Technology in School Classrooms How It Can Transform Teaching and Student Learning Today pdf pdf

  Technology in School Classrooms

  

Technology in School Classrooms

How It Can Transform Teaching and

Student Learning Today

  

Edited by James G. Cibulka and Bruce S. Cooper

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Rowman & Littlefield A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26–34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2017 by James G. Cibulka and Bruce S. Cooper All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,

including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer

who may quote passages in a review.

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  ISBN: 978-1-4758-3103-0 (cloth : alk. paper)

  ISBN: 978-1-4758-3104-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)

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Contents

  

  Karen Symms Gallagher

  

  James G. Cibulka

  

  Lawrence O. Picus

  

  John A. Craven III and Tracy Hogan

  

  Michael Russell

  Ted S. Hasselbring and Margaret E. Bausch

  Chris Dede

  

  Michael K. Barbour

  

  Stephanie Hirsh and Michelle Bowman King

  

  Kui Xie and Nathan A. Hawk

  

  James G. Cibulka and Bruce S. Cooper

  

  

  James G. Cibulka

  

  

Foreword

NEXT GENERATION LEARNING IN SCHOOL

  This book provides an excellent analysis of whether and how digital technologies can transform teaching and learning in classroom settings. The authors collectively provide a multidimensional perspective on how and under what conditions technology can be productively employed by teachers to more effectively meet the challenges presented by a rapidly evolving world.

  Civilization today presents a landscape deeply shaped by technologies—transportation, communications, and computing—that place new demands on schooling to prepare today’s students with knowledge and skills not necessary for prior generations (Fishman & Dede, 2016). This challenge has profound implications for teachers and the work of teaching, in terms of both what it means to teach and how one teaches.

  I agree with the editors’ stance that the important issue is not the value of digital tools and media as an educational innovation for industrial-era schooling, but their potential role in the emergence of an alternative, next-generation educational model well suited to preparing students for a future quite different than the immediate past.

  Recently, in many types of work, advances in computing and in artificial intelligence (AI) have driven shifts in the “division of labor” between technology and people, as new types of tools have taken over the tasks people used to do (Levy & Murnane, 2013). As the chapters in Technology in School Classrooms discuss, these technological advances provide a useful lens for examining how job roles are changing in teaching, as well as how teachers can model for students the division of intellectual labor with technology that they, in turn, will experience when entering the workplace.

  The fundamental impact potentially is not technology taking over teaching via AI, but intelligence amplification: technology providing a classroom infrastructure that enables teachers to direct their attention toward the students who need it the most, while supporting more proficient students to continue making progress on their own (Dede & Richards, 2012). Digital technologies can help teachers learn to shift their practice toward this new division of labor, so their classrooms center on “deeper learning” that prepares students for a global, knowledge-based, innovation-centered civilization (National Research Council, 2012; Dede, 2014).

  Innovative approaches to teacher learning are important because the failure to provide universal, high-quality professional development in education is in sharp contrast to other professions, such as attorneys and physicians (Dede, Eisenkraft, Frumin, & Hartley, 2016). This shortfall is, in part, responsible for continuing difficulties both in attracting strong people to teaching and in keeping them in classroom instruction more than a few years (Mehta, 2013). Moreover, a few forms of professional development have been studied using strong methods of evaluation and research, so improvement is difficult, given a lack of findings about what strategies are working well and why (Darling- Hammond, Wei, Andree, Richardson, & Orphanos, 2009).

  Technology in School Classrooms’ chapters highlight the central role of teachers in classroom learning and also emphasize that using digital media to automate conventional models of professional development cannot be successful in fostering transformations in instruction. Ultimately, shifts in teachers’ practice require professional capacity building in which participants not only learn new skills but also “unlearn” almost unconscious beliefs, assumptions, and values about the nature of teaching, learning, and schooling (Dede & Frumin, 2014).

  Professional development that requires unlearning necessitates high levels of emotional/social support in addition to mastering the intellectual/technical dimensions involved. In order for teachers of education to transform from presentational/assimilative instruction to active inquiry-based forms of student learning, teachers must unlearn their own mental models, which include emotional investments developed through decades of being a student receiving traditional instruction and further years of building skills in conventional instruction. Without unlearning, teachers teach as they themselves were taught.

