Framework for Analysis: The Social Ecology of an Instructional ...

Schools as Knowledge-Building Communities
DATA ANALYSIS
Framework for Analysis:
The Social Ecology of an Instructional Environment
This section examines the results of analyzing the informants’ responses to major ques-
tions related to the diffusion and adoption of CSILE into their schools and to the conduct of the
project in general. The informants addressed how the introduction of CSILE had affected colle-
giality and the social environment of their classrooms. In addition, they cited how certain chal-
lenges and barriers make the adoption of CSILE and other innovations difficult. They also
related the main factors necessary to make a technology-supported classroom a reality. Each
informant also reflected on what specific classroom practices emerged from their experience
with CSILE.
As mentioned in the methodology section, the development of the interview questions
expressed a theoretical framework cultivated by one of the researchers (see Kennedy Puthoff,
1994). You may recall how this theoretical framework cites eight aspects which influence the
diffusion of a technological innovation into schools. These aspects include: the technology
itself, the teacher persona, the curriculum, school and district-level practices and policies related
to technology, the community climate regarding schools, pedagogical issues related to acceptable
practices, the climate for change on both the district and school level, and the teacher culture
within a given context. These eight aspects interact in a dynamic and synergistic manner, with
each one advancing, supporting or inhibiting change, whether that be change in curriculum,
instructional strategies, assessment, teacher collegiality, teacher reflection or deliberation, tech-
nology adoption, or any mix of such elements.
Three Major Components
While this theoretical framework was used as a guide for the interview questions, several
iterations of analysis of the teachers’ responses and reflections yielded a clustering of themes
arising from the interview data, teaching histories and school contexts. Our analysis revealed a
highly complex adoption process—dynamic and inherently social—that involved the interaction
of three broad areas of influence. The three major components—school community, policy and
technology—comprise what we describe as the “social ecology” of a learning environment. The
biological metaphor of ecology illustrates that the instructional environment is a living system
which exists within a complex matrix of changing interactions on two levels—(1) intersocial or
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personal and (2) a broader realm of social policy. A framework which attempts to illustrate the
dynamics of these interactions is depicted in Figure 3.
The Social Ecology of a Knowledge-Building Learning Environment
Figure 3: Ecology of a Knowledge-Building Learning Environment
As portrayed in this illustration, the introduction of a technological innovation such as
CSILE interacts simultaneously with the individual teacher, underlying beliefs related to peda-
gogy and instructional practices, teacher collegial relationships and the school community as a
whole (a micro level of the social sphere), as well as district/national policy, which comprises the
macro level of the social sphere. Within the micro level, at the site of the school community,
teachers noted how the introduction of CSILE introduced a dynamic of changes in personal
reflection as well as reflection amongst colleagues and within the classroom environment (i.e.
student-student and student-teacher dyads).
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Related Research on Educational Reform
It may be helpful to consider the framework we offer in this report in light of some
existing research on change in education. For example, typical models which guide the diffusion
of innovation (i.e. Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation, 1995) generally do not address the
complexity of cultural and social forces which shape and guide a process of change. Indeed,
based on his research related to school reform, Sarason (1996) predicts how the introduction of
any innovation into a school setting (whether a curriculum program or an instructional tool such
as computers) is doomed to failure or misappropriation if the framework guiding the diffusion
does not take into account how change affects the context, psychology of individuals, and culture
of the school, or the political milieu of the school and its community. Based on the informants’
accounts, the framework offered in this report illustrates how the political realm, on both the
level of the school community and public policy, influences individual perceptions and experi-
ences with the process of change engendered through the introduction of an innovation such as
CSILE. In addition, this framework, through emphasizing the inherent social nature of an
instructional enterprise, underscores not only how schools exist as communities (Noddings, 1992
and Sergiovanni, 1995) but also how successful adoption of an innovation needs to address this
fundamental social/community quality of educational institutions.
This factor is expressed by Fullan (1993) who believes that any effort to reform education
needs to recognize how “personal purpose and vision are the starting agenda” of any change
campaign. Because the will to change is situated within the individual, according to Fullan, a
framework for reform needs to be guided by a moral dimension which underscores teachers’
roles as “agents of educational change and societal improvement” (p. 11). Unlike other instruc-
tional software, CSILE is specifically designed to change the classroom environment by scaf-
folding changes in teachers’ instructional practices by introducing social constructivist philoso-
phy through its adoption. Although not overtly moral in its aim, social constructivist philosophy
does invite us to review the quality of our social interactions, as such interactions are recognized
as the milieu which extends and anchors learning experiences.
