Meeting the Needs
of a Rapidly
Changing World
by Dee Dickinson
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About Positive Trends in Learning
Positive Trends in Learning was commissioned and printed by IBM in 1991
and over 50,000 copies were distributed. As further requests for copies
came in from all over the
United States and abroad it was reported that documenting the change
was actually catalyzing more progress.
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
More contact information can be found at the end of this Web page.
Go Back To: The Beginning of the Report
Table of Contents
Introductions
Introductions and brief overview of
the information contained in Positive Trends in Learning: Meeting the Needs
of a Rapidly Changing World.
The Growing Diversity of Students Is Affecting Educational Planning
and Practice in All Settings
It is now well recognized that all students
do not learn in the same way . Teaching that is limited to strategies the
teacher has found effective during his or her own
education may not reach all students
in ways that make it possible for them to learn. Therefore, large numbers
of teachers are broadening their array of teaching
strategies and renewing their enthusiasm
for teaching in the process, as their students become more successful at
learning.
Innovative Parent Education Programs Are Being Held in Homes,
Schools, Hospitals, and Community Centers
Increasing recognition of the critical
role of parents as "first teachers" has led to new efforts in parent education
throughout the world. Children who enter school
without the nurturing, positive, and
stimulating experiences that well-informed parents can provide are usually
"at risk," and the numbers of these children are rapidly
increasing.
More Early Childhood Programs Are Being Planned To Be Developmentally
Appropriate for Children
The current trend toward "developmental
appropriateness" of early childhood education programs is increasing in
strength.
Educational Systems are Changing from Outmoded Industrial Models
to Ones That Are More Appropriate For Our Time
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.
Thinking
Skills
The kind of complex problems with which every individual and organization
must deal today necessitates the development of higher order thinking processes
and intelligent behavior.
Cooperative
Learning
When students learn together in pairs or in small groups, learning is faster,
there is greater retention, and students feel more positive about the learning
process.
Arts in
Education
Schools that incorporate music, art, drama, dance, and creative writing
into the basic curriculum have observed improvements in student success
by all
measures.
Technology
Computers are providing individualized instruction in almost every subject.
They are invaluable tools.
Accelerated
Learning
When the process was pioneered in the schools of Bulgaria, teachers were
astounded at how rapidly the children learned.
Interdisciplinary
Curriculum
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
Projects
Students learn the true meaning of a participatory democracy as they work
with service projects in schools throughout the country.
Partnerships
Many types of partnerships make it possible for schools to tap into the
rich resources their communities have to offer.
International
and Multicultural Context
As ethnic diversity increases in our society and our schools, programs
that offer learning in a multicultural and international context help students
to value their
own heritage and to value and appreciate people from other cultures.
Assessment
More comprehensive tests encourage teaching in greater depth, focusing
on higher order thinking, and applying what has been learned in practical
and creative
ways.
Learning
Environment
Careful thought, time. enthusiasm, and efficiency of planning can turn
every school into an environment that nurtures human growth.
School-Based
Management
School-based management is a learning process for all involved.
Educators are Learning New Skills and Moving Into New Roles
As major corporations put the responsibility
for making decisions as close to the consumer as possible, schools are
beginning to recognize that teachers, who
ultimately have the responsibility of
educating students, must have the power, knowledge, and expertise to make
decisions regarding the best way to help students to
learn.
Universities Are Developing New Ways of Preparing Teachers
Even though universities, in general,
are moving slowly to implement alternatives to the lecture-discussion method
of teaching, they are beginning to utilize the more
dynamic and interactive processes discussed
earlier in this report. Community Colleges, because of the more diverse
nature of their students, are moving most rapidly.
New Technologies and Research Help Reach Adults More Effectively
Adult literacy and education programs
are utilizing technology along with new information on human learning &
development.
Lifelong Learning Opportunities For Elders
Education programs for senior citizens
are increasing in number and variety
Community Centers Bring Lifelong Learning Opportunities
Community learning centers are providing
new resources for lifelong learning.