  At this point in history, the primary barriers in transforming to a twenty-first-century educational system are not conceptual, technical, or economic, but instead psychological, political, and cultural. Some people oppose any form of educational change that is not fully understood, arguing that traditional schooling was effective for them and that innovators should not “experiment on children.” But the most dangerous experiment we can perform is to keep our current systems of schooling in place, hoping that various small changes and the introduction of new technologies will make up for their shortcomings.

  Over time, the disconnect between what society needs and what industrial-age educational models can provide is widening, and cohort after cohort of students has needlessly high rates of failure, creating terrible consequences for those learners and our nation.

  Technology in School Classrooms describes how, with the right investment, we can have the means necessary to implement technology-enhanced models of education that prepare all students for a future very different from the immediate past. Whether we have the stakeholder commitment and societal will to actualize such a vision remains to be seen.

  Chris Dede

  

REFERENCES

Darling-Hammond, L., Wei, R. C., Andree, A., Richardson, N., & Orphanos, S. (2009). Professional learning in the learning

profession: A status report on teacher development in the United States and Abroad [Monograph]. Dallas, TX: National

  Staff Development Council.

Dede, C. (2014). The role of digital technologies in deeper learning. New York: Jobs for the Future. Retrieved from

  

Dede, C., Eisenkraft, A., Frumin, K., & Hartley, A. (Eds). (2016). Teacher learning in the digital age: Online professional

development in STEM education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Dede, C., & Frumin, K. (2014 July, 20). Unlearning and mirroring: Transforming instruction. Ed Week (blog). Retrieved

from

Dede, C., & Richards, J. (Eds.). (2012). Digital teaching platforms: Customizing classroom learning for each student. New

York: Teacher’s College Press.

Fishman, B., & Dede, C. (2016). Teaching and technology: New tools for new times. In D. Gitomer & C. Bell (Eds.),

Handbook of research on teaching (5th ed.) (pp. 1269–1334). Washington, DC: American Educational Research

  Association.

Levy, F., & Murnane, R. (2013). Dancing with robots: Human skills for computerized work. Cambridge, MA: Thirdway

Publications. Retrieved from

Mehta, J. (2013). The allure of order: High hopes, dashed expectations, and the troubled quest to remake American

schooling. New York: Oxford University Press.

  

National Research Council. (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st

century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

  

Introduction to the Topic— and the Book

James G. Cibulka and Bruce S. Cooper

  This book addresses whether digital technologies can transform teaching and learning in America’s P–12 classrooms. Education technology expenditures in the United States continue to grow each year and have now become a major investment for school systems (Schaffhauser, 2016). The federal government has made large investments in promoting education technology, such as through its Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology Program (PT3).

  Yet technology proponents, as well as critics of public school spending and school performance, point to little evidence that digital technologies as currently employed in our schools have met their promise of improving the quality of education in America’s classrooms through new teaching practices and improved performance by students.

  Controversy about whether technology is being used effectively by teachers and school administrators is not new. Debates on this question stretch back many decades, prior to the invention of digital technology, but the question of technology’s effectiveness has taken on a new complexion and urgency today. When educational television made its debut in the 1950s, for example, and film and radio before it, these innovations had quite modest objectives. At that time, technologies were conceptualized as supplementing regular instruction (Cuban, 1986, 2001).

  Similarly, when computers initially were introduced in classrooms beginning in the 1980s, they were viewed as ancillary tools for teachers to use, often located in a separate learning lab outside the regular classroom. As new technologies were promoted by school boards and administrators, many teachers enthusiastically embraced them. Despite this fact, there have been continuing criticisms that too few teachers were adopting the innovations or were not using them appropriately.

  Such concerns appear to have widespread credence. Fishman and Dede (2016) argue that most schools have not achieved a high level of technology integration. These schools operate at Level One (Minimal) or Level Two (Intermediate) rather than Level Three (Extensive).

  They argue that at Level One, technology is used “to increase interest or motivation … in whole group or large-group presentational styles of teaching” (p. 1277). At the Intermediate Level, the technology is more widely available to individual students, who have better access to computer networks, and perhaps there is some differentiation of instruction “for learners at various skill levels.”

  Only at Level Three is the technology used by teachers to enable learning that reaches outside the classroom, to “customiz(e) instructional conditions for learners, and to promote collaborative learning approaches.” They describe these classrooms and schools as rare.

