Chapter 1: Introduction
Technology-enhanced Education Reform: An Historical Analysis of a Learning System—THE Evolution of The OFFICE FOR Mathematics, Science and Technology Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1993-2002
BY
George Reese
B. A., St. John’s College, 1983
B.S., University of New Mexico, 1987
M.Ed., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1995
THESIS
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education
in the Graduate College of the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002
Urbana, Illinois
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ii
ABSTRACT iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
LIST OF FIGURES viii
INTRODUCTION 1
Some Historical Notes 3
FRAMEWORK FOR THE ANALYSIS 8
Schön’s Model 9
Structure 9
The MSTE Board of Advisors as an Example of MSTE Structure 10
MSTE Theory 11
MSTE Technologies 13
The Interdependence of Structure, Theory, and Technology 14
Other Literature That Provides Context for the Discussion 16
Literature on Technology in Education 16
Communities and Networks of Practice 17
Information Ecologies 19
Mathematics Education 19
MSTE as an Interdisciplinary Mission Organization 20
Schön’s Model as a Way of Viewing MSTE History 22
A CHRONOLOGY OF MSTE IN THE CONTEXT OF TECHNOLOGY 23
1993-1995: Genesis of MSTE 23
Using the Web 25
Presentation Technology 26
Other Network Technologies 28
The Need for More Control Over the Technology 29
What Educators Could and Could Not Do with the Web in 1995 30
MSTE Gets Its Own Web server 34
The MSTE Web Server: Changes to MSTE Structure and Theory 35
From surfing to serving 35
1996-1998: Organizational Growth 41
MSTE “discovers” Nick Exner 41
Exploration of Different Web Technologies 43
Populating the Lessons Database 43
Running Programs through a Web Form 48
Downloadable Programs 50
Learning Java® 50
MSTE/TCD Collaboration 51
Using the Network technologies for Mathematical Communication 53
Some Lessons Learned from the First Projects 57
Data Collection Projects 57
Lessons learned from the data collection projects 61
The Next Generation of MSTE-linked Teacher-created Lessons 62
1999-Present: Integrating Projects 62
Classes at TCD 63
Battery Load Testing: An example of a Teacher-Created Module 64
The Project Hand-In 64
The M2T2 Project 65
TRECC 67
College Algebra for High School Students 68
Plans for MSTE Projects 68
MSTE AS A LEARNING SYSTEM—EVOLVING ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE 70
MSTE as a Set of Related Communities of Practice (COPs) 71
The Role of Leaders 72
Building a Community of Technologically Fluent Staff 73
The MSTE Technology Community: Not Quite Hackers 74
MSTE as a Focal Point for Networks of Practice 77
Evolving toward a Public Service Mission 81
Summary 82
MSTE AS A LEARNING SYSTEM—ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND NEW DIRECTIONS 83
The Changing Missions of the MSTE Program 83
Evolving Perspectives in the National Environment for Technology-Supported Instruction 86
Notable MSTE Contributions to Educational Courseware 87
Challenges Faced by Teachers in Introducing Courseware to the Classroom 89
Disseminating Courseware and Offering Services to Network Participants 92
MSTE Staff Activities: A Learning Opportunity for a New Educational Profession 94
Software Tools for Tracking and Analyzing Historical Transformation 95
The Public Service Role 96
Is MSTE Scalable? 97
Three Major Components of the MSTE Program That Have Evolved from 1993-2002 98
The Roles and Functions of the MSTE staff—Self-selected as Communities of Practice 98
The MSTE Network of Practice—Collaborating with Off-Campus Teachers, Students and Institutions 99
MSTE as a Distinctive Contributor to the Academic Public Service Mission 99
Concluding Comments 99
REFERENCES 103
ABSTRACT
This dissertation presents an historical analysis of the evolution of the programs and activities of the Office for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education (MSTE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). MSTE, a unit located in the College of Education, is devoted to the technology-based reform of mathematics and science in grades K through 16.
The author uses the model of Donald Schön as a framework to view the development of the Office as the interdependent evolution of theory, structure, and technology The Office is portrayed as an example in the education community of a “learning organization” The latter, according to Schön, is “an organization that changes rapidly without intolerable disruptions” (Schön, 1971)
Starting as a small office for collecting information on campus-based K-16 activities devoted to mathematics, science, and technology education, MSTE, in less than ten years (1995-2002), evolved into a set of communities and networks of practice that use advanced technologies to further education reform, particularly in mathematics, science, and technology education.
