Variables involved in creating a school that is based on technology

What does it take for technology to have a meaningful impact on the capacity of a school? 

By Rob Koch

The potential for technological innovation to increase the ability of a school to facilitate instruction remains largely untapped in many schools.  There are multiple factors that influence the effectiveness of technology implementation.  Levin and Schrum (2013) conducted a study of eight award-winning schools that considered technology as an important element of their success.  The study stressed the importance of using a systems thinking approach to implementing technology that addresses all of these factors at the same time.  Peter Senge (2012) defined systems thinking as the study of organizational structures and behavior focusing on identifying high-leverage strategies.

Levin and Schrum’s study identified the following components as being important for the implementation of technology:

·       Vision:  Teachers in their study stressed the importance of having a clear vision that guides the practices of the entire school. 

·       Distributed Leadership:  Levin and Schrum also found that distributed played an important role in implementing new strategies to improve learning.  Their study primarily focused on the teacher empowerment effect of distributed leadership (DL).  Harris (2013) would also point to the ability of DL to increase the organizational knowledge of the school and the data-driven practices of professional communities.  Taken together, teachers in a DL model work harder to implement new practices based on data-driven decisions through collaboration. 

·       School culture:   The most compelling finding of the Levin and Schrum study regarding school culture was the importance of trust and establishing digital citizenship.

·       Technology planning and Support:  Levin and Schrum found that the majority of schools that they studied found it important to have IT support in place.

·       Professional development:    They also found that schools that were effective in implementing technology provided time for professional learning communities.

·       Curriculum and instructional practices:  Some of the benefits that the study found were increased accesses to information, teachable moments for information literacy, and the ability to gather data quickly.

·       Funding:  Many of the schools changed their textbook policies to allow for open educational resources, replacing the cost of a textbook with the cost of a tablet or other device.  Some districts implemented policies allowing students to bring their own technology.

·       Partnerships:  Levin and Schrum also found that technology enabled the schools to strengthen their communications with parents.  Additionally, they noted that through partnerships with businesses, schools were able to increase their funding.

It was interesting to use InsightMaker.com to gain further insight into the findings of Levin and Schrum (Please feel free to explore and comment).  In developing this model, the factors that seemed to arise out of other factors were not considered as independent variables (slider).  For example, it was determined that school-parents and school-organizations partnerships would be influenced by the level of inclusiveness and relationships of the DL practices.  Additionally, independent variable were selected considering the ability of the school leaders to make choices regarding the implementation and allocation of efforts and resources.  (The Insightmaker contains detailed information regarding the assumptions that were made in creating the model.) The importance of distributed leadership and the vision of the school become apparent in this model.   

References

Harris, A. (2013). Distributed school leadership: Developing tomorrow's leaders Routledge.

Levin, B. B., & Schrum, L. (2013). Using systems thinking to leverage technology for school improvement: Lessons learned from award-winning secondary schools/districts. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 46(1), 29-51.

Senge, P. M., Cambron-McCabe, N., Lucas, T., Smith, B., & Dutton, J. (2012). Schools that learn (updated and revised): A fifth discipline fieldbook for educators, parents, and everyone who cares about education Random House LLC.

Reforming Education

United Nations Development Program

     What does learning look like?  Somewhere along the way to improve education, it has been damaged. The awesomeness of "eureka" transformed into normative bubbles.  The wonderful experience of falling down repeatedly until finally a first glorious step is taken replaced with a paralyzing fear of failure.    Inspirational feats of high performance  have been standardized.

    In reading Andy Hargreaves' article, describing the ways that the educational system has changed, I found myself reflecting on the reason that I choose to be an educator.  It was a long time ago, but I know that it was not to subject students to endless barrages of tests that arbitrarily label them as "partially-proficient" or "advanced."  I do see the value of knowing where my students and my skills fall in relation to others.  The series of reforms that the educational system has undergone in the past thirty years has helped move education forward; however, the road to improving education is far from complete.

Hargreaves (2009) classified the ways in which school reform has been implemented.  The first way of reform involved teachers' independent efforts to increase pedagogical efficiency (Hargreaves, 2009).  According to Hargreaves, the independent nature of teacher initiated reform resulted in an effort to standardized the educational system.  The standardized system then resulted in Hargreaves' third way which involved top-down efforts to force reform on schools through a system of threats and intimidation.

Through an extensive study of educational reform and educational systems, Hargreaves (2009) derived a “Forth Way” to reform education, consisting of purposeful partnerships, principles of professionalism, and catalysts for coherence.

     Five pillars of purposeful partnerships:

1.    An inspiring inclusive vision:  We need to develop a shared vision for education that addresses essential needs of society that extends beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic.  The educational system needs to prepare students for their future.

2.    Public engagement: Re-energize the public's passion for education

3.    No achievement without investment:  Educating children requires investments beyond money; society has to put forth the effort and time to educate their children.  Replace technology time with time for tikes.

4.    Corporate educational responsibility:  Self-serving corporate support for educating children to learn skills that serve their industry needs to be changed to supporting the needs of society.

5.    Students as partners in change:  Empower students through establishing their responsibility for their training, and monitoring their success.


Three principles of professionalism

1.    High-quality teachers: If we want high-quality people to teach then we must provide a competitive salary.  Teachers also bear the responsibility of earning prestige and persevering the integrity of their profession.

