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Schools -- unlike the business world -- tend to think of technology
not as a catalyst for change but as a threat to the status quo.
Traditionally, the school's mission has been to pass along facts
to students -- a practice that hardly prepares them for the lifelong
learning the Information Age requires. If our schools are to retain
any real importance in the new century, they will have to internalize
new technologies and expand the capacity to use technology to
improve teaching and learning.
In other words, schools will have to learn what successful corporations
already know: Learn, create, and improve -- or disappear.
Of course, schools are not minibusinesses subject to the rules
of Wall Street. Given the obvious structural and political differences
between a billion-dollar, multinational corporation and a local
school district, it wouldn't make sense for the district to simply
copy the corporation's successful business techniques. However,
certain fundamental principles and norms of the corporate world
have created a "change culture" that uses technology to monitor
and improve productivity over the long term. The challenge for
schools is to translate these principles and norms in meaningful
ways that enculturate educators into what Peter Senge has called
a "learningful" organization.
In my own high school social studies classes, I have created
Internet-based learning activities that embody and demonstrate
some of these principles. Here are three of them.
Principle 1: Begin by examining your
mental models
Mental models are deeply held internal images of how the world
works, familiar ways of thinking and acting. Often, new insights
and practices are never put into practice because they conflict
with our perception of how the world ought to work.
The U.S. automobile industry is a case in point. For decades,
the Big Three of Detroit believed people bought cars on the basis
of styling -- not quality or reliability. German and Japanese
automakers slowly educated American consumers about the benefits
of quality and reliability, however, while dramatically increasing
their share of the U.S. market. To remain competitive, automakers
in Detroit had to not only change their mental models, but, in
the process, redefine their focus from "making money" to "making
cars."
Similarly, educators need to redefine the traditional mental
model of what constitutes good teaching. In a culture in which
the information that is relevant today is obsolete tomorrow, students
need to learn how to learn -- not what to learn.
They need to be taught how to think -- not what
to think.
My Internet lesson "High
Quality CDs" was designed to be the antithesis of the usual
mental model of teaching. It is an active, collaborative activity
in which students analyze and prioritize data, enter the data
into a spreadsheet, and explain and justify their conclusions
to the rest of the class. Nothing is to be memorized, and there
is no exam. The final conclusion is less important than the process
of reaching it.
The activity poses a challenging scenario: High Quality CDs,
Inc., a rapidly growing producer of master CDs and laser disks,
has decided to build a factory outside the United States, and
two possible sites have been identified. The student's job is
to review a wealth of information that is provided about each
site and recommend one site to the company's board of directors.
To arrive at a recommendation, students must analyze data that
involve a number of considerations, including labor, geography,
environment, politics, education, technology, population, taxation,
and copyright laws. What makes one location more desirable than
another location? Is moving a business simply a case of seeking
the poorest nation in the world and paying the lowest wages so
that profits are maximized?
What factors should corporate leaders consider when contemplating
moving a business or a factory to another nation? Obviously, wages
and proximity to market are prime considerations. But what are
the other considerations? And how important is each factor relative
to the others? For example, is climate more important than the
topography of an area? Is the initiative and work ethic of workers
more important than their level of education? Are environmental
laws more important than either the transportation infrastructure
or the technology infrastructure? Why or why not?
The lesson is an authentic exercise in management. Not only
does it require a large degree of higher-level thinking, but it
also mirrors the various processes that occur in the real world.
Principle 2: Think of a different way
to think
Successful organizations find ways to encourage people to move
beyond simply performing tasks -- simply "doing their job." People
are encouraged to offer suggestions, analyze their own cognitive
processes, and reflect on ways to improve the entire enterprise.
That's what happened at Griffin Hospital, in Derby, Conn., according
to David H. Freedman, writing in the February 1999 issue of Inc.
magazine. Griffin had begun to lose customers at an alarming rate,
and it came to be perceived as a place to avoid at all costs.
