November/December 1997

Technology Works Best When It Serves Clear Educational Goals

By Donna Harrington-Lueker

As a physics and engineering teacher at San Francisco's Thurgood Marshall Academic High School, Dennis Frezzo uses computer technology with the precision of a strategic strike. Last spring, his students laid cable to link computers for an upcoming trade show at the San Jose Convention Center--a real-world task that put students' fledgling engineering skills to immediate use. And this year, when students build electrified go-carts, Frezzo expects they'll use computer spreadsheets to track costs, special software programs to help with design, and simulation programs to "check the shocks and springs" so they don't have to build their go-carts 10 different times.

"I have kids use computers the same way engineers use computers," says Frezzo, a former electrical engineer with a keen commitment to Thurgood Marshall's philosophy of using project-based learning to boost achievement among its students.

Several hours north, in Mendocino, CA, School Superintendent Ken Matheson has a similarly clear vision about the role of technology in learning. "It's our curriculum that drives the way we use technology," says Matheson of the small rural district's commitment to reform first and technology second. Over the last decade, Mendocino has made widescale changes in teaching and learning. Real-world projects and activities that encourage students to explore on their own drive the curriculum. Students have begun to build portfolios of their work in the early grades, and teachers have been granted additional preparation time to work with each other on units of instruction.

And technology? "Once you establish your goals, your standards, what you believe in [as a school district], then you use technology to accomplish that," says Matheson.

This year, for example, Mendocino's students will collect watershed data in their community--a project that reflects the school district's emphasis on learning through projects done in the community. With the help of a grant from the Annenberg Foundation, students will then use videoconferencing equipment and an Internet connection to share their data with students working on similar projects in three other rural school districts.

A Billion-Dollar Enterprise

Like other schools and school districts across the nation, students and teachers at Thurgood Marshall and in Mendocino are on the front lines of the billion-dollar computer revolution. According to Denver-based Quality Education Data, U.S. schools are expected to spend $5.2 billion on technology this year--more than double the $2.5 billion they spent just five years earlier. This year, too, thanks to the passage of the federal Telecommunications Act, which promises potentially steep discounts on Internet access to schools and libraries, many schools expect to add on-line technologies to their current technology mix.

But what guidelines does research offer for making the most of those dollars? What research should school technology planners be familiar with? Schools have pushed to integrate technology into the curriculum for more than a decade, and the number of computers in schools has risen dramatically.

At the same time, though, researchers acknowledge that the way students and teachers use computers is often rudimentary, and significant gains in student achievement have not materialized. Until recently, researchers say, studies on the effectiveness of school technology have focused on simply comparing the new technologies with traditional instruction rather than looking in depth at such things as the effect of classroom culture on technology use or the obstacles to teachers using technology effectively.

Increasingly, however, many researchers argue that Thurgood Marshall's project-based curricula and Mendocino's commitment to linking computers with widescale school reform are among the most promising ways to use technology. And they support their argument with studies of high-performing districts that have made substantial investments in technology and put that technology in the service of a specific educational goal or agenda.

"It isn't just a question of figuring out how to put technology into classrooms," says Martha Stone Wiske, co-director of the Educational Technology Center (ETC) at Harvard. "It's a question of clarifying educational goals, reconceptualizing how you orchestrate teaching and learning activities, and altering the way you assess students and teachers."

Computers and Constructivism

According to Wiske and other researchers, one way schools can use technology effectively is to support the kinds of changes that many school reformers have been urging for the last decade. Generally, Wiske says, these reforms reflect constructivist theories of learning, which urge schools to distinguish between instruction that emphasizes the transmission of information and instruction that is designed to support students' efforts to "construct" their own understanding.

One report explaining the link between these kinds of reforms and technology is the 1993 study, Using Technology to Support Education Reform. Funded by the federal Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), the report surveyed research on school technology and cognitive psychology, and concluded that if a school system's goal is to develop advanced skills in thinking, analyzing, synthesizing, and experimenting, then a wide range of computer technologies can support that effort.

Using electronic databases, for example, students can retrieve and manipulate data, as well as test relationships between variables in ways that would be difficult without technology. Two other computer applications--microworlds and microcomputer-based laboratories--have also proved to be powerful tools in mathematics, the physical sciences, and social studies, the report says. In microcomputer-based laboratories, for example, students can use equipment called probeware to measure physical phenomena such as sound, light, and temperature in the same way scientists would. And in microworlds, students become immersed in complex computer simulations that ask them to solve problems, gather information, and make inferences.

Having students use word-processing programs to revise their essays or spreadsheet applications to analyze data they have collected also promotes high-level thinking skills, as does giving them access to interactive networks, such as Kids Network or FrEdMail, that encourage them to collaborate.

