Introductions
Although some of the examples may have changed, the trends discussed are still current. We would like to add new examples from parenting, school, higher education, adult education, and corporate training programs. In keeping with our goal of creating a number of interactive projects we would like to have this be a collaborative effort with input from all of you in our electronic learning community.
We've begun updating this report, and appreciate
the input we have received thus far. You can send e-mail by clicking on
the e-mail address: building@newhorizons.org
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Go Back To: The Beginning of the Report
IntroductionsThe
Growing Diversity of Students Is Affecting Educational Planning and Practice
in All SettingsInnovative
Parent Education Programs Are Being Held in Homes, Schools, Hospitals,
and Community CentersMore
Early Childhood Programs Are Being Planned To Be Developmentally Appropriate
for ChildrenEducational
Systems are Changing from Outmoded Industrial Models to Ones That Are More
Appropriate For Our Time
Thinking
SkillsCooperative
LearningArts
in EducationTechnologyAccelerated
LearningInterdisciplinary
CurriculumService
ProjectsPartnershipsInternational
and Multicultural ContextAssessmentLearning
EnvironmentSchool-Based
ManagementEducators
are Learning New Skills and Moving Into New RolesUniversities
Are Developing New Ways of Preparing TeachersNew
Technologies and Research Help Reach Adults More EffectivelyLifelong
Learning Opportunities For EldersCommunity
Centers Bring Lifelong Learning OpportunitiesNew
Centers Support ResearchConclusion:
Metatrends in Learning Are EmergingAbout
the Author
Dear Reader: In the years since the "Nation At Risk" was published, hundreds of reports have been written deploring the current state of education in the United States. It is very easy to be critical; and while bringing attention to the problems, many of these reports do little to foster their correction. The following report offers a brief overview of positive trends in learning. It includes specific examples of successful schools and programs that may be visited or contacted for further information. We challenged the author, Dee Dickinson of New Horizons in Learning, to identify and make visible exemplary ideas and programs in order to make it possible to build upon these successes. The report avoids discussion of fads or trends that many would consider negative. It is set in the context of lifelong learning in order to reinforce its value for the education of students at any age and in any setting. Necessarily, much research, reflection, and other worthy examples are not included lest the report run to hundreds of pages. The extensive bibliography refers the reader to sources of additional information on the topics discussed. At IBM Educational Systems, we continually seek examples of outstanding approaches to learning. Our goal is to find ways computer technology can help bring these approaches into widespread use. We hope this report stimulates your thinking about positive trends in learning and encourages you to persevere in the quest to provide all learners with meaningful educational experiences. Sincerely, Betty L. McCormick Director, Strategy & Market Development IBM Educational SystemsGo Back To: The Beginning of the Report
Educational leaders make three major decisions in the process of curriculum alignment:
Sound educational practice dictates that the first group of decisions (the goals) must drive the system. Unfortunately, what is inspected is what is expected, thus the traditional use of tests has often dictated what should be learned (the goals) and has influenced the mode of instruction (the delivery).
Numerous short-lived "innovations" have passed through the classroom, minds, budgets, and in-service programs of the educational establishment. (Last year it was clinical teaching, the year before that it was assertive discipline, preceded by management by objectives. Whatever happened to metrics?) While educators may have adopted new programs, they have seldom institutionalized that change by aligning the curriculum, instruction, school organization, and assessment to match the goals. As a result, the purposes of programs such as "modern math," "individualized instruction," or "process approaches" seldom were realized. Tests which measured low level thinking signaled low level teaching strategies which, in turn,proclaimed achievement of low level goals.
In this report, Dee Dickinson helps us realize new educational and societal goals for the next century. They are the survival skills for our children's future, for the continuity of our democratic institutions, and for our planetary existence. Such goals include the capacity for continued learning; cooperativeness and team building; precise communication in a variety of modes; appreciation of disparate value systems; problem solving requiring creativity and ingenuity; enjoyment of resolving ambiguous, discrepant, and paradoxical situations; generation and organization of an overabundance of technologically produced information; craftsmanship of product; high self-esteem; and personal commitment to larger organizational and global values.
Dee provides hope, vision, and action by synthesizing major trends and strategies in future-oriented education. She identifies numerous innovative practices in learning theory, school organization, curriculum, and classroom instructional strategies. She suggests alternative forms of authentic assessment--all of which are intended to achieve those new goals for the twenty-first century.
If these educational purposes are to be realized; if we wish to overcome the "this-too-shall-pass" syndrome, then educators must develop new capacities for empowering school staffs, community groups, administrators, legislators, board members and corporate leaders to work together. They must collaborate in the future as a basis for deriving educational goals, for continually clarifying those goals, and for operationalizing them into appropriate curriculum, instructional, and organizational practices.
Also it is essential to recognize and abandon obsolete curriculum content and to purge school systems of incompatible practices or policies, so as to lodge these goals in every facet of the school culture. or "process approaches"
Dee Dickinson challenges us to stop tinkering and start transforming education. Otherwise, ours might become a "this-too-shall-pass" society.
So we stand on the brink of a new
age of an open world and of a self playing its part in the larger sphere.
An age when work and leisure and learning and love unite to produce a fresh
form for every stage of life, and new higher trajectory for life as a whole.
-- Lewis Mumford
Nearly a hundred years ago, Maria Montessori created a small school for a group of children from the slums of Rome. Failure was predicted by her colleagues, yet within months, the children experienced the "explosions of learning" which became the hallmark of her work.
Forty years ago, Reuven Feuerstein, the Israeli cognitive psychologist, began his work with the mentally retarded who had been brought to him from the Holocaust and from impoverished parts of North Africa. He was able to teach these young people thinking skills and the processes of intelligence which helped many of them become independent and productive members of society.
Twenty years ago, Renee Fuller, a psychologist from New York, created a program for bright, dyslexic young children. The "Ball-Stick-Bird" reading program was later used successfully to teach profoundly retarded adults who had measured I.Q's as low as 30.
Today's powerful accelerated learning techniques, based on the work of Georgi Lozonof are being used successfully in both schools and corporate training programs.
Even though these educators used different processes, there were common denominators in their approaches. All these teachers believed that their students could learn. They recognized their strengths and helped them to learn through these strengths in multisensory, interactive, and dynamic ways. Three concepts form the basis of the work of these pioneers as well as that of other successful educators:
1. It Is Possible For Everyone To Learn
For many people learning can be very difficult, and it is sometimes impossible unless basic needs such as food, shelter, and love are met. The importance of positive conditions for learning is emphasized by the research of Paul MacLean, M.D., Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health. He points out that the Limbic System, the emotional center of the brain, is so powerful that negative emotions such as hostility, anger, fear, and anxiety can literally downshift the brain to basic, survival thinking. This can make learning very difficult, if not impossible. On the other hand, positive emotions such as trust, love, tenderness, and humor can facilitate learning and higher-order thinking processes.
Neurophysiologists such as Marian Diamond, at the University of California, Berkeley, point out the importance not only of good nutrition and physical care, but also positive, nurturing, and stimulating environments in laying the physical, mental, and emotional foundations for learning.
Since schools alone are not equipped to meet the needs of rapidly increasing numbers of children, site-based collaborations with health and social service agencies have become essential in many areas.
In today's classrooms, students with different kinds of abilities and disabilities and from different cultural, social, economic, and educational backgrounds are mainstreamed. In order for all students to learn, teachers are developing a broad array of educational methods that make it possible for students to learn through their strengths at least part of the time. The rest of the time, students have opportunities to experience and stretch into new ways of thinking and learning.