The chronology of the MSTE program is presented through a discussion and analysis of its evolving technologies including the many challenges that the Office encountered in working with the World Wide Web and other Internet tools. Office personnel learned first to find resources on the Web and link to them and then, through its own Web server, they made substantial contributions to the interactive courseware content on the Web, including lesson modules, Java applets, programs for download, and online support for the materials on the MSTE site (mste.uiuc.edu). In recent years the MSTE site has become very popular, delivering millions of files each month to teachers around the globe.
The dissertation notes four key transformations of MSTE in its organizational structure:
1. MSTE has built a set of communities of practice that optimizes collaboration as well as individual responsibility and creativity in a non-hierarchical governance structure.
2. MSTE has acquired and maintained a technologically competent staff whose members are committed to working with educators. MSTE depends on and benefits from student staff members and pre-service teachers at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
3. MSTE has built a strong external network of practice that includes teachers participating in a new, technology-enhanced profession that combines competence in the use of computer tools with cross-disciplinary learning.
4. In its institutional context, MSTE has evolved from a role as a multi-disciplinary facility for UIUC faculty/students to an interdisciplinary mission-oriented (problem-oriented) organization with an extensive public service mission.
These transformations required organizational growth and innovation. This was made possible by the recruitment and encouragement of talented undergraduate and graduate students, many pre-service teachers, who maintained the MSTE Website, added to its courseware, and supported the on-site communities of practice and the larger networks of practice.
Of special note is the learning disposition toward technology of key MSTE undergraduates, who adopted the collaborative style of computer hackers. This was often combined with the caring and patient disposition that is a highly desired feature of prospective teachers. As a set of self-selected communities of practice, MSTE has been able to become a source of innovative courseware, a mechanism for curricular reform and cross-disciplinary collaboration, and a catalyst for a new educational profession that incorporates collaboration and computer fluency.
MSTE networks of practice reach out to students and teachers around the world. They disseminate innovative approaches to technology-supported teaching and learning, respond to feedback from network participants, and identify needs within this widely distributed network.
In the public service domain, MSTE has contributed to K-12 education by offering courseware on the Web on a low-cost or no-cost basis. It has offered its support to network participants on a no-cost basis, and has encouraged the design, use, and enhancement of these resources on an "OpenCourseWare" model (NetWatch, 2001).
While Schön discussed his model in the context of business and government organizations, MSTE is an example of a learning system in education. In particular, the MSTE program provides a series of lessons learned about the uses and opportunities available in education through the uses of Internet technologies.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TO BE COMPLETETED
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Growth in use of the MSTE Web pages, 1995-2001. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Figure 2. Total hits to all pages in the Projects directory compared to the hits to the single Lessons Database Search page, “queryform.html”. 39
Figure 3. Declining portion of total hits to the Projects directory. 40
Figure 4. Total hits to the MSTE Web server dwarf the hits to the project directory. Instead the most popular pages become those in the lessons database. 40
Figure 5. A sample of output from the Applet of the Cereal Box problem. Each picture represents a prize (an animal card) in a box of cereal. In the case above, it took 14 boxes to get all six cards. 49
Figure 6. Base plate parts made from student specifications. 55
Figure 7. The original interface for the point-of-sale (POS) cash register, summer 1997. 59
Figure 8. The POS cash register as it was used for spring 1998. Fields for the school have been removed and others that provide totals (“z-out”) were added. 60
Figure 9. Angle Object applet by Nicholas Exner extends the activity for the sum of the interior angles of a polygon. The angles in red have been dragged onto the circle. So far, they sum to 332 degrees. 67
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Our society and all of its institutions are in a continuous process of transformation.. . . We must become able not only to transform our institutions, in response to changing situations and requirements; we must invent and develop institutions which are 'learning systems', that is to say, systems capable of bringing about their own continuing transformation. The task which the loss of the stable state makes imperative, for the person, for our institutions, for our society as a whole, is to learn about learning.
Donald A. Schön, Beyond the Stable State, (1971)
This thesis presents a description and analysis of key features in the evolution of the activities, makeup and purposes of the Office for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education (MSTE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The historical path of MSTE activities is a story of evolutionary changes of surprising magnitude and unexpected consequences. They include changes in internal structure, mission, and technologies, as well as changes in MSTE’s organizational environment.
