Leveraging Distributed Expertise in Learning and Teaching with Technologies Roy Pea SRI International Center for Technology in Learning International Conference.

Leveraging Distributed Expertise in Leveraging Distributed Expertise in Learning and Teaching with TechnologiesLearning and Teaching with Technologies

Roy PeaSRI International

Center for Technology in Learning

International Conference on Intelligent Multimedia and Distance Education

Fargo, North Dakota

June 2, 2001

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Overview

• Some organizing concepts• Strategies for improving learning and

teaching with information technologies

• Grand Design Challenges Leveraging distributed expertise

Networked improvement communities

• Teachscape as example

• Web-based video case studies and communities for K-12 teacher learning

• Into the future

Using Technology to Support LearningReal-world contexts for

learning

Connections to experts and communities of learners

Visualization and analysis tools

Scaffolds for problem solving

Opportunities for feedback, reflection & revision

Teacher learning

How People Learn(Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, Eds.)National Academy Press, 1999

BUT….

The sciences and technologies of learning have had far too little influence on:

• curriculum• assessment • teacher development• school reform• public views of learning/teaching

A Grand Design Challenge: Connecting ‘distributed expertise’ to

augment ‘collective intelligence’ • We collectively know a lot more than we utilize

about uses of ICT to improve learning and teaching (collective intelligence)

• Exploit ICT itself in strategies for leveraging distributed expertise about learning and teaching with technologies

• Identifying and connecting distributed expertise

• Creating and studying “Networked Improvement Communities” (NICs)

Networked Improvement Communities as a powerful leveraging strategy for tackling our Grand Design Challenges

• A NIC is a coalition of organizations each engaged in a similar improvement process;

• A NIC networks these organizations and crafts new mechanisms for improving their isolated improvement processes; and

• A NIC builds value and leverages knowledge for distributed communities.

• Thanks to Doug Engelbart as NIC pioneer

The Many NICs of CTL

PROJECT TOPIC SCOPE

TAPPED IN On-line teacher professionaldevelopment institute

$1.7M (4 yrs),spurs Minerva spinoff

CILT Virtual center: K-14 learningtechnologies R&D

$6M (4 yrs)plus industry sponsors

PALS Performance assessmentsfor learning science

$1.2M (3 yrs)

OERL On-line library of educationproject evaluation resources

$1.75M (7 yrs)

ESCOT Interoperable mathematicseducational components

$2M (2 yrs)

The Many NICs of CTL

PROJECT TOPIC SCOPE

TAPPED IN On-line teacher professionaldevelopment institute

$1.7M (4 yrs),spurs Minerva spinoff

CILT Virtual center: K-14 learningtechnologies R&D

$6M (4 yrs)plus industry sponsors

PALS Performance assessmentsfor learning science

$1.2M (3 yrs)

OERL On-line library of educationproject evaluation resources

$1.75M (7 yrs)

ESCOT Interoperable mathematicseducational components

$2M (2 yrs)

Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT)

• Leaders: Roy Pea & Barbara Means

SRI InternationalMarcia Linn

UC BerkeleyJohn Bransford

Vanderbilt UniversityBob Tinker

Concord Consortium

• Mission: To serve as a national resource for stimulating research on innovative technology-enabled solutions to critical problems in K-14 learning

• Funding sources:• NSF ($6M total for 4 years)• Industry partners (Intel: $100K/year)

http://cilt.org

CILT Activities and Participants

• Annual workshop for harvesting knowledge and leveraging diverse efforts on “theme teams” of high-priority and breakthrough opportunity• Visualization and Modeling• Ubiquitous Computing• Community Tools• Assessments for Learning

• 400-500 Participants set priorities for partnership projects; CILT later “seed funds” promising efforts and promotes synergy efforts (60+ grants so far)

• “CILT Knowledge Network” for People, Places, Projects, Bibliography, Collaborations, Syllabi

http://kn.cilt.org

• Postdoctoral training program

Leaders: Jeremy Roschelle, Chris DiGiano, Roy Pea (SRI); Jim Kaput (U. Mass., Dartmouth)

http://www.escot.orgFocus: Move beyond large unconnected math applications to improve quality, interoperability and reuse of software components for teaching middle school mathematics

Size: $2 million for 2 years

Funder: National Science Foundation

NEED: Without a NIC, disparate math education efforts have their own isolated improvement processes, resulting in ‘application islands.’

