SO MUCH HIGH-TECH MONEY INVESTED, SO LITTLE USE: HOW COME?
Dr. Larry Cuban
The facts are clear. Two decades after the introduction of personal computers in the nation, with more and more schools being wired, and billions of dollars being spent, less than two of every ten teachers are serious users of computers in their classrooms (several times a week). Three to four are occasional users (about once a month). The rest--four to five teachers of every ten teachers--never use the machines for instruction. When the type of use is examined, these powerful technologies end up being used most often for word processing and low-end applications in classrooms that maintain rather than alter existing teaching practices. After all the machines, money, and promises the results are meager.
There are, of course, tech-wizard teachers who have mastered high-end software to create multimedia projects that push learning and teaching beyond the twilight zone. There are also many teachers using information technologies who have dramatically changed from mostly teacher-centered practices in their classroom to student-centered ones. But these teachers including the tech-wizards are a tiny fraction of the teaching corps.
For hard-core techno-enthusiastic policy makers, the answer to limited classroom use and continuing traditional instruction is simple: look no further than the teachers. Their lack of preparation in universities, their lack of training, insufficient time to learn, too many older teachers, technophobia, etc., etc. When I and my colleagues interviewed kindergarten, high school, and university teachers and shadowed students from class to class in California’s Silicon Valley few of these reasons carried weight. Although some of these reasons surely have some merit in explaining this phenomenon of infrequent and low-level uses of computers as accessibility has increased, they are too simplistic and ignore a few seldom-noted facts that clearly emerged from our research.
FACT: Almost eight out of ten public school teachers have computers at home and use the machines to prepare lessons, communicate with colleagues and friends, search the Internet, and conduct personal business.
FACT: Most teachers use computers at home far more than at school.
FACT: Both at home and at school, older as well as younger teachers are serious and occasional users.
FACT: Most teachers believe that computers in school improve both teaching and learning.
CONCLUSION: There are few technophobes among the majority of public school teachers who use computers at home and school.
The question is: with so much money invested in wiring schools, buying hardware, and constantly upgrading software across the country in the hope of transforming teaching and learning why are the majority of public school teachers serious home-users but at school infrequent classroom users? Furthermore, when teachers do use technologies in their classrooms, why does their use tend to sustain rather than alter existing teaching practices?
To answer these questions and broaden the debate over using new technologies in schools, I offer reasons that neither Presidents Bill Clinton or George W. Bush and promoters Bill Gates or Michael Dell and other cheerleaders for technology in schools seldom mention. Schools have intractable working conditions, external groups make constant demands upon teachers, and the technology is inherently unreliable. Combined together, these reasons offer a seldom-heard explanation that would account for much teacher use of computers at home, less in classrooms, and the maintaining of customary teaching practices.
Let's imagine an average high school math teacher in Newton South, Boston Latin, or in the heart of the Silicon Valley who is eager to help her students learn. She has taken courses on using software applications that the district offers. She bought a computer and uses it at home extensively to prepare lessons, record grades, and search the Internet for lessons that she could use in her classes. She is enthusiastic about using computers with students. She has listened to the experts--she remembers when experts advised all teachers to get their students to use BASIC language, one that is no longer used--but since expert advice keeps changing she has hesitated in following their wisdom of the moment. What troubles her far more about using computers in her classroom goes well beyond the experts' contradictions.
INTRACTABLE WORKPLACE CONDITIONS
Although information technologies have transformed most corporate workplaces, our teacher's schedule and working conditions have changed very little. She teaches five classes a day, each 50 minutes long. Her five classes contain at least three different preparations. She has two classes of Introductory Algebra, two of Geometry, and one Calculus class. In those five classes, she sees 140 students a day. She has one period a day set aside for planning lessons, seeing students, marking papers, making phone calls to parents or vendors, previewing videos, securing a VCR or other equipment, and using the school's copy machines for producing student materials. Our math teacher, like most of her colleagues elsewhere is a very busy person who could use rollerblades as she tries to meet all of her obligations.EXTERNAL DEMANDS
In addition to these daily tasks, our math teacher is expected to know the subject inside and out; she is expected to maintain order in their classrooms; she is expected to be both friendly and demanding of each and every student; finally, with higher academic standards and the mandate to take tests that can spell the difference between graduating high school or staying in school longer, she is held accountable for her students doing well on high-stakes tests. So teaching high school, besides knowing one's subject-matter thoroughly, requires the grit of a long-distance runner, the stamina of a boxer going 15-rounds, the temperament of a juggler, and the street-smarts of a three-card monte dealer.