This analysis builds upon the work of Donald Schön (Schön, 1971) whose model of a social system is seminal in providing a way of analyzing a system’s components and how they interact among themselves. While Schön’s work was carried in the context of business and government, this historical analysis extends his model to an educational setting. It is this extension of the Schön model that has provided this researcher with a vehicle for expanding his view of the challenges and accomplishments of the MSTE office. This broader view of MSTE as a social system containing technology, structure, and “theory” was a key component in providing a basis for understanding and interpreting the history of MSTE. This genre of historical analyses is typical of efforts to describe the systemic processes of transformative technological systems. Brown, for example, in his “Growing Up Digital: How the Web Changes Work, Education and the Ways People Learn” summarizes the first 50 years of electricity as a public utility system, and concludes that “Worldwide, electricity became a transformative medium for social practices.” (Brown, 2000)
More pertinent than the electricity system to this dissertation is Brown’s historical account of the training of “tech reps,” the men and women on whom the Xerox Corporation depends to repair its copiers and printers. “Troubleshooting for these people really meant construction of a narrative, one that finally explained the [troublesome] symptoms and test data and got the machines up and running again. Abstract, logical reasoning wasn’t the way they went about it; stories were.” (Brown, 2000, emphasis added)
This well-known story serves two purposes as an introduction to the discussion of MSTE. First, it helps to describe the nature of a “community of practice,” a key feature of the interconnected communities that make up the MSTE program.. Second, it provides insights regarding the development of this dissertation, which is intended to illuminate the actual process by which MSTE became a learning system, not by having a pre-specified goal or plan, but by pursuing what was perceived as doable and/or also worth doing when and where opportunities presented themselves.
The MSTE program has evolved into a learning system based on an adaptive management style capable of recognizing and supporting innovations in technologies, in organizational structure, and in emergent “theory”[1] or mission. The historical analysis of MSTE’s evolution can be read in the same way as the analysis developed by the anthropologists who studied the process by which the Xerox repairmen learned to diagnose troubles with their copiers and printers. The conclusions of Chapters IV and V are presented not as an exploration or expansion of existing theories relating to organizational behavior, but rather, they are descriptions of lessons learned and put into practice over the course of MSTE’s history. This effort (i.e., the effort of MSTE as a learning system and the effort to analyze it in this dissertation) has provided a greater understanding of the teaching/learning process, as well as an appreciation of the importance of know-how, the tacit knowledge based on experience. It has also provided new perspectives concerning the opportunities as well as the challenges faced by the many participants committed to technology-enhanced reform in the teaching-learning process.
Some Historical Notes
The MSTE Office was established in fall of 1993 on the initiative of Professor Kenneth Travers, who saw the need for ameliorating the isolation and limited collaboration among the various UIUC faculty efforts across the campus that were devoted to technology-supported teaching and learning at the K-16 level. From his earlier vantage point as a division director at the National Science Foundation (NSF), Travers was also aware that this fragmentation was characteristic of major universities generally. As it turned out, while Travers was on his three-year visiting appointment at NSF, UIUC Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs Theodore Brown was serving on the National Advisory Committee of the NSF Directorate for Education and Human Resources (where Travers was employed). The periodic meetings of the NSF Advisory Committee provided opportunities for Brown and Travers to discuss needs and issues in education at the UIUC campus. It was a result of those conversations that, upon Travers’ return to campus, Brown authorized the setting up of a small “Office for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education” with Travers as Director. The MSTE mission was oriented toward promoting communication among the many UIUC campus entities that were engaged in projects focused on K-12 education (approximately 100 such activities across campus were subsequently identified by MSTE). The MSTE staff and budgetary support consisted of the Director, a part-time secretary, and a 25% time graduate student.
I joined MSTE in 1994 and soon learned that it offered me the opportunity to carry out research and exploration leading to novel applications of advanced technologies in support of teaching and learning. Prior to coming to graduate school at the UIUC, I had taught high school mathematics for five years, four of them at a school exclusively for Native American students. After that I worked as a computer programmer and technical writer for a DNA sequence database project at a national laboratory. My position at MSTE allowed me to exploit my previous experience to support two personal interests. First, I was motivated to explore ways in which technology could be used to enhance learning, particularly for students who typically do not do well in traditional mathematics classes. Second, my previous work in a technology-rich environment had provided an opportunity for me to appreciate and make use of tools such as databases, desktop publishing, and the Internet. I was called upon to apply this prior experience in my work with MSTE. Dr. Travers recognized my contributions and appointed me Assistant Director of MSTE in 1996 and Associate Director in 2002.
