
teachers fairly well represent the types of schools and the diversity of teachers who had begun participating in Co-NECT by the 1997-1998 school year. We believe that the comparisons drawn between these teachers at Co-NECT
schools and teachers at other schools (e.g., "high-end technology schools with no particular reform emphasis"; "schools involved in school-wide reform that do not emphasize computers"; or "nationally representative schools serving
students from low socio-economic backgrounds") are suggestive of ways that Co-NECT schools function differently from other environments for teaching. THE TEACHING, LEARNING, AND COMPUTING: THE 1998
SURVEY. The TLC study was conducted to investigate the conditions under which teachers' use of computers is related to teaching practice consistent with instructional reform theories. The study is
comprised of completed questionnaire responses from classroom teachers of grades 4 through 12, principals, and school technology coordinators from three separate samples of schools: a national probability sample, a sample of
schools with high-end per capita amounts of computer technology, and a sample of schools participating in one of 54 major national or regional programs that emphasize instructional reform. In the 75% of these schools that
agreed to participate (1,215 schools), between 3 and 7 teachers were sampled for participation. Of the teachers rostered and selected, a total of 4,083 teachers returned completed surveys, or 68% of those selected. At both school
and teacher level, unequal probabilities were used to select participants, with the goal of gathering more detailed information about the "upper-end" of technology use and reform instructional practices. However, all analysis
weights cases inversely to the likelihood of each person or school being selected, in order to more closely reflect data that would be obtained from equal-probability representative samples. Additional information about
sampling is included in Appendix A. The 21 participating teachers from Co-NECT schools include teachers from 2 elementary schools (Alton in Memphis and Kilgour in Cincinnati), 3 middle schools (The Accelerated Learning
Laboratory in Worcester, MA; and Horace Mann and Riviera in Miami), and 1 high school (Hughes Center, in Cincinnati). The teachers are almost equally divided among elementary (7), middle (8), and high school (6) levels and
the secondary teachers included those specializing in English, social studies, science, math, computers, fine arts, and other applied and academic areas. Using the weights employed for all analyses, 15% of the Co-NECT
teachers served elementary schools (5 percentage points less than in the total weighted sample), 22% were primarily English teachers, 27% primarily taught science or social studies, 11% were mathematics teachers, and 26% primarily
taught other subjects or a mix of secondary subjects. Five of the six Co-NECT schools (and 95% of the weighted teachers) served students from schools in the lowest quartile on our measure of socio-economic-status.
Co-NECT schools can be characterized as schools involved in a thoroughgoing program of whole-school reform, one that involves substantial use of computer technology in pursuit of student learning that is project-based,
interdisciplinary, and emphasizes authentic, real-world applications of academic content and community service. Additional information about Co-NECT schools can be found in Stringfield, Ross, and Smith, Bold Plans,
1996; and on the Co-NECT website, For purposes of this report, we have defined several comparison groups that are useful in distinguishing how Co-NECT teachers are different from or similar to other teachers. These include teachers from:
In our analysis of Co-NECT schools, we investigated several issues about computer use and teaching pedagogy including teachers' access to technology resources, their frequency of computer use, instructional objectives
for using computers, teacher computer expertise, teaching philosophy and instructional practices without reference to computers, changes in pedagogy they have made over the past several years, their perception of the impact of
computers on those changes in pedagogy, their own orientation to the teaching role (teacher leadership vs. their own classroom instruction), and school context (opportunities for learning, teacher culture, and pressures to teach in
certain ways). In this report, we will compare teachers in Co-NECT schools to teachers in other types of schools in each of these areas. TEACHER-DIRECTED COMPUTER USE. Access to Technology Resources
Co-NECT teachers were much more likely than any other group of teachers studied to report having a substantial number of
computers in their own classroom. Nearly one-half of Co-NECT teachers (47%, weighted), by Spring, 1998, had at least one computer for every four students in their classroom, a percentage not approached by any other group of
teachers studied, including the teachers in technology-oriented reform programs that recruit teachers on an individual basis (28%). For all other groups of teachers, fewer than one fifth could report having this number of computers
available in their own classroom. Frequent
use of computers is a necessary, though hardly a sufficient, condition for important technology-based teaching. TLC measured several aspects of computer use, including how frequently teachers arranged for a "typical student"
to use computers during class time and how often they had students use certain kinds of software. In terms of frequent overall student computer use, Co-NECT teachers are much more likely than teachers in other schoolwide
technology-oriented reform programs to report frequent (twice-weekly) use (40% of Co-NECT teachers vs. under 20% of teachers in other schoolwide technology programs). Computers, of course, can
be used in many different ways for many different purposes. Like teachers in other groups of schools, Co-NECT teachers had students use word processing more than any other type of software; in fact, their use of word
processing was not substantially greater than teachers' use of that type of software in other school settings. However, Co-NECT teachers had students use five types of software substantially more than other teachers:
spreadsheet/database software, the World Wide Web, presentation software, electronic mail, and multimedia authoring. In particular, Co-NECT teachers used multimedia authoring software eight times as much as teachers in the
national probability sample. Other technology-emphasizing teachers and schools also used multimedia authoring more than the national sample, but none came close to the level of use of that type of software (exemplified by the