Another study, the Rand Corporation's Fostering the Use of Educational Technology: Elements of a National Strategy, surveyed five schools that had invested heavily in both technology and school reform. In each case, technology wasn't something added to the margins of school life. Rather, each school had made significant changes in curriculum and instruction before it introduced technology, and most had made substantial changes in the way the school-and the school day-was organized.

Rand Corporation researchers Thomas K. Glennan and Arthur Melmed studied one school, Blackstock Junior High School in Port Huenema, CA, that developed so-called "smart classrooms"-classrooms devoted to a specific subject and outfitted with leading-edge technology-and allowed teachers to take as much as a year off to prepare the new curriculum for these classes. Other schools decided to emphasize individual research and exploration rather than textbooks in their curricula and lengthened their class periods to allow for such investigations. In every case, technology became another tool students could use in their explorations.

Union City's Success

One school district that has linked technology with widescale reform is Union City, NJ. Located just across the Hudson River from New York City, Union City serves a largely immigrant and transient population. Nearly 75 percent of the district's students do not speak English at home; the same percentage come from low-income families.

In 1989, in response to a proposed state takeover of the district, the failing school system drastically overhauled its approach to instruction. "Our problem was typical of all urban school systems. The mode of teaching and learning that we were using was faulty," Fred Carrigg, the district's executive director of academic programs, told participants at a Harvard University conference on leadership and the new technologies this past summer.

Specifically, Carrigg said, Union City relied on basal readers and textbooks, and emphasized memorization, basic skills, and traditional 50-minute periods. With limited resources, Union City's schools had few computers, all of which were located in computer laboratories. Teachers had few opportunities for professional development and central office administrators made decisions about curriculum and instruction and expected schools to follow their directives.

Over the next several years, that approach to instruction changed. Instead of basal readers, teachers began to use a whole-language approach to reading that emphasized real literature and writing instead of drill-and-practice exercises. They also started working with a new curriculum that relied on research projects rather than textbooks and encouraged students of differing abilities to work together on projects. To accommodate the new teaching strategies, schools adopted block scheduling that provided students with longer periods to work on projects. Teachers and principals also started making their own decisions about how to spend school funds.

"We decided to focus on teaching students how to learn, and we made that the major goal in every grade," said Carrigg.

Three years later, the district launched a technology initiative that complemented these reforms. To make it easier for teachers to integrate technology into their lessons, Union City began installing computers in classrooms rather than in separate laboratories. To encourage middle and high school teachers to collaborate on projects, the district arranged for teachers to have home computers. It also gave them their own Internet accounts so that teachers could confer on-line. As part of their research-based curriculum, students began using on-line and Internet in addition to textbooks and library resources. In 1993, in partnership with Bell Atlantic, the district began Project Explorer, which provided 135 7th-graders with home computers and high-speed Internet connections so that students could have access to a variety of on-line materials, such as mulitmedia encyclopedias (which combine text, sound, and graphics) and other reference books.

"Our transiency rate was cut in half," said Carrigg of that project's success. "Families stayed because of the computers."

Test scores rose as well. In 1989, the first year of the district's reform efforts, Union City's 1st-graders scored in the 38th percentile in language on the California Achievement Test (CAT); in 1997, they scored in the 72nd percentile. The 1st-graders' scores in mathematics and writing also increased. In 1989, 1st-graders scored in the 63rd percentile in mathematics and the 34th percentile in reading. In 1997, those scores had risen to the 81st and 79th percentile, respectively.

The district's passing rate on a statewide assessment improved as well. In 1992, only 33 percent of Union City's 8th-graders passed the state's reading test. In 1997, 86 percent passed. In mathematics, 50 percent of the district's 8th graders received passing scores in 1992, compared with 80 percent in 1997. According to Carrigg, other urban school districts in the state have typically recorded 4 percent increases annually in scores on the statewide test, while Union City's increases have been between 10 and 15 percent.

Further, while district scores have risen dramatically, the scores of the 135 students in Project Explore-which makes extensive use of on-line technology-have improved even more, Carrigg said. Ninth-graders in the program scored 7 percent higher in reading and 15 percent higher in mathematics than students in the district as a whole on the statewide assessment. On the writing section of the test, these 9th-graders scored 21 percent higher than others.

Carrigg acknowledges that a number of factors contributed to the rise in scores, but he believes the combination of widescale reform and technology integration was key. "Our test scores went up when we started [reform], and then got another boost when we introduced technology," said Carrigg.

"Targets of Difficulty"

Studies of smaller-scale uses of technology suggest still other ways that schools can constructively use technology. Research at Harvard's Educational Technology Center (ETC) has focused on "targets of difficulty" in mathematics and science-concepts that are crucial to a student's understanding of these subjects but that are also widely recognized as difficult to teach and learn.