CTL SW

Univ. ofCO SW

Key PressSW

SimCalcSW

ShowMeCurricula

MathForumResources

MathTeachers

• Redundant

• Non-cumulative

• Unconnected

Copyright © 2000. SRI International. All rights reserved.

ESCOT as a NICEvolving knowledge network and interoperable software library for continuous improvement by accumulating, integrating, sharing, and testing work.

CTLComponents

Univ. of COComponents

Key PressComponents

SimCalcComponents

ShowMeCurricula

MathForumResources

MathTeachers

ESCOT Testbed

• Cumulative

• Integrated

• Continual testing

Copyright © 2000. SRI International. All rights reserved.

Growing Partnerships and Results

Overall: 8 funded institutional partners, plus 25+ volunteer institutional partners; 23 software developers; 13 MS teachers

Non-Profits: SRI International; U. Massachusetts; U. Colorado; Swarthmore College; Stanford University; UC-Berkeley; many middle schools

Small Companies: Key Curriculum Press, DesignWorlds

International: Centre for Constructive and Experimental Mathematics (Canada); Computer Technology Institute (Greece)

Results: • ESCOT now has 30+ components, inc. spreadsheet, web browser, grapher, scripting languages, simulation engines, geometry sketchpad...• ESCOT database of 5 major math textbooks indexes 3000 places to use technology components to enhance learning• Integration Teams producing bi-weekly ESCOT PoWs for student and teacher use over the Internet

The Context of Teacher Learning Needs and Marketplace

• U.S. context of teacher workforce development, appearance of for-profits

• Teachscape as an example of response to a Grand Design Challenge

• Issues of “addressable market” size and capability

• Key enabling technological developments

What is happening to teaching?

• Huge turnover and new US workforce preparation need—2 Million new teachers needed by 2008-2009 (3.1 Mil today)

• Increasingly accountable, but unprepared for new standards and assessments

• Weakly-defined professional career path for lifelong learning

• Yet…emerging higher standards for teaching (NBPTS, INTASC)

• And rapid growth of alternative certifications

• Changing roles of post-secondary institutions and the private sector

““There is a national crisis in teacher professional development”There is a national crisis in teacher professional development”

-Glenn Commission, 1999

Current state of in-service TPD

• Teachers continually isolated; rare mentoring

• Dominant mode of delivery is one-day off site workshops with no follow-up

• Teaching strategies too rarely linked to content, advances in learning research, standards, or modeled in classroom settings

• No assessment tools or results orientation

• Market dominated by fragmented, local non-scaleable solutions

• Little use of technology

• No “just-in-time” teacher learning support

• District level TPD planning or management tools are lacking

“U.S. teachers …. have no time to work with or observe other teachers; they experience occasional hit-and-run workshops that are usually unconnected to their work and immediate problems of practice. [Effective TPD cannot] be adequately cultivated without the development of more substantial professional discourse and engagement in communities of practice.”

— Darling-Hammond and Ball (NEGP, 1997)

A new approach to teacher professional development

• A scaleable, Web-based, teacher professional development system that offers teachers “just-in-time” access to annotated video cases and distributed learning courses, linking pedagogy to content, while also providing tools for school administrators to plan and manage professional development

• A company based in New York with partners including AFT, NBPTS, Intel, SRI International, ABC News

• We have focused efforts to bring learning sciences and educational research as well as practical knowledge on teacher communities into Teachscape’s products and services, both on-line and on-site

• Video case studies of research-informed and standards-based teaching strategies in literacy, math, and science

• Annotated with teacher reflections, expert commentaries

• Embedded assessment activities with rubrics

• Structured community discussion around case materials

• Distributed learning courses built up from collections of video case studies from digital library -- for use in schools and at home

• Partner with districts to develop plans to meet distinctive needs of their schools and teachers and build PD capacity with existing staff

• Supported by on-site and on-line mentoring by participating districts

• Supported by on-line communities of practitioners -- enabling peer-peer collaboration and continuous feedback for “teacher reflection on practice”

• Teachers can earn CEUs, academic credits

Approach for TPD

Why case studies?