application called Hyperstudio) found among these 21 Co-NECT teachers. As a point of contrast, although Co-NECT teachers also had students use electronic mail much more than the teachers in the national sample (about three
times as much), the individual participants in technology-based reform programs at other schools emphasized student e-mail even more than did Co-NECT teachers—almost twice as much. The pedagogical
role that technology plays in teachers' practices can be seen in the "objectives" that each teacher claims for their use of computers. The TLC survey asked those teachers who used computers with the class they taught in which
they felt "most satisfied with your teaching" to select their three most important objectives for computer use in that class. Like most computer-using teachers, Co-NECT teachers often reported wanting students to find out
about ideas and information through the use of computer applications such as CD-ROMs and the World Wide Web and to express themselves in writing through their use of word processors and other software. They did differ from other groups of computer-using teachers, however, in that 50% of the Co-NECT teachers selected "presenting information to an audience" as a primary objective while only 18% of teachers in the
national sample did, and no other group of teachers studied exceeded 30% on this objective.
An unexpected finding, given the preceding results, was that Co-NECT teachers were also less likely than others to report "analyzing information" as a primary objective of their use of computers. (See Figure 7) Although only 10% of Co-NECT teachers chose this
objective among their top three, 42% of computer-using teachers in schools involved in other schoolwide technology reform programs did and a remarkable 57% of individual technology program participants. Even 27% of teachers in the
national probability sample gave this choice as well. However, some part of the explanation for this finding is the low socio-economic background of the students Co-NECT teachers serve. Teachers in schools
serving primarily students from low socio-economic backgrounds are much less likely than teachers in other schools to name "analyzing information" as a purpose of giving students opportunities to use computers; conversely, teachers
in high-SES schools, like many of those in which individual program participants work, are generally more likely to think in terms of "analyzing information" as a goal of student computer use. Still, even among the national
sample of low-SES schools (the bottom quartile in the national probability sample), more computer-using teachers in that comparison group reported analysis of information as a primary objective of computer use than in the Co-NECT
schools (17% vs. 10%). Co-NECT schools' overall pattern of emphasizing active student work through multimedia authoring projects with the objective of presenting student work before an audience seems to have driven out
technology-related instruction that focuses on critical evaluation and analysis of information and ideas. Use of Computers for Class Work Outside of Class Time An
important indicator of student engagement in school work is the extent that they continue to work on academic tasks outside of class time—outside of the direct supervisory presence of teachers. We believe it
is highly informative that teachers with objectives similar to those of Co-NECT teachers (presenting information to an audience, expression in writing, communicating with other people, and finding out about ideas and information)
were more likely than teachers with different objectives to report that their students are doing work on computers for class, outside of class time. Although Co-NECT teachers do report students to be doing class work on
computers outside of class time more often than the Low SES comparison group, their students' lack of computers at home places them slightly below other groups of reform-involved teachers or high technology schools in this overall
measure of out-of-class computer use. However, when we break down the reported out-of-class use to that which occurs at school (before and after school, at lunch) versus that which occurs at home, Co-NECT teachers report
more in-school out-of-class computer use than any other comparison group, including the high-end technology schools and other schoolwide reform programs. Overall, Co-NECT teachers use computers themselves, for professional purposes, slightly more than teachers in the national probability sample and substantially more than teachers in low-SES schools, nationally.
Co-NECT teachers appear to have more personal computer expertise than each of the other comparison groups of teachers except one—the participants in individually-recruiting technology-based reform
programs. Co-NECT teachers report more expertise than even those selected individual program participants on one skill—developing a multimedia document—but on most of the other computer competencies we asked about, such as
creating a database and establishing screen layouts, imbedding graphics into a word processor file, and preparing a slide show, the Co-NECT teachers' skills are somewhat above average, but not remarkable. The primary goal of the Teaching, Learning, and
Computing study is to investigate the relationship between teachers' use of computers and their basic pedagogical philosophies and practices. In particular, we are studying teaching from the perspective of a model of
constructivist-compatible instructional reform. The model has two elements. "Meaningfulness" as a Primary Attribute of Student Activity The first
aspect of our reform model emphasizes the importance of making "meaningfulness" the primary attribute of learning tasks. The second major aspect of our reform model emphasizes learning goals encompassing critical thinking, problem solving, and
deep understanding of content. To what degree do Co-NECT teachers and other teachers reflect these kinds of pedagogies? We separate this question into two parts: To what extent are teachers' philosophies or "beliefs about good teaching"
reflective of the elements of the above model? And to what extent is their actual teaching practice reflective of those elements? In order to measure
the extent to which different teachers' philosophies are consistent with reform models, we created two indices of teacher beliefs: one concerning beliefs about how instruction should proceed so that students gain knowledge and, the
other, beliefs about how classrooms should be managed. We will use only the first of these indices in this presentation, the Index of Constructivist Teaching to Facilitate Knowledge Development.
