|
Volume 1, Issue 2 ISSN 1528-5804
Print Version
Commentaries
Submit a Commentary
Becker, H.J. (2000). How exemplary computer-using
teachers differ from other teachers: Implications for realizing the
potential of computers in schools. Contemporary Issues in
Technology and Teacher Education [Online serial], 1 (2).
(Originally published in Journal of Research on Computing in
Education, 26 (3), 291-321.) Available: http://www.citejournal.org/vol1/iss2/seminal/article1.htm
Note: The following seminal article was first published in the
Journal of Research on Computing in Education in 1994.
How Exemplary Computer-Using Teachers Differ From Other
Teachers: Implications for Realizing the Potential of Computers in
Schools
HENRY JAY
BECKER
University of California, Irvine
In a recent study of teachers who had reputations as being
expert computer users, researchers at the Bank Street College of
Education identified teachers who used computer software to provide
intellectually exciting educational experiences (Sheingold &
Hadley, 1990; Hadley & Sheingold, 1993). In the Bank Street
study, the exemplary practitioners directly addressed curriculum
goals by having students use a wide variety of computer software,
including simulations, programming languages, spreadsheets,
database programs, graphing programs, logic and problem-solving
programs, writing tools, and electronic bulletin-board
communications software. Over time and with experience, the
teachers became enthusiastic about seeing their students exploit
intellectual tools for writing, analyzing data, and solving
problems; and they became more comfortable and confident about
using computers themselves. Sheingold and Hadley (1990) provided a
portrait of computer use that other teachers might aspire to and
attain in their own teaching practice.
Although the teachers in the Bank Street study constituted a
broad cross-section of teachers in different regions and
demographic and socioeconomic climates, they were selected because
they had reputations as expert computer-users. Such a design
enables us to learn in detail about exemplary teachers, but makes
it difficult to assess how exemplary teachers came to use computers
differently from other teachers. It is not known whether the
nominated expert teachers differed from others in terms of their
personal background, their beliefs about and philosophy of
education, or the characteristics of their work environment that
may have fostered the growth of exemplary teaching practices. It is
important to investigate these differences because they will help
us understand the barriers that exist for extending the practices
of exemplary teachers to others.
If, for example, the major difference between exemplary and
typical computer-using teachers is that exemplary teachers have
more years of experience in using computers in their teaching, we
can relax because we know that eventually better practices will
diffuse to more teachers. Or, if the major difference between
exemplary and typical teachers is organizational—for example,
if exemplary teachers receive support from their building and
district administrators—then the development of additional
expertise among computer-using teachers is something that
administration and policy can influence. However, if the major
difference is something less easily changeable—for example,
if exemplary teachers believe far more strongly than do typical
teachers in organizing classrooms around exploration and
discovery-based learning—then the task of extending best
practices to a wider population of practitioners will be far more
difficult. Similarly, if exemplary teachers practice their craft
mostly in classrooms with academically talented students or
students from better educated families, then the effort to extend
their practices to less favorable circumstances remains
problematic.
The Bank Street study shows that exemplary teachers exist. But
to more accurately assess the relative frequency with which such
teachers exist in different places and work environments, a survey
design is needed that incorporates the full range of computer-using
teachers, including both those who would be nominated as exemplary
users and those who are more conventional in their use of computers
in their teaching. Only through such a comparative design can we
learn how to provide interventions that will expand the practices
of the best teachers to others.
An Approach to Studying Exemplary Computer Users Through Data
from a Probability Sample Survey
In 1989, an international survey (the I.E.A. Comp-Ed survey)
collected information about the patterns of computer use in
elementary and secondary schools in 20 countries (Pelgrum &
Plomp, 1991). As a participant in that international effort, the
Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins
University conducted a national probability sample survey of
teachers and administrators in roughly 1,400 schools in the United
States.
In the sampled schools, questionnaires were completed by the
principal, by the school-level computer coordinator (or the staff
member most knowledgeable about computer use), and by a probability
sample that included both computer-using and non-computer-using
teachers. About 69% of the principals, 76% of the school-level
computer coordinators, and 79% of the teacher sample responded by
mail. Most of the remaining coordinators and teachers participated
in an abbreviated telephone interview, so we actually have some
data on 94% of the sampled respondents. The teachers who were
included were those who taught elementary grades 3 through 6 and,
in middle schools and high schools, those who taught mathematics,
science, English, or computer education. The teacher sample was
somewhat smaller than the samples of computer coordinators and
principals ( N =1,029 teachers sampled; 817 questionnaires
completed; 140 more interviewed by telephone). Schools and teachers
that were expected to use computers more intensively were
oversampled in comparison to those expected to be less active
computer users, so all statistical analyses necessarily used
weighted cases in order to reconstitute the sample as
representative of all schools and teachers in the population.
This national probability survey was fielded at the same time as
the Bank Street College study, but, as one would expect from their
different designs, the national probability survey described a very
different pattern of teaching practices involving computers. Across
the United States, as of 1989, only one teacher in six among
secondary school math, science, and English teachers used computers
in a substantial way—either, as phrased in the survey,
“throughout the year” or “intensively, but only
for certain units” (Becker, 1991). At the elementary level,
most teachers reported having students use computers for their
classes, but a majority of those teachers had only one or two
computers accessible to their class. Even frequent use by a class
that had only one or two computers could not translate into
substantial experience for an individual student.
Moreover, in contrast to the Bank Street finding that software
productivity tools were used extensively by teachers reputed to be
exemplary, such programs played only a minor role in the national
survey, except for word-processing in high school English. For
example, only 1% of computer-using math teachers said that their
students used spreadsheets on more than five occasions during the
year. And only 11% of computer-using English teachers had students
use spelling checkers regularly.
Even in terms of the teachers’ goals for using computers,
the typical survey responses from the national sample were not
inspiring. The majority of surveyed computer-using teachers
indicated that their major goal in using computers was to help
students master basic facts or skills. Among secondary math
teachers, 58% said that one of their three most important goals for
using computers was “for student mastery of computation
skills,” while only 16% gave “understanding numerical
relationships” as a goal of computer use. And more than twice
as many elementary teachers chose “basic skills” as a
goal than chose “applying math,” or “improving
writing skills,” or “understanding math and
science.”