2. Everyone Can Learn More Efficiently
Many strategies have been developed to help students learn faster, with greater retention and with greater ease. Computers and interactive technology in the classroom are now being used in ways that accelerate learning; however, it is even more essential to develop our "human technology."
Today, accelerated learning and cooperative learning techniques are used with enormous success in large numbers of corporate training programs and schools. Learning time is often cut in half.
As students learn more efficiently, their teachers have more time available to motivate their interest, enthusiasm, and curiosity at the outset of any learning experience. Therefore, there is increased time to help students learn how to learn and to think about what they are learning in a variety of ways. And there is time for students to apply what they learn in thoughtful, practical, and creative ways in other contexts. These are all essential processes that, in the traditional classroom, have too often been excluded in the teacher's haste to cover required material.
As test scores rise in some basic skill areas, they are declining in the areas of comprehension, practical application, and problem-solving. More efficient ways of learning "buy" time to insure that these essential processes are also learned.
3. Everyone Can Learn To Be More Intelligent
Most schools today are not yet focused on this principle, since many educators still believe that intelligence is a static, unmodifiable structure and that intelligence cannot be taught and learned. I.Q. tests are still in general use, although they have been abandoned by some school districts on the grounds that the range of intelligence they measure is too narrow.
There is little agreement on a general definition of intelligence, but most people would agree that it involves, at least, the ability to learn and apply what has been learned. Appropriate to our time, Robert Sternberg adds further that it involves the ability to adapt to the environment, or modify the environment, or seek out and create new environments.
It is clear that there is little correlation between assessed l.Q. and what people are able to learn and do in the real world. Many cognitive researchers are proving that intelligence is, in fact, an open, dynamic system, modifiable at any age and ability level. For example, over 750 research studies based on the work of Reuven Feuerstein support his Theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability.
Other examples of strategies that develop intelligence can be found in the work of J.T. Guilford, a psychologist who created the Structure of Intellect model. This work has been further developed by Mary Meeker and now is being successfully applied in many schools in this country and in Japan.
Interactive technology and hypermedia are tools that educators and students can use in powerful ways to further expand the human mind. They offer the means to explore intelligence in ways that are similar to how the mind works--sometimes sequentially and sometimes randomly.
Everyone can learn. Everyone can learn more efficiently. Everyone can learn to be more intelligent. As these three concepts take root in educational practice, it will be possible to create educational systems that are truly appropriate for our times. These concepts underlie many of the following trends.
Perceptual differences, as described by Charles Letteri and others, account for the fact that many students cannot learn effectively by just hearing or reading information. For many, especially since the widespread viewing of television, learning can be facilitated with charts, diagrams, mind-maps, computers, video, or other kinds of visual aids. Other students must literally hold ideas in their hands. For them, manipulatives such as Cuisinaire rods or other tangible projects make it possible and easier to learn abstractions such as those found in mathematics.
The 1988 report of the National Association of State Boards of Education, Right From the Start polnts out that "Thinking in young children is directly tied to their interactions with people and materials. Young children learn best by actively exploring their environment, using hands-on materials and building upon their natural curiosity and desire to make sense of the world around them." To this echo of Maria Montessori's earlier discoveries, we might add that this is also true for many older students.
Learning style researchers, such as Bernice McCarthy, David Kolb, Rita and Kenneth Dunn, and Anthony Gregorc, point out that individual differences such as the preference for learning alone or in groups, concretely or abstractly, completing teacher-generated projects or creating original ones can be accommodated in any classroom where there is a variety of learning activities. Also, improved student performance and self-esteem are often the result of learning in such environments as is demonstrated by the Clara Barton Open School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Learning Styles Network sponsored bv the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development provides current information and new research and developments in the field.
The SOS (Strengthening of Skills) program, developed by Lynn O'Brien in Maryland, addresses the different learning styles of students and helps them become academically independent as they learn some of the essential tools for studying and learning. Throughout the program, students are encouraged to develop their creativity and apply their individual styles to mastering various learning strategies.
Pat Guild has researched at-risk students in the Seattle Public Schools, has worked with the Field-Dependent/Field-Independent assessments developed by Herman Witkin. Field-Dependent learners learn best in collaborative groups and need to see the "big picture" before they can attend to the details. Field-Independent learners work well on their own and are able to learn analytically, building up to the "big picture" by collecting the parts.
The results of Guild's work indicate that many low-achieving students tend to be Field-Dependent. Obviously then, the traditional practice of offering isolated bits and pieces of information to be mastered one at a time may not be the best approach for helping these children to learn.
The Jung-based Myers-Briggs assessments indicate that students with the highest grades in school tend to have "Introverted-lntuitive-Thinking-Judging" personalities. Low-achieving students tend to have "Extroverted-Sensing-Feeling-Perceiving" personalities. Since these assessments, like the Witkin scales, are independent of intelligence, it is clear that traditional schools favor specific characteristics; and therefore, do not offer all children an equal opportunity to learn.
Robert Sternberg, the Yale psychologist, examines yet another kind of difference. His Triarchic Mind Theory suggests that there are at least three kinds of intelligence, only one of which can be measured by most traditional assessment devices. Componential Intelligence, composed mainly of verbal and logical-mathematical abilities, can be assessed by l.Q. and standardized tests. On the other hand, Creative Intelligence and Practical Intelligence cannot be measured with these limited tools. However, they are of enormous value in a world filled with complex problems that cannot be solved purely through recall of facts.
Sternberg's new assessment device, published in 1992, offers the means to recognize and value a broader range of intelligence, thereby pointing to new directions for educational planning and practice. These and other kinds of intelligence can be developed through many of the multisensory, experiential learning processes described in this report.
David Perkins, Harvard research associate and co-director of Project Zero, also recognizes three basic dimensions to intelligence: the neural dimension, the experiential dimension, and the reflective dimension. He points out that reflective intelligence is the most learnable of the three and can be developed fairly rapidly in schools that offer opportunities to practice mental management, learning strategies, and metacognition or the ability to think consciously about and organize one's thinking. This "mindware" makes it possible to extend general powers to think effectively, critically, and creatively.
Howard Gardner, Harvard psychologist and co-director of Project Zero, offers a different perspective in his Theory of Multiple Intelligences. He, too, points out that our society and the schools that reflect it teach, test, reinforce, and reward primarily verbal and logical-mathematical abilities. Of course, these are essential skills for functioning in our culture. However, there are at least five other kinds of intelligence to be developed that may be doorways through which many children can enter the learning process. Visual-spatial, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence can all be developed in classrooms that offer a variety of ways to learn. It is possible to accommodate all of these types of intelligence in the classroom.
At Cascade Elementary School in Marysville, Washington, members of a third grade class learn in seven different ways, moving through various learning centers focused on the different intelligences. Teacher Bruce Campbell notes steady improvement in student achievement and high motivation to learn.
The Key School, in Indianapolis, Indiana, bases the entire curriculum on the Theory of Multiple Intelligences and uses a broad variety of assessments in addition to multiple-choice standardized tests to measure student progress. Clearly these new assessments not only measure achievement more comprehensively, but are of greater value to both teacher and student.
The increasing number of students from different cultures or with special needs can be well served by programs that build on existing student strengths and offer many ways to learn. Active, multisensory learning is one of the keys to providing equity in learning opportunities.