The formula for improving Griffin was simple, Freedman said in
his article, "Intensive Care": Find out what customers want, figure
out how to give them what they want, and change the thought processes
of employees to accommodate the changes.
The hospital's rule book was discarded; patients were encouraged
to offer suggestions; rooms were redesigned; home-style kitchens
were installed; and individual nurse stations were added that
were closer to the patients' rooms. The metamorphosis was a success:
Patient satisfaction soared, and employee turnover dropped.
To encourage students to examine their own thinking, I developed
an Internet lesson called "Foreign
Policy," which presents a foreign policy dilemma to groups
of students, who publish their solution on the web, where other
students and even parents post responses to the original. The
activity was designed to cause students to deliberate, draw inferences,
determine implications, and begin to move beyond the top-of-the-head
"I think" of experiential thinking to a more sophisticated level
of reflective thinking.
A question last year went like this: "You are the president,
and a bill limiting the rights of illegal immigrants has just
reached your desk. This bill, which was passed overwhelmingly
by the Congress with bipartisan support, prevents illegals from
receiving medical assistance and public education and denies government
assistance, such as food stamps or welfare, to illegal immigrants.
You have a practical political consideration: This bill has great
support in the Congress. You have a practical ethical consideration:
You do not want to deny basic human services to people. Discuss
why you will/will not support this bill."
The Internet provides a virtually unlimited resource for locating
corroborating evidence to help one's case. When two students cited
an article in a professional medical newsletter describing the
ethical dilemmas such a bill would cause physicians, for example,
another countered with a news story about a federal court that
struck down the bill as unconstitutional. The lesson elicited
spirited responses on both sides of the issue, and the discussion
continues this school year.
Internet lessons like this not only stretch students' thinking,
they also provide a nonthreatening and direct way for teachers
to study successful techniques used by fellow teachers, observe
the results online, and adapt and improve the ideas for use in
their own classrooms.
Principle 3: Continuously improve and
refine the role of technology
W. Edwards Deming, the management genius who revitalized Japanese
industry following World War II, pioneered the idea of improving
constantly and forever the system of production and service. By
1990, Toyota -- arguably the most profitable car company in the
world -- had taken this lesson to heart and was simultaneously
restructuring its management, refining its manufacturing process,
planning its global strategy for the 21st century, and tinkering
with its corporate culture.
Like Toyota, several other leading corporations, here and abroad,
are also on a mission to improve quality -- often with the help
of technological innovations.
Technology can play a similar role in education. My lesson "Scenario
2004" is an example of how technology can be used to improve
and update a learning situation. The lesson, which follows the
study of the Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf Wars, describes a world
that, in the spring of 2004, is faced with unprecedented food
shortages and skyrocketing demand for oil.
Given this scenario -- and subsequent events that unfold as
the lesson continues -- which nations will lead and prosper in
the new millennium, and which will be relegated to "also-ran"
status?
Using the resources of the Internet, I have been able to continually
redesign and update "Scenario 2004," increasing its level of sophistication.
Technology makes it possible to include such learning activities
as constructing models of population growth, graphing the aging
of the population, and collecting climate data.
Students can read the scenario online at home and discuss it
with their parents; frequently, they plot strategy and offer suggestions
via e-mail. On the basis of their responses, I can manipulate
the scenario and provide additional resources. For example, I
inserted a map into the lesson that requires students to analyze
climate data while considering the effects of the seasons and
topography on food production.
Bringing about meaningful educational change with technology
has been a major hurdle for schools. If we are truly interested
in more insightful use of technology in the classroom, I'd like
to suggest that we begin with what organizational sociologist
Karl E. Weick calls small wins -- incremental improvements by
ordinary people that add up, over time, to progress. Internet-based
lessons such as the ones I've described are small wins for new
ways of teaching with technology. What's more, one-hop-at-a-time
achievements will let more of us ordinary mortals take part in
the joy of transforming our classrooms and schools into high-performing
organizations.
Michael
J. Rudnac is a social studies teacher
and department chairman at Westmont Hilltop High School in Johnstown,
Pa.
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