MSTE started as a very small “Office” of three people and has since become a large network of educators whose reach every year encompasses scores of Illinois educational leaders (department heads, regional office personnel, school administrators) and, through these persons, hundreds of classroom teachers and thousands of students, with an annual budget of approximately half a million dollars. The Internet has dramatically extended the reach of MSTE well beyond the State of Illinois, with over 2 million hits a month to its website. In its short nine-year history, the MSTE program has diversified, expanded, and made impressive contributions to technological innovation and educational reform. Anticipating the detailed discussion in the following chapters, I submit below a few of MSTE’s achievements in the intervening years to indicate that MSTE has made major contributions to technology-supported education, especially in Illinois K-12 public schools. Indeed, these contributions have attracted a worldwide audience. The evolution of MSTE’s activities and its responses to challenges augment the rationale for a historical analysis of its various dimensions.
• MSTE was established only one year after the public announcement of the first point-and-click browser (MOSAIC) by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at UIUC. Within the following year, MSTE was in position to make effective use of the World Wide Web—to establish its own web server, to incorporate innovative technological features, and to create enhanced interactive curricular content and effective management of the website.
• The MSTE staff has grown from one part-time graduate student to approximately 20 students, undergraduate as well as graduate, plus a small number of professionals who are pursuing a growing number of creative projects in a collaborative mode with intersecting networks of students, teachers, and administrators in the state of Illinois and beyond.
• Initiated with a modest UIUC start-up grant, MSTE has since received grants from a range of organizations including NSF, the US Department of Education, the Office of Naval Research, the Illinois State Board of Education, and Partnership Illinois (an outreach project at the University of Illinois).
• In one recent month, the MSTE Web site delivered over two and a half million files to users outside the UIUC domain. This represents over one hundred thousand monthly visits and over fifty thousand unique visitors.
• From direct communication, we know that mathematics modules on the MSTE Web site are in use in at least eighteen of the regional offices of education in Illinois and are used in pre-service mathematics education courses at UIUC, Eastern Illinois University, and the College of DuPage.
• The large and growing number of individuals, schools and other institutions, that use the MSTE web site, and the thousands of Web pages that link to MSTE are testimony to the widespread high regard for the MSTE program. The site also has links from respected organizations such as the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC), the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and the Math Forum at Drexel University (formerly at Swarthmore). It has been the nexus for development of a variety of projects in teaching and learning, particularly in mathematics.
The growth over time of the popularity of MSTE web pages is illustrated in the Figure 1 below.
[pic]
Growth in use of the MSTE Web pages, 1995-2001.
The number of files accessed (hits) per day illustrates the growing popularity of the MSTE pages. This indicates that teachers are finding the MSTE resources useful, but still leaves some questions unanswered. For example, at this point, we do not know exactly how all the various visitors are using the Website. We can note the record of the downloading of a given file of set of files. From log files, we can also get a rough idea of where these hits are coming from, and they are truly global. Email messages from around the world commenting on various pages confirm this. One possible reason for the widespread use of materials is that they are presented as modules that teachers can adapt and use.
CHAPTER 2
FRAMEWORK FOR THE ANALYSIS
It is always futile to seek a single 'cause' for a system's being the way it is. There is always a complex of interacting components. The social system contains structure, technology and theory. The structure is the set of roles and relations among individual members. The theory consists of the views held within the social system about its purposes, its operations, its environment and its future. Both reflect, and in turn influence, the prevailing technology of the system. These dimensions all hang together so that any change in one produces change in the others. In their interactions, they reinforce one another and are aspects of the system's 'cause'. (Schön, 1971, p. 33)
This thesis can be viewed as a case study of a learning system in which I have played a key role. I have also benefited from a stimulating and productive environment for expanding my skills and understandings. I present my view of how MSTE has functioned, and the ways it has addressed challenges. It is a personal perspective, but one that is augmented by
1. data in the form of interviews with key participants,
5. chronologies pieced together from emails from hundreds of users,
6. data in the form of access to Web pages and
7. anecdotes based on 1-3.