This pattern of responses to the national survey raises a real
question: How rare are the kinds of teachers nominated as exemplary
in the Bank Street study? To address this question, we can define a
set of criteria similar to that used to nominate exemplary teachers
in the Bank Street study, and then examine our data to see what
fraction of our national sample of teachers fulfill those criteria.
Then, using other data about the schools and teachers in our
national survey, we can assess how the background and teaching
environment of this select group of teachers differs from those of
the remaining computer-using teachers. Such differences will help
us learn how difficult a task it will be to extend the practices of
exemplary teachers to others. That is the primary function of the
following analysis.
Method: Identifying the Exemplary Computer-Using Teachers
From the many questions in the subject-specific teacher
questionnaires administered in the U.S., eight sets of questions
were selected from the mathematics, science, English, and
elementary questionnaires. The survey questions that were examined
indicated (a) the teacher's goals for computer use, (b) the
frequency with which students used computers, (c) the saliency of
the computer approaches used for the major learning activities in
the class, (d) the amount of experience students had with using
certain types of software, and (e) the general functions that
computers played in the class.
For each group of teacher-respondents, 12 to 15 standards were
selected—these standards were answers that an exemplary
teacher in a given subject might be expected to provide. In the
case of English teachers, for example, one standard was that
improving writing skills was one of their most important goals of
computer use. Another was that computers did not primarily serve as
a reward to students for completing other work. A third was that
computer activities mostly or nearly always directly supported
other work done that day in class. A fourth standard for English
teachers was that when students were given an assignment to
complete a story from a prompt, computers were used at least 25% of
the time.
The set of standards selected—indeed, the particular
questions asked in each questionnaire booklet—differed by
subject and between elementary and secondary teachers. But the
standards suggest a classroom environment in which computers were
both prominent in the experience of students and employed in order
that students grow intellectually and not merely develop isolated
skills.
Based on the standards described, a pilot index score was
calculated for each teacher. The pilot index scores were then
correlated with each of about 25 other answers from the same set of
eight questions. Using these correlations and considering the
teaching practice that each answer represented, between six and
eight additional items were added to the original pilot indices to
build a more complete index for each teacher group. Table 1 lists the
components of the final index for each of the four groups of
teachers and indicates whether each component was in the index by
definition or because of its positive correlation with the pilot
index.
An index arrays people along a continuum, from low to high. In
the absence of any independent data on the teaching success of
teachers with different index scores, an arbitrary cut-off index
score to separate exemplary computer-using teachers from more
typical ones. After examining dozens of teacher questionnaire
booklets for each teacher group, the general criterion decided upon
was that the exemplary teacher must meet at least a bare majority
of the index standards for that teacher group. Thus, a teacher
classified as “exemplary” could actually fail to meet
nearly one-half of all of the standards being used for his or her
teacher group (subject-matter). The Appendix demonstrates how this
works for one subject area by presenting each of the components of
the index created for the mathematics subject-matter teachers and
the standards used for that subject area.
Of the 516 math, science, English, and elementary teachers who
completed U.S. subject-specific questionnaires or telephone
interviews and who were all to some extent computer-using teachers,
only 45 teachers met a majority of the standards for their group.
Among the math teachers, 11 did so, as did 9 science teachers, 13
English teachers, and 12 elementary (grades 3-6) teachers. Because
those teachers happened to be somewhat overrepresented in the
sample compared to an equal probability sample, the actual
proportion of computer-using teachers in the U.S. who would meet
the majority-of-standards criterion is only about 5%. When we also
include in the denominator the teachers who do not use computers at
all, the proportion of exemplary teachers among all teachers of the
studied subjects and grade levels is only 3%.
Distinctions Between Exemplary Computer-Using Teachers and Other
Computer-Using Teachers
In the remainder of this article, we shall examine how the 5% of
computer-using teachers whom we judged as exemplary differed from
the other 95% of computer-using teachers in those same subject
areas and grade levels. We will look at three types of differences
among teachers: (a) differences in the school and classroom
environment in which they worked (including the clientele they
served), (b) differences in the teachers’ own backgrounds and
experiences, and (c) differences in the ways they carried out their
teaching practices and in their perceptions concerning teaching and
computer use.
By examining the teachers’ computer-use practices (other
than the ones used to define “exemplariness”) and their
perceptions of their teaching tasks, we can begin to see how
computers have affected them as teachers. By examining their
backgrounds and experiences, we can document which teachers have
more successfully mastered the challenges of using computers
effectively. And by examining their school and classroom
environments, we can learn more about the conditions that
facilitate the blossoming of exemplary computer-use practices.
Differences Between Exemplary and Other Computer-Using
Teachers’ Work Environments
Our research started with the following question: What is it
about a teacher’s teaching environment that might facilitate
the development of exemplary computer-use practices? This question
was operationalized as a more empirically addressable one: How does
the teaching environment of exemplary computer-using teachers
differ from the teaching environment of other computer-using
teachers in the same subject? We especially want to identify those
differences that are alterable through re-allocation of
resources.
Table 2
presents a summary of this analysis. Table 3 provides
more detailed results for five aspects of the teachers’
environments, incorporating the following school-level and
classroom-level variables:
-
The nature of the student body
served.
-
The experience and level of expertise
with computers of all teachers at the school.
-
School policies and practices regarding
alternative uses of computers.
-
Allocation of resources for computer
coordination and staff development.
-
Resources available to the teacher and
teaching requirements.
For each of these five aspects of the teacher’s
environment, specific variables that were studied are shown in Table 3 in order
of decreasing difference between the environments of exemplary
teachers and those of other computer-using teachers (i.e., starting
with the variable showing the greatest difference).
In addition to actual means or percentages for exemplary and
other computer-using teachers, the size of the difference between
them is summarized using the standardized mean difference, which is
comparable to an effect size statistic in an experimental design.
This statistic is the difference between the mean for the exemplary
teachers on the variable in question (or the percentage of that
group having some characteristic) and the mean for other
computer-using teachers, divided by the two groups’ pooled
within-group standard deviation. Table 3 also gives
a rough indication of effect sizes for teachers of specific
subjects (math, science, and English), and for elementary-level
teachers. In the table, + and – signs are used in various
quantities to denote where the factor may be particularly important
(see note to Table
3 ). Although the difference implied by even one + sign is
quite large, the number of cases of exemplary teachers in any one
column (math, science, etc.) is quite small—fewer than 15
persons in every case—so the likelihood that any one
difference was obtained by chance is substantial. Where two or more
columns contain + signs, or where there are multiple + signs for a
single column, the likelihood is much greater than the differences
reported for this sample (or subsample) are true for the population
at large.
