July 20, 2008
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Fall 2001 Vol. 10 No. 3
Can Web-Based Collaboration Reform Education?
by Joe Slowinski, Tiffany Anderson, and Julie Reinhart
Developing future teachers who know how to use modern learning technologies to improve student learning is a major challenge facing our nation’s teacher preparation system.
—U.S. Department of Education (2000)
A s near ubiquitous access to the World Wide Web arrives in K–12 schools in the United States, now is a prudent time to explore the potential impact of teacher training on specific practices and reform efforts. It is not a new idea that the connection between pre-service education and educational technology reform is critical. This perception can be clearly seen in several recent initiatives, such as the National Educational Technology Standards for pre-service teachers and the U.S. Department of Education’s Preparing Tomorrows Teachers Today grants. Moreover, this belief is shown in the emergence of teacher education committees and policies in organizations (e.g., The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education’s Committee on Technology in Teacher Education).
This article examines the connection between engaging in Web-based collaboration and subsequent future professional practices. We believe that pre-service teachers would benefit from participating in Web-based professional collaboration, which in turn would lead to more student-centered and more innovative instruction.
Why This Issue Is Important
First and foremost, this issue is an economic one. According to a 1999 Market Data Retrieval report, school districts spent five billion dollars on educational technology in that year. Yet, many wonder if this investment has yielded any significant benefit. For example, in spite of this investment in technology, in a recent U.S. Department of Education survey of 4,049 teachers, only 20 percent of classroom teachers felt well prepared to integrate technology into their classroom practice while 40 percent felt adequately prepared (Archer, 1999). Could this perceived level of preparation be related to pre-service training?
Data from a recent Milken Exchange on Educational Technology national survey of 416 schools and colleges of education reveal a potential culprit for not adequately preparing teachers. This survey found that 67 percent of respondent schools of education report that fewer than half of their faculty members and/or mentor teachers model the integration of instructional technology (IT) in their own teaching. Moreover, nearly 60 percent report that less than half of field supervision faculty possess the skills they need to provide professional advice about instructional technology. Furthermore, less than half of K–12 classrooms in schools providing field experiences are equipped with IT. In simple terms, many teacher-training institutions do not have a systemic approach to adequately prepare all new teachers to use and integrate instructional technology.
The old adage “I teach the way I was taught” holds here. If teacher-training students don’t have the opportunity to participate in environments that effectively integrate technology into practice, then they are far less likely to use technology themselves or feel prepared to use it. Moreover, as suggested by a 2001 study done by Hank Becker and Margaret Riel from the University of California, Irvine’s Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations, without a substantive longitudinal virtual collaboration experience, teachers will not be prepared to engage in a meaningful virtual collaborative partnership upon entering their own classrooms.
The Potential Power of Professional Collaboration
Becker
and Riel have found a strong correlation between teacher belief, practice,
and technology use. In their study of more than 4,000 teachers nationwide,
they determined that teachers who value professional collaboration with other
teachers outside their school are more likely to have their students engage
in collaborative activities and to use computers in exemplary ways in their
instructional practice. According to Becker and Riel:
Our findings suggest that teachers who are not drawn into the professional community—those who have isolated themselves in their classroom—are teaching in ways that contrast sharply with teachers who engage in continual teaching and learning interactions. And the ways in which those two groups of teachers differ pedagogically demonstrate a symmetry between the way in which they enact the role of a teacher and the way in which they structure their classroom for their students. Teachers who are isolated from their peers engage in teaching in which students work alone on externally prescribed curricula. Teachers who work in collaborative settings and who take the initiative to affect their teaching environment create the same settings for their students—collaborative work and student-initiated activity.
Additionally, Becker and Riel’s findings show that teachers who are engaged in professional collaboration also tend to use computers in exemplary ways. According to them, these teachers’ “. . . use of computers with students is not limited to gaining computer competence, but extends to involvement in cognitively challenging tasks where computers are tools used to achieve greater outcomes of students communicating, thinking, producing, and presenting their ideas.”
As is suggested from Becker and Riel’s findings, educators who participate in professional collaboration are likely to engage in student-centered instruction and the innovative use of computers. But can the value of professional collaboration be instilled in teacher-training programs? Specifically, can the use of Web-based collaboration tools for professional development be instilled in teacher-training programs in order to assist in the avoidance of isolation and allow teachers to interact and learn from others in similar circumstances at other schools? Based on our experience, we conclude it can.
