Reigeluth: Tech For Learning-Focused Education.pdf

The use of technology in education should be based on what we know about how students learn best and how we can best facilitate that learning. Tools should be selected based on purposes or functions to be served, not the other way around. In our current educational system, student progress to a new topic is based on time, not on learning. A learning-focused system would not allow a student to move on until she or he succeeded in attaining the current standard. This requires a completely different paradigm of education, one that is customized to meet each student's needs and potential.

Rather than integrating technology into the classroom, we should be using technology to transform what goes on in the classroom. Technology allows us to customize education in a way that was not possible before. We currently see four main roles or functions for technology to make a customized, learning-focused educational system feasible and cost-effective.

Record keeping for student learning involves a personal record of attainments for each student, which replaces the current report card. It has three parts: a Standards Inventory, a Personal Attainments Inventory, and a Personal Characteristics Inventory. The Standards Inventory contains required and optional educational standards, while the Personal Attainments Inventory maps each student's progress on the attainments listed in the Standards Inventory. The Personal Characteristics Inventory keeps track of each student's characteristics that influence learning.

Planning for student learning requires a personal learning plan, or contract, for each student. It helps the student, parents, and teacher to decide on long-term goals, identify attainments that are presently within reach, select short-term goals, identify projects for attaining the short-term goals, and develop a contract that specifies goals, projects, teams, parent and teacher roles, and the deadline for each project.

Instruction for student learning is primarily project-based, with both a project "space" and an instructional "space." In the problem space, technology offers an introduction to the project, resources for doing the project, and a place for working on the project. When the student encounters a deficiency in knowledge, skills, or understandings needed for doing the project, each student switches to his or her personalized instructional space, where highly efficient and appealing tools offer customized drill-and-practice, tutorials, simulations, and educational games.

Assessment for (and of) student learning is integrated with instruction. The plentiful performance opportunities that are used to cultivate skills and understandings are used for both formative and summative assessments. The assessments present authentic tasks on which the students demonstrate their knowledge, understanding, and skill. Technology is designed to evaluate whether or not the criterion was met on each performance and to provide formative feedback immediately to the student for the greatest impact.

These four roles or functions are seamlessly integrated. The record-keeping tool provides information automatically for the planning tool. The planning tool identifies instructional tools that are available. The assessment tool is integrated into the instructional tool. And the assessment tool feeds information automatically into the record-keeping tool.