Both Table 2
and Table 3
illustrate that although the teaching environments of exemplary
computer-using teachers differed in many ways from the environments
of other teachers, there were also important similarities. For
example, exemplary computer-using teachers were as likely to be
found in low-income districts and low socioeconomic-status schools
as they were in other schools. A second example shows that,
although classroom-located rather than lab-located computers may be
more easily integrated into important teaching/learning activities,
exemplary teachers were as likely to use computers in lab settings
as were other computer-using teachers.
Generalizing from the results of many variables examined for
their correlation with the presence of exemplary computer-using
teachers, four characteristics of the teaching environment seem to
make exemplary computer-users more likely to be present: (a) the
existence of a social network of computer-using teachers at the
same school; (b) sustained use of computers at the school for
consequential activities, that is, where computers are used to
accomplish a goal other than learning, for example, writing and
publishing, industrial arts, or business applications; (c)
organized support for computer-using teachers in the form of staff
development activities and a full-time staff member in the role of
computer coordinator; and (d) acknowledgement of the resource
requirements for effectively using computers, for example, smaller
class sizes and funds for software acquisition.
Social Networks of Computer-Using Teachers
Teachers spend most of their working lives out of sight of other
adults. If they are to successfully incorporate a new and complex
resource like computer software into their teaching practice, they
must have access to other people from whom they can learn, either
experts who have already mastered the resource or a community of
teacher-learners who pool their efforts and share their exploratory
findings. Thus, it is not surprising that we would find that
exemplary computer-using teachers are more likely than other
computer users to be working in a school with many other
computer-using teachers. It is also true that exemplary teachers
may themselves create (rather than just be created by) an
environment in which many teachers use computers. Nevertheless, it
is instructive that of the 51 separate teacher environment
variables examined (see Table 3 ), the one
with the largest difference between exemplary and other
computer-using teachers was simply the total number of teachers at
their school who used computers. Exemplary teachers were in schools
that had nearly twice as many computer-using teachers (13 versus 7,
on average). The absolute number of computer-using teachers in
their environment was even more closely related to the presence of
exemplary teachers than was the proportion of teachers who are
computer users. Among the teacher groups studied, only mathematics
teachers were as likely to become exemplary computer-using
practitioners regardless of the number of other computer-using
teachers at their own school. Science and English teachers seem
especially dependent on the presence of other computer users in
order for them to develop high quality practices involving
computers. (see Table 3, panel
2.)
It helps if the other computer-using teachers are also competent
users. Exemplary teachers practiced in schools where nearly twice
as many teachers were thought (by the survey informant) to be
expert at using instructional programs and where twice as many were
reported to be expert at programming, compared to reports from
schools of other computer-using teachers (see Table 3 , panel
2). In general, the environments of exemplary teachers are more
computer-active. At the schools with exemplary computer-using
teachers, there were more computers present per capita ( Table 3 , panel
5), and a larger fraction of school computers were obtained in the
previous two years, which suggests a more vibrant interest in
computer use ( Table 3 , panel
2).
Computer Use for Consequential Activities
A nearly universal characteristic of school is “busy
work,” for example, worksheets and homework assignments,
quizzes and tests, all of which are assigned so that students can
practice and demonstrate skills mastered and knowledge remembered.
Worksheet activity is symptomatic of the fact that, in school,
students demonstrate learning mainly by taking paper and pencil
tests rather than by accomplishing something or producing something
for the real world outside of the classroom. In that sense, skill
mastery and remembered information are significantly different in
school than in real life, where people’s activities are
valued for the consequences that they have for others—an
audience, a clientele, a customer base, or colleagues. Although
most computer work mimics traditional school work, with
computer-based drills, tutorials, educational games, and
programming exercises dominating most students’ time on
school computers, computers do make possible activities that may
imitate real life (as in simulation games), or even may be a part
of it. Writing for an audience is one computer activity that could
have real consequences, for example, using computers to write class
and school newspapers or to do the design and paste-up work related
to publishing volumes such as the school yearbook. Other
consequential computer-based activities are those involved with
occupational preparation. In the two high school subject areas of
industrial arts and business education, computers are generally
used as tools to accomplish tasks necessary in the performance of
productive work.
Several results shown in panel 3 of Table 3 suggest that
exemplary teachers work in environments where some thought has gone
into making computer activities consequential. The evidence about
using computers for writing is one indication of this. Exemplary
teachers were twice as likely to be present at a school where the
school’s computer coordinator reported that students had used
word processing to complete school assignments for three or more
years (60% versus 30%). Moreover, they were more often present at
schools where computers were often used to produce the school
newspaper or the school yearbook. It was not just the emphasis on
word processing instruction that made a difference here but also
the use of computers for actual writing in classes. In schools
where the principal’s computer priorities were stated in
terms of word processing or keyboarding skills, exemplary teachers
were not particularly likely to be found; but they were
disproportionately present where the principal’s priorities
involved the use of computers for writing.
A further indication of the relation between consequential
computer work and exemplary teaching practice comes from a survey
question about how school computers were generally used throughout
the school. In schools where exemplary teachers were identified,
the amount of computer time going to occupational preparation
subjects was 2.5 times as great as in other schools. In contrast,
the fraction of computer time devoted to computer education
activities, math and English, and, most strikingly, recreational
activity was smaller than at other schools (see Table 3 ; panel
3). Recreational uses of computers often reflect an absence of
systematic plans and purpose for this expensive resource. Not only
was a smaller fraction of computer time spent on recreational
activity in schools with exemplary teachers, but those schools also
found it less necessary to establish rules limiting the amount of
game playing on computers.
Resources Allocated to Support Effective Computer Use
Over the past 10 years, American schools have spent a large
fraction of their discretionary funds on purchasing computers and
software for their teachers and students. Computers, though, are
not only expensive but also complex to use. Funds spent to create
computer laboratories or to buy new software can easily be misspent
unless substantial resources are also expended to make their use
effective. One of our most consistent findings was that exemplary
teachers work in school districts that had invested heavily in
staff development and on-site staff support for computer-using
teachers.
