By: Jackie FitzGerald
RITTI FELLOW 1999
Special Education Department Chair
Western Hills Middle School
Cranston, Rhode Island 02905
rif00299@ride.ri.net
http://www.cps.k12.ri.us/~whills/page8.html

0% if the Students at Western Hills Middle School, where I am Department Chair, met or exceeded proficiency on the 98/99 State Assessment in the area of Mathematics Problem Solving. (State of RI Department of Education, 1999) http://infoworks.ride.uri.edu/1999/queries/findschc.idc?ID=07129

This indicates a need for a positive change in the teaching/learning environment in order for "improved learning to occur".

As a Fellow for the Rhode Island Teacher and Technology Initiative (RITTI), I have been asked to determine if " better learning" would take place with the integration of Technology into the curriculum. In order to make this determination I began by identifying the critical factors I have observed as a Special Educator which would lead to, "more and better" learning.

If more and better teaching occurs, than more and better learning will result. Improved learning will not take place with the integration of technology into the curriculum if the only goal is to increase the use of technology. Inevitably in case after case when computer technologies are adopted, learning about the technology often takes precedence, and it is only after several rounds of integrating technology with content, that the content emerges in strong ways according to (Goldman, Cole, Syer 1999). http://www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf/1999/whitepapers/paper4.html

This focus on content, only occurs when the following factors come together in the teaching/learning environment:

• An understanding and familiarity with the Communication Technology
• An understanding of the Performance Standards being addressed through the Curriculum
• *Cognitive tools, integrated with Blooms taxonomy
• Project based, authentic learning tasks
• Assessments that are based on performance
• Teachers as learners and facilitators
• Students as cognitive apprentices

*Learning with technology is referred to in terms such as "cognitive tools" (Reeves p.1/2) Cognitive tools enhance the cognitive powers of students during thinking, problem solving and learning. Today there are many different types of computer based cognitive tools, including databases, spreadsheets, multimedia, construction software etc.(Reeves, 1998). [Available online: http://millennium.aed.org/reeves.shtml ]

In a 1998 study, Harold Wenglinsky found that "the transition from learning technology to learning with technology, does not occur immediately, and will not occur without teacher technology training (Wenglinsky, 1998). {Available online: http://www.ets.org/research] Wenglinsky found that the amount of technology training a teacher receives affects the way he or she uses technology, which influences how and what students learn, and their achievement. Children whose teachers use computer applications that support higher order thinking, performed better than students whose teachers used computers for less defined purposes. If the teacher is familiar with and incorporating all of the above, critical factors into his/her lessons currently, and only has to learn the technology applications, the transition will take place sooner than if the teacher is not familiar with any of the above. "Technology should not drive learning, rather the teacher must first develop specific technology goals which will support learning" (Cohen, 1998, Cuban, 1986). [Available online: http://www.ncrtec.org/capacity/guidewww/howwill.htm]

Eva Baker describes the integration in the following ways:

1. The teacher uses technology to more efficiently deliver instructional opportunities that match the background and pace of the learners.
2. With the teacher in the traditional role using technology as a tool to assist in other areas of learning-for instance, using search engines, e-mail, databases, spreadsheets and word processing to find, analyze, represent, and produce documents and other products to display learning. This type of learning may be related to standards set for the school or the state’s children to meet. The focus is on using technology to meet requirements.
3. To use technology to address new goals that cannot be met in any other way. These could involve the designing of complex simulations or the collaborative interaction on projects with scientists, other experts, and other students across the nation and the globe (Baker, 1999). [Available online: http://www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf/1999/whitepapers/paper5.html]

My experience includes having taught most grades K-12, both in Special Education as well as in Regular Education. Through these varied experiences I have witnessed a different focus on learning, comparing the regular educator and the special educator. In our fully "included" Special Education program at Western Hills Middle School, I have been fortunate enough to spend the majority of my teaching time in the regular classroom with my students and a regular education teacher. The regular education teacher focuses on the best delivery of material for the majority of students the majority of time. Going into their classrooms and seeking out the students who are not learning the material at the same rate, or with the same understanding as the other students is my role. The students will succeed through the employment of many different teaching strategies. We must become as involved with the "how" as well as the "why" students learn. There are and have been many theories as to how learning occurs. According to Levitt these would include, but not be limited to: Constructivism, Behaviorism, Piaget’s Developmental Theory, Neuroscience, Brain Based Learning, Learning Styles, Multiple Intelligences, Right Brain/ Left Brain Thinking, Communities of Practice, Problem-Based learning and Control Theory (Levitt, 1998). [Available online: http://ss.uno.edu/SS/Theory/] I call these the "hows" of learning which are as individual as each person's brain, which is why teaching must be multifaceted. Brunners’ Theory of Multiple Intelligence’s emphasizes the individuality of the students and their learning. In order to help a student, who has not learned by the conventional methods, his or her learning style must be determined.