The literature related to this thesis is found in such diverse fields as organizational theory, education reform, communities and networks of practice, and social theories of technology. It includes a literature on “hackers”—a term originally used in a non-pejorative way to describe imaginative learners and practitioners who design and use technology. In this chapter, I discuss some of the literature related to organizational theory (specifically, the work of Donald Schön), communities of practice, responses to technology, and the current reform movement in mathematics education.
Schön’s Model
As a framework for presentation and analysis, I have borrowed from the work of Donald A. Schön, a Professor of Urban Studies and Education at MIT[2] I have found that his model for organizational behavior provides an extremely useful basis for describing and analyzing MSTE functions, challenges, and opportunities.
Schön (1971) defines a social system as, “a complex of individuals [that] tends to maintain its boundaries and its patterns of internal relationships.” They are “self-reinforcing systems which strive to remain in something like equilibrium” (p. 32). According to Schön, social systems contain three interdependent components: structure (or organizational structure), theory, and technology. For the purposes of this dissertation, MSTE comprises the social system under consideration. I therefore begin with a brief description of MSTE’s three major components.
Structure
In one sense, the MSTE organizational structure is simple. The Office is administratively located in the UIUC College of Education, and the Director, a professor of mathematics education, reports to Head of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. The MSTE staff listed on the payroll includes an Associate Director and a working staff, largely made up of graduate or undergraduate students, who may be enrolled in the College of Education as well as other UIUC colleges. In addition, there are a growing number of participants, mostly teachers, who are voluntarily associated in collaborative networks with MSTE.
The College has allowed MSTE to develop in its own way. It was not created as a unit to meet particular needs within the College. Instead, it developed through a set of ad hoc relations and circumstances, building on partnerships and collaborations with particular groups at UIUC such as the Calculus&Mathematica® program (Uhl, 2002) and the Prairie Flowers project (Prairie Flowers, 2002). These networks sometimes include teachers or educational specialists as individuals or associated with institutions that have formed collaborative relations with MSTE. The MSTE overall mission has changed significantly during the past few years, bringing with it the need for changes in structure and uses of technology.
The MSTE Board of Advisors as an Example of MSTE Structure
To offer advice and counsel, the Director of the MSTE Office has appointed a Board of Advisors, members of which are recognized academic researchers and other educational practitioners with broad experience in the fields represented within MSTE. The structure and functions of this Board are unique and differ from those of the more typical academic “Advisory Board.” Acting as a committee, the Advisors offer advice, suggestions or critiques as individuals. If advisors differ on a given issue, they are free to express their differing positions openly at Board meetings, thus illuminating the issue and often offering alternative options to the Director. Not only does this approach have advantages over advice reached by committee compromise, but it also has resulted in an unusually friendly Board, for the most part unfettered by political hassles. Attending meetings has achieved a tradition as an enjoyable activity and a learning opportunity for the larger MSTE leadership. Although acting as individuals, the Board members also constitute one of the several interconnected communities of practice within MSTE. The members of the MSTE Board of Advisors are (year of appointment is provided in parentheses):
• Daniel Alpert, Senior Policy Advisor, NCSA (1993)
• Allen R. Avner, Professor Emeritus, Computer-based Education Research Laboratory (1996)
• Bertram (Chip) Bruce, Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science (1993)
• Thomas I. Prudhomme, Senior Associate Director, NCSA (2000)
• Steven F. Schomberg, Associate Chancellor (1993)
• Kathleen Rapp Smith, Nationally Board Certified Teacher in Mathematics, Champaign Central High School (2001)
This collegial environment and the emergence of several communities of practice have become a part of the MSTE administrative tradition for many of the operational functions, including the means for developing Internet-based support systems as well as the design of new courses, curricula, and cross-disciplinary instruction.
MSTE Theory
“Theory,” as defined by Schon, refers to “views held within the social system about its purposes, its operations, its environment, and its future” (Schön, 1971, p. 29). This use of the term, “theory,” is not typical of scientific or academic usage. However, it does fit with a dictionary definition of theory as “A belief that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment.”[3] Despite the differences from common scientific usage, I use this more expansive definition of the term “theory” throughout this thesis and without quotes.