An innovative program, begun in Venezuela in 1979, is an example of what a whole country dedicated to the development of its children can do. Luiz Alberto Machado, former Minister for the Development of Intelligence, created a program to raise the level of intelligence of the entire population of his country from birth to old age. Using existing institutions, including hospitals, schools, the media, civil service, the military, and industries, he literally bombarded the country with new information on how to develop human capacities more fully.
The program, called the Family Project, began in maternity hospitals, where new mothers were educated by trained volunteers and video programs that provided the foundation for the fuller development of their children through loving care, proper nutrition, sensory-motor stimulation, and physical exercises. Follow-up through community centers continued the education of parents for their children's first three years. Five-minute television spots were broadcast twenty times every day on all four commercial television channels. Beatriz Manrique, who founded the Family Project, continues to develop the program and document its positive effects in Venezuela. In January, 1990, the first U.S. Family Project, based on Manrique's model, was begun in Arlington, Virginia.
The "Day One" video parent education program developed by New Horizons for Learning in Seattle was inspired by the Venezuelan program, although it is based on research in the United States. It is being used in parenting programs and maternity units of hospitals throughout the country, and has been translated for use in France, Israel, Mexico, and South America.
[In 1991] Missouri [was] the only state in the United States with legislation to provide free parent-education and family support services in every school district. The Parents as Teachers (PAT) program was established in 1981 to reach families before children are born and to provide on-going resources to parents of young children on a voluntary basis. Implementation of PAT is underway in 27 other states, and training programs are conducted throughout the country.
The program offers parent education for the first 8 months, periodic screening of children through age 4, and parent education programs for developmentally delayed 3 and 4 year old children. Parent educators complete a special PAT training program developed by Burton White.
The results of a three-year pilot study show that children whose parents participated in the program consistently scored higher on all measures of intelligence, achievement, verbal ability, and social development than children in comparison groups.
In Seattle, Washington, the Program for Early Parent Support (PEPS) offers resources for parents and their babies. Parents meet for two hours once a week for the first six months to share feelings and deal with unmet expectations, promote the attachments of parent and child, and provide timely information on child rearing issues and personal growth. Over 1000 families have participated in these groups. PEPS also distributes posters with community resource information, makes hospital visits, and publishes a newsletter of interest to new parents.
Also in Seattle, Citizens Education Center developed a Parent Leadership Training Project to reduce the number of Hispanic children who drop out of school in Sunnyside, Washington. In 1989, the program received national attention for its work in helping parents become successful advocates for their children's education in three additional communities: Seattle, Toppenish, and Wapato. More communities continued to be added after the success of the pilot. The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, the Education Commission of the States, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services honored the program for its exemplary work.
Head Start programs are designed to offer opportunities for parents to learn how to lay the foundations for their children's healthy development, to improve health services and nutrition for children, to offer joyful preschool learning, to identify and remediate disabilities early, and to promote economic self-sufficiency. Even though for over twenty-five years Head Start programs have succeeded in making a lasting difference in ability for at-risk children, only 20% of the eligible children are being served. The Head Start Innovative Projects, now in 22 states, offer expanded services to younger children and their families.
The Head Start /IBM Partnership Project offers the latest in computer technology to help Head Start families reduce dependency and increase self-sufficiency. The program, based on Head Start multicultural guidelines and the NAEYC guidelines for developmentally appropriate practice, is designed to enhance language development and learning skills of three- and four-year old children through a combination of computer technology and warm, human interaction. An essential element of the program is the training of staff, parents, and volunteers as role models for the children.
The Parent and Child Education Program in Kentucky and The Kenan Trust Family Literacy Project, which was modeled after the Kentucky program, are examples of other intergenerational programs. Now installed at seven sites in Kentucky and North Carolina, the Kenan Project holds classes three days a week in elementary schools for undereducated parents and their three- and four-year-old children. Parents are taught that they are the first and foremost educators of their children. They are given the skills to become literate themselves, as well as, the skills to help their children to learn. The Kenan Trust also serves as a clearinghouse for information on family literacy programs.
Harold McGraw, President of the Business Council for Effective Literacy, points out that "the best that we know confirms that an interdisciplinary approach is essential." Parent educators, adult literacy teachers, early childhood teachers, and family support agencies must work together in order to create the most effective programs.
The current trend toward "developmental appropriateness" of early childhood education programs is increasing in strength. This trend includes considerations of both age appropriateness related to physical, emotional, social, and cognitive abilities, and individual appropriateness related to personality, culture, learning style, family background, and special needs.
The research of the National Association for the Education of Young Children suggests that children learn most effectively through a concrete, experiential approach. Exemplary programs are tailored to meet the needs of children, rather than require that children adjust to the demands of specific programs. It is more widely recognized that multiple-age groupings and ungraded primaries offer greater flexibility in accommodating these approaches.
According to developmental psychologists, play is the primary vehicle for and indicator of mental growth in young children. Every area of their development is exercised in this "work" of childhood. The NAEYC recommends that "child-initiated and child-directed, parent or teacher-supported play is an essential component of developmentally appropriate practice." The Association has serious concerns about the potentially damaging effects of pushing inappropriate academic schoolwork into the preschool and primary years, and even more concern about testing below the third grade because of the wide variation in the physical, mental, and emotional development of young children.
Focus on "the whole child" is at the heart of the trend toward developmentally appropriate learning. In primary schools, integrated curricula, multi-age groupings, multi-sensory activities, opportunity for much physical activity, group learning, and direct experience with interesting learning materials are keys to engaging the child in this new kind of "work." In meeting the needs of children from many different cultures, a variety of teaching methods and materials, such as these, is essential. For children with special needs, more avenues to learning are opened.
A screening system was instituted to identify the 20 percent of the population considered capable of being leaders, another 30 percent who were capable of being professionals, 30 percent who could be part of the workforce even though functionally illiterate, and 20 percent considered to be uneducable. The bell curve was taken from Darwin's work and used to describe the distribution of intelligence. Unfortunately, such screening practices too often remain in the thinking of some administrators and some teachers today, at least as a set of unconscious assumptions if not as institutionalized policy.
Most students with severe disabilities or who spoke no English were not in school in the early 1900's. A large number dropped out: in 1910 about 90 percent of the students left school, in the 1950's about 50 percent, in the 1960's about 40 percent, and since 1970 an average of 25 percent, except in large urban areas where the figure is often over 50 percent of all enrolled students.
Although society has changed dramatically, the majority of traditional public schools has not. Many schools continue to predict and produce failure; however, many educators, parents, business people, and politicians are calling for change.
The social, technological, ecological, economic, and information challenges of our time require a whole new approach to education. At the same time, there is more information on human development and learning than ever before. Stakeholders have both the motivation for change and the strategies to create schools in which success is possible for students and teachers.
The trend for restructuring schools incorporates many different components that are combined in different ways and are appropriate to the needs of individual schools and communities. As the curriculum continues to grow in response to the needs of society, more effective ways are being implemented to help all students to learn. No single one of the following components offers the answer to school problems, but all offer hopeful new possibilities and new insights into teaching and learning.
Thinking Skills
As it is recognized increasingly that
intelligence is modifiable, many schools have begun to teach thinking skills
and intelligence both as separate subjects and integrated throughout the
curriculum. It is essential to recognize that these programs take time
and training to develop and implement, and that they must be on-going in
order to bear fruit. Arthur Costa's book, Developing Minds, contains a
comprehensive overview of many of these programs.