UNRELIABLE TECHNOLOGIES
And infinite patience. Ask even the most dedicated teacher users how often these machines and their software break down. Most schools can't afford on-site technical support. When they do have coordinators and eager students who troubleshoot problems and do the repairs, there are still software glitches and servers that crash torpedoing teacher lessons repeatedly. Then new software and upgraded ones require more memory and speed from machines that are sorely limited in their capacity. More breakdowns; more pulled hair. These caring and techno-enthusiastic teachers such as our math teacher ask: what did I do to deserve this?WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Popular remedies for limited and unimaginative use of computers for classroom instruction--more preparation in teacher education, more inservice training, and technical support--are largely inadequate and mismatched to the underlying problems that determine classroom usage of computers. Although helpful for a fraction of teachers, these solutions fundamentally miss the larger problems that account for large percentages of teachers being non-users in their classrooms but heavy users at home. And for those teachers who are serious technology consumers, the very same fashionable remedies don't even come close to dealing with the issue of why teachers end up using new technologies to sustain old teaching practices.What about stop buying and using computers for classroom instruction? The cease-and-desist strategy toward using computers for teaching and learning has already been recommended for early childhood programs. Last year, The Alliance for Childhood called for a moratorium on purchasing of new computers for preschoolers and primary children (except for those students with disabilities) because of the lack of information on the short- and long-term costs and benefits, particularly in health and safety, for children under the age of 7. Critics of classroom computer use for older students have pointed out that there is no body of evidence that clearly links student use of new technologies to increased academic achievement, job preparation, or any other major purpose of public schooling. Skeptics openly worry that all of the monies spent on wiring schools, replacing existing computers as technological innovations outstrip budgeted funds, and increasing technical support staff to help teachers could be better spent on reducing class size, expanding preschool programs, and attracting qualified teachers.
Yet chances of a general moratorium on buying and using computers for instruction are unlikely for no other reason than the pervasiveness of technology in the workplace and the prevailing belief held by parents, practitioners, and policy makers that the New Economy is the future for each and every child. What could alter even that dominant mind-set would be an economic recession. Such a downturn would decrease funding for public schools and thereby drastically slow down the purchase and use of new technologies for classrooms. Short of an economic decline, critics need to have a far stronger arsenal at their command for the cease-and-desist alternative to become a viable policy alternative.
Another approach aimed at state and federal officials is both modest and incremental.
*Establish federal and state standards for hardware and software vendors who sell their products to schools. At least one standard would require data on actual use with teachers and students listing the strengths and flaws of the materials and machines.
*State and federal funds be provided for schools to hire technicians at each site who would respond to teacher requests for help in using and fixing equipment. General industry guidelines recommend one technician for every 50 workstations.
*State departments of education develop a corps of teachers, not external consultants, to teach other teachers about integrating technologies into their classrooms. After two decades, there is sufficient expertise within most districts to hire teacher-wizards to conduct training for their colleagues.
Yet even these short-term proposals would still miss the intractable workplace conditions which help explain why most teachers remain infrequent users and seldom alter existing practices. For those reformers who are determined to get teachers to use computers extensively in classrooms and to alter traditional teaching practices they would need to prod federal, state, and district policy makers to:
*Reduce class size to 20 students in a class, and to 15 in high-poverty areas.
*Decrease the current teaching load of secondary school teachers from five classes a day to four and increase the time for teaching from 50-minute periods to 100-minute periods.
From where would monies come to underwrite these expensive recommendations?
1. Federal and state officials reorganize existing coalitions of private and public partnerships and begin new ones to find funding sources of monies, equipment, wiring, and advanced technologies that would be invested annually in public schools. Monies could come from state utilities contributing to a technology fund for schools; targeted grant programs by corporations and foundations; state taxes on videocassettes, software, computers and peripherals; and a surcharge on telecommunication users.
2. President and Congress provide categorical funds to pay for developing software, designing innovative uses of information technologies in classrooms, and underwriting the costly reductions in class sizes and changes in time schedules.
3. State funds be directed specifically toward class size reduction and decreasing teaching loads in secondary schools.
Although bits and pieces of these items have appeared on federal and state policy makers’ agendas, an alternative calling for serious governmental intervention and funding appears unlikely in the current political climate. The historical pattern has been for incremental changes to be made at the margins of a problem rather than grasping the core of the issue.
Perhaps it is now time to recognize that getting teachers to integrate technology into daily teaching and learning is more than UPS delivering machines to the schoolhouse door; it is more than having workshops for teachers or pressing universities to change their teacher education programs. Important as such measures are, in the larger picture of why teachers are infrequent users of classroom technologies, these actions divert attention away from deeper causes for teacher behavior. Making changes in what teachers do in their classrooms requires paying attention to the daily workplace conditions and constant external demands, and the inherent unreliability of the innovations themselves. It is very expensive. It takes time. And it won't be popular with technology vendors. However, if promoters of school reform who see new technologies as the bulldozers to begin building a road toward a Mecca of teaching and learning are serious, then far more than filling potholes and patching cracks on the way there will be required. Thus far, few cheerleaders for technology in classrooms want to go down that bumpy road. Maybe they should.