What's Next
Bogged down with the day-to-day details of district business? Wish you had the time to stay on top of the best educational research? Read on.
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As you know, university laboratories, private think tanks, and government agencies across the country are continually looking to further the research and development of theories, strategies, and technologies that will not only make your job easier but will also make education in America that much better. Our reporters found 10 such projects that we think you’d like to hear about. See for yourself what’s coming down the pike. You’ll find both inspiration and valuable information that you can use today.
What’s next: Truly integrated classroom videoconferencing
The researchers: Northwest Educational Technology Consortium (NETC)
As the lines between classroom learning and online learning continue to blur, videoconferencing technologies will become a vital means of connecting with students—wherever they might be. “Brick-and-mortar schools are using online more, and online schools are looking at ways for students to get together at least at the same time if not in the same place,” says Seymour Hanfling of NETC, one of 10 Regional Technology in Education Consortia funded by the U.S. Department of Education.
Hanfling finds that videoconferencing helps students, teachers, and administrators in a number of areas including course delivery, enhanced instruction, community services, staff development, and professional collaboration. Learn how to concoct your own videoconferencing strategies at NETC’s site, which includes planning and implementation tips addressing such topics as strategy, staffing, logistics, finances, and expected results.
Where to go: www.netc.org/digitalbridges/about
What’s next: Smarter assessment systems
The researchers: The Assessment and Accountability Comprehensive Center (AACC)
In January of this year, the AACC, a government-sponsored assistance program, opened its doors to help states and districts improve their assessment and accountability systems. One of the main goals of the AACC is to evaluate the effectiveness of products, programs, and other resources that manage a district’s data.
According to Stanley Rabinowitz, director of the AACC, the center will use its expertise to analyze how best to assess special needs students and English language learners and to help states develop growth models to measure progress toward proficiency. The AACC works primarily with the nation’s 16 Regional Comprehensive Centers, which are also part of the federal technical assistance system. Resources will soon be available for all on the organization’s web site.
Where to go: www.aacompcenter.org
What’s next: Animated algebra
The researchers: Curriculum Research & Development Group (CRDG) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa
One way to make math come alive is by bringing it to life on desktop screens. CRDG is developing an interactive algebra curriculum: a 120-hour course that takes middle and high school students through 10 story lines, presenting information and problems using animated characters as student “ambassadors.”
Designed for individual student or class use, the X-Power Interactive program enhances students’ understanding of algebraic concepts by providing opportunities for nonroutine problem solving, applying communication strategies in a number of contexts, making connections across and within algebraic concepts, developing skills over time, and presenting open-ended problems. While X-Power can be taught as a stand-alone module, it can also be supplemented with other training, says Kathleen Berg, associate director of CRDG. The program also runs the 450-student University Laboratory School, a K–12 institution where many of CRDG’s ideas get real-world tests.
Want to find out if interactive math might work with your curriculum? X-Power currently is in beta testing but should be released this spring.
Where to go: www.hawaii.edu/crdg/labschool
What’s next: Interactive handheld computing
The researchers: The Center for Highly Interactive Classrooms, Curricula & Computing in Education (hi-ce) at the University of Michigan School of Education
Computers are already an integral part of the learning process. But is a computer always the best technology for education? Researchers at hi-ce are exploring new kinds of educational tools for the handheld computer that allow students to actively engage in different kinds of learning activities and that make computing an integral part of the learning process.
“When we think of technology, we tend to think of a computer,” says Stephen Best, a researcher with the hi-ce project. “But so much of what schools want kids to do on computers can be done as easily on a $100 handheld as it can on a $1,200 computer.”
Handheld devices also present more versatile and interactive opportunities in the classroom. Through a pilot program with Detroit Public Schools, hi-ce has developed an array of software built for handheld devices such as Palm Pilots and Pocket PCs. Take Cooties, for example. Students meet and possibly infect each other by beaming between their Palm OS devices. The program tracks the “coodles” characters and tells them if their coodles are sick. After students have finished collecting data from each other, they collaboratively determine the initial carrier of the disease and trace the transmission path among the coodles. Other programs allow students to track assignments and write notes in class. They can then beam the data back and forth to one another’s devices so that they all can have the exact same assignments and expectations every day.
If it seems like giving every student a handheld device is a recipe for disaster, think again. Hi-ce researchers found that the students in the Detroit classes they studied generally respected the technology. They received every single device back without incident at the end of the study. “Most schools wouldn’t think twice about giving kids a graphing calculator. Why not buy a handheld, which functions as a calculator but can do so many other things, too?” says Best.
Where to go: www.hi-ce.org
What’s next: Better data to make every student gifted
The researchers: The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented (NRC/GT)
The work of the NRC/GT is guided by the organization’s emerging research about the broadened conception of human potential and the need to develop “high-end learning” opportunities for all of America’s students. “We believe that the nation’s largest reservoir of untapped talent can be found among those young people who, by reason of economic circumstances and all of the problems that surround poverty in America, have not been given equal opportunity and encouragement to develop their potential to the fullest,” says program director Jim Renzulli.
Renzulli advocates the concept of “enrichment clusters” that span grade levels and group students according to common interests. For projects, students use search engines that go through 14 different databases to find resources targeted to that particular child, a method that pinpoints relevant information and avoids aimless web surfing.
Where to go: www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt.html
What’s next: Enhanced instruction through multimedia
The researchers: Integrated Curriculum Project (ICP)
If current research by ICP is any indication, many more special education students will be joining the AP ranks if given the right tools. “In our dissertation study, gains in critical thinking skills by special education students exceeded those made by high school students receiving general instruction,” says Herb Rieth, the Audrey Rogers Myers Centennial Professor in Education at the University of Texas at Austin.
