Classroom Dynamics

Implementing a Technology-Based Learning Environment

Ellen B. Mandinach,Hugh F. Cline

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135436179
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Didattica
• Categoria: Didattica generale

This book reports an attempt to introduce change in schools using a computer-based curriculum innovation for teaching higher-order thinking skills to middle and high school students. One of the volume's themes is the extraordinary complexity and difficulty of facilitating such change in schools. A corollary of that theme is the fact that patience must be an integral part of the strategy when promoting or studying change in schools. In reporting the activities during the early years of a technological innovation and research project in which the emphasis thus far has been primarily on establishing the change, this book focuses on describing the move to a technology-based learning environment. As such, it details an ongoing process -- a fascinating process -- and one that is likely to be repeated in the near future in countless schools throughout the nation.

1

The Systems Thinking and Curriculum Innovation Project

Genesis

Educational Testing Service (ETS) was one of several collaborators in the Educational Technology Center (ETC), located at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Founded in the mid-1980s, ETC was funded initially by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in the U.S. Department of Education. Its mission was to examine the impact of technology on science and mathematics education. ETS’s original role was to provide dissemination services for ETC. After 3 years the directorship at ETC changed and so too did the personnel and focus of ETS’s participation. ETS then began an examination of the acquisition and transfer of higher order thinking skills in classroom computer learning environments. This particular emphasis was not novel, for substantial earlier research had focused on the cognitive effects of learning in computer environments. Such research was carried out in many places, including the University of California at Berkeley (Dalbey & Linn, 1985; Linn, 1985; Mandinach & Linn, 1986) and the Center for Children and Technology at the Bank Street College of Education in New York (Pea & Kurland, 1984; Pea & Sheingold, 1987).

Most of the early research projects yielded inconclusive results on the impact of programming or learning from cognitively engaging software on students’ acquisition of content knowledge and higher order thinking skills. Two special issues of the Journal of Educational Computing Research documented these discrepant results (Mandinach, Linn, Pea, & Kurland, 1986-1987). The issue of transfer was at the heart of many of these studies. The assumption was that learning to program was particularly likely to foster generalizable skills across domains. Some of these projects also highlighted the many problems associated with implementing new technologies in classroom settings and attempting to examine their impact. Although the results from many early studies were discordant concerning the effects of programming and the use of software on cognition, they did provide direction for ETC, ETS, and other organizations conducting additional research on these issues.

Numerous reasons can be cited for the ambiguous pattern of results, including inadequate hardware and software, untrained teachers, inappropriate support materials, weak links to the curricula, premature examination of impact, and inappropriate research methodologies. The rationales put forward for the use of computers for instructional purposes were varied and often unspecified. There seemed to be a widely held belief that microcomputers were powerful machines, but neither manufacturers, educators, nor researchers were certain sure how they should be used in schools.

Perhaps the foremost impediment to effective computer implementation facing both teachers and researchers was the quality and objectives espoused by much of the early educational software. These programs often were targeted to lower order skills and domain-specific tasks. They were largely drill-and-practice, used by teachers as adjuncts to instruction rather than integrated into ongoing classroom activities. They became known as “drill-and-kill” activities that were nothing more than electronic problem sets. There were no explicit ties to the curriculum, thereby making much of the software difficult to apply and therefore pedagogically disappointing. The nature of the software made implementation problematic due to some basic incompatibilities with the structure of most classrooms. That is, programs often were designed for a single student-to-computer interaction rather than small group or whole class activities. Students had to be “pulled out” of ongoing classroom activities to use the computers, which often served the role of baby sitters. With relatively large student-to-computer ratios, the early classroom uses were highly rigid and virtually untenable.

In 1986, ETS staff attempted to identify some examples of promising commercial software that could be used to study the cognitive impact of learning with computers in classroom settings. The focus was on both higher order thinking skills and content knowledge. ETS staff wanted to work in the classroom and examine software as it was implemented naturally, in contrast to a more contrived laboratory setting.

Project staff surveyed commercial software producers, educators, researchers in the field, and industry or academically based developers. The outcome of this extensive search was distressing. It became clear that a software package appropriate for this project did not exist. Furthermore, discussions with software developers, both commercial and nonprofit, did not provide any confidence that such software would become available in the near future. Therefore, the authors decided to pursue a slightly different approach to the examination of a computer-based curriculum innovation. There was a growing appreciation among science and mathematics teaching experts that modeling and simulation should play a major role in enhancing learning among precollege students (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989). The application of system dynamics then became a logical focus of this project.

