LM_NET: Library Media Networking
- Subject: Change Newsletter 550 lines; Restruct
- From: Charles White <CHASWHITE@DELPHI.COM>
- Date: Sun, 3 Jul 1994 09:45:09 -0400
Date: Thu, Jun 30, 1994 1:02 PM EST
From: AECT-L@wvnvm.wvnet.edu
Subj: CHANGE Newsletter-Part 1 (550 lines)
To: CHARLIEWVT
Hello, by now you probably know that the AECT has a new division,
CHANGE. We have completed our first newletter, which follows. I highly
encourage you to read through it, but I do warn you that it is a very long
post, approximately 900 lines split between two messages. I hope you enjoy
it and find it informative.
Dean Dyer
CHANGE Communications officer-elect
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"CHANGE Connections"
Division for Systemic Change in Education's Newsletter
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volume 1, Number 1 June, 1994
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CONTENTS
1. AECT Creates New Division for Systemic Restructuring in Education
2. Systemic Change: What Is It and Why Is It Needed?
3. CHANGE Division Provides Resources Clearinghouse
4. National Teleconference Series on Systemic Change in Education Proposed
5. Sources of Funding Information and Grant-Writing Pointers
6. Internet Connections...
7. Harmony School Is Value-Driven...Is That Bad?
8. School Restructuring Consortium Creates Information Resource
9. New Elementary School Offers Three Classroom Formats
10. HSEC Combines Faculty Development, Research, Public Policy and
Teacher Education
11. Indiana Network of Total Learning: Communities
12. CHANGE Board of Directors (plus information on submitting news items
and receiving this newsletter electronically)
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| A good school is a place where I can learn easily and successfully |
| what I need and want to know. Where I will be treated with respect |
| and where I will be constantly urged, coached, and supported to be |
| as good as I can be and not constantly compared to others. Where |
| I can take risks with ideas and be allowed to fail without being |
| judged a failure. Where I can learn in ways I learn best at a pace |
| that fits me. That is my vision, as a learner, of what a 21st |
| Century School would be. |
| |
| -Howard Mehlinger |
| |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
======================================
AECT CREATES NEW DIVISION FOR SYSTEMIC RESTRUCTURING IN
EDUCATION
Are you restructuring your school? Would you like more
resources and information about systemic change, such as what
changes other schools are making, helpful videos, articles,
and tools, and effective strategies for bringing about systemic
change? If so, the CHANGE Division of AECT is an
organization that can help you.
Mission: The CHANGE Division exists to promote and
facilitate systemic change in education, to better meet learners' needs,
dramatically improve the quality of education, and enable
technology to reach its potential contribution to education
in all settings.
The Division for Systemic Change (or CHANGE Division) is
part of a national organization that brings together
practitioners and researchers from across the United States
to support each other in their efforts to facilitate systemic change in
education. Membership includes primarily: teachers,
administrators, educational policy makers, and change
experts and researchers. This organization, by virtue of
the experience and expertise of its members and their
institutions, is in an excellent position to compile the
existing knowledge about fundamental change in education and
to put it in a form that will be most helpful to
restructuring teams.
Services include a regular newsletter (electronic and/or
print) with information about upcoming events (conferences,
workshops, etc.), other restructuring schools, qualified
consultants/facilators, possible funding sources, and
articles of interest to those engaged in systemic change, a
clearinghouse of resources (electronically accessible
through Gopher as well as available as hard resources) and
information on systemic change including articles, videos, and
tools (quote library, HyperCard programs, presentation
tools), contacts and collaboration with other restructuring
schools, and the Annual AECT Conference, with its workshops,
presentations, informal meetings/discussions, and resource
and tool demonstrations.
For more information on joining The Division for Systemic
Change in Education, contact:
Charles M. Reigeluth, President
School of Education
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
(812) 856-8464
Fax: 856-8239
Internet: reigelut@indiana.edu
Alison A. Carr, President-Elect
School of Education
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI 49008
(616) 387-3835
Internet: carr@gw.wmich.edu
To apply for membership, contact: AECT, 1025 Vermont Ave.,
NW, Suite 820, Washington, DC 20005 (202) 347-7834.