On this measure of philosophy supporting constructivist knowledge facilitation, the teachers with the highest mean score were the individual participants in technology-based reform programs that target individual teachers. Although teachers in Co-NECT schools had substantially lower scores on that index than the individual program participants, as a group they had a higher score than any of the other groups compared. (See Figure 16) On several individual survey items, Co-NECT teachers reported more constructivist philosophies than any other group, including the individual program
participants. For example, none of the Co-NECT teachers agreed with the traditional idea that "teachers know a lot more than students; they shouldn't let students just muddle around when they can just
explain the answers directly." This suggests that the large majority of Co-NECT teachers value students undergoing a serious thought process on their own, even if they do arrive at the wrong answer. Reform
theory emphasizes the importance of students learning the process of deducing or constructing knowledge just as much as learning the content itself. In the constructivist view, the student's personal
construction of knowledge is essential for real understanding. Co-NECT teachers were also the least likely of any group to agree with the idea that "instruction should be built around problems with
clear, correct answers, and around ideas that most students can grasp quickly." Overall, nationally 38% of teachers agreed with this; but in the weighted Co-NECT sample, only 2% did.
(See Figure 17) The only other group of teachers close to suggesting as
constructivist a philosophy as Co-NECT teachers on these two items were teachers participating in programs targeting individuals. Another questionnaire item, not shown in the accompanying figures, posed two contrasting views of
the role of the teacher in the classroom and asked teachers to select, on a five point continuum, where they placed themselves in relation to these two roles. The first role of the teacher was described as a
classroom "facilitator." In this capacity, the teacher merely provides the opportunities and resources students need to construct knowledge on their own. The alternative role posed was the teacher acting as
an "explainer." The explainer believes that students won't learn subject material unless the teacher goes over concepts in a structured way. They feel it is their job to show students how to do the work and to
assign specific practice. Although, overall, the individual program participants were the group most likely to view themselves as facilitators (51%), Co-NECT teachers were among those also leaning
toward that side (42%), and were clearly less likely than others to see themselves as explainers. Less than one fifth of both Co-NECT teachers and individual participants saw themselves in the explainer role
compared to 29% of the national sample, 33% of the low-SES national sample, and as many as 48% of the non-participants in schools where a participant participated in a technology-oriented reform program.
Co-NECT teachers' response to the teaching styles of one traditional teacher and one constructivist teacher also indicated that Co-NECT teachers hold more constructivist beliefs than most. Ms. Hill was the
traditional teacher presented in the example. She led her class in an animated way, asking questions that students could answer quickly. Questions were based on the reading students had done the day
before. After this review, Ms. Hill taught the class new material, again using simple questions to keep students attentive and listing to what she said. Mr. Jones demonstrated another approach to leading
class discussion. Many of the questions asked during class came from the students themselves rather than from the teacher. Though Mr. Jones could clarify students' questions and suggest where the
students could find relevant information, he couldn't really answer most of the questions himself. Mr. Jones' approach to teaching is consistent with models of reform that state that children are able to construct
knowledge for themselves based on their own curiosity and experiences rather than being told by the teacher what constitutes knowledge. More than other teachers except for individuals targeted by programs, Co-NECT teachers
disagreed that the approach of Ms. Hill provided students with better knowledge. While many other teachers and programs have given up on more constructivist approaches to teaching low SES students arguing that such approaches are only
successful for students with academic backgrounds strong enough to benefit from such freedom, Co-NECT teachers maintain a constructivist approach among their students. Their beliefs about schooling and
society may reveal why they hold to such a pedagogy. Co-NECT teachers hold more pessimistic views about un-prepared lower class kids entering society. Only 20% of Co-NECT teachers felt that the economy is
strong enough to absorb all students from school into society while approximately half of other teachers hold this belief.