Initial Exposure to System Dynamics

Because of the increased focus on simulations, guidance was sought from the System Dynamics Group at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As is described in chapter 3, the Systems Dynamics Group had constructed and worked with simulations for many years (see Forrester, 1961, 1968, 1969). In August, 1986, the project staff visited MIT to consult with the staff in the System Dynamics Group. An event occurred that indicated the vast potential of using modeling and simulation software for the research.

That event happened during a visit to a small summer workshop for high school students being conducted by a member of the MIT System Dynamics Group. The students were being introduced to the principles of system dynamics and the software package Structural Thinking Experiential Learning Laboratory with Animation (STELLA) (Richmond, 1985). The visit occurred in the middle of a 2-week training session. The participants were average, inner-city high school students who were paid volunteers. The instructor was engaging the class in a discussion of factors that influenced the varying levels of automobile registrations in the greater Boston area since the 1920s. The students were debating the shape of a graph depicting rising rates of registrations. When the instructor asked what might be the trend during an economic recession when fewer people were able to buy new cars, an extraordinary event happened. A young woman who previously had been less than engaged in the discussion and more interested in the neighboring boys, announced to the class that the automobile they were discussing was comparable to the trend in the size of her personal wardrobe. Her wardrobe was usually increasing in size as purchases and gifts normally exceeded discards. However, the rate of growth of her wardrobe was frequently affected negatively by fluctuations in her own financial status. The wardrobe, with its inflows and outflows of items, was indeed a system similar to the population of automobiles. She had generalized her understanding of a concept in one setting (i.e., fluctuating numbers of autos) to another setting that had great relevance for her (i.e., the size of her wardrobe). System dynamics had provided the means by which she could draw parallels among disparate phenomena and understand in each how the variables were interrelated.

The basic principles underlying this demonstration are the same ones that underlie general systems theory and are the foundation for constructing simulations in a wide variety of settings. It was obvious from that session and subsequent discussions with the staff from the MIT System Dynamics Group that the potentials for using systems theory and simulation-modeling software to create a cognitively engaging and demanding learning environment were enormous. Thus, began the exploration into the application of system dynamics into precollege classroom teaching and learning activities.

Project Planning

As the authors began to consider a research project that was based on the implementation of system dynamics in precollege instruction, they learned that a small high school in southeastern Vermont was beginning to introduce system dynamics in several classes. A local corporate executive, who had been trained in system dynamics while an undergraduate at MIT, had stimulated interest among administrators and faculty at Brattleboro Union High School (BUHS), Brattleboro, Vermont. Sufficient interest had been sparked, and several workshops already had been conducted for students, faculty, administration, school board members, and the general public. These workshops were conducted by the staff of High Performance Systems (HPS), the software company that produces STELLA. HPS is located only an hour and a half drive from Brattleboro. One BUHS teacher had previously used a sabbatical leave at Dartmouth College to enroll in classes on systems theory taught by Barry Richmond, President of HPS. Four BUHS teachers already had applied for a Discretionary Grant from the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education to support their efforts to implement systems thinking in their courses. The grant was approved for one year, and $20,000 was awarded in the summer of 1986. BUHS was embarking on an exploration of the potentials of systems in several courses.

After receiving approval from ETC and OERI in August, 1986, the authors met with relevant faculty and administrators at BUHS to explore the possibility of a collaborative implementation and research project. The systems thinking group at BUHS consisted of four teachers who enjoyed support from their principal and superintendent. However, they had only three Macintoshes for the project. One was donated by the community member who introduced systems thinking to the school; the district supplied a second; and the third was purchased with funds secured from a local foundation. However, it soon became clear that it would be nearly impossible to implement systems thinking with only three computers to be shared among four teachers and their students. Not only would students have little time on the computers, but there would never be sufficient on-line time for teachers to develop curriculum materials.

Through ETC, ETS was able to secure from the External Research Group at Apple Computer, Inc., a donation of a classroom set of 15 Macintoshes to facilitate the integration of systems thinking into the curriculum at BUHS. The funds provided by OERI made possible the payment of small stipends to the four teachers, the hiring of a paraprofessional to eliminate the need for teachers to assume nonacademic responsibilities, and funds for other miscellaneous project-related expenses. In return, BUHS promised to provide a forum in which ETS could conduct research on the impact of using systems thinking in student learning. Thus, was born the Systems Thinking and Curriculum Innovation (STACI) Project.

The Staci Project: Design and Implementation

The STACI Project was a 2-year research effort conducted by ETS under the auspices of ETC, with funding from OERI. The intent of the project was to examine the cognitive demands and consequences of learning with the systems thinking approach and the STELLA software.