Rieth and Columbia University professor Charles Kinzer have developed the Anchoring Instruction Model, which uses video presentations of such novels as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby to improve students’ reading comprehension.
Anchoring instruction is a technique that presents information to students in a relevant, understandable, and organized manner by “anchoring,” or embedding, content in meaningful video contexts and problem-solving situations. Students typically analyze the video after watching it once, then develop deeper questions after a second viewing. Activities include a character study, an in-depth analysis, and a research project.
Currently in the final development phase, ICP is funded through the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs and has been a collaborative effort among the University of Texas at Austin, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and Columbia University in New York. The web site offers instructional resources and an example of anchoring in action.
Where to go: www.vanderbilt.edu/icp/home/project_overview.html
What’s next: Principal training
The researchers: The New Teacher Center (NTC) at University of California, Santa Cruz
Ellen Moir, executive director of the NTC, is ahead of her time. For nearly two decades, she’s been working to increase the retention rates of teachers, while only now, she says, is the country waking up to the teacher crisis. The center is doing something right—though the national dropout rate for new teachers is nearly 50 percent, NTC’s teacher retention rate is as high as 95 percent. Her secret? Hiring veteran mentors.
Moir’s next mission is to foster and retain principal positions. She is encouraged by the number of veteran teachers who serve as mentors in her program and then go on to become principals or assistant principals. “When they step out of the classroom to become mentors, they discover their leadership capabilities, feel reinvigorated, and launch a new career,” she says. “It’s become a sort of grow-your-own-future-principal program.”
For principals who have never had the opportunity to learn about teaching from inside the classroom, the NTC has recently begun to focus on principal induction. The center offers leaders guidance on observing teachers and delivering feedback, analyzing and effectively using data, and making tenure decisions.
Where to go: www.newteachercenter.org
What’s next: Forging partnerships with outside educational institutions
The researchers: The University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE)
Here’s one way to make field trips more substantial: UPCLOSE worked with the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum during its recent $28 million expansion to create closer ties with its attendees. The intention was to spark “learning dialogues” among parents, children, and schools to promote teachable moments more effectively, according to UPCLOSE director Kevin Crowley.
The program encourages schools to use museum materials to complement in-school curricula by holding teacher workshops in conjunction with current exhibitions. The joint UPCLOSE/museum endeavor recently won two major national awards and will be the subject of a forthcoming book by Associate Director Karen Knutson, the key liaison for the project. The UPCLOSE relationship can be used as a model for your district to pursue its own partnerships.
Where to go: http://upclose.lrdc.pitt.edu
What’s next: Middle school reform
The researchers: Education Alliance at Brown University
Fuzzy concepts are one thing. Turning them into concrete practices is another. It takes patience and determination. In partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), the Education Alliance seems to have figured it out. Its research and consulting concentrates on three core strategies for high school teachers and staff: personalization; collaborative leadership; and curriculum, instruction, and assessment. These principles come to life in practices such as personalized learning plans, advisories, e-portfolios, student-led conferences, and student exhibitions—all methods designed to get individual kids invested in their own education. The alliance now wants to take the concepts and apply them to middle schools. A new analysis called Breaking Ranks: Middle, available later this year, will set the groundwork for schools to take on the younger grades.
What’s next: Smarter reading
The researchers: The National Center for the Study of Supported Text in Electronic Learning Environments
Now that technology has arrived in most classrooms in one form or another, Lynne Anderson-Inman at the University of Oregon and Judith Zorass at the Education Development Center want to make its application more effective. Their newly established center has embarked on a five-year nationwide series of studies to research ways to make better use of electronic text. With the growing popularity of digitally delivered content, determining which supportive resources best improve student achievement is essential.
“The whole field is going this way,” says Anderson-Inman. “If it’s happening anyway, let’s find out how to do it the best way.” She adds that with portable technology, such as laptops and handhelds, electronic texts will be easy for all students to access. “It will converge, and when it does, the empirical work will be done.”
The center’s findings will be disseminated to teachers, administrators, and parents through its web site, and there will be a separate site for researchers. An advisory board and e-text publications will also facilitate a dialogue about the latest research. Says Anderson-Inman, “We’re all academicians, so we’ll write many research papers for our colleagues and for practitioners.”
Where to go: http://education.uoregon.edu
What’s next: Immersive online classrooms
The researchers: The Center for Research on Learning and Technology (CRLT) at the School of Education, Indiana University, Bloomington campus
Trying to keep students engaged in the real world may now be more trouble than it’s worth. Coders at CRLT have developed a learning and teaching project called Quest Atlantis. The game cum lesson plan uses a three-dimensional multiuser environment to immerse children ages 9 to 12 in educational lessons online.
Building on strategies from online role-playing games, Quest Atlantis combines features used in commercial gaming environments with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. Currently more than 4,500 registered users from five continents use Quest Atlantis in formal school environments as well as in after-school settings.
Newly appointed director Sasha Barab says the learning dynamic is intriguing. “It’s pulling kids into a fantasy play experience different from anything else found in a daily classroom experience, but the educational goal is that it will feed back into the so-called real world.” The program publishes white papers, provides development tools, and offers assistance for anyone interested in pursuing an experiment in immersion.
Where to go: www.crlt.indiana.edu
Jacqueline Heinze is a contributing editor at Scholastic Administr@tor.
Pamela Derringer is a contributing writer for Scholastic Adminstr@tor magazine.
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