Because of the complex interplay of knowledge and skills that comprise a teacher’s daily work.

“I envision case methods as a strategy for overcoming many of the most serious deficiencies in the education of teachers. Because they are contextual, local, and situated—as are all narratives—cases integrate what otherwise remains separated. Content and process, thought and feeling, teaching and learning are not addressed theoretically as distinct constructs. They occur simultaneously as they do in real life, posing problems, issues, and challenges for new teachers that their knowledge and experiences can be used to discern” (Lee Shulman, 1992, p. 28)

“Living Cases”

• Visible models: A video-based narrative account of how one or more teachers experienced a problem, the strategy used to deal with it, and the outcomes

• Principles underlying the teachers’ practices

• Guided practice: Guidance in reflective use comparing cases to experience is instrumental to changing teaching practices.

• Reflective community: Cases created as fertile soil for reflective community dialog, elaboration, multiple interpretations-- not as sterile packages of inert ‘wisdom.’ They extend the published case-and-commentary model with on-line commentary, dialog.

Teachscape Brief Clip

Demo: Highlights

Video casesVideo cases• Visible model of standards-based

practice grounded in principles and rationale

• Supported by case materials (lesson plan, preparation), commentaries by experts and teachers

• Provided with school and instructional context

• Tie-ins to community discourse about the case and its issues

• Linked to and searchable by standards

Learning PlannerLearning Planner for planning teacher professional development activities

Video case experienceVideo case experience• Full motion video

• Narrative structure: Edited highlighting for chapters and issues

• Embedded activities include video book-marking and commentaries, classroom tryouts, threaded community discussion

CommunityCommunity • On-line mentoring from

participating districts with company facilitation

• Peer collaboration

Member personalizationMember personalization (profiling) and its uses for customization and research

http://www.teachscape.com

Grand Design Challenge Exemplified by……………..• Building on teacher

learning research knowledge with its video case study materials

• Digital capture and re-use of collaborative exchanges in teacher work/learning

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Research-based teaching practices

Standards-based curriculum

Case-based learning theory

Embedded assessments

Expert commentaries

Use with on-line community

Augmenting collective intelligence for teacher learning using

interactive video case studies with community

Documentary film-making

Exemplary teachers and

practice artefacts

Capture distributed expertise in web-based video cases Establish and

refine models of case use

School-site use

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Add “Gems” from community discourse

Teachscape: Connecting Video Models of Instructional Strategies with On-Line Community

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Benefits of on-line TPD services

• Convenient, self-paced learning to meet in-service certification requirements (typically 30 hours TPD per year)

• Access to professional “communities of practice”

• Ongoing, on-line mentoring with district TPD professionals or faculty

• Districts may better scale the certification of teachers, at lower cost per teacher than off-site models

What key technological developments are enabling Grand Design Challenges in Learning and Education, and catalyzing the changing roles of the private sector in teacher education?

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• 1960s: First Wave - Fundamental Net protocols

• Led by government agencies and contractors

• Driven by computer-to-computer file transfer and messaging

• Nobody imagined the Net as becoming a mass medium

• 1980s: Second Wave - Bulletin Boards & Online Services

• Led by Proprietary Commercial Online Services Ventures

• Text and crude graphics; driven by access to programs and data from computer hobbyists and serious techno/business users

• 1990s: Third Wave - WWW (content, community, commerce)

• Led by Garage Startups and Media Empires - they ran circles around big technology companies and labs

• Rich text, graphics, images

• Driven by info hungry business and consumers

• Race to capture eyeballs and create cyberspace brand identity

• The Fourth Wave...

