TY - JOUR
T1 - Creating usable innovations in systemic reform
T2 - Scaling up technology-embedded project-based science in urban schools
AU - Blumenfeld, Phyllis
AU - Fishman, Barry J.
AU - Krajcik, Joseph
AU - Marx, Ronald W.
AU - Soloway, Elliot
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Hilda Borko, Toby Citrin, John Mergendoller, Karen Wixson, and Juanita Clay Chambers for their comments on drafts of this article. We also thank the entire Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education team and the Detroit Public Schools teachers and administrators with whom we work for their continuing commitment and dedication, which is reflected in the work reported in this article. The research reported was funded with support from the National Science Foundation under the following programs: Research on Educational Policy and Practice (REC–9720383, REC–9725927) and Urban Systemic Initiative (ESR–9453665). Additional funding was provided by the Spencer Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (Project No. P0042530), and the Joyce Foundation (Award No. 08–18–1999). We gratefully acknowledge the support of these agencies. All opinions expressed in this work are the authors’ and do not necessarily represent either the funding agencies that supported the work or the University of Michigan.
Funding Information:
1Nancy Songer’s work on the Kids as Global Scientists weather unit is also used in this effort. 2The development of the Investigator’s Workshop has been supported by grants from the NSF (NSF Grant Nos. REC 9554205 and REC 955719).
Funding Information:
We do not find the situation to be so bleak. Recent advances in research methods such as design experiments (Brown, 1992) can help shed light on how to link theory and practice. Studies of scaling and of reform contribute to our understanding of how to develop usable innovations and how to help schools adopt and sustain them. Over the past 10 years, our group at the Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education has created a research and development agenda to support reform in science education with particular emphasis on the use of powerful learning technologies. We have worked with teachers to develop project-based science curriculum and pedagogy and learner-centered technologies to support inquiry. These innovations, part of a family of constructivist teaching and learning approaches, is in keeping with recommendations by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Research Council. Currently, we are involved in a reform effort in collaboration with the Detroit Public Schools’ (DPS’s) Urban Systemic Program in Science and Mathematics and the Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools, both supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The goal is to make inquiry-based science supported by pervasive technology tools the basis for all middle-school science in the district.
PY - 2000
Y1 - 2000
N2 - This article describes work by a research group bringing a middle-school inquiry and technology science innovation to scale in a systemic urban school reform setting. We distinguish between scaling and scaling within systemic reform. We pose a framework for use by developers of instructional interventions to gauge their "fit" with existing school capabilities, policy and management structures, and organizational culture, and illustrate how the framework exemplifies our experiences. We present challenges for researchers to consider as they attempt to create usable innovations and facilitate their adoption, enactment, and maintenance by school systems. Finally, we call for new approaches to the study of these problems outlining how systemic innovation challenges traditional evaluation and experimental methods.
AB - This article describes work by a research group bringing a middle-school inquiry and technology science innovation to scale in a systemic urban school reform setting. We distinguish between scaling and scaling within systemic reform. We pose a framework for use by developers of instructional interventions to gauge their "fit" with existing school capabilities, policy and management structures, and organizational culture, and illustrate how the framework exemplifies our experiences. We present challenges for researchers to consider as they attempt to create usable innovations and facilitate their adoption, enactment, and maintenance by school systems. Finally, we call for new approaches to the study of these problems outlining how systemic innovation challenges traditional evaluation and experimental methods.
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U2 - 10.1207/S15326985EP3503_2
DO - 10.1207/S15326985EP3503_2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0034362753
VL - 35
SP - 149
EP - 164
JO - Educational Psychologist
JF - Educational Psychologist
SN - 0046-1520
IS - 3
ER -