TECHNOLOGY AS A DUAL FORCE CHALLENGING AMERICAN SCHOOLS

  For many decades, the fact that American teachers employed technology in their classrooms only at the margins could be viewed as regrettable, but it was hardly central to any overall assessment of the performance of our nation’s schools. However, technology now poses two parallel, and at points converging, challenges to American schools that are qualitatively different from the earlier role that technology played in American schooling.

  The first dynamic operates at the societal level due to the emergence of a global economy that is driven by technological changes. These global economic forces are now an important “exogenous” influence on the American school system.

  In The Race between Education and Technology, Goldin and Katz (2008) explain that technological change in our broader economy is proceeding faster than the American school system’s ability to adapt. This was not true in the last century, when the American public school system and our nation’s postsecondary system were developing to respond to the challenges of rapid industrialization and mass immigration.

  While this educational system came to be regarded as the best in the world and was widely emulated, Goldin and Katz argue that American schools have been unable to respond as effectively to today’s postindustrial global demands rooted in rapid technological change.

  They present convincing evidence that these exogenous influences on American schools will or can continue to create negative consequences for the American economy, jobs, and equality unless the American school system produces higher graduation rates, better student outcomes, and more equality of outcomes across student demographic groups. Technology now necessitates better outcomes from our educational system, and the use of digital technology tools in the classroom is one strategy for improving those outcomes.

  The excellence movement that evolved from the 1980s onward, with the publication of A Nation at Risk (1983), certainly reflected concerns about the American school system’s ability to compete in a global economy. However, the emergence of the Internet in the 1990s and the resulting digital revolution accelerated these global forces, exerting increased political pressure on the American public school system to perform at higher levels.

  If the global, technology-driven economy poses a new set of challenges for American public education, digital technology is also viewed by many as a solution to these very same challenges. Dramatic developments within the field of educational technology are responsible.

  Various facets will be discussed in this book. Hardware has evolved to include multiple devices such as laptops, iPhones, and iPads. Education software has grown exponentially, particularly for use in wireless environments. An amazing array of “apps,” produced continuously by tech developers working in a burgeoning tech industry, now purport to assist teachers and students in the classroom. Online sites have been created to curate and rate the quality of these apps.

  The advent of digital technology also has spawned new kinds of schools that are entirely technology based, and others that employ “blended-learning” strategies. These ways of organizing learning also exist to some degree in bricks-and-mortar schools, including flipped classrooms.

  A growing number of online platforms provide educational content, some of which build lessons based on videos and gaming. “Adaptive” or “personalized learning” has been made possible by advances in education technology. Many online platforms provide open access to specific fields of knowledge and research. Online tools also now support different forms of assessment that can be accessed by students, teachers, and parents.

  Online education networks support communities of teachers, students, and parents and serve a variety of specific purposes. For example, some support teacher professional development. In short, the field of education technology, like technology’s influence in business, medicine, journalism, and many other institutions, appears to be growing exponentially.

  These advances in educational technology developments have shifted our perception of its potential to drive innovations in the classroom. Xie and Hawk in chapter 1 of this volume point out that the introduction of computers in schools did not begin with this ambitious goal. Their role gradually shifted from emphasizing lower-level skills such as drill and practice to helping students develop more cognitive-based skills.

  As these digital technology tools have become more sophisticated and more accessible outside of school, our expectations that they can drive improved schooling outcomes have increased. Not surprisingly then, many education reformers now see technology as a potential solution to the overall failure of the excellence movement to improve the performance of the American school system.

  A good example is Paul E. Peterson’s (2010) embrace of technology as a disruptive innovation:

  

If technology is to pave the road ahead, it will come as a great relief to those who have led education’s excellence

movement. Progress toward excellence has been lurching slowly along a bumpy, bog-filled dirt road. By the end of the

twenty-first century’s first decade, it seemed to have reached a dead end, either of its own making or the result of a

blockade constructed by school districts, teacher unions, and other vested interests… . Still, choice and accountability, if coupled with technology, have the potential to create a more productive educational system. (p. 231) Critics also point to the lagging performance of American students on international achievement tests like PISA and TIMMS as prima facie evidence of underperforming schools.