(See Figure 22) This is perhaps why Co-NECT teachers measure their students against the same standards as other teachers do with higher SES
student populations. They expect accomplishment beyond mastering skills tested by the state. They work to engage their students in meaningful work and asked students to take real responsibility – work that
will prepare them to tackle diverse problems rather than training them to pass specific tests. In practice, we find that Co-NECT teachers are more
constructivist than other teachers in that they spend more time allowing students to lead class discussion and do group work. They also focus more in depth on issues more than other teachers rather than
superficially covering a breadth of knowledge. Co-NECT teachers are also more constructivist in that they are the group least likely to ask students for "correct" answers and do less seatwork with
textbooks and worksheets than teachers in other comparison categories. We will examine each of these items below. In order to measure teacher practice, TLC asked
teachers to report on the activities that had gone on in the last 5 hours of their class. Co-NECT teachers spent the most time having students do group work and were much more likely than other teachers to
report that their students had worked on small group assignments for at least 1 of those 5 hours. Almost 80% of Co-NECT teachers reported that this was the case compared to about half of other teachers in other
comparison groups. Just as the analysis of teachers' philosophies found two distinct dimensions related to constructivist versus traditional practice, our examination of teacher
practice found several distinct types of activities that appear to engage students in the type of knowledge construction or learning described by reform models. These activities include reflective writing, divergent
thinking, problem-solving, and project based activities. We created indices for each of these types of activities from relevant items in the teacher questionnaire The Co-NECT teachers did more reflective writing than
any other group. By reflective writing we mean writing used by students to seriously assess their own work, essays where students explaining their thinking or reasoning at length, or students writing in a journal.
Not far behind Co-NECT teachers on our reflective writing index were individuals participating in individual technology reform programs, surprisingly, the Low SES national sample, and the school-wide
non-technology reform programs. Co-NECT teachers also score higher than any other group on the divergent thinking activities index which measures how often students debate a point of view that is not there own, perform tasks with no "correct"
answer (problems that concern complex truths), discuss topics in small groups when a unit is introduced, and represent ideas in more than one way (e.g. table/poem/graph/essay). Projects In terms of having students do projects, Co-NECT teachers again are more likely to report that their students perform project-based activities more than any other group. We attempted to make our project
index fairly stringent by considering the duration of the project and meaningful uses of the resulting product of the task. Our index was based on how often students do projects that take week or more, make products
that will be used by someone else, perform hands on laboratory activities, and demonstrate their work to an audience other than their school or their family. Our problem solving index was based on how often
students, on their own, decide on procedures for solving a complex problem and then discuss among themselves their different procedures and results, how often they work in small groups to come up with a
joint solution, how often they work on problems with no obvious method of solution, and how often they design their own problems to solve. On TLC's problem solving index, Co-NECT teachers score lower
than any other comparison category. They even score lower than the non-participants in schools where other teachers are targeted. Meanwhile, the large disparity between those non-participants and those targeted
individuals appears once again when looking at the problem solving index score. Individuals participating in these reform programs are more than one-half standard deviation above all other groups, while the
others are congregated in the -.10 to +.10 range. The particular index components on which Co-NECT teachers fall behind other teachers are in the percentage of teachers who have students work in small groups to solve problems at least monthly and who have students solve problems with no obvious
solutions at least monthly. Only 59% of Co-NECT teachers have students co-operate with one another in groups to solve problems this often while between two thirds and three quarters of other teachers have their
students do so with the exception of non-participants in schools where other teachers participate in reform. (This latter group is as unlikely to have students work in groups to solve problems as Co-NECT.) Even more
drastic is the difference in percentage between Co-NECT teachers assigning problems with no obvious solution to students at least monthly. Only one quarter of Co-NECT teachers do so compared to
between 33% and 60% of all other groups of teachers studied. CHANGES IN PEDAGOGY AND TECHNOLOGY'S ROLE What role do computers play in changing teacher pedagogy in a constructivist direction? In order to address this question, we first examined whether or
not Co-NECT teachers are reporting any change in the first place. In order to measure changes in teaching practice consistent models of reform, several survey questions asked teachers to assess whether they
were engaging in various practices "much more," "more," "about the same" or "less" than three years earlier. Some practices were those reflecting constructivist ideas; others reflected more traditional ones. Notably, we found that Co-NECT teachers reported changes in a constructivist direction on two items: having students do more long projects and having students do less work from a textbook or worksheet.