Project Objectives

The original purpose of the project was to test the potentials and effects of using the systems approach in existing secondary school curricula to teach general problem-solving skills as well as content-specific knowledge. The research focused on the learning outcomes and transfer that might result from using such an approach and software in classrooms. The primary research question focused on the examination of the extent to which students could acquire content knowledge and higher order thinking skills through exposure to and interaction with curricula infused with systems thinking and subsequently generalize knowledge and skills to problem-solving tasks in other substantive areas.

The instructional perspective espoused here is termed the systems thinking approach. The approach consists of three separate but interdependent components. The first is system dynamics, the theory on which the instructional perspective is based. The second component is the Macintosh microcomputer on which the STELLA software runs. The third component is STELLA, the software package that is used as a tool to teach systems thinking, content knowledge, and problem solving.

Site Description and Design

BUHS serves a rural five-town district in southeastern Vermont whose population is approximately 20,000. The school has roughly 1,600 students and a faculty of 80 teachers. Brattleboro has an interesting population composition. On the one hand, there are many native New Englanders who make their living farming or in other small local industries. On the other hand, the area surrounding the community has become a region to which many ex-urbanites have escaped. The area has attracted artists, authors, and culturally minded former city dwellers who believe deeply in providing progressive and quality education for their children.

Four teachers formed the systems group at BUHS. All were trained to use the systems thinking approach through workshops, and in one case in college courses. When the STACI Project started in the summer of 1986, curriculum development was just getting underway. Very few precollege systems applications existed at that time. It was the teachers’ intent to identify particular parts of their curricula, especially those dealing with dynamic phenomena and others that heretofore had been difficult to teach, and apply the new instructional perspective to those targeted areas. Four courses in the sciences—general physical science (GPS), biology, chemistry, and physics — were taught using an integrative approach with systems. The approach was integrative in that the teachers identified concepts where instruction could be enhanced by the use of systems principles. Rather than teach those concepts as they had in the past, the systems teachers explicitly emphasized the systemic and dynamic nature of the topics, noting such ideas as causality, feedback, variation, and interaction. The courses covered the same body of knowledge taught in the traditional curriculum, but specific topics were addressed from a systems perspective.

In contrast, a new, experimental social studies course entitled War and Revolution was created in the 1986/1987 school year that implemented the systems approach in a manner different from the integrative strategy employed in the science courses. War and Revolution was conducted as a college seminar, for the teacher rarely lectured. Through class discussions and independent research projects, students analyzed dynamic historical situations from the perspective of decision makers. The course provided a unique approach and structure to the examination of historical events. Systems thinking formed the basis of inquiry for the course in which students examined the genesis and progression of a variety of conflicts throughout history including coups d’état, revolutions, and wars. The intent was to develop both analytical skills and an appreciation of the complexities and importance of policy decisions in conflict situations.

Table 1.1
Enrollment and Class Figures

	Systems Thinking		Traditional
Course	Classes	Students	Classes	Students
1986 - 1987
GPS	3	47	3	69
Biology	4	82	4	94
Chemistry	3	63	3	64
Physics	Not included this year
TOTAL	10	192	10	227
War/Revolution	1	8
1987-1988
GPS	2	41	3	47
Biology	4	80	5	104
Chemistry	3	66	4	93
Physics	3	65
TOTAL	12	252	12	244
War/Revolution	1	10

In the 1986/1987 academic year, systems thinking was integrated into three GPS, four biology, three chemistry classes, and the War and Revolution seminar. An equivalent number of traditional classes were taught concurrently by other members of the faculty. Some 200 students were exposed to the systems approach in the first year (see Table 1.1). In the project’s second year, the systems approach was used in two GPS, four biology, three chemistry, three physics classes, and War and Revolution, with approximately 260 students receiving instruction using the systems approach.

Data Collection

A variety of methods and procedures were employed to assess the outcomes of introducing the systems thinking approach, including course grades, standardized tests, classroom observations, interviews, and specially created instruments. Performance on course examinations, quizzes, and exercises were the measures of content knowledge.

As is commonly done in differential psychology research, achievement tests served as rough estimates of general ability, in this case, as measures of crystallized ability. Crystallized ability reflects the long-term accumulation and organization of knowledge and skills, essentially general achievement (Snow, 1980). Other measure...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1. The Systems Thinking and Curriculum Innovation Project
• 2. The Systems Thinking Network Project: STACIN
• 3. Project Components: Systems Thinking, Graphical User Interfaces, and Modeling
• 4. Observations, Issues, Cautions, and Lessons Learned
• 5. Technology and Patterns of Teacher Adaptation
• 6. Future Research and Policy Implications
• Appendix A Evolving Case Studies
• Appendix B Draft Model of a Computer-Based Curriculum Innovation
• Appendix C Past and Present Participating Teachers and Project Directors
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index