With this in mind, our framework of adoption illustrates how, in attempting to adopt
CSILE, many of the teachers engaged in various levels of reflective practice that not only mani-
fested itself in the transformation of their instructional practice but also in their vision of educa-
tion. This emerging vision encompassed a sensibility of a “new professionalism” via the aug-
mentation of teachers’ roles through collegiality as well as the expansion of students’ roles
through collaboration. In effect, the isolation of both the students and the teachers is broken
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down and expansion of social relationships and bonds create a community of learners based on a
genuine and intrinsic quest for learning. In addition, based on the informants’ experiences and
reflections, it is clear that teachers need to move from the margin to the center of the adoption
process if the introduction of an innovation is to be successful.
It is also important to know that most efforts to reform education expect that structural
change will create change in instructional practices (Elmore, 1995). However, a review of
research on the impact of school structures on teachers and students found that changes in struc-
ture (i.e. tracking, ability grouping and class size) are weakly related to changes in teaching
practices, a finding which led to the conclusion that, “structural change does not necessarily lead
to changes in teaching, learning and student performance” (Elmore, 1995, p. 25). Like Sarason
and Fullan, Elmore found that culture and context had a great influence on the relationship
between structural change and change in classroom practices, an intersection marked by “rela-
tively powerful factors such as shared norms, knowledge and skills of teachers” (p. 26).
Tyack and Tobin (1993) indicate how schools as institutions have been resistant to change
and the introduction of technological innovation because of the confluence of various structural
elements such as the Carnegie Unit and the tradition of self-contained classrooms. Teachers in
turn are constrained by structural elements to the extent that when innovations are introduced,
they make “situationally constrained choices” or compromises which err on the conservative side
(Cuban, 1986). As illustrated in this section of the report, our informants also experienced being
influenced by various structural factors.
In comparison to typical efforts to reform public schools, the CSILE project exists as an
unusual exception, as the aim of the project was not focused on changing structural elements but
rather, classroom practices. The project and the technology were diffused in a bottom-up fash-
ion. In addition, the purposeful design of the software as a scaffolding device to move teachers
from didactic instructional practice to a more social-constructivist based, student-centered teach-
ing and learning paradigm, evidences an endeavor guided by concerns related to pedagogy.
Moreover, the project did not focus on student outcomes as a measure of successful reform.
Rather, student perceptions about their learning and instructional experiences (by means of a
questionnaire designed to capture such perceptions) and teacher’s perceptions about the evolu-
tion of their reflective practice (as evidenced by this report) were examined. This approach to
assessment was aimed, not so much at measuring academic success, as much as to understand
the process of change itself. With this in mind, the adoption and diffusion approach which
guided this project illustrates a generative framework which reflects how change, engendered by
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an innovation, affects a school’s culture and political milieu as well as the “shared norms, knowl-
edge and skills of teachers. (Elmore, 1995, 26)”
Considering the Specific Qualities of a Technological Innovation
Because the project aimed to reform classroom practices via the adoption of CSILE, the
specific characteristics of the technology itself is an important consideration. In light of this, we
reviewed literature regarding the sociology of technology, where the understanding of technol-
ogy has been addressed not only as a tool or artifact, but also as a “social process” (Winner,
1980; Ellul, 1964; Innis, 1951; Carey, 1989). Indeed, some education scholars have addressed
this duality of technology (i.e. tool and social process) by recognizing how technological inno-
vations diffused in public schools are related to broad sociopolitical influences (Bowers, 1988) as
well as how they may function as an expression of a “hidden curriculum” (Streibel, 1991;
Ellsworth & Whatley, 1990; Apple, 1993). In effect, these authors explore how every techno-
logical innovation exists not only as a tool, but in fact possess certain biases innate in their very
structures.