It is important to note that “the views held within the system” are not necessarily or even typically shared by all stakeholders in a college or university setting. The views of graduate students are seldom the same as those of undergraduates; nor are those of students the same as those held by the professors, deans, department heads, or presidents. In Schön’s usage, "When a person enters a social system, he encounters a body of theory which more or less explicitly sets out not only the 'way the world is' but 'who we are,' 'what we are doing,' and 'what we should be doing'”(p. 34). When someone joins the MSTE staff, s/he quickly learns that teacher support is part of the MSTE mission. It flows through the Office environment: courses to prepare for, kits to assemble, teacher questions regarding Web pages that need responses, workshops to facilitate. Another example is the terms by which an Office member can also be a student. Graduate and undergraduates balance the roles as students with what they do as members of the MSTE professional staff. That is, they find ways in which membership in MSTE can benefit their coursework and other goals within the institution. MSTE-related theory includes the evolving perceptions of its mission, its operations, its environment and its future.
One of the distinctive features of MSTE’s organizational environment is it evolved in the context of rapid rate of change in the world at large. In the course of MSTE’s nine years, for example, the undergraduate UIUC student who emerged as the leader of the Mosaic browser development has become a multi-millionaire founding officer of Netscape. During the same period, the sector reached a peak and has since been on the way down.
On the academic scene, technology-supported teaching and learning has received great acclaim and presented a host of questions regarding its future promise in education (Owston, 1997). And to be sure, there are some educational institutions in which bright futures seem within reach. However, in many of the nation’s public schools, the dominant technologies that lie at the core of current practice in Illinois and elsewhere are still those that were in use during the 19th century (Baines, Deluzain, & Hegngi, 1998; Silverstein, Frechtling, & Miyaoka, 2000). This situation has greatly affected the goals and mission of the MSTE program, especially its commitment to technology-supported education reform.
In this context of rapid change and in the midst of large educational challenges, a formulation of the clearly defined MSTE mission has been elusive. In the private sector, the issue of corporate mission is raised to a high level of attention. It is implicit in questions repeatedly raised, such as “What business are we in?” “What are our core competencies?” “What activities contribute most effectively to the bottom line? Though not in a business-world context, MSTE also wrestles with these questions.
MSTE Technologies
As defined by Schon [and consistent with definitions by other policy analysts], the term “technology” refers to “tools and techniques, projects and processes [that] extend the human capability of its members” (Schön, 1971, p. 35).
This is a broad definition; it refers not only to Information Technology (IT), but also the traditional “hardware” of pencil, paper, photocopiers and chalkboard, as well as “software,” such as textbooks, manuals, schedules and examinations. As I use the term in this dissertation, it will usually refer to the new, digital technologies such as graphing calculators, networked computers, and/or software languages or courseware. Some authors refer to this as “advanced technologies” to distinguish it from the more traditional technologies. Articles in the current education literature more often use the simple term “technology” in referring to IT. (As just two examples see, Hughes, 2001; Yong & Conway, 2001.)
For an academic program with a teaching and learning mission, MSTE now has a staff with a high level of technological sophistication. It runs its own Web server, email lists, and Local Area Network; it maintains and distributes files for a statewide network, develops computer programs in Java®, and creates its own graphics, brochures, and multi-media presentations. While MSTE has not typically adopted the burden of developing cutting edge software or hardware, it has been innovative in its use of existing technologies. The development and application of these technologies is one of the unique competencies of the MSTE program.
The Interdependence of Structure, Theory, and Technology
According to Schön, a key feature of any social system is the interdependent relations that characterize the three components: “The ‘theory’ and the ‘structure’ both reflect and in turn influence the technology of the system. These dimensions all hang together so that any change in one produces change in the others (Schön, 1971, p. 33).”
Schön uses the example of the automobile as a technology that radically altered the evolution of the city as a place to live and work—initially shifting populations into the suburbs, and removing the most affluent tax payers as well as many natural leaders from the inner city. Thus, the structure of the city changed as a response to the technology. The automobiles brought highways that in turn changed the location of industry to the suburbs. “The relative isolation of the suburban house called into being a complex of services and led to a suburban culture” (p. 37).
Schon is not the only person to observe this interplay. Malone and Rockhart (1991) look at the same example (the diffusion of the automobile) as a series of three corresponding effects. The first-order effect is the switching from an old technology to a new technology (from carriage to automobile). The second-order effect is that people travel more. The third-order effect is the creation of new “transportation-intensive” social and economic structures such as malls and suburbs (a change in structure and theory) that bring about new technologies of public transportation and highway development. These third-order effects could be extended in many directions, e.g., new traffic laws and the demands on the judicial system.