Secondary school students, for example, often have difficulty differentiating between heat and temperature-concepts that are fundamental to their understanding of energy transfer, which appears throughout the secondary-level science curriculum. After studying students' intuitive ideas and misconceptions about these concepts-a crucial first step-ETC researchers designed a computer-based laboratory unit that used computer software and other equipment to allow students to deliver various amounts of heat to a liquid and then to view the changes in temperature as a computer graphic. Finally, taking advantage of the computer's ability to provide dynamic visual representations of various concepts, the researchers also developed software depicting heat flow as molecular kinetic energy transferred from one substance to another.

After using the model with 11th-grade students, ETC researchers compared a group of students taught with the models to a group taught with traditional material. Both groups spent the same amount of time on the same topics. Interviews with students showed that students taught with the computer model understood the various thermal concepts, laws, and principals better than students in control groups did, says researcher Marianne Wiser. Specifically, they had fewer misconceptions about the concepts and a greater ability to discuss the distinction between heat and temperature, both theoretically and practically, Wiser found.

ETC researcher Carol Smith is doing similar work with the concepts of weight and density. Working with older elementary and middle school students in urban and suburban schools, Smith has used software that allows students to work with various visual models for their ideas about weight, volume, and density to help them clarify their understanding of these concepts.

Putting Teachers First

Perhaps most important, researchers say, technology won't make a difference in student achievement unless school systems make a substantial commitment to helping teachers learn to use computers effectively. That process, though, could take time. As part of an effort to study what happens when students and teachers have constant access to technology, the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow Project (ACOT) has tracked the experiences of teachers in several technology-rich classrooms. ACOT equipped these classrooms with computers, printers, scanners, laser-disc and videotape players, modems, an assortment of software, and CD-ROM drives. Over the course of the project, researchers found that teachers moved through five stages:

1. an entry stage, in which teachers struggled to master the nuts and bolts of using computers;
2. an adoption stage, in which teachers began using computer-based activities daily, but primarily for drill and practice;
3. an adaptation stage, in which teachers typically used computers as a way to increase student productivity (students could write better and faster using a word processor than they could by hand, for example);
4. an appropriation stage, in which teachers abandoned their effort to simply computerize traditional practices; and
5. an invention stage, where teachers began experimenting with new instructional patterns, such as interdisciplinary and project-based instruction or team teaching.

Each stage also called for different kinds of support, the researchers found. At the entry stage, for example, researchers found that teachers needed common planning time and opportunities to talk with other staff members, while at the adoption stage they needed nuts-and-bolts technical support to master specific computer skills. During the adaptation stage, too, teachers needed more flexible schedules so that they could observe other classrooms or work together in teams. Encouraging teachers to attend conferences, develop their own assessments, and participate in on-line teacher networks proved to be effective supports in the last two stages.

A nationwide survey of 11 high-technology school districts, done by the New York City-based Center for Children and Technology (CCT), also underscores the importance of teacher training. Among the high-performing districts CCT researchers visited, those that had the most significant progress integrating technology into their curriculum were school systems that had made a substantial investment in teacher training. Among the strategies these districts had adopted were adding professional development days to their calendar, developing a local cadre of technology-using teachers to serve as trainers, providing teachers with home computers, and making certain that teachers had sufficient on-site technical support to keep the equipment running at their site.

Perhaps most important, though, the report concludes, the professional development programs in successful districts went beyond the basics of mastering hardware and software and dealt specifically with reforms in teaching and learning.

For schools trying to make the most effective use of technology, the message many researchers send is clear. "Technology alone isn't sufficient," says Robert Spielvogel, one of the authors of the CCT study. "You have to have a pedagogical plan."

For further information

J. Cradler. Summary of Current Research and Evaluation Findings on Technology in Education. San Francisco: Far West Laboratory, 1994.

C. Fisher, D. C. Dwyer, and K. Yocam, eds. Education and Technology: Reflecting on Computing in Classrooms. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.

J. Hawkins, R. Spielvogel, and E.M. Panush. National Study Tour of District Technology Integration: Summary Report. New York: Center for Children and Technology, 1996.

B. Means et al. Using Technology to Support Education Reform. Washington, DC: Office for Education Research and Improvement, 1993.

J.H. Sandholtz, C. Ringstaff, and D.C. Dwyer. Teaching with Technology: Creating Student-Centered Classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press, 1997.

C. Smith, D. Maclin, L. Grosslight, and H. Davis. "Teaching for Understanding: A Study of Students' Preinstruction Theories of Matter and a Comparison of the Effectiveness of Two Approaches to Teaching about Matter and Density." Cognition and Instruction 15, no. 3, 1997: 317-393.

M. Wiser. "Use of History of Science to Understand and Remedy Students' Misconceptions About Heat and Temperature." In D.N. Perkins et al. (eds.), Software Goes to School: Teaching for Understanding with New Technologies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

M. S. Wiske, D. Niguidula, and J. W. Shepard. Collaborative Research Goes to School: Guided Inquiry with Computers in Classrooms. Washington, DC: Office for Educational Research and Improvement, 1988.

Donna Harrington-Lueker is an education writer in Newport, RI.