John Barrell, Professor of Education at Montclair State College and until recently Director of the ASCD Thinking Skills Network, points out that all programs focused on the development of thinking skills must recognize the importance of emotions to cognitive development. Self-concept and openness to other people's ideas, attitudes, and feelings about learning are crucial.
Arthur Costa suggests that well-trained teachers must model their own continuing development of higher-order thinking skills such as intellectual curiosity, flexibility, goal-setting, and problem solving for their students. The creation of positive, open, accepting environments that foster collaboration are essential to the development and practice of these types of thinking.
Many thinking skills programs have been developed and are widely implemented in schools throughout the country. Among the most frequently used are Talents Unlimited developed by Calvin Taylor, Kids Kits, Philosophy for Children developed by Matthew Lippman, HOTS developed by Stanley Pogrow, CORT developed by Edward deBono, and Instrumental Enrichment, developed by Reuven Feuerstein.
Taylor's Talents Unlimited is used in 1300 schools with over 210,000 students. At Westover Elementary, an inner-city school in Stamford, Connecticut, Talents Unlimited is being applied throughout the curriculum with extremely positive results. This magnet school also incorporates all of the arts in its program and utilizes the Gregorc learning styles approach to meet the needs of diverse students.
Pogrow's HOTS program (Higher Order Thinking Skills) is designed to improve the basic skills of disadvantaged students by utilizing a combination of computer technology and Socratic dialogue. Now a part of the curriculum in 300 schools in 22 states, the program is used daily. At Jamestown Elementary School, in Pennsylvania, in addition to developing improved decision-making, problem-solving, and motivation students improved their reading skills 5.6 years in one year. Among Chapter I students in Grades 5 and 6, more than 20 percent scored beyond high school on a reading post test.
Feuerstein's Mediated Learning and Instrumental Enrichment programs are now used with great success with students of all ability levels and with different cultural groups throughout the world. Schools and universities are discovering that the skills of intelligence can be taught. Portland, Oregon, and Detroit, Michigan have implemented the program throughout their school systems with great success. Also in Detroit, a program in Mediated Learning has been developed for parents. In Vancouver, B.C., over 200 teachers were trained in Feuerstein's methods and over 1,000 students are learning successfully through them.
At Wasatch Elementary in Salt Lake City, Utah, all faculty members were involved in researching and selecting thinking skills programs to implement, and all have participated in an on-going training program. They developed an eclectic model consisting of deBono's Six Thinking Hats, Philosophy for Children, Talents Unlimited, and process writing. There is much emphasis on allowing time to think, share, and collaborate. The results observed by students, teachers, and parents have been dramatic. The school is part of the 25 school ASCD Thinking Skills Consortium.
Cooperative Learning
Since Cooperative Learning will succeed
only when both teachers and students have learned the important skills
involved in the process, the most successful Cooperative Learning schools
are those that provide on-going training for their staff with many opportunities
to collaborate and share ideas with each other.
Effective methods of teaching cooperative learning have been developed by such researchers as Roger and David Johnson at the University of Minnesota Cooperative Learning Center; Spencer Kagan, Director of Resources for Teachers; and Yael and Shlomo Sharan, at Tel-Aviv University in Israel.
At the Cornelia Elementary School in Minneapolis, over a two year period, all of the staff has been trained in Cooperative Learning and two lead teachers conduct an on-going staff-development program. Collegial groups meet twice a month to share ideas, assist each other, observe, and co-teach. A new component of the program is the development of negotiation and mediation skills for students. Ongoing research will continue as students learn the process and take turns in being classroom mediators.
Examples of other successful Cooperative Learning programs are those implemented at the Keystone Project of the Fort Worth Independent School District in Texas, Greenwich Public Schools in Connecticut, Park Lane Elementary in Lawton Oklahoma, and the Cherokee Project in lowa.
Complex Instruction is similar to Cooperative Learning since it is based on small-group instruction; however, it also includes elements of multiple intelligences, thinking skills, and interdisciplinary programs. It is frequently used with "Finding Out/Descubrimiento," a bilingual math and science program. Developed by Elizabeth Cohen and Edward de Avila at Stanford University, the program has been researched for ten years and successfully implemented in hundreds of classrooms with high proportions of minority and at-risk students.
The program offers alternatives to tracking for groups with different ability levels, and offers ways to work with multilingual classrooms where grouping may remove meaningful opportunities for language acquisition. Based on research from sociology, the program focuses on eliminating status problems which inhibit successful learning and personal development. Also, the program is meeting a great need for effective teaching strategies in heterogeneous middle-schools.
Arts in EducationThe earliest church, still one of the most effective educational organizations, taught its lessons to illiterate parishioners through parables, sung and spoken words in rhythmic patterns, murals, statues, choreographed movements and processions--all emotionally reinforced by the music of organ and choirs and involving all of the senses and active physical participation.
For individuals, the arts provide the means to express their feelings and ideas in creative ways, and make any learning experience more memorable. In schools when symbol systems are limited to words and numbers, students become limited in their understanding, communication, and self-expression.
Now generally recognized as basic skills, the arts are central to the curriculum in many successful schools today. Over half of the states require courses in art in order to graduate from high school. Stanford professor Elliot Eisner says, "Artistic tasks, unlike so much of what is now taught in schools, develop the ability to judge, to assess, to experience a wide range of meanings that exceed what we are able to say in words. The limits of language are not the limits of our consciousness.
Schools that incorporate music, art, drama, dance, and creative writing into the basic curriculum have observed improvements in student success by all measures, including test scores, use of higher order thinking skills, student promotion, dropout rates, student and teacher attitudes, disciplinary measures, and parental satisfaction. In most of these schools the arts are not only taught as separate subjects, but integrated throughout the curriculum. Educators are finding that a full arts program does not take away from other basic subjects, but enhances them, as is the case in the following schools.
The Elm Elementary School in Milwaukee progressed from the bottom 10 percent of the district in 1979 to the first out of 103 schools in eight of the last ten years. St. Augustine Elementary School in the Bronx, composed of 99 percent minority students, has 90 percent of the students reading at grade level. Ashley River Elementary in Charleston, a Start-Up school in 1984, is now second in the country and has a waiting list of 1200 students. Davidson School, in Augusta, Georgia, grades 5-12 and fully integrated, is now one of the highest in academic achievement in the country.
The Getty Center for Education in the Arts is dedicated to improving the quality of arts education by broadening the subject to include not only studio and performing arts, but art history, criticism, and aesthetics. By making all of these aspects of art education available, it is hoped that more students will be reached and that all will appreciate the arts at deeper levels.
This Discipline Based Arts Education program supports advocacy programs, professional development for teachers, development of theory and curriculum, and demonstration projects. Seven school districts have been selected as sites for an on-going study of DBAE. Among the most successful schools involved, Anza School in Los Angeles, California, has during the last three years doubled test scores in reading, vocabulary, and writing, and has shown dramatic increases in oral vocabulary.
TechnologyThe problem of equity for poorer students and schools remains a challenge that must be met in many ways, including increased state and local funding, school-business partnerships, and the development of technology-based community learning centers.
Technology-rich classrooms are most successful when advanced technologies are linked with advanced teaching strategies, such as cooperative learning, thinking skills, guided inquiry, and thematic teaching. Successful implementation of the technology does not remove teachers from the scene, but casts them in new roles as learning coaches and motivators who can create humane environments for students as they work their machines.