New Centers Support Research
New kinds of research and development
centers for education are emerging, sponsored by a variety of agencies
and the Federal government..
Conclusion: Metatrends in Learning Are Emerging
If all countries could join together
in the creation of educational systems appropriate for the human enterprise,
there might be a very different kind of world.
About the Author
Go Back To: The Beginning of the Report
Positive Trends in Learning:
Meeting the Needs of a Rapidly Changing World
by Dee Dickinson
Introduction
1.Letter to readers from Betty L. McCormick
2.Foreword by Arthur L. Costa
3.Introduction by Dee Dickinson
Letter to Readers
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 Systems
Go Back To: The Beginning of the Report
Foreword
Arthur L. Costa
California State University, Sacramento
Educational leaders make three major decisions in the process of curriculum alignment:
1.establishing the purposes, outcomes, goals and objectives
of the educational enterprise;
2.designing the delivery system by which those goals will
be achieved; and
3.developing procedures for monitoring, collecting evidence
about, and evaluating the achievement of those goals.
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.
Introduction
Dee Dickinson
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.
Positive Trends in Learning:
Meeting the Needs of a Rapidly Changing World
by Dee Dickinson
The Growing Diversity of Students Is Affecting Educational Planning and Practice in All Settings
It is now well recognized that all students do not learn in the same
way. Teaching that is limited to strategies the teacher has found effective
during his or her own education
may not reach all students in ways that make it possible for them to
learn. Therefore, large numbers of teachers are broadening their array
of teaching strategies and renewing
their enthusiasm for teaching in the process, as their students become
more successful at learning.
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.
Innovative Parent Education Programs Are Being Held in Homes, Schools, Hospitals, and Community Centers
Increasing recognition of the critical role of parents as "first teachers"
has led to new efforts in parent education throughout the world. Children
who enter school without the
nurturing, positive, and stimulating experiences that well-informed
parents can provide are usually "at risk," and the numbers of these children
are rapidly increasing.
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.
More Early Childhood Programs Are Being Planned To Be Developmentally Appropriate for Children
While much of the attention to school reform is focusing on elementary
and secondary education, the field of early childhood education has been
gaining attention.
Experiences in these early years lay the foundations of positive physical,
emotional, social, and intellectual development. Deficiencies in these
areas will affect learning
throughout life, and among the disadvantaged, could result in creating
a permanent underclass of individuals who have little hope of improving
their lives or contributing to
society.
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.
Educational Systems are Changing from Outmoded Industrial Models to Ones That Are More Appropriate For Our Time
The American common school, developed by Horace Mann and a group of
political and business leaders in the mid 1800's, was created to meet the
needs of the new
industrial society. The public school system was designed to be free,
managed by lay boards, and focused on shaping character and creating a
productive work force.
Designed to be cost-efficient, the schools were modeled on the Prussian
educational system with chairs in rows, standard textbooks, and a uniform
course of study.
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
The kind of complex problems with which
every individual and organization must deal today necessitates the development
of higher order thinking processes and
intelligent behavior. Ethical, altruistic,
and long-range thinking are of crucial importance to society. Analyzing,
synthesizing, creating, evaluating, planning, and
decision-making are now required in
every setting; including home, community and workplace. Even jobs that
could formerly be done by unskilled workers now
require the use of sophisticated thinking
skills. For example, today, many workers in industrial plants need to read
and interpret complicated manuals and make
important decisions on-line.
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. Recognizing
the importance of developing applied
thinking skills, the U.S. Patent Office
has launched Project XL as an outreach program to encourage the development
of thinking and problem-solving among students.
The goals of the program are to create
awareness among educators and the general public, to motivate educators
to involve students in applying the skills of inquiry
and creative and critical thinking to
real-life problem-solving experiences, to offer resources, and to create
a network for gathering and disseminating information.