=======================================
SYSTEMIC CHANGE:
WHAT IS IT AND WHY IS IT NEEDED?
by Charles M. Reigeluth
There has been much publicity about the need for systemic change in
education recently. Increasing numbers of educational leaders are
advocating it, including Ernest Boyer, John Goodlad, Theodore Sizer, Lewis
Perelman, Ann Lieberman, Albert Shanker, and Bela Banathy. But what
actually is systemic change? And why is it needed in education today?
What Is Systemic Change?
It is helpful to think in terms of two different kinds of change:
o piecemeal change, often called tinkering, which entails modifying
something (fixing a part of it), and
o systemic change, often called paradigm shift, which entails
replacing the whole thing.
Systemic change is comprehensive. It recognizes that a fundamental change
in one aspect of a system requires fundamental changes in other aspects in
order for it to be successful. In education, it must pervade all levels of
the system: classroom, building, district, community, state government, and
federal government. And it must include the nature of the learning
experiences, the instructional system that implements those learning
experiences, the administrative system that supports the instructional
system, and the governance system that governs the whole educational
system.
Such an approach to change is indeed radical, not to mention
difficult and risky. Do we really need such a radical change?
Why is Systemic Change Needed in Education?
Daniel Bell (1973), Alvin Toffler (1980), Robert Reich (1991) and
others have identified several massive changes that our society has
undergone: from the agrarian age to the industrial age, and now entering
into what some call the information age.
The dawn of the industrial age brought with it massive changes in
all of society's systems, including the family, business, and education.
In fact, that is the only time in the history of the United States that
education has undergone systemic change--from one-room schoolhouses to the
industrial, assembly-line model we have today. The current system is
substantially the same as it was when we became an industrial society. The
reforms that have been made since then have all been piecemeal changes.
The need for a new paradigm of education is based on massive
changes in both the conditions and educational needs of an information
society. Therefore, we must look at those changes in order to figure out
what features the new system should have. Table 1 shows some of the major
differences between the industrial age and the emerging information age.
These differences have important implications for the features of the new
educational system: how it should be structured, what should be taught,
and how it should be taught.
Table 1: Major Differences Between the Industrial Age and
the Information Age that Affect Education
_Industrial Age_ _Information Age_
Adversarial relationships Cooperative relationships
Bureaucratic organization Team organization
Autocratic leadership Shared leadership
Centralized control Autonomy with accountability
Autocracy Democracy
Representative democracy Participative democracy
Compliance Initiative
One-way communications Networking
Compartmentalization Holism
(Division of Labor) (Integration of tasks)
Our current system has adversarial relationships not only between
teachers and administrators, but also between teachers and students and
often between teachers and parents. Consolidated districts are highly
bureaucratic, centrally-controlled "dictatorships" in which students get no
preparation for participating in a democratic society. Leadership is
vested in individuals according to a hierarchical management structure, and
all those lower in the hierarchy are expected to obey the leader. Learning
is highly compartmentalized into subject areas. Students are treated as if
they are all the same and are all expected to do the same things at the
same time. They are also forced to be passive learners and passive members
of their school community. These features of our current system must all
change (and are indeed beginning to change), for they are
counterproductive--harmful to our citizens and our society--in the
information age.
In the industrial age we needed minimally educated people who would
be willing and able to put up with the tedium of work on the assembly
lines. However, those assembly-line jobs are rapidly becoming an
endangered species. Just as the percentage of the work force in
agriculture dropped dramatically in the early stages of the industrial age,
so the percentage in manufacturing has been declining dramatically over the
past few decades. As Robert Reich points out in The Work of Nations, even
in manufacturing companies, a majority of the jobs today entail
manipulating information rather than materials. Just as the industrial age
represented a focus on, and extension of, our physical capabilities
(mechanical technology), so the information age represents a focus on, and
extension of, our mental capabilities (intellectual technology). This
makes effective learning paramount. But, surprisingly, our current system
is not designed for learning!