Research indicates that it is far more productive for students to work with technology in pairs or in small groups than alone. They become active participants in the learning process, exercising many kinds of intelligence in dynamic ways, spending more "mind on task," and developing effective interpersonal skills.
Interactive videodisc instructional systems enhance both student and teacher performance through technology that improves learning efficiency, comprehension, problem-solving, and decision-making. It may be that interactive videodisc instruction is effective in enhancing thinking skills largely because of its ability to simulate situations and allow students to foresee the results of their decisions. Unlimited sources of information are offered along with the technology to process and manage them.
Computers are providing individualized instruction in almost every subject. They are valuable tools for building basic skills, developing probiemsolving strategies, providing innovative methods for teaching abstract concepts, developing ways to manage information, diagnosing and prescribing for special needs, and managing student learning and records. Computer networks offer teachers and students valuable help by sharing information and other resources as schools develop new ways of applying technology. Additional resource material is offered by the following organizations: The National School Boards Association's Institute for the Transfer of Technology into Education (ITTE), The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), Learning Initiatives International, The Interactive Multimedia Industry Association, and The Society for Applied Learning and Technology (SALT).
Myrtle Grove Elementary School in Pensacola, Florida, was built in 1930, but has become up-to-date in technology through a grant targeted at helping at-risk students. Teachers note significant improvement in student performance in the basic skills.
In P.S. 125 in Central Harlem, New York, a network was installed to facilitate learning through Earth Lab, a Bank Street College research project. The project is focused on earth-sciences and includes experiments, writing, and database activities. Teachers note that the program is especially helpful in developing cooperative learning and problem solving.
In the Orangeburg School District in South Carolina, four years ago all ten of their schools were in the bottom quartile of the state and the drop-out rate was 34 percent. Today, since the implementation of technology, all ten schools are in the top quartile and the drop-out rate is less than 10 percent.
An innovative program at Cuyahoga Valley Joint Vocational School in Brecksville, Ohio, which serves primarily 11th and 12th graders, is equipped with 500 computers. At the outset of the program two years ago, each teacher, administrator, and support staff member was given a computer in return for taking time to learn to use it. Today all of the teachers are proficient with the technology, and students work with the system in a choice of nine curriculum paths. The school's job placement record is superior. Many businesses send their employees for training at this school, which is open eighteen hours a day.
According to a recent poll of teachers in the U.S., two-thirds now use computers, but most feel less computer literate than their students. Eighty-five percent feel computers have had a positive effect on education. Seventy-seven percent of the teachers agree that computer use could lessen the need for grouping students by ability, since computers allow for more individualized instruction. Ninety-one percent believe computers can help to develop the basic skills, and 82 percent say computers increase student motivation.
Accelerated LearningDr. Georgi Lozanov, professor at the University of Sofia in Bulgaria, has pioneered work in Accelerated Learning. The system combines multi-sensory learning and many of the previously discussed learning strategies in an encouraging, supportive atmosphere. Colorful visuals, imagery, music, dance, drama, games, other physical activities, and interactive technology are all part of this active process of learning.
When the process was pioneered in the schools of Bulgaria, teachers were astounded at how rapidly the children learned. As currently applied to the teaching of foreign languages in programs such as 21st Century Learning Systems in Minneapolis, it is not uncommon for a year's proficiency in a college-level foreign language course to be achieved in two weeks.
Training, research, development, and dissemination of the program has been coordinated by such organizations as the Society for Accelerated Learning Techniques, the International Association for Accelerative Learning based at the University of Rio de Janeiro, the Society for Effective Affective Learning and Accelerated Learning Systems in London.
Many schools are applying the strategies with remarkable results in terms of student achievement, improved school climate, attendance and teacher morale. At the Guggenheim School in Chicago, an inner city public school with a population of 98 percent Black students, all teachers are trained in and use accelerated learning techniques. Attendance averages 94 percent, teachers' morale is high, and student achievement is steadily improving.
At the Horton School in San Diego, with a large Hispanic student-body, all students become bilingual. All teachers use Accelerated Learning and share new lesson plans each month with each other. At Supercamp, a ten-day summer camp for students from 11 to 21, 66 percent of the students improve their school grades by a full letter grade and SAT scores improve an average of 350 points. In all of these settings, there are dramatic changes in students' attitude, motivation to learn, and achievement.
Interdisciplinary CurriculumThe integrated curriculum, with a focus on broad themes and realistic problems, takes many forms -- as interdisciplinary units or courses, or an integrated day model, or a complete program which may last a quarter or a whole year. Because of the magnitude of the undertaking, teams of teachers are usually given time to work together to create and implement the program.
Newton High School in Connecticut has a year-long humanities class that meets every day and gives juniors and seniors the option of receiving credit in either art, English, or music. The three team teachers are specialists in each of those subjects and share a preparation period each day. The course incorporates cooperative learning projects, a multisensory, experience-oriented curriculum that encourages problem solving, and other community resources. Even though some students have initial difficulties with the participatory nature of the course and are at first, threatened by its demand for creative thinking and risk-taking, many students blossom in the new freedom for independent and collaborative learning.
At Running Creek Elementary School, in Elizabeth, Colorado, teachers estimate that 80% of their time is now spent in interdisciplinary work. A two-week space project involving every teacher and student in the school has become a celebrated annual event. The program has resulted in improved self discipline and attendance, increased homework completion, and better attitudes toward school.
The teachers say they are more creative, enthusiastic, and take greater personal and professional pride in their teaching. They share with and support each other more, feel less isolated, and enjoy creating a more relevant, flexible curriculum that meets the needs and interests of the students and the community.
Among the successful Coalition of Essential Schools created by Theodore Sizer, most of the fifty-four schools work with team-taught, combined classes. The schools report that the integration of subjects in larger blocks of time facilitates more profound learning, greater mastery, and the forging of meaningful connections between subjects and ideas.
Service ProjectsThe Minnesota Comprehensive Youth Service Initiative, which grew out of the Council's work, is a model for the development of service learning programs. Their goal is to engage students and schools to be significant contributors to their community, while at the same time involving both students and teachers in relevant, experiential learning.
There is increasing recognition of the potential role of service learning in school reform efforts by such groups as the Council of Chief State School Officers. As an early attempt to reach at-risk students, primary focus has been on K-8 schools, but high school curricula are also being developed and implemented.
Programs are already under way in Minnesota, Michigan, lowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and in Springfield, Massachusetts, (which was the first comprehensive district-wide model). Seattle is the base of the Project Service Leadership regional program in the Northwest. A special project is currently being developed for Native American communities nationwide through the National Indian Youth Leadership Project in Gallup, New Mexico.
Service-Learning activities involve peer tutoring and cross-age teaching, community beautification projects, big brothers and sisters for homeless children, playground coaching, and publishing service newsletters. These programs not only develop and exercise altruism, but they result in improvement in the basic skills as kindergartners send messages to hospitalized elderly patients, or as middle-school school students design and paint a mural for a hospice, or as high school students organize and publicize a community recycling project.
Kate McPherson, Director of Project Service Leadership, notes that, "This is engaged learning, and if the need of the one being served, whether that service is manual or mental, seems important to the student doing the serving, then he or she is 'engaged.' And engagement means internalizing which is another way of saying 'learning.'"