In fact, 100% of Co-NECT teachers say that they have students work on long projects more often now than they did 3 years ago, and 100% of them are less likely now than 3 years ago to have students answer
questions from a textbook or worksheet. Among other comparison categories, less than 60% of teachers reported that this was the case. Although those findings suggests that Co-NECT teachers are experimenting with non-traditional teaching such as having students explore subject
matter through hands-on projects rather than through the textbook, whether Co-NECT teachers are allowing students to construct knowledge on their own is still at issue. Co-NECT teachers seem more traditional in that they
are less likely than other groups of teachers to report that students now explore a topic more on their own. They are also less likely than other groups of teachers to say that their students now are making predictions
and investigating them more than they had done previously in their career. Less than one quarter of Co-NECT teachers reported students exploring a topic on their own more often now than 3 years ago, a
smaller percentage than any other group of teachers. In fact the majority of teachers in other categories, including the Low SES national sample, said that their students were doing more independent exploration
now than before. Nevertheless, based on an overall index of constructivist change, Co-NECT teachers reported the
most change in a constructivist direction. The index took into account how much more or less teachers incorporated 16 different aspects of teaching into their practice. For example, eight of these were: a) plan a
lesson using principles of direct instruction (review, teach, guided practice, individual practice; coded "traditional change") b) have many activities going on in the room at the same time; c) use the textbook as
a primary guide through units (traditional); d) let student interest partly influence the topics in the lesson, e) closely monitor and supervise students while they work (traditional); f) give students a reward
for doing well on a big assignment (traditional); g) evaluate students through their products; and h) allow themselves to be taught by students. The average score of Co-NECT teachers on this index was more
than one-half of a standard deviation above the next-highest group of teachers, those in high-end technology schools. This is a huge difference, particularly in comparison to the score of the other
most constructivist group of teachers, the individual participants in technology reform programs. This latter group, although scoring as constructivist in practice as the Co-NECT teachers, clearly have been
constructivist for more of their teaching career than the Co-NECT teachers. The results of this figure The Role of Computers in Instructional Change
Not only have Co-NECT teachers undergone the most constructivist change in the last three years, but along with the participants in technology-based individual
reform programs, Co-NECT teachers were also those most likely to report that computers played a substantial or major role in that change (61% and 65% respectively reported that this was the case compared
to only 28% of the national sample). But, even 43% of teachers in the school-wide non-technology programs report that computers play at least a substantial role in their instructional change suggesting that across
the board, computers are influencing teaching practice where the climate for reform is strong. The TLC survey also examined the degree to which
computers change the way teachers approach their professional responsibilities as well. For example, we asked teachers how much more they collaborated with other teachers in ways such as working with
other teachers on curriculum planning, spending more time preparing lessons and reflecting deeply about good teaching more now than 3 years ago. We were surprised to find that Co-NECT teachers were
somewhat less likely to report increased collaboration than all the other groups. This may simply mean that they were already collaborators before.
Schools' capacity to systematically improve the
educational opportunities which their teachers offer to their student clientele depends on more than having sufficient computer resources available. It depends on the ability of the school as an organization to mobilize
talent and expertise on behalf of the entire organization, not just towards success in individual teachers' classrooms. Different approaches to mobilizing school organizations are advocated by
those with different theories of organizational change. Some approaches depend upon external pressures, such as those based on a theory of external accountability and externally judged performance.
Others depend on restructuring the market for school services, such as through open-enrollment, voucher programs, or charter schools. But others depend on a theory of the professionalization of the teaching role
and on the development of peer leadership among teachers. The Co-NECT school model appears to be based in a substantial way on the third of these approaches—depending to some extent on external
expertise, but largely on the development of expertise and leadership that is internal to each school. This is important because, we have found in other analysis of TLC data that the more teachers interact with others
within their profession and the more they take on roles as leaders of their profession, the more likely those teachers believe in and move their teaching practice towards a constructivist pedagogy. The Teaching, Learning, and Computing survey studied the extent to which different groups of teachers had within themselves an orientation towards the teaching role that emphasized peer leadership as opposed to simply attention to one's own classroom teaching responsibilities