Systems Thinking Applied to Learning
Two things educators know for certain are that different children
learn at different rates and different children have different learning
needs, even from their first day at school. Yet our industrial-age system
presents a fixed amount of content to a group of students in a fixed amount
of time, so it is lik|e a race in which we see who receives the A's and who
flunks out. Our current system is not designed for learning; it is
designed for selection.
To emphasize learning, the new system must no longer hold time
constant and allow achievement to vary. It must hold achievement constant
at a competency level and allow time to vary. There is no other way to
accommodate the facts that different children learn at different rates and
have different learning needs. But to have an attainment-based rather than
time-based system, we must in turn have person-based progress rather than
group-based progress. And that in turn requires changing the role of the
teacher to that of a coach or facilitator/manager, rather than that of
dispenser of knowledge to groups of students who pass by at the ring of a
bell like so many little widgets on an assembly line.
If the teacher is to be a facilitator and educational manager, then
that requires that the system be resource-based, utilizing powerful new
tools offered by advanced technology, rather than teacher-based. And it
requires much more collaboration and teamwork among students, including
cooperative learning and cross-age tutoring, rather than our traditional
view that collaboration among students equates with cheating. The
information age has not only made a new educational system necessary, but
has also made a new system possible (with its information technologies).
We now have powerful tools to facilitate learning that we did not have a
few years ago. And the power of those tools continues to increase, while
their cost continues to decline dramatically.
Hence, based on changes in the work place, the emerging picture of
the new educational system includes the changes shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Emerging Picture of Features for an Information-Age Educational
System Based on Changes in the Work Place
_Industrial Age_ _Information Age_
Grade levels Continuous progress
Covering the content Outcomes-based learning
Norm-referenced testing Individualized testing
Non-authentic assessment Performance-based assessment
Group-based content delivery Personal learning plans
Adversarial learning Cooperative learning
Classrooms Learning centers
Teacher as dispenser of Teacher as coach or facilitator
knowledge of learning
Memorization of meaningless Thinking, problem-solving
facts skills and meaning making
Isolated reading, writing skills Communication skills
Books as tools Advanced technologies as tools
Summary
When we look at the ways society is changing as we evolve deeper
into the information age, we can see definite trends in the work place, the
family, and decision-making systems. From those changes, we can identify
new features that an information-age educational system should have to meet
the needs of society. Educators should take this kind of needs-based,
systems-design approach to improving education. Without such an approach,
we will almost certainly be condemned to a system that does not meet
society's needs.
*This article was excerpted from Reigeluth, C.M. (1994). The Imperative
for Systemic Change. In C.M. Reigeluth & R.J. Garfinkle (Eds.), _Systemic_
Change_in_Education, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology
Publications.
===========================================
CHANGE DIVISION PROVIDES RESOURCES CLEARINGHOUSE
The Division for Systemic Change in Education maintains a
clearinghouse of resources helpful to systemic change. Some
resources are only available as "hard" resources, such as
videotapes and many articles and books on systemic change.
Others are available in "soft" form from our gopher server
at Florida State University. But even the hard resources
are listed on that gopher server in an annotated
bibliography. All soft resources are available free of
charge, and the hard resources are available for a nominal
fee.
The soft resources can be accessed as follows:
From gopher point your gopher to GOPHER.CET.FSU.EDU Port 70.
Go into the folder called "AECT Change Division"
From Mosaic/World Wide Web
URL "gopher://GOPHER.CET.FSU.EDU/AECT Change Division"
The hard resources can be obtained by sending a check or
purchase order to:
CHANGE Clearinghouse
Education 2276
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
If you do not have internet access to our gopher server, you
can get an annotated list of hard resources and their prices
from the same address for $5, including postage and handling.
=======================================
NATIONAL TELECONFERENCE SERIES ON SYSTEMIC CHANGE IN
EDUCATION PROPOSED
The Division for Systemic Change in Education is developing
a proposal for a National Teleconference Series on Systemic
Change in Education and accompanying resource and support
materials to be used by local restructuring teams across the
country. Their goal is to put constructive resources in the
hands of practitioners and laypeople currently or potentially
involved in restructuring education.