Changing Expectations for Student Learning

  In this volume, we examine the proposition that digital technology can transform teaching and student learning in American classrooms. We need to think about student learning within an appropriate frame of reference, however. We agree with Fishman and Dede (2016) that a “techno-centric approach” defines technology as a “solution to problems” too narrowly. Student learning should be defined more broadly than performance on standardized tests. The National Research Council’s (2012) consensus framework describes twenty-first-century learning skills as developing students’ advanced knowledge and skills across several dimensions: cognitive outcomes, intrapersonal outcomes, and interpersonal outcomes.

  Working from this broader definition of student learning, Fishman and Dede adopt a “socio-technical approach” to digital technology “that views the products of technology use as emerging from interactions among social and organizational structure, people, and tools” (p. 1270). This approach can help us understand whether technology is transforming teaching and student learning. It is also broad enough for us to ask why transformation is, or is not, occurring.

Changing Expectations for Students in Digital Literacy

  In addition to the higher expectations for students just discussed, “digital literacy” is now considered essential to their success in the global economy. All students need these technological skills for postsecondary education and to prepare them for whatever careers they will enter, some of which have yet to be invented.

  These digital literacy skills fall into at least three areas (Bussert-Webb & Henry, 2016). At the most basic level, students need keyboard skills to operate a computer or other digital device. They also need to learn how to navigate various software apps on the digital device they use. This is a challenge, given the many different apps that developers have put on the market with different design features.

  At an intermediate-skill level, students must acquire proficiency in conducting digital searches on the Internet. This includes finding information or researching concepts assigned by the teacher as well as using the Internet to explore one’s interests. At a more advanced level, digital literacy involves learning how to evaluate information for accuracy and bias when critically reading on the Internet. This aspect of digital literacy incorporates higher-order thinking skills that are part of the twenty-first-century learning framework that forty-two states have adopted as part of the common core standards (or similar framework adopted by most other states). Digital literacy also includes collaborating with peers in online learning that requires accessing, evaluating, and presenting information.

  While today’s students are sometimes described as digital natives, it is not a foregone conclusion that students possess all these skills. There are a range of impediments. Not all schools offer access to digital tools and wireless networks, which may consign some students to the lowest level of digital literacy. Even if schools have digital hardware and software, not all teachers explicitly develop students’ digital literacy in all three skill areas.

  Because the Internet is primarily conducted in English, English language learners confront additional challenges in acquiring digital literacy. Students may not have equal access to digital devices and the Internet outside of school. In other words, without explicit school policies and classroom practices to counter these deficits, a “digital divide” may worsen existing inequalities in our current educational system.

Changing Performance Expectations for Teachers

  In recent decades, as the education reform movement has adopted more rigorous learning goals for students, including common core standards, in most states, performance expectations for teachers also have been raised. It is worth considering how this context has increased expectations for teachers’ use of technology in their classrooms.

  For decades, research has documented that teachers are the most important school- based influence on student achievement with cumulative (although fading) effects: for example, Jackson, Rockoff, and Stager (2014); McCaffrey, Lockwood, Koretz, and Hamilton (2003); Rivkin, Hanushek, and Kain (2005); Rowan, Correnti, and Miller (2002); and Wright, Horn, and Sanders (1997).

  In addition, economists (e.g., Hanushek, 2011) have documented wide variation in teacher performance on standardized tests. A widely cited study by Weisberg, Sexton, Mulhern, and Keeling (2009) documented that most teacher evaluation systems failed to capture variations in teacher effectiveness. This work by education economists and reformers spurred federal and state policymakers to require new accountability policies that focus on teachers’ performance.

  As part of its eligibility criteria for its Race to the Top (RTT) competition under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Obama administration required states to design and implement evaluation systems for teachers and principals that differentiate effectiveness using multiple rating categories, including data on student growth as a significant factor. Such evaluations were intended to carry high-stake consequences for teachers, including policies regarding their compensation, promotion, and retention.

  Teachers unions have criticized the fairness of using state tests to conduct teacher evaluations. While these federal requirements were rolled back, in part, with the passage of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), many states have continued to keep their high- stakes accountability policies, including teacher evaluation policies, in place.