In the TLC study, a teacher's "role orientation" was measured in terms of a) interactions with other teachers at their own school (discussion of professional matters and mutual observation of classroom teaching); b) contact with teachers at other schools (through workshops, conferences, district/area committee meetings, and e-mail); and c) leadership (mentoring, teaching peers in workshops or conferences, college teaching, and publishing articles in teacher-read journals). In terms of interactions with teachers in their own schools, Co-NECT teachers report by far the highest levels of mutual classroom observation of any of the categories of teachers in the study. Their mean score, for example, was more than 0.8 of a standard deviation above the national teacher sample, whereas no other group exceeded 0.3. (See Figure 44) However, in terms of the frequency of having professional discussions with other teachers at their school (about curriculum issues, instructional methods, or technology), Co-NECT teachers, although slightly higher than the national sample, don't report having as many of those kinds of interactions as participants in programs targeting individuals or teachers in school-wide technology reform programs. (See Figure 45) In terms of contact with teachers at other schools, Co-NECT teachers are more likely than any other group to participate in workshops and conferences, but they have not used e-mail to communicate with others as much as participants in individual technology-oriented reform programs. Three quarters of Co-NECT teachers (76%) interacted with teachers from other schools at workshops, classes, or conferences at least 3 times during the school year compared to less than half of the national sample. (See Figure 46) However, only 29% of Co-NECT teachers e-mailed teachers at other schools six or more times during the school year, about the same proportion as most other groups of teachers, and less than half as many of the individual technology-program participants (who were probably trained and given structural opportunities to interact with individual participants at other schools). (See Figure 47)Participants in reform programs that target individuals score by far the highest on our leadership index which measures participation in activities such as mentoring, teaching peers in workshops or conferences, college teaching, and publishing articles in teacher read journals. Relative to the national sample, these participants average .93 standard deviations higher compared to .38 for Co-NECT teachers. Teachers at other groups of reform-oriented schools score somewhat lower, but are not far behind Co-NECT. (See Figure 48) Although the individual participants in other technology
reform programs have greater levels of professional leadership than Co-NECT teachers, Co-NECT teachers actually have a far stronger record of investing in their own academic pursuits than those
individual program participants—or any other group of teachers studied. In our research, educational investment was measured by college grade point average, highest degree attained and units taken, and
most recent time a college course was taken for credit. On that basis, the mean educational investment score by Co-NECT teachers was more than one-half a standard deviation above the mean for
the national sample of teachers, compared to the individual program participants' mean of .28. Co-NECT teachers were also two-thirds of a standard deviation above that of other teachers in low-SES schools. (See Figure 49) This is important because in
other studies, we have shown that teachers with stronger academic backgrounds are more likely to orient themselves toward leadership within their profession. Those results also give caution; however,
concerning the extent to which Co-NECT is successful because of the kinds of teachers that are recruited to (or choose to stay in) schools that follow the Co-NECT model. The extent that Co-NECT
depends upon selective teacher enrollment will affect the ability of the model to successfully scale up to other, less teacher-advantaged, school sites. SCHOOL CONTEXT: CULTURE, SUPPORT, PRESSURES Role-orientation and educational investment measure individual teachers' propensity to play leadership roles
in instructional reform. However, on a school-wide basis, there is the question of the extent to which teachers participate as a whole in a culture that is oriented around professionally-led instructional reform.
Our measure of "Professional School Culture" attempts to assess school context as a whole by aggregating responses from the several individual teachers at each school to questions about the
existence of a sense of community among teachers, whether teachers recognize each others' work and give mutual constructive criticism, whether teachers play a leadership role in staff development, and
whether there is a consensus of goals exists among the educators within their school. By an overwhelming extent, Co-NECT teachers reported the highest level of professional school culture of any of the groups studied. Their mean
score was more than 1.3 standard deviations above that of the national probability sample of teachers, and nearly one full standard deviation higher than the second-best scoring group (teachers in schools with
the highest technology present). Interestingly, the school culture among schools where individuals are targeted for reform score the lowest (-.36 and -.30 reported by non-participants and participants
respectively). Those findings suggest that the individual reform program participants have most likely sought out reform programs out of desperation of having found little support within their immediate environments. Support for Technology Use
Our survey asked teachers about how satisfactory they felt support was for their own use of technology.
Of course, satisfaction depends on both need for support and its availability and quality; for people with less need for support (either because they are experts themselves or because they don't use technology very
much), the question of quality and availability is less critical than for people who report a need for it. Support for technology was divided into three types: technical support, instructional support, and support
for supervising students. Only the first two types are reported here. In terms of technical support, fewer Co-NECT teachers than others felt the need for such support (somewhat
surprising given their greater use of technology); however, of those who felt a need, a much larger percentage complained about its lack of availability than did other groups of teachers. Formal opportunities to learn skills and approaches to
teaching and using technology must be a part of major change efforts. The TLC survey asked teachers about the topics that were central issues in staff development programs they had participated in during
the past 12 months. Co-NECT teachers reported an equal balance between issues of pedagogy (such as improving students' critical-thinking, their ability to write or to do peer review of writing) and issues of
technology use (such as Internet use or creating multimedia presentations). In contrast, other schoolwide technology programs, both those that are reform-oriented and those that emphasize hardware
acquisition, provide more training in technology use and less in pedagogy, while non-technology-oriented reform programs do the reverse.