The proposed four teleconferences are: 1. What Systemic Change
Is and Why It Is Needed, 2. Initiating the Change Process,
3. Designing the Information-Age Educational System, and
4. Implementing a New Educational System. They will occur over a
year-and-a-half timespan and will incorporate 25 meetings
worth of activity packets. These activity packets will
build upon each other and address such topics as team-
building and involving stakeholders, understanding future
needs and necessary competencies, building an
information-age mindset, exploring the need for a long-term,
design process (as opposed to a quick fix, planning process),
designing learning experiences, exploring instructional
arrangements that could enable those learning experiences,
and developing and implementing district-specific funding
and vision plans.
There is a growing body of knowledge about fundamental
change in education. Some of this knowledge is rooted in
business. In the corporate sector, many companies have
been discovering that the global, post-industrial,
information age is requiring them to make fundamental
changes to meet the changing needs of their customers. Some
of the knowledge comes out of systems theory and practice.
And some of the knowledge comes out of trial and error in
the educational arena. Currently knowledge from these
three areas is difficult for restructuring teams to find
because it is fragmented and dispersed among many
publications, and it is difficult for them to use because
it is not written specifically for education practitioners.
However, all three of these areas--corporate restructuring,
systems theory, and educational practice--provide insights
that can greatly help a restructuring team. The challenge
is to put that knowledge in a form that is most useful to
restructuring teams and then to disseminate that guidance
widely. Some work has begun along these lines. For
example, the current president of the Division for Systemic
Change, Charles Reigeluth, founded the Indiana University
Restructuring Support Service two years ago. This Service
has been synthesizing those sources into guidance for the
process of systemic change and has been providing
facilitators to restructuring teams in Indiana to help them
use and improve that guidance. However, the guidance
developed to date is in a form for an experienced process
facilitator to use. It is not in the form of activity
packets and videos that a restructuring team can use without
such a facilitator. Yet most restructuring teams are not in
a position to hire an experienced facilitator.
The Restructuring Support Service has found two major
considerations to be helpful to a restructuring team. One
is gaining the capability to work effectively as a team.
This often already difficult task is made even more
difficult if the team is large or is convened and led by a
person of authority, such as the principal or
superintendent. Therefore, guidance is needed about
team formation, team facilitation, and the use of
group-process skills. A second consideration is gaining the
understanding that a systemic change process is a journey in
which some activities must be performed in a certain order
(e.g., preparation before departure), some must be revisited
periodically (e.g., maintenance and refueling), and others
must be attended to continuously (e.g., monitoring for
obstacles in the roadway ahead and monitoring the current
location in relation to the short-term and long-term
destinations). Therefore, guidance is needed about what
must be done for each of these three types of activities.
The proposed program will encompass three main phases of
activity: initiation of the change effort, design of the
new system, and implementation of the new design. The
initiation phase will focus on three main concerns:
building sufficient motivation to maintain the change
effort, developing a mindset/culture for systemic change,
and building the involvement and ownership of a broad range
of stakeholders. The design phase will focus on reaching
consensus on values about education, designing the kinds of
learning environments and instructional support that will
best meet learners' needs, and bringing about changes on the
administrative and governance levels that are necessary for
the learning environments to operate best. The
implementation phase will focus on developing an incremental
approach to bring about fundamental change, and the
strategic planning necessary to carrying it out.
The proposed program will begin with a national video
teleconference to increase awareness of the Restructuring
Support System. Three additional teleconferences will be
held at key milestones in the change process to share
progress and motivate the teams. Finally, there will be
several internet resources available to participating teams,
including, electronic mail, electronic bulletin boards, and
gopher/mosaic servers, to foster the formation of support
groups and sharing of ideas and experiences.
Although the video teleconferences will be beneficial for
introducing and initiating the support system, they are not
a necessary component. In fact, the support system will be
available to additional schools and communities any time
after the initial offering. Sales of the support system
will be used to collect data from the users to continually
improve the system for future users.