PartnershipsSchools benefit as partnerships help them develop curricula and offer technical assistance, provide role models by offering expertise not available in the school, meet needs not met through school resources, offer opportunities to apply learning to real work situations, and raise morale through the help they offer. There are innumerable outstanding examples of this rapidly growing assistance to schools.
Cities in Schools is a national non-profit organization that has developed public/private partnerships for nearly thirty years to help high-risk students. It operates dropout prevention programs in thirty-six communities, serving almost 20,000 young people at 179 educational sites. Currently, it is expanding into forty additional communities. CIS offers a process that coordinates community human services, local government, corporations, and volunteer organizations within the schools, and as such serves as a "prevention partnership."
Seattle's pioneering PIPE (Partners in Public Education) program served nearly 37,000 students and 2,000 teachers in the 1989-90 school year. During its successful ten year history, eighty-two schools were paired with 120 corporations, public agencies, or non-profit organizations. Its useful booklet, Do-Able Dozen, describes the variety of PIPE programs.
The Koalaty Kid program, developed by the American Society for Quality Control, is creating partnerships between schools and local ASQC groups throughout the country. Funded by Corning Glass, the first partnership was with Frederick Carder Elementary School in Corning, New York, where the emphasis on quality education, environment, and communication has affected the school and its students in remarkable ways. At Carder, 95 percent of the students are at or above grade level in mathematics and 91 percent are at or above their grade level in reading.
The Wisconsin Educational Partnership Initiatives, sponsored by Cray Research, updates and encourages the integration of mathematics, science, and technology education in K-12 schools, primarily through staff development. The program offers teacher retraining and development, activities to help restructure education through innovative teaching, curriculum and technology projects, and partnerships with individuals and institutions. At the 1989 Cray Academy, a summer institute, more than 800 teachers attended thirty-two workshops in mathematics, science, and technology education. The Cray Leadership Academy brings together school principals and teachers to work together to improve curriculum and instruction in those subjects.
The IBM-Head Start partnership explores how technology can empower families through intergenerational learning as children serve as mentors for their parents. The program has received national recognition.
Recently, through many partnership programs, special computer projects have been implemented to connect elementary school students with senior citizens at home or in nursing homes with enormously positive outcomes at both sites.
International and Multicultural ContextOne example of a program that embodies these goals is Project Reach, based in Arlington, Washington. It begins with individual human relations skills, introduces awareness of Black American, Asian American, Mexican American, and American Indian experience, and culminates with cross-cultural experiences. Now being implemented in twelve states, the program has reached over 60,000 students who have demonstrated important personal and social gains in valuing diversity as well as increased academic performance.
Ten years ago the public schools in Portland, Oregon, pioneered a program to infuse information about other cultures throughout the curriculum. Around the same time, Iowa became the first state to mandate a multicultural curriculum, followed by Minnesota and New York. These programs continue to be models as others are formed throughout the United States.
As schools continue to increase their commitment to equity for all students, and to deepen and enrich their programs in multicultural education, there is also increasing interest in communicating with students in other countries. Both of these programs can reinforce each other in effective ways.
At Brown's Point Elementary School in Tacoma, Washington, students communicate by computer with peers in a foreign country each week during their social studies classes. The students have formed friendships with children from New Zealand, England, Australia, and Canada. Many joint projects are emerging, including the co-authoring of international newspapers, global think tanks, Olympics of the Mind, and art exhibits. Stimulating discussions are held about ecology, politics, and other topics of international interest, as well as individual differences and similarities among people in both cultures.
Gemnet, a component of Global Education Motivators based at Chestnut Hill College in Pennsylvania, is a computer communication and information network designed to increase students' global and computer literacy simultaneously. It provides electronic mail exchange for world communication and data bases for world information. The cross-curricular program lends itself to a great variety of interests and provides students with a "window to the world."
Also, computers are programmed to digitize the human voice and programmed to speak in any language--even in the user's own voice, speaking other languages or dialects. Such technology is enhancing culturally affirmative programs for non-English speaking students in our schools.
Assessment
For many years, I.Q. tests have assessed
students' abilities; however, there is low correlation between the results
and what is possible for students to learn. The Learning Potential Assessment
Device, developed by Reuven Feuerstein, is a logical outcome of his Theory
of Structural Cognitive Modifiability.
The concept that human beings are modifiable turns dynamic assessment into a necessity. If, indeed, human beings are modifiable, they certainly vary in the level of modifiability and in the type of interventions they need in order to learn successfully. Therefore, according to Feuerstein, the subject and focus of assessment should not be to measure stable characteristics, but rather to determine the ability to change and adapt to new situations.
In relation to assessing learning, testing can be an important part of the process; however, standardized tests in their present form are not usually used for this purpose. Since most standardized tests assess primarily recall, and since many teachers "teach to the test" because they are evaluated on the results, the curriculum is narrowed and the development of higher-order thinking skills is not reinforced. New methods of assessment are being studied and piloted as pressure mounts to assess student achievement more comprehensively.
More comprehensive tests encourage teaching in greater depth, focusing on higher order thinking and applying what is learned in practical and creative ways. Good assessments are built into the educational process and provide valuable information for both teachers and students.
Arts Propel, which involves Harvard's Project Zero, the Educational Testing Service, and the Pittsburgh Public Schools, has among its goals to erase the difference between instruction and assessment. In the project students learn to evaluate their own work and teachers learn to use different means of assessment such as portfolios of student work and student projects.
Howard Gardner, Project Zero Co-Director, points out that "assessment should be multi-measured, in the sense that we don't ever want to depend on a single index, but rather to look in a number of different ways at the student's skills, deficits, and characteristic style of learning."
Grant Wiggins, of the National Center on Education and the Economy in Rochester, New York, suggests that tests should be central experiences in learning. He notes that "if we wish to design an authentic test, we must first decide what are the actual performances that we want students to be good at. We must design those performances first and worry about a fair and through method of grading them later.... We typically learn too much about a student's short-term recall and too little about what is most important: a student's habits of mind."
Connecticut is now using performance-based assessments in science, foreign languages, drafting, and small engine repair. Pittsburgh has developed a Syllabus-Driven Exam Program and Vermont is developing portfolio-based assessments of writing and mathematics. California has piloted performance-based tests in science and a statewide essay test. Maryland now includes essay exams as graduation requirements, and Connecticut is proposing a Core of Learning exam involving higher order thinking and problem-solving skills. The National Science Foundation is funding teachers from six states to develop "performance-based" tests which include real life tasks and the Coalition of Essential Schools uses essays, projects, and "exhibitions" of learning as more effective ways of assessing student achievement.
Learning EnvironmentThe Architecture and Children Institute in Seattle, Washington, contends that careful thought, time, enthusiasm, and efficiency of planning can turn every school into an environment that nurtures human growth. Such environments are based on the following four premises:
Many educators are also looking beyond the school environment to learning in urban or wilderness settings. The opportunities to intern in businesses or hospitals and the opportunities for experiential learning in wilderness areas are valuable extensions of the classroom experience. The concept of a "learning environment" that is not a classroom offers unlimited opportunities to demonstrate to students that learning can take place anywhere, at any time, and at any age.
School-Based ManagementIt is difficult to consider the large array of options that have been discussed in this report without developing a fragmented, shot-gun approach to learning. It is clear, however, that some strategies are more appropriate than others for the needs of particular students and particular schools. Collectively, they offer teachers and students more choice and opportunity for success. These teaching/learning strategies can be combined in many ways and as noted earlier, in some cases they are already combined with each other.