Pressures on teachers result from efforts to influence their teaching practice. Some level of pressure might be regarded as beneficial if it moves teachers towards a more theoretically defensible type of teaching
practice. Too much pressure, however, may be counter-productive, even when it is directed towards teaching practices that might generally produce better outcomes for students. Our study asked teachers about the extent to which they felt pressured in three directions: 1) Traditional—e.g., pressure to prepare students to take standardized tests, to cover a large quantity of
curriculum content, to use a specific textbook, or teach what next year's teacher expects students to know; 2) Constructivist—e.g., pressure to do 'higher order" thinking and problem solving,
performance-based assessments, projects, or teach "meta-cognitive" skills; and 3) Technology—i.e., pressure to have students use computers or have students use the Internet. Although between 70 %
and 80% of all other groups of teachers felt some pressure on at least one of six items which any given teacher was asked about, that was true of 98% of Co-NECT teachers. Co-NECT teachers reported, on average, higher pressures of a traditionalist sort as well as higher pressures of a constructivist sort than did the national
sample. That was also true of two other groups of teachers: teachers from the national sample who teach in low-SES schools (who indeed reported pressure levels higher than Co-NECT teachers both in
terms of traditional and constructivist pressures), as well as participants in individual technology-oriented reform programs. Summary This examination of 21 teachers in 6 of the
early-adopting Co-NECT schools has provided suggestive evidence about areas in which the Co-NECT schools program has made substantial accomplishments, relative to other types of reform programs and relative to nationally comparable
schools, and areas in which accomplishments have been somewhat slower than program designers may have hoped for. Overall, though, the pattern of comparisons revealed in these data suggest a
remarkable degree of implementation of technology-based instructional reform. Although this is the first analysis we have done to date of any particular reform program within the TLC database, the
average scores of Co-NECT teachers on measures of pedagogy, technology use, professional role-orientation, and school professional culture, taken as a whole, could well turn out to be higher overall
than any other program effort sufficiently present in the database for comparative data to be produced. Co-NECT teachers have more computer technology present in their classrooms than any of the seven
other groups of teachers with which they have been compared. Their use of computer software with students is comparable in extent and sophistication with that of individual teachers who participate in
technology-oriented reform programs which target individual teachers rather than whole schools. Co-NECT teachers' use of software is substantially greater than any other schoolwide comparison group
including high-end technology schools and other schools engaging in schoolwide technology reform. Particularly in comparison to teachers in other low-income schools, Co-NECT teachers have
objectives for computer use that are constructivist in their intent and look much more like the patterns of computer use found in more advantaged community environments. The only area of student computer use
in which there is a clear weakness in Co-NECT schools is in the area of higher-order uses of computers, such as for analyzing information and ideas. However, on another measure, the extent that
students are reported to be doing work for their classes at school but on their own time, Co-NECT teachers report the greatest level of student involvement. This suggests that a principal benefit to
effective technology programs— students expanding the amount of time they engage in serious productive work—is being accomplished at Co-NECT schools more than elsewhere. A large proportion of Co-NECT teachers have had
computers themselves for many years, and this translates into substantial levels of computer expertise. However, their professional use of computers is targeted to specialized applications,
which results in a more modest measure of overall professional use of computers than might be predicted. Co-NECT teachers also report needing more support for instructional applications of
computers than do other teachers, and if a teacher feels that, she is very likely to report that it is insufficiently available. Finally, Co-NECT teachers feel substantial amounts of pressure to use computers in
their teaching, which, when combined with above-average pressures to reach traditional teaching objectives and even constructivist ones, seems to result in an overly high-pressured atmosphere that
may limit how much teachers can accomplish. Consistent with their reports of how they use computers, Co-NECT teachers are pedagogically constructivist in terms of their teaching philosophies,
their use of projects, student-led activities, and other elements of a meaning-oriented instructional practice, as well as in areas of higher cognitive challenge such as reflective writing and some measures of divergent
thinking. However, they are not distinct in terms of giving students tasks calling for open-ended problem-solving and giving students independent responsibility for designing and organizing
problem-solving efforts, such as making and investigating their own predictions. However, many of the difficulties of implementing a higher-order approach to curriculum and instruction are experienced to the
same degree by other teachers serving low-income student populations. The surveyed Co-NECT teachers report having made substantial changes during the previous three years towards practicing a more constructivist pedagogy,
but mainly in terms of practices that make learning more meaningful rather than in areas of critical inquiry. Overall, Co-NECT teachers report by far the greatest extent of recent change towards a
constructivist-compatible teaching practice of any groups being compared, and a majority of Co-NECT teachers attribute a major role in those changes to their use of computers. Co-NECT teachers also show themselves to be
life-long learners who have made great investments in their own education and generally exhibit a professional role orientation, including peer leadership activities. Most profoundly, at a school level these six
Co-NECT schools exhibit a strong professional culture, by far stronger than any other comparison group of schools. This suggests that the program is laying a strong foundation for sustaining schoolwide
professional change over the long term. Although this examination of a small sample of participating Co-NECT teachers cannot provide as reliable a portrait of the progress of the Co-NECT
program as a larger, more focused evaluation study could do, these findings are basically consistent with what we understand to be the context and efforts of the Co-NECT program. We hope that the relatively
broad-ranging nature of this examination, despite its small case base, will be useful in fostering a greater understanding of the progress being made by schools implementing this technology-rich,
constructivist-oriented schoolwide design program. APPENDIX A - TLC SAMPLING PROCEDURE AND RESPONSE RATE This Appendix provides additional details about the
TLC sample than provided in the introductory section of this report. Somewhat more than one-half of the 1,616 schools sampled for the study (56%) were a stratified national probability sample of elementary (299 schools),
middle (253), and high schools (346), including 83 private and parochial schools. Those schools were sampled with probabilities related to both size (estimated number of full-time teachers, grades 4 to
12) and the presence of computer technology (based on an index developed for Quality Education Data, Inc.). The sampling universe was the approximately 108,000 schools in the Quality Education Data (QED) database.