The CHANGE Division is looking for individuals and organizations
interested in helping to create this valuable resource to help those
interested in systemic change. If you are interested or would like
more information, contact:
Charles M. Reigeluth, President
School of Education
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
(812) 856-8464
Fax: 856-8239
Internet: reigelut@indiana.edu
===========================================
SOURCES OF FUNDING INFORMATION:
A GUIDE TO FEDERAL FUNDING FOR EDUCATION, LIBRARIES AND
OTHER INSTITUTIONAL PROGRAMS
Federal Resources Advisory Service
Association of American Colleges
1818 R Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
THE FOUNDATION DIRECTORY
The Foundation Center
888 7th Ave.
New York, NY 10019
ANNUAL REGISTER OF GRANT SUPPORT
Marquis Academic Media
Marquis Who's Who, Inc.
200 E. Ohio Street
Chicago, IL 60611
GRANT-WRITING POINTERS:
When writing a grant, carefully read through and understand
the scope of the RFP (request for proposal), making sure
that your proposal CLEARLY matches the scope of the grant.
Generally, the more people impacted by the grant the better.
Highlight infrastructure and support systems that are
already in place. Highlight in-kind contributions that you
and your coworkers and your institution will make.
Highlight successes. Write the proposal as if you were
writing a resume--let them KNOW how good you are. Remember
that you are competing against many others. Use wording
which conveys conviction and confidence: Don't say, "We
want to do such and such with this grant money"; Instead
say, "We ARE currently doing such and such, and we WILL do
such and such with this grant money". Finally, remember
that very few first time grant writers' proposals succeed on
the first try. If your proposal is rejected, seek others'
input, revise it, and submit it again. Good luck!
A winning grant:
* shows importance, addresses a legitimate need
* states explicitly what you are going to do
* is well written in clear English
* follows points in the RFP exactly
For more information, contact:
Sharon Gray, Communications Officer
University of South Dakota
414 East Clark
Vermillion, SD 57069
(605) 677-5330
FAX: (605) 677-6518
Internet: sgray@charlie.usd.edu
================================
INTERNET CONNECTIONS...
Each issue, this section will be devoted to sharing
information on resources available through the Internet,
such as discussion lists, FTP sites, Gopher resources,
journals, books and newsletters available online. Please
send comments, additions, and questions to Sharon Gray
(sgray@Charlie.usd.edu).
Discussion Lists:
This following is drawn from the BITNET List of Lists
available from Listserv@uga.cc.uga.edu. I make no claims
whatsoever about these discussion lists' content or
applicability other than their titles sound like they have
something to do with systemic change in education! I've
noted the discussion list names, the addresses (which
happen to all be bitnet addresses--if you have trouble
accessing them, contact me and I'll try to help you get
connected) and their main topic of discussion. Good luck,
and let me know which ones pan out!
CL-NEWS CL_NEWS@IUBVM News on Teaching with
Collaborative Learning
EDTECPOL EDTECPOL@UMDD Conference on Educational
Technology Policy
EDTECH EDTECH@MSU EDTECH Educational Technology
EDNETNY EDNETNY@SUVM Educational Development Network
of NY
EDPOLYAN EDPOLYAN@ASUACAD Education Policy Analysis
Forum
EDSTYLE EDSTYLE@SJUVM The Learning Styles Theory and
Research List
EDUCATIONAL-R ERL-L@ASUACAD Educational Research List
EDUPAGE EDUPAGE@BITNIC EDUCOM EDUPAGE List
EDUTEL EDUTEL@RPITSVM Educational and Information
Technologies
EMD569-L EMD569-L@NMSUVM1 Educational Management and
Development
SYSCI-L SYSCI-L@UOTTAWA System Science Discussion List
For more information, contact:
Sharon Gray, Communications Officer
University of South Dakota
414 East Clark
Vermillion, SD 57069
(605) 677-5330
FAX: (605) 677-6518
Internet: sgray@charlie.usd.edu
========================================
GOODMAN SAYS HARMONY SCHOOL IS VALUE-DRIVEN... IS THAT BAD?