School-based management or shared decision-making, offers a way of "putting it all together" meaningfully. This system provides the linchpin of contemporary education as teachers, administrators, parents, older students, and business people work together to develop plans for their school and share responsibility for its effectiveness. School-based management is a learning process for all involved.
Nationwide, the results of this system are noteworthy. Despite the difficult challenge of making the process work, most schools have improved as a result. Attitudes become more positive, test-scores go up, and support for education is mobilized.
John Goodlad suggests that "We can reconstruct the American public educational system one school at a time. Large numbers of parents and students are ready to join us, I believe, in making our schools, one by one, better places in which to live and work."
Teachers are also assuming roles in designing and providing staff development in such schools as Jefferson County's Gheens Academy, in Dade County, Florida, and in New Orleans, Louisiana. In Ronan, Montana, teachers act as mentors and coaches for one another. They also have the opportunity to become master teachers who offer in-service seminars for their colleagues and for teachers from other schools. Teachers, substitutes, and parents from four school districts are now involved in the program in cooperation with the University of Montana.
Teachers act as coaches and mentors to other teachers in New Orleans, Cincinnati, and in Poway, California where they also have full responsibility for designing and adapting the curriculum. Teachers serve as team leaders who manage mini-schools within middle schools in Jefferson County and form a management team to run the New Orleans Effective Schools Project and Summer Program. Lead teachers in Dade County manage satellite learning centers in local workplaces. Teachers now direct district wide teacher education centers and professional development programs in many cities.
In the Teacher Leader Strand of the University of Washington's Puget Sound Educational Consortium, teachers learn to design and conduct Action Research to improve classroom practice.
As collaborative efforts to support teachers increase, there is growing use of paraprofessionals and volunteers in the classroom. Teachers make use of this assistance to meet the critical basic needs of many of their students so they can attend to their primary roles in helping all students to learn.
Principals are moving from managerial roles to instructional leaders who are willing to take risks as they empower teachers to try new ideas. They are learning to work collaboratively with all parts of their educational community to create a shared vision for their school. They are learning and applying new skills in team-building, delegation, mediation, and problem-solving. Superintendents are becoming change-agents for whole school systems. In Scottsdale, Arizona, the Superintendent passes out a little card to teachers and administrators. It says:
"I blew it! I tried something new and innovative and it didn't work as well as I wanted. This coupon entitles me to be free of criticism for my efforts. I'll continue to pursue ways to help our district be successful."He also makes a form available that can be submitted to him by anyone in the district. It says:
| | "Subject: Cutting through the red tape. | Here's what I want to accomplish: ______________________ | Here's what I've tried so far: __________________________ | Here's the barrier: __________________________________ | Here's what needs to be done to cut through the red tape: | _________________________________________________ | _________________________________________________ | | P.S. I understand you will get back to me within ten working days."Some school systems are being turned upside down as planning begins with what students need to know and be able to do, then proceeds to what teachers need to know to help them, then to what principals need to know in order to empower their teachers, then to what superintendents need to know to support their principals and other administrators. All these educational stakeholders including union leaders, parents, and school board members need to create a shared vision for their district and to facilitate the educational process. Collaboration among all these groups becomes essential as school-based management gains ground in school systems throughout the country. One example of such a system in transition is the Moses Lake School District in the state of Washington.
Both the Association of Federated Teachers and the National Education Association have implemented programs to serve as support systems and resources to teachers on the move. The Washington Education Association has created a pioneering document related to school reform beginning with empowered teachers. Restructuring Public Education: Building a Learning Community is receiving national attention.
Computer networks offer effective ways to coordinate efforts as teachers and administrators go on-line with each other to share information and engage in productive dialogue. The quality of that dialogue is impressive as, for example, teachers share concerns about their students and discuss ways to improve teaching and learning.
The NEA Mastery in Learning network of schools, universities, and professional organizations is one example. Another example is the network formed by the Schools for the 21st Century in the state of Washington.
These "learning communities," taught by a team of instructors, link several courses around a central theme. There is purposeful re-structuring of the curriculum, with an emphasis on active, collaborative learning, integration of subject-matter that allows students to make connections between disciplines and ideas, and encouragement of student self-evaluation .
Some schools of education are moving in the direction of broadening and enriching their curriculum for student teachers to help them become proficient in strategies they will need to reach the diversity of students in today's schools. As large numbers of teachers retire or leave the system, new teachers must be educated to prepare our children to be productive, contributing members of a democratic society. More effective methods of educating these teachers are planned.
Antioch University in Seattle recently developed an innovative, new teacher certification program, which is a twelve month professional preparation program for midlife adults who have a bachelor's degree and are interested in becoming teachers.
Linda MacRae Campbell, developer and director, based the program on current cognitive research and its implications for optimizing teaching and learning. Students will learn to incorporate multiple intelligences, diverse learning styles, the arts, interdisciplinary curriculum, and other effective approaches into instructional practice. Student teaching requirements are double the state guidelines with internships beginning during the first quarter of the program.
All academic studies of the certification program are interdisciplinary and revolve around three major themes:
Under the leadership of Goodlad, special demonstration school projects will be designed as laboratories for teacher education. This will be sponsored jointly by the Center for Educational Renewal, the Education Commission of the States, and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. The laboratories will be linked with schools of education to the benefit of both and will form a network to share the results of real-school learning experiences.
The partnership process can be greatly enhanced through the use of technology as computer networks facilitate the exchange of information. The Education Department of the University of Wyoming, which is a participant in the Center for Educational Renewal, plans to link all its partner schools to the university through a network of two-way interaction video classrooms. These partner schools will become the Wyoming Centers for Teaching and Learning. As the need for training educators in new roles escalates, there is increasing use of telecommunications courses. The most knowledgeable experts in various fields can be downlinked to multiple sites with trained facilitators to work with the assembled groups, as already happens in large national corporate training programs.
The possibilities expand as we consider Japan's University of the Air, which offers 234 courses to 25,000 students. In China last year, one million students took courses through their TV University. In the United States, over one million students took courses through universities and colleges over public TV. Future options include the possibility of international university courses made available to students throughout the world, as is already planned by Global University, under the auspices of the Global Systems Analysis and Simulation (GLOSAS) project based in New York.
There are many adults, however, who cannot engage in these programs because they have never learned to read. A nation-wide campaign makes help available in nearly every community. The Literacy Hotline, in Lincoln, Nebraska, refers people to over 11,000 different programs, staffed by volunteer tutors.
Technology is also having a major impact on the problem of illiteracy. Various multimedia programs often are making it possible for previously illiterate adults to become readers faster than through more traditional kinds of instruction.
Most of these and other effective adult education programs are based on human development theories that have been affecting planning and practice for some time. Eduard Lindeman, who wrote The Meaning of Adult Education in 1926, identified several concepts that have been supported by later research and are the foundation of modern adult learning theory:
According to Malcolm Knowles, considered by many to be the "father of adult education" in the United States, a critical characteristic of adult learners is that they see themselves as capable of self-direction and they work best with teachers who see themselves as facilitators of learning. Both Knowles and Lindeman have noted that the conditions they consider ideal for adult learners are also those in which younger students thrive.
Results of a recent research project of Dorothy Billington show that learning to be a self-directed learner can lead to higher developmental levels. Her study shows that ego growth of adult students occurred only within a setting that encouraged self-direction and provided stimulation within a nurturing environment. Of course, academic learning is also facilitated in such an environment.
