| Project | Problem-Based Learning and Collaboration (PBLC) |
| Contact | Beau Fly Jones |
| bjones@osc.edu | |
| URL | http:/www.enc.org/pblc/ |
| Project description | I have two projects that I will describe, one that I am not currently involved with but offers some insight into professional development and work with schools. This was the work on problem-based learning with the Ohio SchoolNet. The second is being the lead person for K-12 teams for NCSA's Alliance initiative. Both are relevant to what I would like to do in the future with some stellar project opportunties. First the problem-bsed learning project (PBL): Last year I worked with 14 K-12 teams to do PBL implementations and case studies as it was defined in Transformations (Jones, Rasmussen & Moffitt, 1996). The teachers mostly did technology education projects teaching community members such as the elderly how to use basic technologies, but there were some mathematics and science projects. Much of the focus was on co-developing VERY rich and personal case studies about their experiences. We also had a third party survey conducted to assess changes in teacher beliefs and practices as self -reported by the team of teachers, their principal, and technology coordinators. Also, a lot of time was spent trying to develop a website collaboratively working with students across the state. Although the old website had much to offer teachers, overall, it was not particularly successful. Although the students were good in developing web pages, only a few of them had good graphic skills, and we ran into all sorts of problems about server security in one of our sites with problems of supervision in other sites. We had a really good architectural design that would still be appropriate for any other k-12 projects, but we could not use it because of these problems. Currently, SchoolNet is taking this project in a very new direction to support a model of instruction that focuses on lessons, rather than collaborative projects, a move that I am not involved with. So now I am in the midst of reconceptualizing the PBL process based on my involvement with the teachers last year. I have started a brand new website but am hesitant to list it because it is so much under construction but I have (see below). More importantly, the case studies and indepth end of year survey reveal widespread and deep changes in teacher beliefs and practice. Thus, while there are no systematic data on student performance, there was such rich anecdotal data regarding changes in student beleif and performance that I want to continue work with the model. The second project with the Alliance only just began officially in October, and NSF is asking us (the education component of the Alliance) to merge with the UCSD education supercomputing initiative over the next year, so it is somewhat of a moving target at the moment. However, I am working with some stellar teams that have both curriculum materials and/or tools for student learning and professional development resources.Especially relevant to you is the Image Processing for Teaching program developed by the Lunar Planetary Lab, Arizona State Univ. IPT uses NIH Imaging and has over the past 5 years developed front end materials and software overlay for teachers K-12. Many of the vast library of activities use real data such as Xrays and digitized images from real science and are focused on teaching teachers how to use the tools at different levels of expertise. This tool is very versatile including density slice tool, immediate conversions from topographical data to two dimensional graphics, much of the image processing that is available through a Photo Shoplike software to enhance and embellish phtographic images, construction of whole images from digitized fragments of archeological artifacacts, and so on. It is really easy to learn, is available in Mac and PC formats, and the group has 3,000 + trained teachers. Currently, IPT is developing some curriculum applications such as biomedical and environmental hydrology in collaboration with Alliance application teams. There are also stellar professional development capabilities for more serious computational science modelling and simulations at Maryland Virtual High School which uses Stella pretty much exclusively, and the ASPIRE program in Huntsville, Alabama which uses a variety of computational science tools and project materials. Then there is the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse which has developed a terrific tool for evaluating software programs by my colleage Todd Fennimore. Finally, there is a host of players from the Alliance and a national network of teachers who use high end technology and computational science. |
| Theoretical background | My background is cognitive science and collaborative learning technologies. I have some expertise in web-based technologies in my work at NCREL, Ohio Supercomputer Center, and NCSA. I also have quite a bit of expertise in video production through several series of national video teleconferences I did to bring important constructist research to schools.Research that influenced the development of PBL and PBLC was heavily based on Bereiter and Scardamalia (especially Surpassing Ourseves. However, I have long been influenced by --Palincsar and Ogle in reading with whom I have 2-3 publications on strategic teaching and cognitive instruction as co-editors; also Dick Anderson, David Pearson, and Scott Paris reading and assessment; --also in assessmesnt Herman and Wiggans; --in mathematics, Alan Schoenfeld; Laruen Resnick and Vicki Bill at LRDC; Tom Romberg, Tom Carpenter, and Sue Gehn, teacher, involved in Cognitively Guided Instruction at U/Wisconsin at Madison; the Algebra project--in science Andy Anderson and some folks at LRDC; --John Bruer and early work of metacognition by Brown and Campione; --skills and content debate: some of the situated learning and cognitive apprenticeship proponents such as Alan Collins; John Bruer; David Perkins; John Bransford and his colleagues; Claire Weinstein, and some of the military research on memory and learning; --Caine & Caine as well as Sylwester