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Technology is supporting a particularly sophisticated system for instructional management at the Saturn School. Teachers are using technology to respond to, store, and manipulate complex student performance data. Each student has a Personal Growth Plan (PGP), consisting of goals negotiated with staff and parents but written in the student's own words (Bennett & King 1991). This plan is stored on both teacher- and student-accessible networks, where students and teachers can set goals and track student accomplishments.
The student or teacher can query the system for learning activities (e.g., courses, workshops, community volunteer opportunities, mentorship programs) relevant to a particular goal. The system uses a keyword search strategy coupled with a data bank to provide this information. Students can insert changes and revise their goals (after negotiation with their advisor), and the system supports reflection on their growth and development relative to their goals. Each student in the school has a portfolio of proficiencies, which is compiled throughout the student's years in the school. There are pop-up windows for teacher comments and notes regarding the student's activities and goals. The student's portfolio includes both hard copy and items that are stored electronically on the network, including text files, HyperCard stacks, and videos. As a result, both students and teachers are able to easily retrieve and review work from the current or previous year.
Taken altogether, the various components of the system developed and used at Saturn school provide an interesting example of how technology can support a comprehensive, integrated approach to instructional management. A key feature of the system is the opportunity it provides for students to take an active role in managing and negotiating their own learning experiences (through goal-setting, identifying key learning opportunities, responding to feedback, and recording and evaluating their progress).
Interaction with Colleagues--One of the most frustrating features of the teacher's job is the paucity of opportunities to interact with colleagues in working on the central problems of curriculum and instruction. The opportunity for teachers to work cooperatively with other teachers is considered a crucial program ingredient in the AT&T Learning Network described previously. According to Riel (1990b), "Teachers cannot be expected to reorganize classrooms to provide [a cooperative learning environment] for students while they themselves remain in the isolation of the traditional classroom" (p. 464). If teachers are engaged in cooperation and collaboration with their professional peers, it will be more natural for them to provide the same sort of environment for their students.
Beyond providing an avenue for communication about cooperative projects, the AT&T Learning Network provides a forum for this more in- depth and reflective communication between professionals. The learning circle projects have provided teachers with an opening through which they can communicate with each other. Riel (1990b) found that teachers who were part of the AT&T learning circles asked each other for suggestions and advice and thus gained new ideas about classroom organization and teaching practices. They also learned from one another by reading descriptions of events taking place in other classrooms. As teachers share descriptions of things happening in their own classrooms, other teachers may adopt some of those ideas.
The way in which technology can support this collegial process is illustrated by the extended electronic conversation conducted among teachers in one learning circle in response to a teacher's query about portfolio assessment. Larry Adamson, a learning circle coordinator, sent the following message to the teachers on his circle:
So you want to talk about portfolios!!! One of my favorite topics. I've been using some form of portfolio evaluation over the last four years. What I'm really into is all forms of authentic assessment. I agree with Nancy's comment about "dittos and tests", there is a better way to evaluate. Exactly what the "way" should be is still being widely debated.
The following week, after some other participants reacted to his comments and asked for more information, Adamson continued his discussion of portfolio assessment:
I also use traditional writing folders, which is a primitive form of a portfolio. I have my students write 15 to 20 minutes every night for homework, and when they come into my class I simply stamp their work and have them save it in their binders..... Through binders, writing folders, portfolios, holistic assessment, writing workshop, and individual conferencing, I m able to get a pretty good grasp of an individual student's strengths and weaknesses, and I have evidence to support my evaluation.....
As I mentioned earlier, this is also one of the reasons I like working on the AT&T Learning Network. It gives me an opportunity to see what student writing looks like around the world. It gives my students an opportunity to compare their writing with other students their same age. It has really worked as a motivator for me. If I publish a piece of student writing on the Network they get extra credit and it is included in their portfolio. I try to make it as much like the real world of publishing as I can.
He asked others to send more messages about what they were doing:
Margaret....I'd also be interested in hearing more about what your district is doing to formalize the portfolio process. Jo and Angelo, what are your thoughts on portfolios?
Two weeks later, Angelo Abby responded to Adamson's query:
Anyway, on to portfolios. I am reading with fascination the many conversations that have taken place concerning this new/old technique for keeping track of a student's progress. We have been talking about this idea for the past few weeks on the assessment committee, of which I am a part. We are trying to find information about what other schools have done along the portfolio line and the network has supplied me with some material to share with my colleagues. I really have enjoyed hearing the pros/cons about the idea and have passed along the info to people in my building.
When the teachers participating in the AT&T Learning Network were asked about the benefits of educational electronic networking, most rated their own learning, not the learning of their students, as the most important benefit of the program (Riel 1990b). The network changed and improved the working conditions for teachers, enabling them to communicate and share ideas with other professionals. As Angelo Abby wrote, "...this collaboration is wonderful. I didn t have to make telephone calls to anyone, or leave my building to find out the information I needed. I sat at the computer and discovered that my problem was already on the network." A week later, he continued: "I have truly enjoyed the eavesdropping that I feel I have done for the past few months reading such good material from all of you. Your comments to Margaret Riel about collaboration, your ideas about portfolios, your feelings about telecommunications--all have been absorbed by me as well as several of my peers (anyone who would listen, as a matter of fact)." Larry Adamson commented, "relationships seem to be forming all over the network. I have a feeling that this is only the beginning. We are the nucleus of what may develop into a worldwide faculty."
Research on the AT&T Learning Network suggests that participation in the learning circles increased teachers self-esteem as well as their knowledge (Riel 1990b). Network interaction can open a small window on classroom activities (p. 457) so that teachers receive recognition and praise from their peers. For example, transcripts from the network show how teachers who were already using portfolio assessment received special praise and recognition from other teachers who were struggling to begin what seemed like an overwhelming task. When teachers select projects for the Learning Network, they are often showcasing some of their best lessons and receive much positive feedback from their circle partners. There is also a recognition among teachers that skilled performances by students usually mark skilled performances by their teachers (p. 458), and the teachers receive a great deal of positive feedback in that respect. Also, when teachers see their ideas being adapted or evolving in other classrooms in distant locations, it is extremely exciting and rewarding.
All of these opportunities for feedback and praise from peers in distant locations increase teachers excitement about the learning project. And when teachers get excited about learning, their students share their teachers enthusiasm and the quality of the students work increases (p. 459).
Access to Subject Matter Experts--In addition to providing links to colleagues, technology can give teachers access to experts in the subject matter they are trying to teach. Even the best-prepared teacher cannot know everything in a given field, and knowledge about new developments is by definition vested in just a few individuals. With technology comes the power to have increasing access to subject matter experts, giving teachers the opportunity to strengthen their knowledge of the content areas they teach.
An example of this trend is the Urban Math Collaborative (UMC), which links teachers and university mathematicians in order to deepen teachers knowledge of mathematics and to help them respond to emerging new standards in the mathematics education community. Discussions on the electronic network of the UMC have deepened teachers content knowledge and have also touched on teaching issues that do not get dealt with as openly and meaningfully in other forums. Discussions are often more in-depth and reflective, since comments and opinions that are shared on the network are addressed to a potentially wide audience and tend to be more carefully thought through than those offered in more casual, face-to- face settings (Driscoll & Kelemanik 1991).
[Challenges for Teachers Using Technology]
This page was last updated December 27, 2001 (jca)