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
The impressive research done on this
educational strategy indicates that when students learn together in pairs
or in small groups, learning is faster, there is greater
retention, and students feel more positive
about the learning process. Cooperative learning enhances children's ability
to construct knowledge as they engage in
discovering new ideas with each other.
In addition, it enhances students' self-esteem and helps teachers with
classroom management. Its value has resulted in
widespread use throughout the country,
and it has become a standard part of most pre-service training. It may
become a unifying element in school reform.
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 Education
The arts have been powerful forms of
teaching and learning since the beginning of humankind. Every civilization
has used memorable visual symbols, stirring songs,
and eloquent poetry to instill national
pride.
The 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.
Technology
Little in the world is changing as fast
as educational technology, and it is already having a profound effect on
how students learn and how they are taught. As schools
move away from didactic learning to
more motivating, interactive processes that develop higher order thinking
skills, multimedia classrooms are increasing. The
technologies include, in different combinations:
audio, video, computers, telecommunications, distance learning, and HyperMedia
(which integrates music, text, images,
live-action video, spoken voices, and
animations).
The 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 Learning
helping
Dr. 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 Curriculum
Because fragmented curricula and fragmented
time-schedules make it difficult for students to see relationships among
the subjects they study as well as to find
relevance of their studies to their
lives, many schools are implementing interdisciplinary programs.
The 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 Projects
Students learn the true meaning of participatory
democracy as they work with service projects in schools throughout the
country. These programs help communities
become more liveable, give students
hands-on learning experiences, improve school success, and assure a sense
of self worth in the participants. Many of these
programs are coordinated by the National
Youth Leadership Council.
The 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.'"
Partnerships
A rapidly increasing number of schools
throughout the United States are improving learning opportunities for their
students as they become partners with businesses,
corporations or other organizations,
including hospitals, nursing homes, universities, and city or federal departments.
These partnerships make it possible for schools
to tap into the rich resources their
communities have to offer. They provide their partners with rewarding opportunities
to help students and schools in meaningful
ways.
Schools 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 Context
As ethnic diversity increases in our
society and our schools, programs that offer learning in a multicultural
and international context help students to value their own
heritage and to value and appreciate
people from other cultures. James Banks, University of Washington professor
of education, has described personal development in
multicultural awareness as beginning
with cultural isolation, moving to clarify one's own cultural identity,
then to understanding and valuing cultural diversity, and
finally to achieving multicultural and
global competence.
One 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
program to infu
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 Environment
As curriculums and teaching/learning
strategies undergo change, it is often difficult to work in the old environments.
Many new buildings accommodate the need for
more flexible space for either cooperative
or individualized learning, for the arts and technology, and for creating
a stimulating and nurturing environment. There also is
much being done to create more positive
and flexible environments in existing facilities.
The 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:
1.People are considered
an integral part of, not apart from, the environment.
2.The architectural
environment, as a work of art in and of itself, can affect behavior.
3.The environment
can be designed, engineered, and provisioned to serve as an additional
learning tool.
4.The learning environment
can be evaluated as a learning tool if it has the developmental needs of
children and students as a basis for design.
Many elementary school teachers, working
with the Institute, have emptied their classrooms at the beginning of the
year and spent a month with students redesigning
the rooms as an educational experience
in space planning. Creating such environments builds trust between students
and teachers, while helping students become more
independent and responsible for their
own learning. These are healthy, humanized, exciting places to live, learn,
and prepare for the future.
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 Management
Each school has a unique student-body
and its faculty and the community it serves have specific characteristics.
Only these groups together can develop an
educational program that is appropriate
for that school and its students.
It 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."
Educators are Learning New Skills and Moving Into New Roles
As major corporations put the responsibility for making decisions as
close to the consumer as possible, schools are beginning to recognize that
teachers, who ultimately have
the responsibility of educating students, must have the power, knowledge,
and expertise to make decisions regarding the best way to help students
to learn.
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.