There were large differences between the 5% of computer-using
teachers classed as exemplary and the other 95% on nearly
all of the measured variables relating to school and
district support for computing (see Table 3 ; panel
4). Exemplary teachers were much more likely to be found in schools
where there was either a full-time staff member designated as a
computer coordinator (with limited teaching responsibilities) or a
district-level coordinator who directed school-level computing
activities. Fully 37% of exemplary teachers worked in such
situations compared to only 10% of other computer-using teachers.
Moreover, exemplary computer-using teachers were much more likely
(40% versus 17%) to have begun using computers initially at the
suggestion of their school-level computer coordinator or a district
coordinator or administrator rather than to have to started on
their own initiative or because of suggestions from school
administrators or teaching colleagues.
Third, exemplary users had greater access to formal district
staff development activities than did other computer users. Two
staff development activities were especially significant: (a)
instruction in using computer applications such as word processors,
spreadsheets, and grade book managers and (b) formal training in
using computers with the specific subject matter that the teachers
taught. Fourth, exemplary computer-using teachers were more likely
to be present at schools where teachers were able to borrow school
computers for home use. As shown in Table 3 , 46% of
exemplary teachers reported that teacher borrowing privileges have
existed for three or more years compared to 34% of other
computer-users.
In summary, the survey findings indicated consistent
associations between the presence of exemplary teaching practice
using computers and substantial investment in support and training
of personnel. As with all correlational research, the direction of
cause-and-effect is a question that must be examined carefully.
However, the lack of association between district socioeconomic
status and the presence of exemplary teachers suggests that
districts choosing to invest larger fractions of available funds in
staff development and support engender more sophisticated and
accomplished computer-using teachers.
Resources and Requirements for Effective Teaching Using
Computers
Classroom teaching is sometimes viewed as an activity in which
resources for serving individual clients are brought to bear
against a population of individual clients to be served. The more
resources and the fewer clients, the more the individual teacher
can accomplish. Such an individualistic notion about classroom
teaching is certainly an oversimplification. Much research on class
size has shown that small classes do not result in substantially
higher achievement. And a smaller number of classroom computers
might be used more effectively with groups of students in a
collaborative activity or by the teacher in a demonstration mode
than if each student used a separate computer. In fact, one strong
correlate shown in Table 3 concerns
the practice of teachers using computers to demonstrate concepts to
a whole class. This practice was reported much more often in
schools where there were exemplary computer-using teachers than in
schools where there were typical computer-using teachers.
Nevertheless, compared to other instructional media, such as
books or chalkboards, computers primarily serve one individual or a
pair of students at a time. In a classroom setting, computers may
not be practical unless there is a sufficiently favorable ratio of
students to computers. Yet, we know from past studies (e.g.,
Becker, 1986) that for the better part of the last decade teachers
have often attempted to use computers in settings where students
outnumbered computers by as much as 10 or 20 to1.
When the teaching environments of exemplary computer-using
teachers were contrasted with other computer-using teachers, it was
clear that exemplary computer users practiced in a much more
resource-rich situation. They had fewer students per computer in
their classroom (or wherever they used computers), they had more
software available to them (by a large amount), and most
significantly, perhaps, they had smaller classes. In fact, their
classes were 20% smaller on average, which equates to four fewer
students per classroom. Moreover, in a regression analysis that
incorporated the 20 variables with the largest effect sizes listed
in Table 3 ,
class size had the largest independent predictive
effect discriminating between exemplary and other computer-using
teachers. Amounts of software available was also among the six
variables surviving the backwards elimination regression procedure
(see Table 2
).
Whether it was smaller class size that caused exemplary computer
use or whether exemplary teachers more successfully claimed the
right to smaller classes, these findings emphasize that effective
teaching with computers may be costly not only in terms of
hardware, software, training, and human support but may require the
costliest element of all—more teachers.
To summarize, differences in the teaching and school
environments of exemplary computer users and typical computer-using
teachers were examined. Based on these analyses, it could be argued
that school and district administrators have the capacity to
increase the number of teachers engaged in more efficacious
teaching practices involving computers, although this strategy is
not without substantial expense. The data suggest, for example,
that school district administrators could improve how computers are
used by (a) ensuring that relevant staff development activities,
on-site computer coordination, and computer resources are all
allocated to individual school sites in measures large enough to
enable a community of computer-using teachers to develop (even if
that means staging, over a period of years, the provision of these
resources across all schools in the district); (b) directing that
inservice instruction of teachers, curriculum development, and
student computer time be prioritized so as to foster consequential
uses of computers, for example, writing for an audience or using
computers to model real occupational environments; and (c) forming
instructional classes and organizing access to computers so that
computer-using teachers have favorable ratios of students to
computers and relatively small class sizes.
Personal Background and the Teaching and Computer Experiences of
Exemplary and Other Computer-Using Teachers
What of the teachers themselves? If exemplary practice occurs
largely among a group of teachers who differ in background and
preparation from that of most other teachers, it may be harder to
extend exemplary practices across large numbers of teachers, no
matter how optimally administrators allocate resources. Table 4 contains
the data from our analysis of the individual differences between
exemplary computer-using teachers and the other computer users in
our national sample.
Table 4
shows that there were substantial personal differences between the
5% of computer-using teachers classed as exemplary and the
remaining ones. Not all of these personal differences are
unalterable. Some of them are, like those of the preceding section,
amenable to change by systematic administrative effort. Other
differences suggest the need to recruit people into teaching who
have background more like those of the exemplary teachers in the
sample.
Alterable Variables in the Teachers’ Backgrounds
The two largest differences in Table 4 are
alterable. First, exemplary computer-using teachers spent more than
twice as many hours personally working on computers at school than
did other computer-using teachers. Of course, one might perceive
their greater time investment in using school computers not as
something affected by administrators’ actions but deriving
instead from greater personal interest in using computers. However,
if personal interest was the reason exemplary teachers used school
computers more, one would expect the differences to be at least as
strong for computer use at home. But, in fact, there are only small
differences in home computer use between the exemplary and the
other teachers. This suggests that the time investments these two
groups of teachers made in using computers were differentiated as
much by the opportunities they each had to use computers at school
as by their personal interests in using computers per se.
