back to list of Papers
back to list of Papers
written by Dr. Chris Dede,
Senior Program Director
Research on Education, Policy, and Practice
National Science Foundation
To reach the next stage of large-scale reform, research-based answers are needed to the following types of practitioner questions about teaching, learning, and the institutional and societal context of schools.
Pedagogy and Assessment
What evidence supports claims that innovative pedagogies such as constructivism and situated cognition are important complements to conventional, assimilation-centered instruction?
How can learners' collaborative performance on authentic tasks be assessed without spending so much time and effort on evaluation that teaching and learning are adversely affected?
What additional types of skills and knowledge do teachers need to implement these alternative approaches to instructional design and assessment? What role does educational technology play?
Content and Curriculum
What evidence supports claims that standards-based curricular content better prepares students for 21st century employment and citizenship? How can information technology expand the spectrum of topics taught in the curriculum and convey complex material to a broader range of learners earlier in their schooling?
How can disparate pieces of innovative content developed by various projects be integrated into a seamless curricular framework that meets emerging national content standards, employers' expectations, and requirements for entrance into higher education? For example, how can new types of SMET content that information technology makes accessible be interwoven into the curriculum?
Information Technology
What types of computing and communications equipment in schools should complement the information infrastructures emerging in workplaces, homes, and communities?
What innovative financing strategies and reallocations among existing expenditures can educators use to fund technology-related expenditures (i.e., initial infrastructure, software. professional development. maintenance and ongoing costs, depreciation)? What other types of policy initiatives can enhance wise usage of educational technologies?
Enhancing Learning Outside of Classrooms
How can educators encourage all stakeholders in high quality schooling (e.g., families, businesses, public social services, communities, the media) to assume shared responsibility for students' learning and to act as partners in educational improvement? What role can communities' information infrastructures play in this process?
Management of Schooling
What types of alterations in organizational functioning (e.g., time schedules; flows of information, responsibility, and authority; resource distribution) are required to support these new models of curriculum, teaching, learning, assessment, professional development, and schooling? How can information technology advance this shift?
What additional types of skills and knowledge do administrators need to effectively manage such an organizational structure? What evidence supports claims that these alternative models of educational management are affordable and sustainable?
Professional Development
Beyond those practitioners fluent in innovation, what types of professional development can motivate and prepare typical teachers and administrators to master these new models of curriculum, teaching, learning, assessment, and schooling? How can information technology aid in these efforts?
How can the recruitment and preparation of preservice educators maximize the quality of human resources entering the profession and enhance their ability to implement these innovative educational approaches?
Equity
Given growing diversity in the learner population and increasing imbalances in the resources students can access outside of classrooms, how can educational opportunity be maximized for every type of learner?
How can potential scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technologists from historically underrepresented groups be encouraged and supported to enter these professions?
Policy
What policy frameworks at the local, state, and national levels best support these new models of curriculum, teaching, learning, assessment, professional development, and schooling?
When educators provide an excellent curriculum, powerful instructional technologies, exemplary teaching and assessment, and support for learning outside of school, what kinds of learning outcomes should be the goal for student performance at various developmental levels?
What evidence can practitioners give policy makers and the public that providing the financing required for this alternative model of education is a wise investment of America's resources?
Through applying the results of research testbeds exploring innovative strategies that address these issues, practitioners can make informed decisions about educational reform. Of course, many intermediate questions must be addressed by researchers, designers, evaluators, and policy analysts to build the knowledge required to generate responses for practitioners.
For example, innovative ways to measure the outcomes of reform efforts are needed. New methods of data collection and presentation must be developed to capture the changes underway in U.S. school systems. As one illustration, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) included new measures of curriculum, classroom practices, testing practices, and teacher performance. Through initiatives that adapt and extend the methods applied in this study-and other indicators projects-to the full range of educational innovation efforts in the U.S., researchers can help policy makers reach informed decisions about aiding systemic reform.
Researchers must also go beyond the typical questions educational innovators now ask to frame emerging issues central to reform. Often, practitioners are unaware of opportunities potentially available to them. For example, accountants in the late 1970s did not foresee the advent of spreadsheets, yet this information tool revolutionized the knowledge, skills, and organizational structure underlying financial management. Similar "targets of opportunity" that research should explore today include methods by which learners can engage in self- and peer-assessment, ways to teach complex content earlier in the curriculum to a wider range of students, and strategies for developing curricular standards beyond discipline-based ratification of content and skills.
Continual, rich dialogue with practitioners is important in ensuring that educators are not simply passive recipients of research insights, but also active contributors in formulating, selecting, and implementing these studies. Only through collaborative interaction with practitioners can researchers generate findings that are useful for systemic reform and build the intellectual capacity of this community. Inculcating in educational innovators a sense of "ownership" of research studies is vital in enhancing the dissemination and acceptance of their results.
Chris Dede, Professor
Education and Information Technology
Mail Stop 4B3
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
www.virtual.gmu.edu
currently on leave from GMU as Senior Program Director, Research on Education, Policy and Practice (REPP/EHR)
Room 855 National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA 22230
(703) 306-1655 ext. 5893
(703)306-0434 (fax)
cjdede@nsf.gov
EHR home page: red.www.nsf.gov