The next step is to analyze at what stage of the cognitive steps of Blooms taxonomy the student has progressed to and to keep them moving until they have mastered the concepts being taught. I refer to this as the "why" of learning. This is the reason "why" the child doesn’t understand fractions, why he or she doesn’t comprehend what is read, why he or she is unable to solve mathematical problems, etc. It is not for us as special educators to determine why they are learning disabled, physically handicapped, emotionally disturbed. We only need to know how to move them and all students forward in the learning process, learning the standards and following the curriculum. When I work in the classrooms, I find that many students have missed important concepts along the way and need to be retaught in order to move ahead. I have found through experience that the higher order thinking skills cannot be taught and learned until all of the previous steps have been assimilated.

In using technology throughout this learning process, it is not the goal to improve learning as it currently exists, but rather to change the structure of teaching and learning through the steps of the Taxonomy which are:

In the case study that follows, I will be discussing how by integrating technology into the lesson these steps may be implemented, and the curriculum as it existed is changed and brought beyond where it began.

As an introduction to the new school, the math teacher has developed the following lesson to use with the new incoming sixth graders. The students formulate ten to fifteen questions to ask one another, to get acquainted. Examples would be: which of the following three is your favorite television show, books read, musical groups, restaurants, states to visit, etc. Each of the students then has 10 minutes to ask as many students as they can. The group then tallies the results and the teacher reports the winning majority.

• This is the knowledge level of Blooms Taxonomy, which is the first stage in cognitive development. It is the acquisition of information. The skills taught in this lesson are, discriminating between fact and opinion, and also summarizing.

The students then work in groups, tallying their results and then reporting them to the teacher. The teacher did this with all of her classes, which gave the results for approximately 130 students in four groups.

• Comprehension is the second stage, and it refers to the basic level of understanding and involves the ability to know what is being communicated, interpreting a communication or extrapolating information from a communication. The skills developed at this stage in this math lesson are identifying steps in a process and understanding figurative relationships. The students are using figures to get information and to see connections.

At this stage in the lesson I suggested to the teacher that we bring the students to the computer lab and continue the lesson using Excel to make graphs with the data. In addition we did not share the total results with the students, they only knew the results for their group. In previous years the teacher stored this information until they got to the graph section of the textbook and then used it to have the students make their own graphs. By introducing technology at this stage I was moving to Blooms third stage in cognitive development, which is:

• Application: Application is the ability to use a learned skill in a new situation. The skills we used in the lab included estimating, anticipating probabilities, ordering objects, inferring and interpreting changes.

For this introductory lesson I had the students enter their data in Excel after an introductory lesson to spreadsheets and then had them use the chart wizard for their first exposure to graphing. I should also point out that this took two class periods. By choosing the best type of charts, legends, titles, ranges and so on, the students were moving into the cognitive area of Analysis.

• Analysis is the next stage and it is the ability to break down information into its integral parts and to identify the relationship of each part to the total organization. The following skills are taught through this lesson: judging completeness, judging relevance of information, identifying elements of a selection, judging logic of actions and recognizing fallacies.

Of all of the stages of cognitive development that are integral to learning, the one that is most often overlooked is synthesizing. In classes it is one of the more difficult levels to move the students through because it must be student driven in order for learning to take place. (Internalized)

• Synthesis is the ability to combine existing elements in order to create something original. The following skills are taught through this lesson: communicating ideas, planning projects, building hypotheses, drawing

conclusions and proposing alternatives.

At this point the students' enthusiasm took over the teacher/student/learning environment. We as the teachers by necessity became the "guides on the side". The students wanted to continue using the technology and so they asked if we could use Excel to do fractions and decimals. The reason they asked about fractions and decimals was because they saw the relationships. They had never before made the connection between fractions, decimals and percents. We asked them to come up with the lessons they would like to do, how they wanted to explore those topics etc.

The last stage in cognitive development used in Blooms Taxonomy is:

• Evaluation: This involves the ability to make a judgment about the value of something by using a STANDARD. The skills developed through this lesson are testing generalizations, developing criteria, judging accuracy, making decisions and identifying values.

The students developed lessons incorporating Excel to graphically show results of projects throughout the year. I was able to form a "team" of resource students who worked with the student council to present the results of their community service project fund-raisers on a bulletin board in the library.

In order to evaluate the learning of the students involved in the case study, I will be looking at the test scores of my "team" of students, when they take the State Assessment next year. Test scores alone, however, only look at isolated skills and do not always measure the student’s actual learning. I observed them in small group instruction, sharing their experiences with other students in authentic problem-solving workshops. Authentic assessment is an attempt to measure collective learning. These students were better able to demonstrate to others, the "steps" needed to solve the problems. Technology integration provided the cognitive skills that led to higher order thinking in addition to basic skills.

http://www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf/1999/whitepapers/paper5.html

Goldman, Cole, Syer (1999) The Technology content dilemma. http://www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf/1999/whitepapers/paper4.html

Levitt, (1998) How do people learn? http://ss.uno.edu/SS/Theory/

Piele, (1989) How will you use technology to support your vision of learning? http://www.ncrtec.org/capacity/guidewww/howwill.htm

Reeves, (1999). Thomas Reeves on educational Technology as a cognitive tool. http://millennium.aed.org/reeves.shtml

RI State Department of Education, (1999). Infoworks! http://infoworks.ride.uri.edu/1999/queries/findschc.idc?ID=07129

Weinglinsky, (1998) Educational Testing Service http://www.ets.org/research