The second largest difference in Table 4 is that
the exemplary teachers had more formal training in using and
teaching with computers. (Table 3 indicated differences in the
availability of district-organized staff development activities for
the school staff; the results reported in Table 4 concern
the teachers’ own training experiences.) Teachers in the
survey responded to questions about how they learned five different
computer-related skills (or whether they had learned the skill at
all): (a) how to integrate software into existing lessons in the
subjects they taught, (b) how to organize class activities to allow
for computer use during class time, (c) how to write computer
programs, (d) how to use word processing programs, and (e) how to
use other computer applications. Exemplary teachers reported having
formal training in more areas than did other users. This was
particularly true for secondary mathematics and elementary
teachers, who had training in more than twice as many areas as the
other computer users.
Teaching Experience and Experience Using Computers in
Teaching
Other personal characteristics in Table 4 that
distinguish between exemplary and other computer-using teachers are
what might be called general experience variables. To some extent,
developing expertise in using computers in teaching comes with time
and experience—time spent using computers and time spent
learning to teach well. Sheingold and Hadley (1990) concluded in
their study that at least five years of computer use are required
for teachers to develop computer expertise.
In the survey, exemplary users, on average, had taught their
subject for three years longer than other computer users, and they
had used computers for about one year longer (4.0 years versus
3.2). These are not big differences, but the effect sizes, +.41 and
+.37, are substantial. The differences in experiences between
exemplary and other users were particularly great for mathematics
teachers. Math teachers who used computers for six or more years
were 20 times more likely to be classed as exemplary. However,
experience by itself did not ensure effective instructional
practices using computers. Of the typical computer-using teachers
(the non-exemplary ones), 10% had used computers in their teaching
for more than five years, compared to 26% of the teachers classed
as exemplary. But experience does help.
Interestingly, among the English teachers in our survey, the
relationship between teaching experience and exemplary status was
reversed. The younger (less experienced) English teachers were more
likely to be exemplary. Also, among English teachers, the exemplary
computer users had learned significantly more about using computers
through self-instruction than through formal training, and they
spent much more time using computers at home than other users.
Computer use in English classes is also a more recent phenomenon
than in math, science, or elementary classrooms. Taken together,
this suggests that district and school support for developing
exemplary computer-use practices in English teaching is
particularly lacking—or it least it was in 1989 when this
survey was conducted.
Differences in the Teachers’ Own Educational
Backgrounds
Not all important distinctions between exemplary computer using
teachers and other computer-users are likely to be erased simply by
giving teachers more training, more experience, and greater access
to computers. Two aspects of the teacher’s own
schooling—how much formal schooling they had had (measured in
degrees and credits) and whether they majored in education or the
liberal arts and sciences—distinguished the exemplary from
the other computer-users in our sample.
Although most teachers in the sample had received college
credits beyond the bachelor’s degree, exemplary teachers had
accumulated significantly more credits and degrees than had the
other computer users. For example, three-quarters of the exemplary
math teachers and more than half of the exemplary science teachers
had 30 credits beyond a master’s degree, compared to less
than 10% of other math and science computer users.
Additional degrees and credits are accumulated by teachers with
more teaching experience and thus may be a proxy for the effect of
experience. On the other hand, the credits are likely to have
included some experience in using computers, and thus the
experience that the credits reflect may also produce more expertise
in using computers. But there is a third explanation. More
education also may reflect greater long-term interest in
occupationally relevant knowledge and thus be the result of prior
differences in interests that may not be readily transferred to
other teachers. The exemplary teachers previously may have had a
greater interest in and understanding of effective teaching and
learning processes. Thus, their expertise may not have been simply
a result of their having taken more graduate courses. Simply
forcing teachers to take graduate credits may not produce
exemplary-level expertise in using computers.
Their choice of major as undergraduates also distinguishes
exemplary and other computer-using teachers. As shown in Table 4, 63% of
the exemplary teachers majored in math, science, the social
sciences or the humanities. Only 40% of other computer using
teachers in the same subjects did so. (Most of the rest majored in
education, not liberal arts.) This indicates not only that a
greater interest in effective teaching and learning may
differentiate the best computer-using teachers from the others, but
also that a deeper interest in academic subject matter
differentiates exemplary teachers from others. Teachers lacking a
deep interest in learning the subject matter they teach might be
unlikely to develop effective and exemplary practices using
computers in their classes.
Teacher Gender
Once we knew that roughly the same proportion of elementary and
secondary teachers in our sample were classed as exemplary, we did
not expect to find gender differences between the exemplary and the
other teachers. Nevertheless, although males comprised only
one-fourth of the other computer-using teachers, nearly one-half of
the exemplary teachers were male. Males were particularly
overrepresented among exemplary science and English teachers.
The background and activities of male teachers differed sharply
from the female teachers, and these teachers help explain the
male’s disproportionate representation in the exemplary
teacher category. The male teachers had, on average, more advanced
degrees and credits; and, as shown above, further education is
associated with a greater likelihood of being a teacher identified
as an exemplary computer user. Fifty-eight percent of the males
while only 37% of females were math, science, or liberal arts
majors; again, those majors rather than education majors were also
more likely to be exemplary computer users. However, the greatest
difference between male and female teachers revealed by these data
was in the amount of time that they spent using computers. We
previously showed that time spent using school computers was the
largest discriminator between exemplary and other computer-using
teachers. The male teachers in this study used school computers for
about twice as many hours per week as the female teachers did (2.7
hours versus 1.4 hours). But the differences are even greater for
nonschool (primarily home use). The male teachers spend 2.5 times
as many hours per week using computers at home as the female
teachers did. When all time spent on computers was combined, the
male teachers spent nearly four more hours per week using computers
than did the female teachers (6.9 hours versus 3.0 hours).
Like other female full-time workers, women teachers typically
have more demands on their time than males do. In spite of cultural
changes in the allocation of household and child-care
responsibilities between males and females, females still have more
nonwork-related obligations. Also, more males than females in our
culture have patterns of personal interests that are technical,
mechanical, and numerical, which is consistent with having a deep
interest in working with computers. These differences in interest
are reflected in the ways males and females use free time. Thus, to
the extent that time spent is itself a determinant of more
exemplary use of computers for instructional practices, males will
continue to be found disproportionately among exemplary teachers,
as defined here.
Nevertheless, our explanations involving male teachers’
stronger educational credentials and greater time-involvement with
computers do not fully account for the gender differences we found.