An example may help to illustrate this point. A learning technology may be expressed as
a social process through how its design and function reflects current models of learning theory
and research methods (Koschmann, 1996), as well as attitudes towards the professional status of
teachers. For example, the design of an Integrated Learning System (ILS) largely reflects a
behaviorist perspective about learning. An ILS is a relatively closed system where the curricu-
lum, instruction and testing are wholly controlled by the computer program. Even if an ILS
system offers teachers the means to change or augment the software or curriculum content,
instructors must still work within the structure of the given system itself. In effect, an ILS is
designed to delimit or control the teacher’s curriculum design and instructional activity; teachers
act as “program managers” and are not invited to participate as a learner, or for that matter an
active instructor in the instructional process, as all phases of instruction and assessment are
generally predetermined and generated by the software. Also, an ILS is designed to track the
performance of individual students and therefore reinforces student isolation and underscores a
competitive versus a collaborative or cooperative-based framework for learning. In contrast,
CSILE, by virtue of its networked configuration and shared electronic workspace, supports a
collaborative and distributed process of learning where students are not working in isolation but
rather are working collaboratively, and their teachers are invited into the inquiry process as
curriculum designers, as instructional guides, and as learners themselves.
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The framework illustrated in Figure 3 recognizes the dual functions of technology as both
a tool and a social process. More specifically, CSILE exists as an electronic technological
innovation (a tool), but it is also designed to scaffold changes in the instructional practices and
learning experiences of teachers and their students, respectively. Therefore the tool, CSILE, also
acts as a means by which social interaction of the classroom is altered (a social process function).
Thus the framework we propose also attempts to demonstrate how the introduction of an innova-
tion reconfigures the “social ecology” (within both macro and micro social spheres) of an in-
structional environment. For example although the introduction of CSILE at Central and
Lakeside ISDs was experimental, in that it was offered to only a small cadre of teachers and was
not part of the districts’ formal technology or school plans, its introduction, as indicated in the
following discussion of the data analysis, nevertheless did reflect elements related to both the
micro and macro social spheres. In addition, as explained in Theme Five, some of the informants
envisioned their roles being radically transformed by new electronic technologies such as CSILE
and telecommunications. This factor also illustrates how a technological innovation (tool) can
act to shape the social, in this case the perception of roles.
Three Specific Processes
As indicated by Figure 3, the three major components are expressed by means of specific
processes. For example, the component, community, is expressed through the adoption process,
the policy component through diffusion, and the component, technology (in the case of CSILE),
is articulated by means of its software/hardware configuration, which may be generally de-
scribed as an open, groupware based system. The relationship of the components to their respec-
tive processes is also illustrated in the following section of the data analysis. For example,
Theme One, which documents changes in teachers’ practices, emphasizes the direct experiences
of the informants and therefore relates to the process of adoption. In effect, these three pro-
cesses—adoption, diffusion, and a technology designed in a groupware configuration—are show
to coalesce and create an opportunity for purposeful change towards the creation of a knowledge-
building community.
The Articulation of Change and Support: Key Outcomes
Figure 4 represents the contextual nature of the articulation of change as experienced by
the teachers in this study. The articulation of change experienced on a micro level (school
community and technology) works in tandem with the articulation of support (Policy) on a macro
level of the social sphere. You may also note how this illustration features the key outcomes of
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purposeful change as realized through the introduction of CSILE. These key outcomes are
based on five major emergent themes (see Table 5). These five themes are the result of coding
and analyzing the aggregate of interview data provided by the informants, and will be discussed
in detail later in this section of the report.
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Major Components of a Knowledge-Building Community
School
Technology
Policy
Community
Articulation of Change
Articulation of Support
• Instruction &
• Access to Hardware • Teacher Development
Curriculum
(a) technical
• Software as a
(b) pedagogical
• Teachers’ Roles
“Philosophical
Framework”
• Leadership
• School Culture
(building-level support)
• “Resistance” to
• Classroom Social
Technology
• Fiscal
Interaction
Adoption
(district level support)
• Parent’s
• Inevitability of
• Collaborative
Interactions
Technology
Decision-Making
Diffusion
• Collegiality
• Connectivity
Figure 4: The major components of a knowledge-building environment, containing the elements
comprising the five emergent themes detailed in this report’s analysis.
Five Major Emergent Themes
The following section of this report specifically examines the five major emergent themes
in light of their major component(s) and key outcome(s). For example, the theme: “The Knowl-
edge-Building Community Changes Teacher Practice,” features the major component, “school
community,” which is further delineated by key outcomes related to “changes in teachers’ roles,”
and “instruction and curriculum.” A list of the emergent themes and their respective major
components and key outcomes is shown in Table 5. These Five Emergent Themes will be more
fully discussed in the following sections of this data analysis.
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Schools as Knowledge-Building Communities
Five Emergent Themes
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