The remaining samples of schools are referred to as "purposive samples" and were based on compiling, refining, and sampling from lists of two basic types of schools: "High-End Technology Schools" are schools
with substantial amounts of computer technology per capita, including schools selected from the QED technology presence index and schools identified through books, articles in magazines and school
web-sites. "Reform Program schools" were compiled by identifying schools or individual teachers who had been long-term (2 year+) participants in one of 54 different national or regional externally-defined
"programs" of major school or instructional reform. In all three school samples, teachers were sampled from grades 4-12 and from all subjects except physical education and special education. At each
sampled school, three to five teachers (3, elementary; 5, middle and high school) were selected with probabilities related to the teacher's reputed instructional practices and use of technology. A small
number of teachers (a maximum of 2 per school) were selected with certainty (probability equal to 1) based on the principal's attribution of that teacher having an exemplary instructional practice or based on their
known participation in the selected program of instructional reform. Because unequal probabilities were used, at both school and teacher level, all analysis employs weighted data with weights inverse
to the probability of selection, as modified by stratum-specific non-response rates and within-school partial completions of teacher rosters.
Across the three samples, 1,215 of the 1,616 schools selected for participation agreed to participate in the study (75%). The attained probability sample or "national" sample (rostered schools) consists of 598
public and 57 private and parochial schools. The High-end Technology sample includes 182 rostered schools including 86 entering the sample based on having among the highest technology presence index
scores in the QED database. The remainder were believed to have substantial computer and Internet technology, as identified through publicly available information from school Web sites, books, and
magazine articles. Finally, the Reform Program sample includes 378 rostered schools that were identified through various sources as being involved in one of 53 different reform efforts.
The "reform program" and "high-end technology" samples involve some definitional overlap in that 13 of the reform programs (with 90 rostered schools) appear to have substantial amounts of technology, while 72
rostered high-end technology schools appear to have explicit instructional reform emphases even though they did not participate in any of the major reform programs selected. A majority of Reform Program
schools are involved in a school-wide reform program (e.g., Coalition of Essential Schools, League of Professional Schools, Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, Co-NECT Schools) These total 30
separate programs (200 schools) including four with a technology emphasis and five that are not 'programs' per se but schools linked by a common origin (e.g., 'Charter Schools with a constructivist flavor'). In
addition, there are four programs that are limited to math and/or science (26 schools), 17 programs that enrolled individual teacher participants (nine of these are technology-centered), and two programs that
recognized individual exemplary teachers. At each of the 1,616 studied schools, samples of 3 (elementary) or 5 (middle and high school) teachers
were drawn through probability sampling methods. Principals of the participating schools were asked to roster either 10 (elementary) or 15 (secondary) teachers of grade 4 or higher (in some cases limited
to the same subject taught by a reform program-participating teacher), starting with teachers with last names beginning with a randomly selected letter of the alphabet and proceeding alphabetically.
The roster form asked for 4 additional pieces of information about the rostered teachers that were used to assign sampling weights to each rostered teacher (e.g., subject taught, use of computers, use of projects in teaching).
In addition, two other sources of teachers were incorporated as purposive samples. Approximately 250 teachers were individually selected from the purposive school samples based on reports (public or
program-supplied) of their participation in educational reform activities. And finally, approximately 800 teachers were chosen through nominations by principals (as part of the Roster form) as exemplary
practitioners of constructivist approaches to teaching. Response rates of individually selected teachers, principals, and technology coordinators averaged
about 70%. Altogether, responses were obtained from 4,083 teachers of grade 4 and higher in 1,150 schools, as well as 845 technology coordinators and 867 school principals. FOOTNOTE #1: See Teacher Professionalism and the Emergence of Constructivist-Compatible Pedagogies by Henry J. Becker and Margaret M. Riel at the TLC website:
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