Web-Based Collaboration Defined
For our purposes, we define Web-based virtual collaboration as engaging in communication and collaboration as well as sharing information through the Internet with a Web-based tool (e.g., Microsoft’s NetMeeting, WebEx, or Groove). Web-based collaboration by its very nature facilitates an external interaction because participants necessarily work with individuals located outside of their school, town, state, or country. Web-based tools normally include tools to support information, communication, and collaboration, and may include the following:
- Synchronous communications tools—white board, text, audio, and/or video
- Asynchronous communication tools—threaded discussion bulletin board
- File sharing
From Our Own Experiences: A Collaborative Project among Three Universities
During the Fall 1999 semester, the authors facilitated a Web-based cross-country collaboration among their three teacher-training courses at Indiana University– Bloomington, Indiana University Northwest, and North Carolina A&T. Students were asked to envision themselves as participatory members of the 21st Century Teachers Network (http://www.21ct.org). As such, they were given the following professional responsibilities: to build their own expertise in using new learning technologies; to share their expertise and experience with colleagues; to use their expertise with students as part of the daily learning process; and to work to make classroom technology available to all students and teachers.
Over the course of the semester, students worked in groups comprised of individuals from each campus. They were asked to read articles related to five areas of educational technology: equity, acceptable use, software evaluation, technology funding, and integrating technology. (See “Creating a Pre-Service Teachers’ Virtual Space: Issues in Design and Development of Cross-Country Collaboration” in the October 2000 issue of T.H.E. Journal to learn more about the design of this project.)
Students were involved in collaborating on each topic during a two-week block of time for each of the five topics. During this time, we instructors attempted to post examples of excellent group analyses in an effort to model quality work. In addition, as we moderated each group’s discussions, we made an effort to model appropriate interactions. This process yielded excellent results, as individuals in each group began to illustrate improved collaboration (Reinhart, Slowinski, & Anderson, 2001). By the end of our project, not only were the students collaborating, but many of the groups had also developed a professional rapport amongst group members where they appeared to truly want to learn from each other beyond the confines of the project.
Conclusions
Web-based collaboration at the pre-service level has the potential to enhance educational practice in K–12 schools. As Becker and Riel found in their survey of teachers nationwide, educators who value collaboration and practice collaborative professional activities are likely to engage in student-centered practice and use computers for instruction in exemplary ways, even more than those who espouse being constructivists. In essence, these teachers “walk their talk”—they model and practice pedagogical practices that are consistent with the most recent research and theory on situated authentic learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989).
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Readings Archer, J. “Teachers Suggest the Need for Better Training.” Education Week (February 3, 1999), p. 12. Becker, H. J., and Riel, B. “Teacher Professional Engagement and Constructivist-Compatible Computer Use.” Irvine, CA: Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (2001) http://www.crito.uci.edu/tlc/findings/report_7/. Brown, J. S., Collins, A., and Duguid, P. “Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning.” Educational Researcher 18 (1989): 32–42. Lave, J., and Wenger, E. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. New York: Cambridge University Press (1991). Milken Exchange on Educational Technology. Will New Teachers Be Prepared to Teach in a Digital Age?: A National Survey on Information Technology in Teacher Education. Santa Monica, CA: Milken Family Foundation (1999) http://www.mff.org/publications/publications.taf?page=154. Reinhart, J., Slowinski, J., and Anderson, T. “Cross-Country Conversations: Space: Issues in Design and Development of Cross-Country Collaboration.” T.H.E. Journal, 28, 3:26 (2000): 28, 30, 32, 34. U.S. Department of Education. Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology. Washington, D.C.: U.S. DOE (2000) http://www.ed.gov/teachtech/. |
Ours was but one experiment—more research needs to be undertaken. But we believe that Web-based collaboration can lead to significant changes in professional practice for new teachers. The use of Web-based collaborative tools reduces the sense of isolation that many teachers may experience, and it can provide teachers and students with opportunities to collaborate with others outside their schools. Teachers who are tooled with collaborative skills and experiences see the value in student-centered practice and tend to use more innovative instructional practices, including the exemplary use of computers for instruction.
We believe that by providing pre-service teachers with meaningful long-term Web-based collaborative opportunities, the students will begin to value such practices and seek out similar collaborative opportunities in their professional careers. This in turn will lead to more teachers seeking out opportunities to professionally collaborate with others outside their schools; and thus, more teachers will participate in innovative instruction based on current research and theories.
Policy Recommendations
Teacher-training institutions need to be aware of the value of a virtual collaboration experience during the pre-service period. To maximize the potential of collaborative experiences, teacher-training institutions should:
- Require faculty to demonstrate an attempt to align the National Educational Technology Standards into core teacher-training coursework.
- Mandate a minimum of one authentic semester-long virtual collaboration experience for all teacher-training students.
- Partner with other institutions in an effort to share experience and improve logistics of implementing a mandatory virtual collaboration project.
- Align tenure and promotion to adhere to the above-mentioned recommendations.
| Editor's Note: For related information, see “Technology in Education: The Boom Is Behind Us.” |