2.    Powerful professionalism:  Teachers collaborate and challenge each other to increase the performance of the educational system.

3.    Lively learning communities:  Teachers involved in collaborative, data based, ongoing improvement to refine instruction.

Four catalysts of coherence:

1.    Sustainable Leadership: The job of leading and managing a school involves an extensive number of factors resulting in leaders burning out.  Utilize distributed leadership to increase stakeholder buy-in and share the responsibilities.

2.    Net with no nanny: Professional network driven by a shared vision but without a "nanny" to intervene allowing teachers to deepen their practices free from the whims of trendy innovation.

3.    Responsibility before accountability: Teachers are responsible for the performance of all children.  Multiple sources of data continuously collected to monitor the performance of teachers.

4.    Build from the bottom, steer from the top: Teachers set high standards objectives to improve learning through a system of collective responsibility.


The top-down reform measure of No Child Left Behind has resulted in increasing the number of schools classified as unacceptable and deemed “broken," by the US Secretary of Education.  The idea that teachers have a monopoly on education is not viable.  Educators and politicians must share the responsibility for education with parents, community members, corporations, and students.  Somewhere the vision for education became meeting standards and not preparing students for their future.

By Rob Koch

References

Hargreaves, A. (2009), The fourth way of change: Towards an Age of inspiration and sustainability. in Hargreaves, A., & Fullan, M. (Eds.). (2009). Change wars. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Google

Preparing Students for Their Future: Dual Enrollment

Preparing Students for Their Future: Dual Enrollment in High Schools

Increasingly high school students are taking advantage of the opportunity to attend college courses while enrolled in high school.  This practice of dual enrollment offers a means for some students to get a head start on their college career.  Many times the school district will pay for the students’ tuition, if they pass their classes.  This has the potential to increase college attendance for many low income or minority students who are underrepresented on college campuses.  The question that remains is how effective are dual enrollment programs?

A recent study indicated that dual enrollment programs are working.  They found that dual enrolled students out performed traditionally enrolled students even in their second year of college (Crouse & Allen, 2014).  Furthermore, dual enrollment increases student enrollment in four-year programs.  The same study found that 58 percent of Iowa’s dual enrolled students attended a four-year college compared to 42 percent of all Iowa high school graduates (Crouse & Allen, 2014).  However, another study found that students who participate in dual enrollment in a four-year college were 200% more likely to earn a four-year degree than those beginning in a community college (Pretlow, 2014).  Dual enrollment increases student attendance and performance in college; however, the direction that students take after graduating high school is important to consider.

While dual enrollment helps students to perform better in their college classes, high schools can improve their dual enrollment programs.  Dual enrolled students are more likely to take introductory humanities courses than math, sciences or career related courses (Crouse & Allen, 2014; Khazem & Khazem, 2012).  Khazem and Khazem noted the importance of dual enrolled students receiving college level counseling that focuses students on academic-career paths.  Furthermore, they also point out that exposure to career track courses provides students access to labs and facilities not available in traditional high schools (Khazem & Khazem, 20012).  Providing students with the opportunity to learn more about the career path that they have decided upon can work to increase students’ motivation to continue on to college once they graduate from high school. 

Scheduling and transportation poses a potential barrier for many high schools when considering dual enrollment.  Enrollment through online courses helps with scheduling and can help address the transportation barrier that is common with minority students (Khazem & Khazem, 20012).  However, this does not provide students with the experience of attending school on a college campus with other college students.  For many students, the college experience plays a key role in building student efficacy.  Another option that also has similar drawbacks is having the college instructor teach the class on the high school campus.

While dual enrollment can play an important role in preparing high school students for college, high schools can adopt practices that will increase student success in college.  High schools can teach writing practices that focus on substantiating one’s claims, and providing proper citations; use syllabi modeled after ones used in college courses, and develop critical thinking skills to prepare students for college (Khazem & Khazem, 20012). 

Further Information

To learn about dual enrollment for you child, contact your child's high school.

http://www.wiche.edu/info/cacg/meetings/boulder13/white.pdf Provides an overview of dual enrollment in Colorado.

References

Crouse, J. D., & Allen, J. (2014). College Course Grades for Dual Enrollment Students. Community College Journal Of Research & Practice, 38(6), 494-511. doi:10.1080/10668926.2011.567168

Khazem, J. H., & Khazem, H. A. (2012). Dual enrollment: The way forward. International Journal Of Education Research, 7(2), 135-150.

Pretlow, J. (2014). Dual enrollment, community colleges, and baccalaureate degree attainment. Community College Journal Of Research & Practice, 38(2/3), 264-269. doi:10.1080/10668926.2014.851981

What if School Was Invented Today?

What if school was invented today?  What would it look like? How would students learn and teachers teach?  The obvious answer is in school or online....Don't be obvious!

Think of the time that you learned the most.  How did you learn? How do they communicate? Was it in school?  I bet not... we need to change that...

Stage 1:
When answering this question don't think "outside the box," pretend the box does not even exist!  Part of this challenge is thinking of the right questions to ask. Questions like "If the body of knowledge that the world create is changing so fast how does one keep up?"  or "What are THE most important things to learn when in a matter of minutes you can learn almost anything?"

So the first stage in this process is creating the "right questions."  What are the right questions?

Please use your comment to post your "questions"  or if you are ambitious add to the presentation.