Today's positive environments are often ones in which interpersonal activities and interactive media combine in productive ways. Many large corporations, including IBM, Motorola, Xerox, and Federal Express, are creating multimedia environments which facilitate self-directed learning through interactive training databases, expert systems, help facilities, and applications software. In some settings, all these components can be integrated at the workstation so that they may be utilized on the job. Such a supportive system creates the positive climate essential for successful learning and personal growth. As satellite communications proliferate, new sources of information and training expand these individual systems into global education networks.
The development of human intelligence in a positive environment is essential as more technology is implemented. Reuven Feuerstein has recently implemented his Mediated Learning and Instrumental Enrichment programs with over 250 French industries. The owner of a French steel mill claims that these programs have enabled his workers to be flexible enough to cope with continual, unexpected change. Feuerstein recently received a national award from the President of France for revolutionizing the training of workers and executives through the development of specific thinking and intelligence skills.
The Accelerated Learning techniques developed by Georgi Lozanov have been applied in many corporate training programs both in the U.S. and in other countries. Some AT&T programs have cut training time and budgets to less than half their previous levels. Because of recent successes, IBM in Germany is planning to convert its entire European training program to this method and will work with Audi and Porsche to develop new programs.
If, as Abraham Maslow suggests, the role of human beings is to move from satisfying basic needs to using higher-order thinking skills, including analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, to achieving self-actualization, then learning as a lifelong process takes on new meaning.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, professor of Human Development and Education at the University of Chicago, notes that "more clearly and consistently than perhaps any other society, people in ours have claimed that it is possible for men and women to fulfill their potential by growing in skills, in knowledge, in wisdom. Not for any specific adaptive reason, not as a response to environmental pressure, but simply for the sake of actualizing latent possibilities."
As we consider the challenges in overcoming the problems of illiteracy in the United States, it is important to be aware that, according to the American Association of Retired People, one third of all people over the age of sixty-five are illiterate and in need of formal training. Hunger, homelessness, and poverty that prevent young children from learning also affect the elderly. Coordination of multiple community resources to address individual needs as a whole are appearing with increasing frequency In community learning centers.
In relation to the more fortunate elderly, the Journal of Gerontology notes that in many fields, including teaching, science, mathematics, and philosophy, productivity at the age of seventy is as great as it was at its previous height when the person was forty years old.
According to Harry Moody, Director of the Brookdale Center on Aging at Hunter College, "The challenge to education for an aging society will be a new emphasis on lifelong learning among late-life groups. In a post-industrial economy, human capital formation on a lifespan basis now becomes strategically important. In fact, 'recycling' of human resources in the second half of life has already begun."
Special courses are designed to retrain older workers who are filling an essential role in the workplace. There are programs for displaced homemakers, for teaching basic literacy and new life-skills, for personal enrichment through the arts, and for volunteer training, all of which are reducing unnecessary dependency on the part of the elderly. In the United States about 12 million people over sixty-five are volunteers, many in education.
In pilot studies with older adults in Alpine, Texas, Guilford's Structure of Intellect strategies combined with physical activities provide tools for improved memory and vision, increase balance and coordination, and optimize overall functional and life skills.
Elderhostels in the United States, Canada, and forty countries overseas offer a variety of educational opportunities to senior citizens. Over 1500 colleges, universities, national parks, and environmental education centers make interesting programs in this country and abroad available to senior citizens.
In Milwaukee, the LaFarge Institute of Lifelong Learning offers over 100 courses to more than 2000 persons over the age of fifty. The University of North Carolina sponsors a College for Seniors, and its Center for Creative Retirement offers programs in leadership, wellness, research, peer learning, intergenerational collaboration, and retirement planning. The Center offers in-depth seminars on how other educational institutions and organizations can develop their own creative retirement centers.
The AARP Institute of Lifelong Learning publishes a list of Centers for Older Learners throughout the U.S. and offers a wide range of minicourses on many subjects. The Institute's booklet on Learning Opportunities for Older Persons provides a comprehensive description of programs offered by other organizations.
Computer networks offer special opportunities for the elderly to continue learning at home, to access innumerable databases and information systems, and to communicate with computer-pals throughout the world. One network specifically for older adults is SeniorNet, affiliated with the University of San Francisco.
Malcolm Knowles suggests that community learning centers can be resources for every part of the community. In these centers, he envisions educational consultants, diagnosticians, and resource personnel being available not only to schools, but to homes, businesses, health agencies, churches, recreational groups, and the media. Clearly the use of technology will facilitate the development and operation of these learning communities. Educators in new roles would become key community professionals, and the entire community would become interlinked through learning. The fiber-optics linked community in Cerritos, California offers an example of future possibilities.
Knowles suggests that "We must become able not only to transform our institutions in response to changing situations and requirements; we must invent and develop institutions that are 'learning systems,' that is to say, systems capable of bringing about their own continuing transformation."
An example of a unique community learning center is the Fidalgo Elementary School in Anacortes, Washington. The school has at its core an Integrated Learning System designed to increase student intellectual and academic achievement through the recognition of different learning styles and the teaching of intelligence and thinking skills.
Fidalgo has a sister-school relationship with a school in Japan which involves an exchange program for teachers and students, a staff development incentive program leading to a Master's degree at nearby Western Washington University, and a latchkey program which operates before and after school for students and younger siblings.
The community learning center offers classes in Japanese not only to students but to members of the community who have a fishing trade relationship with Japan. It also offers a wide variety of other classes to the community including vocational and intelligence training and computer classes.
In Poland, Ohio, a 103-year-old elementary school building that was about to be closed was turned into a Continuing Education Center with lifelong learning opportunities for community members from preschoolers to senior citizens. Each week, approximately 400 people use the facility for vocational, recreational, cultural, and academic classes. It is open year-round from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and is owned and operated by the public school system.
In the Poland facility, a preschool daycare center and latchkey program not only provide community service, but save $8000 a year in school transportation costs. The site is also used by a nearby university to offer eighteen college courses. A cafeteria is available for participants of all ages and a hot lunch program for senior citizens operates daily. Profit from community use supplements the school budget. The center continues to grow in innovative ways and has become a focal point of the community.
Many of these centers are beginning to incorporate health and social service agencies, childcare, and senior-citizen programs addressing the needs of students, parents, the elderly, and other members of the community. Some are built around a comprehensive technology facility, jointly funded by the education and business community. As many of the centers are open nearly around the clock, the facilities are also being used after school for worker training and adult education programs. Income is often generated by these services.
New parts of such a system continue to emerge. The National Governors' Association's education projects, the Education Commission of the States and their Re:Learning effort, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Center for Educational Renewal, the Coalition of Essential Schools, the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education, the American Federation of Teachers' Urban District Leadership Consortium, and the National Education Association's new National Center for Innovation in Education could all contribute information and expertise to the system. Needless to say, it will be essential to utilize the most current technology to gather, process, and disseminate the vast amounts of data generated by these organizations.
An innovative attempt at developing a comprehensive state research and development center utilizing the most up-to-date technology has been announced by the Maryland Department of Education. In the planning and development stages for the last two years, the Instructional Framework is available now. It is a multi-media resource to enhance student learning through an emphasis on effective instructional delivery. The Instructional Framework will also expand and refine teachers' repertoires of effective teaching strategies and guide instructional planning and decision-making. The Instructional Framework consists of four major components:
Simultaneously, with the development of the Instructiona