>From IU News Bureau
Bloomington, Ind. -- After Indiana University education
Professor Jesse Goodman had immersed himself in an
innovative, independent school he wrote "Elementary
Schooling for Critical Democracy." The book called on
schools to emphasize community ties and democratic values,
rather than to mirror a society caught up in individualistic
material gain.
"Then I started thinking that it's too bad that educators at
Harmony School, where I spent a year and learned so much,
were not involved in discussions with other educators and
policy makers about education," Goodman recalled. He decided
to approach the leaders of Harmony School, a 19-year-old
independent school in Bloomington that emphasizes student
responsibility and community participation, with an idea to
form a consortium.
Goodman's notion was that there would be tremendous energy
for reform unleashed if public and independent school
teachers, administrators, parents, students and policy
makers entered into a conversation about meaningful changes.
Thus, the Harmony School Education Center was created to be
a catalyst for, and to provide a place for, school reform
discussions among teachers, administrators, policy makers
and researchers. Although working closely with IU, the
center is based at Harmony School rather than at the
university.
The vision Harmony Center offers differs from other reform
efforts that are largely value-neutral, such as technology-
driven school reform. "We do not believe reforming schools
can occur in a neutral way," Goodman said. "All efforts to
reform schools reflect social or pedagogical values, either
overtly or covertly." Goodman added, "The ideal we're
working toward is the reform of schools that will create a
more caring and democratic society." "Unfortunately," he
said, "those values have been largely ignored in popular
school reform discourse. We are trying to interject another
voice that stresses democracy in the discussion."
(Source: School Restructuring Consortium, 10-93)
==========================================
SCHOOL RESTRUCTURING CONSORTIUM CREATES INFORMATION RESOURCE
The School Restructuring Consortium (SRC), dedicated to
facilitating systemic change in education, has met the
challenge of bringing education into the information age
with the creation of the SRCHeadlines to help educators
connect and collaborate for the goal of preparing learners
for the 21st Century. You are invited to submit 20-line
items that share your current restructuring research or
activities, significant news items, or even a letter-to-
the-editor opinion on hot topics. (Remember to include all
the essential citation elements, such as your name, etc.)
Some editing may occur in the interest of space and
propriety. Full-length versions of the submitted stories
are kept on file as a resource for the members.
To make a contribution to SRCHeadlines or to subscribe to it, contact
brownld@indiana.edu
======================================
NEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL OFFERS THREE CLASSROOM FORMATS
>From News Release by Principal David Frye
Clear Creek Elementary serves the southern fringe of
Bloomington and the south central portion of Monroe County
in a new building which opened in 1990. Clear Creek classes
are organized in three formats:
(1) Multi-age classrooms where children remain in a stable
instructional environment with the same teacher and
classmates for three years. All multi-age classrooms
are performance-based instructional programs.
(2) Same age, two-year primary classrooms offering a
two-year primary program for children in their first
two years of school. Children enter the two-year
primary as first year students, remain with the same
classmates and teacher through the end of the second
year of school.
(3) Same-age, self-contained classrooms grades 1-6 where
children enter the class in the Fall and remain with
the same classmates and teacher throughout the year.
Children then are re-assigned to another teacher and
group of children for the following school year.
The staff believe in teaching toward a child's strengths and
providing extra support in areas of weakness. The schools'
purpose is to provide for all students a warm and supportive
environment and appropriate educational experiences which
will prepare children intellectually, socially, emotionally
and physically for a lifetime of continuous growing and
learning.
Their immediate goal is to build stronger family/school
connections and to develop an instructional program which
has clarity and consistency throughout the age levels of the
school. (Source: School Restructuring Consortium, 10-93)
For information about submitting news items for inclusion in this newsletter
or about being put on the electronic mailing list to receive this
newsletter, contact:
Sharon Gray, Communications Officer
University of South Dakota
414 East Clark
Vermillion, SD 57069
(605) 677-5330
FAX: (605) 677-6518
Internet: sgray@charlie.usd.edu
Dean Dyer
dyer72@potsdam.edu
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