  This political context helps explain current pressures on teachers to improve student test scores. Yet there is no evidence that these policies have incentivized classroom innovations such as technology use. One can consult the annual analyses of technology use in American classrooms conducted by Education Week (2016) since 2002 for some indications. For its 2016 Technology Counts, Education Week conducted a survey of teachers. Many see themselves as technology innovators and risk takers. About a quarter of teachers describe themselves as risk takers who will adopt new technologies as they become available, but another 23 percent say that they will adopt new technologies only after they have been available for a while.

  The picture that emerges from their self-reports is that typically they use technology for drills and review rather than to help challenge students with higher-order thinking such as creating new content and helping students using social media to collaborate on projects. Technology continues to serve a supplementary role in their teaching rather than being used to promote inquiry-based learning. Since the Education Week data have documented these practices over many years, it is not clear that high-stakes accountability policies have had any effect on teachers’ cautious embrace of digital technology.

  Why are their practices regarding technology use so constrained? In the same survey (Education Week, 2016, June 6), they report that a variety of challenges affect their propensity to adopt new technologies, such as, in the following order, too few digital devices, lack of training, state/district curriculum demands, poor Internet access, insufficient IT support or administrative guidance, software glitches, and classroom management challenges. All these factors no doubt contribute, in part, to teachers’ use, or nonuse, of digital technology in today’s classrooms.

TECHNOLOGY ENTHUSIASTS AND TECHNOLOGY SKEPTICS

  I n Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology, Allan Collins and Richard Halverson (2009) capture the debate about education technology’s potential to reform teaching and student learning within two different frames. They contrast the views of technology enthusiasts and technology skeptics. Enthusiasts, among whom Collins and Halverson may be counted as members, see technology as providing “enhanced capabilities” to serve all learners more effectively. Their examples of such technology-driven innovations include just-in-time learning, customization, greater learner control, and scaffolding (p.

  19). These seeds of a new educational system also are manifested in other reforms such as home schooling and workplace learning.

  Technology enthusiasts share a conviction that the forces of change must and can transform schooling in the decades ahead. It is a transformational agenda. The federal government, spanning both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations, has been a strong proponent of this view. The most recent technology plan released by the federal government (U.S. Department of Education, 2016) illustrates a textbook example of the transformational perspective on digital technology:

  

Technology can be a powerful tool for transforming learning. It can help to form and advance relationships between

educators and students, reinvent our approaches to learning and collaboration, shrink long-standing equity and

accessibility gaps, and adapt learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners. (p. 1)

  Technology skeptics respond that the results of digital technology on teaching practices have been limited and that student achievement gains from investments in technology have been negligible or, at best, mixed. They point to a vast literature documenting the foolhardiness of attempting to change and “rationalize” the educational system with external levers, citing the unintended consequences of high-stakes accountability systems.

  Cuban (2013) has studied this issue extensively and points out that technology has not changed teaching practices despite widespread adoption of technology. Accountability systems have done so, he says, but ironically only to reinforce traditional teacher- centered pedagogical practices rather than the student-centered classrooms that technology advocates celebrate. He argues that there is no one way of teaching that works best for all students, and, moreover, that classrooms remain a poorly understood “black box.” Further, Cuban (2017) has observed it that is very difficult to ascertain whether teachers who claim to have changed their classroom practices on technology use have, in fact, actually done so.

  Hence, technology skeptics tend toward caution when discussing technology as a singular influence capable of “disrupting” the status quo. Some researchers have concluded that there is no single medium such as digital media with such power per se. Instead, it is teaching methods and the quality of teaching that must drive any discernible change (Clark & Feldon, 2014).

  Some recent research tends to reinforce the views of skeptics. Hattie’s (2009) meta- analysis of the school “effects” literature does not identify technology use as an important predictor of student achievement, although he found considerable variability in research findings.

  Cross-national research has not resolved the debate. According to a recent OECD (2015) study, there is no evidence that countries that invest more in technology necessarily show higher rates of improvement on student assessments in reading mathematics or science. It is important to note, however, that the OECD study did not explicitly examine teacher behavior and was not designed to measure cause-effect relationships, prompting the authors to acknowledge that the connections between students, computers, and learning are complex.

  At times, the debate can be confusing. Collins and Halverson point out that technology skeptics believe education should promote other educational goals for students such as critical thinking and analysis and strong oral and written communication skills (p. 48). Since many technology enthusiasts also endorse these same goals for students, one can get the sense that the two camps sometimes talk past one another.