Using a multivariate analysis procedure (logistic regression) that
held constant the graduate education, undergraduate major, time
spent using computers both in school and away from school, and
breadth of formal training for using computers in teaching, we
found that the gender of a teacher was still among the stronger
independent predictors of exemplary computer-using teaching.
Perceptions and Practices: How Using Computers Has Affected
Exemplary Teachers and Other Teachers
The previous sections have demonstrated how exemplary
computer-using teachers differ from other computer-using teachers
in background, in teaching and computer experience, and, more
usefully in a policy sense, in the school and district resources
that define the environment in which these teachers work. But what
are the consequences for schools of having exemplary computer-using
teachers on their staff? Does it go any further than having
teachers with a more systematic, varied, and intellectually
respectable pattern of using computers in their own classroom
instruction?
Effects on Curriculum Coverage: Differences Between Exemplary
and Other Users
Our survey was not designed to measure how computers changed
teaching practices, but by contrasting the teaching practices of
exemplary computer-users and other computer-using teachers, we can
get some ideas about the potential of computers to change
instruction and classroom organization, that is, if all
computer-users behave like the small number of exemplary users in
our study.
Panel 1 in Table
5 shows that the teachers classed as exemplary computer users
reported that they changed their coverage of curriculum topics more
than the other teachers did. Four times as many exemplary computer
users as others (47% versus 11%) reported that they introduced new
topics in their course as a result of computers. Five times, (38%
versus 7%) reported having de-emphasized or dropped certain topics
in a class as a result of using computers. And nearly twice as many
(66% versus 39%) reported that they emphasized certain topics more
than they had before. In terms of the standardized difference or
effect size statistical measure we used in these analyses,
differential change in content coverage is by far the largest of
any effect-size statistics calculated between exemplary and other
computer users.
Of these results, the most striking is the statistic about the
exemplary teachers having downgraded the salience of some
curriculum content in exchange for computer activities that may
have enabled more in-depth concentration on other content. One of
the most difficult barriers to curriculum reform has been the
reluctance of teachers and other regulators of curriculum to drop
existing content. Our survey suggests that computers may actually
be an effective vehicle for getting rid of weak or outdated content
in academic curricula.
Differences in Organizing the Class for Student Computer
Assignments
Many studies of classrooms (e.g., Goodlad, 1984) show that most
students’ time is spent either listening to the teacher
present a lesson to the whole class or working alone but doing the
same work as other students. Computer work provides the possibility
that students will not all be doing the same thing at the same
time. In many settings, the goal of teachers and administrators is
to have enough computers so that student computer work can be
individualized, thus enabling students to do work tailored to their
own learning needs. Most commonly, this is accomplished by having
students use a computer-based integrated learning system or other
method for automatically sequencing students through a series of
software exercises.
Our survey found, though, that exemplary computer-using teachers
did not individualize their computer assignments more than other
computer-using teachers did. In fact, they were somewhat less
likely to report that they used software that allowed students to
proceed at their own pace through a sequence of computer activities
(see Table 5 ,
panel 1). On the other hand, they also were less likely to have
students do the identical computer assignments. Instead, exemplary
computer-users emphasized more small-group work, with each team of
students working together and using different software. Their
responses also suggested that they were more flexible in deciding
which software different groups of students would use, and they
were more likely to give students a choice in selecting software.
We don’t know from this survey, however, whether these
differences in the social organization of computer use reflect the
teachers’ own long-standing teaching practices or are the
result of their learning about how to maximize the benefits of
using computers.
Computer-Use Problems Faced by Exemplary and Other Users
Although computers have been a major preoccupation of school
teachers and administrators over the past decade, computer use in
schools is still at a nascent stage. Compared to the resources
required for electronic technology to clearly and substantially
make a difference in how all students experience schooling, current
patterns of computer use reflect the comparatively minor investment
made in hardware and software. Therefore, it is not surprising that
both exemplary and other computer users reported that not having
enough computers and not having enough instructional software were
among the major problems associated with using computers in their
teaching practice. Still, the exemplary teachers did not believe
these problems were as severe as the other teachers did ( Table 5 , panel 3).
Perhaps this was because they have somewhat better
student-to-computer ratios and they have substantially more
software available to them.
However, the presence of expert computer-using teachers does not
mean that problems will go away. In fact, more problems will arise
from the greater demands that exemplary computer-using teachers
make on resources and from their greater expectations about the
utility of computer resources. Exemplary computer users reported
quite a few problems to be more important for their own teaching
practice than did other computer-using teachers. Specifically, not
having enough space to locate computers appropriately, having
computers that were too limited because they were either out of
date or incompatible with other equipment and software, having
software that was not pedagogically sound, and having difficulty
keeping computers in working order. Exemplary teachers simply had
higher standards and greater perceived needs than did the other
computer-users.
In addition to these more global problems, exemplary teachers
reported having encountered a greater number of other specific
problems in their computer use during the year than did other
computer-using teachers ( Table 5 , panel 4).
More exemplary teachers than other teachers reported occasions when
computers they were expecting to use were already being used by
other teachers or were broken; and more exemplary teachers reported
finding software that did not teach as well as they expected, that
was not as interesting as they expected, that was harder to use
than they expected, or that was just plain missing. In addition,
more of them complained that they hadn’t had a chance to try
out software that they intended to use. Every category of problem
incident was reported more frequently by exemplary computer-using
teachers than by other computer-using teachers.
To gain a final perspective on the problems of exemplary and
other computer-using teachers, we asked respondents to prioritize
several alternative computer-related investments of school funds:
Teachers were asked, “Suppose your school administration
annually made money available (for example, $5,000 per teacher) for
improving computer-based learning. Which two of the following ways
would you like to see this money spent in order to improve your own
instructional uses of computers?” As shown in panel 5 of Table 5 , the choices
included such items as having an aide to assist in supervising
students using computers, paying for a coordinator to provide
expertise and assistance, and paying for extensive inservice
training in using computers. Although there were differences for
nearly every item between the proportion of exemplary computer
users and the proportion of other teachers choosing that item, the
largest differences were related to computer hardware. Whereas most
typical computer-using teachers wanted more computers in their
classroom, exemplary teachers were more likely to want to use the
money to pay for a computer to use at home. Exemplary teachers were
also more likely than others to choose the item about inservice
training and were less likely to choose the item about buying more
software. Thus, while typical computer-using teachers saw their
highest priority as merely acquiring more hardware and software for
their classes, the more knowledgeable and successfully practicing
computer-using teachers recognized that equally important problems
remain unsolved, in particular, time for using computers at home
and more opportunities to learn how to use computers in their
teaching.
