Defining the EdGrid Vision
Focus Group Summary
May 30, 2001
Following is a summary of the May 30, 2001 Defining the EdGrid Vision focus group. Participants included those involved with EdGrid projects across the country, either as teachers or administrators. All quotes are from focus group participants and are ntoed in italics.
The following themes emerged from the discussion of a vision for EdGrid:
II. Value-Added Nature of Technology
“As far as funding, EdGrid is PT3.” However, Ed Grid is broader and involves other collaborations and relationships, including PACI. Sustaining the efforts can be difficult. As one participant noted, “we have to work up and down and sideways.”
EdGrid’s primary purpose is “to incorporate computational science, modeling and visualization into pre-service education . . . [using] technology, modeling, visualization and a number of other things.”
“The essence of the grant is to increase the use of physical models. The essence is to promote modeling and visualization and inquiry.”
Ways the Vision Is Actualized:
The vision was described both in terms of courses using technology such as a high-school genetics class or the use of the GalaxSee software in a community college astronomy course as well as an overarching philosophy of education. Various respondents struggled with the concept of what good teaching looks like. The following comments reflect beliefs about teaching and learning which reflect the EdGrid vision:
- “What we help future teachers construct is a rich environment”
- “We provide a motivation for students to learn and make connections.”
- “Is the goal to get students involved in inquiry?” asked one participant.
- “Whose inquiry?” asked another. “Is inquiry about what students are interested in?”
However, the reality of teaching is that the teacher presents students with “what they learned and are as yet unfamiliar with,” so the learning cannot always be totally student-driven.
- “What is it that we should be visualizing? Models [that already exist]? Or should technology lead the way -- to visualize things we could not do before?”
Another comment reflected the role of teacher and student and how the student goes on to become the teacher:
- “I can teach them how to construct models. I am going to trust them to make the models with their students.”
- “Let technology be the tutor for the content and student/teacher be the agent for decision-making.”
II. Value-Added Nature of Technology
The participants generally believed that the use of visualization and modeling technologies could enhance education:
- “Technology can empower students to be self-learners.”
- “If they are going to teach differently and learn differently, they have got to model learning with technology.”
Technology allows students to use the tools of science.
- “We want students to see how science is being done. We don’t want them to learn science the way we did.”
- This scientific approach to inquiry “requires active engagement and trial and error, revise and try again.”
Technology allows us to do things difficult to do otherwise:
- “Some things are impossible to model in real situations.”
- “Non-math teachers have trouble using math models.” Technology enhances the ability to do abstract math.
- “Math teachers learn theoretical math and not how to use it. [Use of technology like STELLA] can show how it is applied to biology, chemistry, physics.”
However, technology does not always enhance learning, as noted by other participant comments:
- “I can imagine two scenarios – one in which the professor uses Power Point and Stella models and runs it through the overhead and yet he/she is using technology. Another professor uses technology very little, but incorporating hands-on activities. For me the use of technology is not the same as teaching.”
- The use of technology is “not a dichotomy but a continuum. [We need to ask] does technology help us teach better”
As one respondent put it,
- “I am allergic to using technology for technology’s sake.”
Focus group participants suggested that teacher need to adopt new teaching strategies if their students are to learn new ways of teaching.
- “Students use transparencies and talk to students – where did they learn it? From their teachers!”
- “One student said ‘if I hear one more lecture on cooperative learning…’
Often times we are guilty of lecturing them about other ways to teach. This is not good. It is incumbent upon us to immerse them in activities that we want them to use by modeling.”
- “We are preaching one thing and teaching another way.”
- “I am learning approaches that take a radical approach to teach students how to teach radically different content.”
- “If I cannot walk the walk, I won’t talk the talk…”
IV. Problems with Technology Integration
Respondents identified three areas that can create problems for technology integration:
1. Focus on Specific Tools:
- “The danger is that technology changes,” which means we must teach ways of thinking that transcend a particular technology.
- “We have to be careful that we don’t think about using only STELLA.”
- “There is a difference using tools as a model vs. tools as a simulation.”
2.Limited Resources in Schools:
- “Students ask ‘How do I put inquiry into my classroom based upon where I will teach and what is available there?’”
3. Technologies Can Be Difficult to Learn:
- “We have been hearing this morning—‘let’s teach them to do modeling’ [However, it] takes them a long time to learn it and do it well. Teachers have backed away from [using software like STELLA] because it is so difficult to use.”
V. Different Visions of Technology Integration:
The discussion identified four different ways to look at technology integration:
- Teacher-focused: Use of technology for technology’s sake
- Teacher-focused: Focus on inquiry-based learning without technology
- Student-focused: Students shape the learning experience
- K-12 focused: “what the school community will tolerate”
Participants identified several levels of using modeling with different levels of complexity: use computer projector; look at graphics and model of populations; manipulate the model, but not the code; change the code with teacher direction; develop their own models.
There was some discussion about the relative value of using existing models versus having student construct their own models.
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“Some say, students must be building a model for themselves—that’s what this is about.”
However, the student ability to create models depends in part on their own abilities and comfort level with the process. Even if they aren’t initially able to build their won models, respondents saw this as a process:
- “I think there is a qualitative jump from teacher demos at the projector; more interaction “what do you think”; interactive, but going on to where the students control; teacher has control then you have to think about what is a model; i.e. computational more of a jump from teacher-centered on content; to student-centered on content; to student-centered on model
- “Maybe the next time they will go to next level. The idea is to go beyond a little bit.”