  Clearly, measuring technology’s potential and actual impact is challenging. A study commissioned by the American Federation of Teachers (DeBruyckere, Kirchner, & Hulshof, 2016) examined selected research on effective education technology and summed up the truths and myths surrounding technology with this observation: “Regrettably, we have become saddled with a multiplicity of tools, methods, approaches, theories, and pseudotheories, many of which have been shown by science to be wrong or, at best, only partially effective” (p. 2).

THE FRAMEWORK FOR THIS VOLUME

  Given this confusing policy and research environment, the editors asked ourselves how our book could clarify whether digital technologies, notwithstanding their current limited impacts, have the potential to transform teaching and learning in American schools. In trying to capture what exactly is known today about technology’s potential, we have observed that much of the inquiry and research is conducted within specialized subfields whose discourses do not necessarily reach the entire education profession or the broader public.

  These subfields cover a range of important topics relative to digital technology in schools. One subfield is learning theory. Unless there is a knowledge base about how digital technologies can promote student learning and engagement, with empirical evidence to support these foundational perspectives on learning, it is unlikely that technology will achieve the efficacious effects enthusiasts promise.

  When films were introduced in classrooms, research did document their motivational benefits for students. However, there have been many advances in learning theory and digital technology in recent decades, particularly in the field of cognition. This volume includes a review of these advances with an eye to answering a central question of the book about the potential of digital technologies to advance student learning.

  Another cluster of subfields consists of particular subjects such as mathematics and science, reading, and the presentation of those disciplinary subjects to particular learners distinguished by grade level or special needs. We chose to include two chapters in this volume that can serve as a sample of what might be learned from this analytical angle, one chapter focused on the teaching of science to all students, and the second on the teaching of foundational skills to special needs students.

  Educational testing and measurement is a subfield that is sometimes overlooked in discussions of education technology’s potential to drive reform at the classroom level. “Assessment technology” is driving dramatic advances in test design and development, test administration, scoring, reporting, and interpretation. Again, this is a potentially vast landscape.

  Recent controversies about high-stakes testing used for summative student outcomes have tended to obscure how assessment technology might be used in classrooms to support student learning. Because our primary focus in this book is on classroom teaching and student learning, we commissioned a chapter that charts the formative uses of assessment technology by teachers as well as students.

  The earlier discussed subfields correspond closely to subdisciplines within the educational research community that focus primarily on teaching and learning, that is, educational psychology, curriculum and instruction, and educational measurement and assessment. An equally important subfield is the discipline of administrative leadership. In this subfield, there is an emerging empirical knowledge base on effective school-level leadership practices concerning adoption and implementation of digital technology.

  School boards must delegate to administrators the task of translating technology investments into improved teaching and student learning. Some of this leadership is provided by district leaders, but the importance of school principals as change agents is now well understood. Accordingly, we have included a chapter in this book to summarize what this literature tells us about effective technology leadership practices.

  Education finance also is a subfield that brings a useful body of expertise on costs of digital technologies. School budgeting and finance experts also study how equitably school resources are distributed across different schools, districts, and states. Therefore, education finance casts light on two of the possible barriers to technology use in schools —costs and equitable access. We have included a chapter that helps us understand these resource issues in more detail.

  Technology enthusiasts argue that new kinds of schools and new ways of incorporating digital technology into the programs of brick-and-mortar schools are needed. A subfield has emerged to study new forms of schooling such as online schools as well as hybrids of traditional and online instructions known as blended learning and/or technology-focused schools. While research on their effectiveness has not fully caught up within the innovations, we include a chapter that reviews the history of online schooling and blended learning and what we know about their impacts on student learning.

  A subfield that is sometimes overlooked in education research but that has great potential importance is professional development for teachers. A bevy of research has documented the ineffectiveness of much traditional professional development. In response to these criticisms, specialists in professional development have attempted to reform the content and delivery of professional development models. These models both employ technology to deliver professional development in new ways and address how teachers can incorporate technology in their classrooms to enhance student learning. We have included a chapter on what this literature tells us about their potential.

  Finally, there is the field of teacher education. What evidence is there that teacher education programs prepare novices to use technology appropriately in the classroom? Are these programs using technology to deliver their programs differently and/or to reach new audiences? A chapter examines what we know about technology preparation in university-based teacher preparation and examines an innovative technology-delivered teacher preparation program that may be a prototype.