on brain research; --Tom Duffy and others on the technology of text. I am primarily a developer of curriculum materials and models/approaches for k-12 teachers and most of my research has focused on very extensive field testing of materials and the case studies and survey referred to above as well as other case studies already published: Transformations: High School Reform to Promote Student Achievement (Jones, Rasmussen, & Moffitt, 1996) and Real Life Problem Sovling for elementary teachers and students (Jones, Rasmussen, & Moffitt, 1996).For technology; I would refer primarily to Scardamalia and Berieter; Bransford et al; Collins; CoVis group; Barbara Means; Bev Hunter and Alan Collins; and others focusing on learning and technology. The model I developed here was Plugging In: Choosing and Using Educational Reform and the research foundation underlying it: Designing Learning and Technology for Educational Reform. |
| Challenges | Theoretically, I am struggling to develop the concept of the NCSA superweb (a term I invented) with Raul Zaritsky. We are revising our first draft now. We believe that KIE is a premier example of a superweb and I would like to learn from KIE.Pragmatically, I want to focus on authentic learning environments. This need arises from my research last year with teachers and policy work on SchoolNet distance learning projects. In particular, I would like to develop resources for teachers that apply some of the results of the TIMSS report to authentic learning environments using PBLC and various technology tools that I have access to through NCSA and OSC here in Ohio. I believe that if those of us who develop learning and technology do not do it with a focus on national and/or state testing, it is ultimately doomed to be an extra- curricular or supplementary activity. Toward these ends, I have found two really stunning resources that have need for outreach locally and nationally, and I would like to develop the partnership with NCSA and other agencies which could provide additional resources (see below).Specifially, I have access to one of the world's premier resources for cognitive research on primates here at OSU. Sally Boysen, Director, is doing fantastic things with teaching chimps basic principles of learning in math, representational and reasoning skills, and language. And I can see lots of math, science, and technology units for students focused around this work. It would be fantastic for students to apply principles of mathematics and learning to understand chimp biological functioning and cognitive development as compared to humans, using technology as a communication tool. Moreover, this work brings both ethical and scientific issues to students in terms of genetics, "designer genes," kloning, and cross-speciies diseases spread to humans by primates such as ebola. Boysen has important print and web resources for older students especially and has some capacity for inkind person time in one of her assistants. The other emerging project opportunity is to use various tools at Wright Patterson Air Forces Base including especially a mobile Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The primary education outreach group there has other incredible tools that teach biofeedback to pilots to fly planes without using their hands, research on how snakes see with infrared, and a large focus on materials use and development that bring up rich issues and scientific principles. They are just beginning an outreach program that will be on the web this spring. They have some limited resources to help kids prepare slides for the SEM and assist them in their use.I can see strong linkages of both projects to using tools and resources at NCSA, particularly Tango developed at Syracuse by Geoffrey Fox. This is a collaborative real time tool somewhat like Habanero but without all of the bugs. More importantly, it has an avatar-based chat (in addition to a text-based chat) that I believe would be very powerful as a tool for teachers and kids --both for collaboration and metacognition, and even assessment. Additionally, I have some ideas for graphical environments for learning and exhibitions. Fox is one of the lead persons for NCSA's Education, Training, and Outreachs and is quite interested in collaborating with us the K-12 group that I lead for NCSA's Alliance.Finally, I believe that the teams that I work with would readily link to your initiatives. |
| Partnership | I am looking for a partner or partners who would 1) help us develop the superweb concept2) co-develop Tango with us to be a collaboratiave tool for K-12 and offer sustained projects for K-12 that would provide distance learning that would be on the one hand be constructivists and involve knowledge building but, on the other, also incorporate the kinds of skills needed for standardized tests and the TIMSS3) co-develop curriculum projects with the Alliance teacher teams, hopefully using the two authentic learning resources listed above (the primate center and the Air Force Base). I believe that these are significant and quality opportuntiies. These projects are too emergent to be clear about partnership needs, but would have the dual focus on high level content and tools without sacrificing basic (fundamental) skills; that is the skills would be highly contextualized in sustained collaborative projects with authentic and hopefully public, performance-based assessment and debriefing to make the learning explicit and so on. 4) work with IPT, ASPIRE, and Maryland Virtual High School to co-develop some curriculum materials focusing on Alliance tools5) extend as co-developers the Eisenhower software evaluation protocol to web-based projects and programs offering curriculum projects to K-12. (It now covers regularl software applications available from vendors, but will this year probably extend to resource materials such as encyclopedias and maybe some collalborative tools, and ILSs). The co-development process offered by Fennimore was uniformly THE highest evaluation I have ever seen teachers give to a program. Clearly some of these options are not meant to be mutually exclusive! Beau Jones |