Summary and Conclusions
This article has identified some important distinctions between
the teaching environments, personal backgrounds, and teaching
practices of a small group of computer-using teachers whom we have
classified as exemplary and another group of more typical
computer-using teachers. To reiterate, exemplary teachers were not
recognized as such on the basis of hard evidence that their
students’ computer use resulted in higher test scores or
greater intellectual competence. Instead, our attribution of
exemplary teaching practice was an assumption that important
academic outcomes will result from systematic and frequent use of
computer software for activities that involve higher order thinking
(such as interpreting data, reasoning, writing, solving concrete,
complex, real-world problems, and conducting scientific
investigations). The questionnaire responses of teachers
operationalized this assumption as a single dimension, and a
somewhat arbitrary cut-off point was established (based on a
case-by-case examination of borderline questionnaires) in order to
distinguish the small fraction of computer-using teachers who
appeared to have adopted this approach to using computers in a
major way from the much larger number of teachers whose use of
computers was either less intensive or more traditionally focused
on knowledge and skill acquisition.
Our subsequent analyses assume not only that computer software
used in an exemplary way works in the sense that as a result of its
use students do learn to think better, write better, and
problem-solve better, but that optimal use of computer resources
for maximizing student outcomes will occur when computers are used
in these ways. These assumptions are not arbitrary; they are based
on a large body of literature in cognitive theory and in research
on human learning and its application to groups of students in
school settings (e.g., Chipman, Segal, & Glaser, 1985; Resnick,
1989; Idol & Jones, 1990). The critical thought and careful
observation that constitutes this work appears plausible and
well-reasoned, but it nevertheless lacks on its behalf substantial
systematic empirical evidence based on concrete outcomes measured
across comparison populations of students taught using different
instructional approaches.
Given these assumptions about the optimal goals and methods of
computer use in the major academic subjects, the distinctions we
uncovered overwhelmingly favor the exemplary teachers. That is,
exemplary teachers teach in an environment that helps them to be
better computer-using teachers; they are themselves better prepared
to use computers well in their teaching; and, in fact, they have
allowed computers to have a much greater impact in how and what
they teach. At the same time, exemplary teachers make greater
demands on available resources and face problems that other
computer-using teachers are less likely to face. This in turn
presents administrators with problems they could otherwise avoid,
for example, having to keep equipment and software available and in
working order.
One of the most important results of these analyses is that
nearly all of the advantages that exemplary teachers have in their
working environments—that they teach where many other
teachers also use computers, that their districts provide relevant
and broad-ranging staff development activities, that they have
access to computers at school and have the time to use them
personally, and that they teach smaller classes—are
extensible to other computer-using teachers. It might have been
otherwise. We could have found that exemplary computer-using
teachers disproportionately taught at elite private schools or at
public schools serving wealthy communities, or that they
disproportionately taught high-achieving and high-ability students
in gifted programs. But that was not the case. Exemplary teachers
in our study taught in a representative range of communities,
schools, and classrooms; but they taught in schools and districts
where resources had been used to nurture and support the kind of
teaching practice we classified as exemplary.
On the other hand, the exemplary computer-using teachers in our
survey were not simply typical teachers who liked computers. In
particular, they had had significantly more well-rounded
educational experiences than the other teachers had had; and,
unexpectedly, were disproportionately male. To the extent that
exemplary teaching practice using computers depends on a teacher
having strong personal interest in computing activities (interests
which in our culture have, at least until recently, been highly
correlated with gender), having a liberal arts background, or a
greater personal commitment to lifetime learning, it will be more
difficult to extend the practices of these teachers to others in
the profession who do not share those deep interests and
backgrounds.
Regardless of whether the critical advantages of exemplary
computer-using teachers are inherent or extensible to other
teachers’ practices, it will take money to make
computer-based education become a more widespread effective
teaching practice. It will take money to provide staff development
to create a critical mass of computer-using teachers through which
the ideas conducive to exemplary teaching practice will germinate.
It will take money to staff schools with support personnel who have
sufficient expertise and stature to provide the intellectual
resources and technical support other computer-using teachers will
need. It will take money to provide teachers with computers for
home use and, even more importantly, to provide them with time at
school to develop computer-based lessons and plans that can be used
in the most profitable ways. It will take money to reduce class
sizes. It will take money to solve the many new problems that
extensive and inventive use of computer facilities will itself
provoke. Finally, it will take money to recruit more people into
teaching—who have both a potential talent for classroom
teaching and a personal interest in using interactive technologies
such as computers.
If producing exemplary teaching practices using computers is so
expensive, one must ask if it will it be worth it. There are other
ways for schools to spend money to improve their capacity to
develop competent learners and thinkers. For example, they might
invest in smaller classes for teachers (but not specifically so
that they can use computers), in systematic and ongoing inservice
training and supervision (on topics other than computer use), in
larger salaries to recruit smarter teachers (who may not
particularly like computers), in restructuring to give teachers
fewer class hours and more planning time (not specifically for the
use of computers), or in innovative print-based curriculum
materials. Almost all proposed improvements to educational practice
call for similar types of expenditures whether or not
computer-based learning approaches are contemplated.
Our research has demonstrated that certain conditions make
exemplary computer-using teachers more likely to be present.
Research is now needed to specify the relative cost-effectiveness
of alternative investments: between reducing the class size of
computer-using teachers and providing a school-level computer
coordinator, between investing in staff development activities and
providing more time for teachers to develop their own plans on how
to best use computers, and between loaning teachers computers for
home use and providing them a richer mix of software for school
use. Our survey work indicates that all of these factors may have
advantages for improving computer-based teaching. But this survey
provides only a rough gauge. We need carefully designed experiments
to produce the kind of evidence useful for administrative
decision-making.