  Taken together, these subfields can contribute to our understanding of technology’s potential to improve teaching and student learning. They potentially shed light on these specific questions:

  What does research in each subfield tell us about the potential of technology innovations as a driver to improve or transform teaching and student learning in schools? What do these subfields tell us about how widely these technology approaches (e.g., new practices, new schools) are being adopted? What do they tell us about problems, constraints, and barriers that may impede adoption and effective implementation of technology in today’s classrooms, and how to overcome them?

  No one subfield sheds light on all these questions. Taken together, however, they can improve our understanding of technology’s potential to improve teaching and student learning. Whether the emerging evidence from these subfields supports the technology enthusiasts or skeptics is a question we will return to in the concluding chapter.

OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS

  In chapter 1, Kui Xie and Nathan Hawk address “Technology’s Role and Place in Student Learning: What We Have Learned from Research and Theories.” After reviewing the changing role of technology in student learning, they explain how technology integration can support teaching and student learning in three major areas of learning theory— human cognition, social learning, and motivation. They also address how technology enables new ways of organizing and delivering learning.

  In chapter 2, Stephanie Hirsh and Michelle King address “Teacher Professional Development in the Digital Age: Design and Implementation of Learning without Limits.” The authors depict a scenario in which college and career-ready standards for student learning can be enacted alongside “Standards for Professional Learning” for teachers to guide the development of technology-supported professional learning. This will require conceptual shifts from traditional to transformative professional learning.

  In chapter 3, Michael Barbour addresses “The State of K–12 Online Learning.” Barbour reviews the history of online learning and defines and classifies K–12 online and blended learning. He reviews research on the effectiveness of K–12 online and blended learning, particularly in relation to “traditional” face-to-face instruction and offers some tentative conclusions on the conditions under which K–12 online learning can be successful.

  In chapter 4, Ted S. Hasselbring and Margaret E. Bausch address “Building Foundational Skills in Learners with Special Needs through the Use of Technology.” Technology can assist students with special needs who are being served in general education classrooms to build foundational skills for being successful in life and in the workplace. Technology provides a means of delivering deliberate practice to students with special needs, monitoring their performance, and providing feedback information to teachers.

  In chapter 5, Michael Russell addresses “Assessment Technology as a Tool to Strengthen Teaching and Student Learning.” He describes several ways digital technologies can support teachers’ use of classroom assessment. He concludes that digital technologies can improve the efficiency, accuracy, and utility of classroom assessment.

  Chapter 6, by John A. Craven III and Tracy Hogan, addresses “Emerging Technologies and Changing Practices in Science Classrooms.” They cite the rapidly changing practices in K–12 science education due to the rapid proliferation of, and demand for, digital technologies. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) released in 2013 have raised learning standards for students. The authors explore how teachers are using emergent technologies to support these new goals and pedagogies within science classrooms across multiple grade levels.

  In chapter 7, Lawrence O. Picus addresses “Economic Effects of Technology: Costs and Distribution of Resources to Support Student Learning.” He employs a cost-benefit approach to technology use in schools. Picus presents general cost estimates and reviews trends in technology use. Districts also face challenges in providing equitable access to digital technologies across all areas of the curriculum and at all grade levels.

  In chapter 8, James Cibulka discusses “The Role of School Leaders in Leveraging Technology to Transform P–12 Classrooms.” A recently published review of research documents effective technology leadership by school principals. Cibulka concludes that leadership may be an important missing ingredient impeding many schools from fully achieving technology integration.

  In chapter 9, Karen Symms Gallagher writes about “The Current Role of Schools of Education in Preparing a Technologically Literate Teaching Workforce.” She notes that there is no conclusive evidence on how to prepare teacher candidates to employ technology effectively and many challenges in accessing reliable information about technology preparation at education schools. Gallagher describes a new online masters’ program created in 2008 at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Rossier School of Education. She discusses three critical technology-related “outcomes” that all candidates graduating from the program should possess.

  In the concluding chapter, James Cibulka draws together the findings and overall conclusions that can be drawn from the chapters. Do they tend to support the technology enthusiasts or the technology skeptics? The reader is invited to keep this question in mind as he or she reads the chapters.

  

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