Fourth Wave Internet (Sarnoff Labs)

Fourth Wave Internet

A multidimensional explosion

Media Richness

Smart Service

UbiquitousConnectivity

Text and Graphics

Process MIPsStorage MBSpeed kbps

PC connected

Audio and video

Everything connected

Process 100s MIPsStorage GBSpeed Mbps

3D interactive objects

Several things connected

IT Capacity

Browsers

Search Engines

Media based searches

Personalized Search

Personalized Web View

Addressable Market, Available Funds* • $3.7 billion (37% of all in-service TPD funds)

available to purchase TPD services**

• $750 million in teacher expenditures for TPD services**

• $4.5 billion total addressable market**

• Growing at 15% per annum**

*Excludes all public high schools and all private, parochial, charter and home schools. Also excludes approximately $6Bil spent on teacher salaries to attend TPD events

**Sources: McKinsey & Co., National Commission of the States, US Department of Education, Merrill Lynch

Addressable Market: Capacity• Nearly all teachers use a computer at home and/or at school for

professional activities; 2/3rds of public school teachers report using computers or the Internet for classroom instruction. (1)

• 77% of schools have sufficient bandwidth to access on-line services with 128kbs or better connectivity.(4)

• 61% of school computers have processors able to support streaming media today.(2)

• 80% of all teachers have computers at home (3)

• 59% of all teachers have Internet connections at home. (3)

(1) U.S. Department of Education, NCES, “Teacher Use of Computers and the Internet in Public Schools,” April 2000.

(2) Market Data Retrieval, 1999.

(3) Center for Research on Information Technology & Organizations, UC Irvine, November 1999.

(4) U.S. Department of Education, NCES, “Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-2000,” May 2001.

Key Technological Developments for Teacher Learning Environments

• Market penetration of low-cost networkable multimedia computers and Internet access

• Easy-to-use Web Browsers as user interface

• Streaming media standards, tools

• Community tools

• Web hosting and ASP model (Application Service Provider) to improve QOS

• Personalization (profile-specific features)

• Integration with “back-office” systems (e.g., authentication, student records, e-commerce)

Emerging designs for distributed teacher learning environments

• Uses of generic course platform “shells” (e.g., Blackboard, WebCT)

• Special-purpose proprietary course platforms (e.g., Classroom Connect, Teachscape)

• Use of web-accessible video materials of teaching practices (e.g., Teachscape, Teachstream, PT3 grantees, PBSTeacherLine)

• Use of on-line community tools for meetings, moderated events (e.g., TAPPED IN, Teachscape, Classroom Connect)

• On-line course “malls” (e.g., AT&T Learning Network)

Research Plans

• Scope of activity (10,000 teachers in first school year in 10-15 districts; scale to 100,000 teachers in 3 years)

• Research capabilities built into the Teachscape platform

• Member profiles provide information on teachers’ experience, specializations, licensure and demographic data

• Member’s case and chapter ratings, and their community responses re: cases and needs can be studied by profile characteristics

• Learning Planner provides tool for assessing context in which they work, their PD opportunities, and specific areas they’d like to learn or improve

Teachscape Summary

• New media web-based publishing enables broad access to research-based teaching practices, and community tools make new learning networks possible that leverage distributed expertise

• A convergence is underway between traditional on-site teacher education programs and on-line teacher professional development services

• Complementary strengths of public and private sector may be highly leveraged for improving teacher learning and professional growth

• Developing NICs powerfully amplifies your ability to solve important interdisciplinary problems no one can solve alone

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What’s possible within 5 years?

• Affordable, personal, portable gateways to e-learning content and e-services (using ASPs and wireless HHCs)

• Fundamentally better technologies for supporting real-time teaching and assessment capabilities in classrooms

• Continuous teacher professional development

Content (math)

Technology (networked Hand helds)

InstructionalMethodology

(co-learning, student feedback)