Furthermore, we must begin to produce systematic evidence that
the kinds of teaching practices that we assume here to be exemplary
(i.e., the focus on writing, problem solving, and inquiry- and
discovery-based learning) do result in the kind of improvements in
student competencies that cognitive science research has implied is
possible. Much of that research has proceeded as a study of
individual learners, whereas schooling proceeds in a social setting
involving dozens of simultaneous learners taught by teachers with
limited amounts of time to plan learning tasks and assess their
consequences. Although it seems correct to encourage schools and
teachers to focus on the kind of learning outcomes that produce
more adult competencies, schools may not be successful doing this,
even with the best computer software and with lesson plans and
teaching strategies designed to best exploit this software. Thus,
we need to know not only how teachers are coming along in
developing exemplary teaching practices but also how students are
coming along in attaining competencies that these practices (and
this article) now only assume.
Contributor
Henry Jay Becker is a sociologist and is an associate professor
of education at the University of California, Irvine. The work
reported in this article was completed while he was a principal
research scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Social
Organization of Schools. In the last decade his work has focused on
national surveys and evaluations of instructional uses of school
computers. ( Address: Department of Education, University of
California, Irvine, 245 Berkeley Place Building, Irvine, CA
92717.)
References
Becker, H.J. (1986, June). Instructional uses of school
computers: Reports from the 1985 national survey. (Issue 1),.
Baltimore, MD: Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns
Hopkins University.
Becker, H.J. (1991). How computers are used in United States
schools: Basic data from the 1989 I.E.A. Computers in Education
survey. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 7, 385-406.
Chipman, S., Segal, J., & Glaser, R., (Eds.). (1985).
Thinking and learning skills: Relating instruction to research.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Goodlad, J.I. (1984). A place called school: Prospects for the
future. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hadley, M., & Sheingold (1993). Commonalities and
distinctive patterns in teachers’ integration of computers.
American Journal of Education, 101, 281-315.
Idol, L., & Jones, B.F., (Eds.). (1990). Educational values
and cognitive instruction. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Pelgrum, W.J., & Plomp, T. (1991). The use of computers in
education worldwide. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Resnick, L.B., & Klopfer, L.E., (Eds.) (1989). Toward the
thinking curriculum: Current cognitive research. Alexandria, VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Sheingold, K., & Hadley, M. (1990). Accomplished teachers:
Integrating computers into classroom practice. New York: Center for
Technology in Education, Bank Street College of Education.
APPENDIX
Standards for the Selection of Exemplary Computer-using
Secondary Mathematics Teachers
To measure exemplary teaching practice among mathematics
teachers who use computers, a pilot index was created by scoring 13
responses that seemed likely to be related to exemplary practice.
Then, 8 more items were added that were substantially correlated
with the pilot index, either for high school teachers, middle
schools teachers, or both. The items were all questionnaire
responses concerning the teacher’s teaching practice in a
single mathematics class in which computers were used. The class
had been selected at the beginning of the questionnaire based on
the time-schedule and the teacher’s use of computers in
different classes. Specifically, the subsequent questions applied
to the first class taught on Mondays in which computers were used
at least occasionally. For the pilot index, one point was scored
for each of the following conditions:
-
If “mastery of computational
skills” was NOT one of the three most important goals for
using computers in math teaching.”
-
Similarly, if “reward for
completing other work” was NOT one of the three choices. (The
remaining six choices—“understanding numerical
relationships,” “learning to apply mathematics,”
“motivating interest in math,” “teaching about
computers,” “challenging the brightest student,”
and “remediating deficiencies of some
students.”—were all plausibly selected by exemplary
teachers and, therefore none was initially selected as a criterion:
Subsequently, though, a positive response to “learning to
apply mathematics” was selected because of its high
correlation with the pilot index.)
-
If the response concerning frequency
of use of computer use in that class was ANY of the following three
choices: “nearly every day,” “throughout the
school year, but not every day,” or “intensively, but
only for certain units.”
-
If 25% or more of the activity of
making graphs or charts of data was done using
computers.
-
Similarly, if 25% or more of the
activity of graphing equations was done using computers. (No other
application was initially selected, but four
others—“solving word problems, estimating, interpreting
graphs and charts, and solving equations or proofs—were drawn
in using the correlation rule.)
-
If students used computers for any
one content area in mathematics (out of 13 given) for five or more
days during the year.
-
If a typical student used tutorial
software six or more times during the year.
-
Similarly, if the student used
spreadsheet programs six or more times during the year.
-
Again if the student used
mathematical graphing programs six or more times during the year.
(All three other types of software inquired about in the
questionnaire—drill-and-practice, programming languages, and
word processing programs—were subsequently added to the
expanded index if the respondent indicated each was used by
students six or more times during the year.)
-
If computer activities were
identified as being only supplementary or for enrichment either
“never” or “sometimes” (and therefore not
“mostly” or “nearly always”).
-
If the computer programs used were
tools like spreadsheets or graphing programs “mostly”
or “nearly always.”
-
If computer programs were used
“mostly” or “nearly always” for
instructional programs that directly supported work done that day
in class.
-
If the teacher reported using
software “most weeks” to demonstrate a math concept or
how to solve a math problem.
Based on correlations of other responses with the pilot index
score, eight other items were added, as described under conditions
2, 5, and 9, to make an expanded index.
With the expanded index of 21 components, a score of 11 (a bare
majority of possible points) was selected as a cutoff for
considering a teacher an exemplary computer user. Actually, an
examination of the individual questionnaire booklets and the full
range of questions answered suggested that a higher cut-off would
be more accurate. However, using that more rigorous definition
would have produced only two math teachers (with scores of 16 and
17) in the exemplary category, and that small number would have
rendered it impossible to make statistical comparisons. For the
other categories of teachers (science, English, and elementary), a
bare majority cutoff seemed reasonable considering the individual
teacher responses.
Using the less rigorous initial cutoff score of 11 produces a
total of only 11 mathematics teachers out of 107 computer-using
math teachers in the survey who would be classed as exemplary. Of
those 11, 8 were high school (rather than middle or junior high)
math teachers, and the 3 middle school teachers barely classified
as exemplary, having scores of 11 and 12. Applying the sampling
weights, we estimate that, nationwide, only about 3-4% of
computer-using secondary math teachers would be classed as
exemplary users of computers for math instruction, even using the
less stringent criterion of a bare majority of possible index
points rather than the more stringent criterion of passing a
holistic judgment based on their entire set of questionnaire
responses.
Submit a Commentary
|