Universities Are Developing New Ways of Preparing Teachers
Even though universities, in general, are moving slowly to implement
alternatives to the lecture-discussion method of teaching, they are beginning
to utilize the more dynamic
and interactive processes discussed earlier in this report. Community
College, because of the more diverse nature of their students, are moving
most rapidly. The Washington
Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, based
at The Evergreen State College in Washington, is helping college and university
instructors develop more
effective teaching strategies as they collaborate in "learning communities"
that focus on student-centered learning.
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:
1."Enhancing Human Development,"
which includes the cognitive, emotional,
physical, social,
moral, and aesthetic dimensions of human
development
through education;
2."Developing the Literate Child,"
which includes an expanded view of developing
literacy
through the arts and technology;
3."Restructuring Education,"
which surveys past and current restructuring
efforts
and provides students with the knowledge
and tools
to initiate positive change at their
future school sites.
At the University of Washington, The Center for Educational Renewal
was created in September, 1985 by John Goodlad, for the joint purpose of
renewing schools and
improving the education of teachers. To accomplish its mission, the
Center has created a network of fourteen school-university partnerships,
with eighteen colleges and 116
school districts currently involved in the program.
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.
Adult Programs are Utilizing Technology Along With New Information on Human Learning And Development
Even though physical development peaks at the age of thirty, there appears
to be no limit to the development of the human mind. Research indicates
that the greatest
proportion of human productivity is made in the 40's and beyond. As
adults change jobs and careers more often, it is important to recognize
the capacity that most individuals
have to continue to learn and grow in a variety of ways. Adult education
programs are central to the lives of many lifelong learners.
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:
1.Adults are motivated to learn as they experience needs
and interests that learning will satisfy;
2.Adult orientation to learning is life-centered;
3.Experience is the richest resource for adult learning;
4.Adults have a deep need to be self-directing;
5.Individual differences among people increase with age.
Many of the previously discussed learning strategies including learning
styles, cooperative learning, thinking skills, accelerated learning, interdisciplinary
learning, and new
technology, also are clearly appropriate for the adult learner and
are already in place in many adult programs.
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."
Lifelong Learning Opportunities For Elders
As the numbers of older Americans increase, many new programs for keeping
them mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy are in development.
Recent research in the
neurosciences indicates that individuals can retain 98 percent of their
mental capacities into their eighties as long as there is no physical deterioration.
Studies show that the
positive, nurturing, and stimulating environments that lay the early
foundations for human development can foster continued development into
old age. Active rather than
passive learning is a crucial factor.
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.
Community Centers Bring Lifelong Learning Opportunities
Community learning centers are not new, having their inception thirty
years ago in Flint, Michigan. At that time, educator Frank Manley and industrialist
Charles Stewart Mott
developed the concept of the "lighted schoolhouse" which spread throughout
the state. Later through the efforts of the Mott Foundation, community
education centers were
established in universities and state education departments throughout
the U.S. Implementation on a community level has grown slowly; however,
today there is new impetus
for the development of more centers on a broader scale.
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 Centers Support Research
It is noteworthy that the educational system of the United States is
one of the only large organizations that does not have a comprehensive
research and development program
at its core. The U.S. Department of Education, its Regional Educational
Laboratries, the eighteen proposed Research Centers, and the National Diffusion
Network serve
important parts of this function, but a coordinated system is desperately
needed as greater numbers of organizations become involved in improving
the educational system of
our country.
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:
1.an electronic data base containing information related
to effective instruction;
2.an electronic communications link to state and national
bulletin boards and other resources;
3.an "expert system" designed to reflect the instructional
decision-making process of effective teachers;
4.a series of videotaped illustrations of research-based
teaching behaviors contained on interactive videodiscs.
The entire system is organized by a user-friendly interface designed
to simplify direct access to the information and resources contained in
the Framework. Such a system
may well be the technological component of a national or international
research and development enterprise.
Simultaneously, with the development of the Instructiona