The term “effect” is problematic in that it implies an inevitable outcome. I prefer Schön’s statements that change in structure, technology, or theory are “interdependent” and that change in one “induces” a change in the others. This leaves open the reality that the character of the change is not predetermined. Indeed, any innovation can have multiple realizations (Bruce, 1993).
In the history of American colleges and universities, the three dimensions of structure, theory, and technologies have reflected strong historical interdependence. With regard to the land-grant university, in the 19th century a major shift in the agricultural sciences and of the economic environment had major implications for the historical evolution of the structure and mission of these institutions. It is a matter of current significance to reflect upon the consequences of today’s changing technological and economic environments for such universities (Parker, Greenbaum, & Pister, 2001).
Other Literature That Provides Context for the Discussion
In this section, I briefly discuss some of the other literature from which I pull terminology and which provides further context for the discussion of MSTE. There is a literature on technology in the context of organizations, literature on communities of practice (and networks of practice), literature on mathematics education (mathematics has been major MSTE focus), and finally, I discuss the 1985 article of Daniel Alpert that provides a context for discussing MSTE within the structure of the land-grant university.
Literature on Technology in Education
When I began to consider the history of MSTE, the first aspect that struck me was the important role of the changing technology to the organization. This led to an examination of the literature on the impact of technology on organizations. On a superficial level, this literature divides in to three camps. First there are research studies on social systems and how they change in the presence of technology (e.g., Kling & Zmuidzinas, 1994). Second, there is a literature that points out the potential benefits and current opportunities with technology (Papert, 1980 is a venerable example). Third, there is a literature filled with caveats for the implications of technology(Oppenheimer, 1997; Stoll, 1996 are two examples). In this last category, there are a number of studies and essays on the particular struggles that teachers face in adapting to changes in technology and benefiting from it (Cuban, 1986, 1993; Peck, Cuban, & Kirkpatrick, 2002 are examples). This literature emphasizes the institutional and cultural circumstances that have limited the most anticipated revolutions of technology from becoming realities in schools.
Reflecting on this literature and the history of MSTE, particularly in light of Schön’s model, we can see that there is more than simply the impact of technology, positive or negative. Rather, it is the response of individuals within a community to a rapidly changing environment. For this reason, I draw on another set of literature that looks at technology in light of the more complex interactions of organizations. This literature is not so much a set of research studies in the sense of forward progress in a defined field (with control groups and dependent variables). Rather, it is more in the spirit of ethnographic inquiries into the structure of organizations and the uses of technology in context. I discuss some of that literature here since I will draw on some of the terminology of it in the history and discussion of MSTE. In particular, the terms community of practice and network of practice are useful and have been widely adopted.
Communities and Networks of Practice
While the MSTE Office is administratively located within a Department, College and University, the key aspects of its organization are the multiple “communities of practice” and “networks of practice” that have emerged within it and, by extension, through its work. A network of practice links people to others whom they may never get to know but who engage in similar kinds of work (J. S. Brown & Duguid, 2000). Communities of practice (COPs) “are more tight-knit groups formed, again through practice, by people working together on the same or similar tasks.” Lave and Wenger (1991) say a COP is “an intuitive notion” (p. 42), but clearly there are some specifics aspects that can be noted; namely, its “tight-knit” character. Elsewhere in the same book, they elaborate on a COP in this way: “A community of practice is a set of relations among persons, activity, and world, over time and in relation to other tangential and overlapping communities of practice. A community of practice is an intrinsic condition for the existence of knowledge, not least because it provides the interpretive support necessary for making sense of its heritage” (p. 98). Within MSTE, the people who work directly with the MSTE server constitute a community of practice. They share an understanding of concepts such as the backups of log files and problems with different Web browsers viewing certain MSTE pages. Members of the community share tacit knowledge and learn from each other through story telling and other informal ways of communicating.
Wenger characterizes a COP as “shared histories of learning” (Wenger, 1998). This is not always an unsullied good thing, as Wenger points out with regard to the community of claims processors.
Learning their jobs, they also learn how much they are to make sense of what they do or encounter. They learn how not to learn and how to live with the ignorance they deem appropriate. They learn to keep their shoulders bent and their fingers busy, to follow the rules and to ignore the rules. ... They become claims processors. (p. 40)
At MSTE, the communities have generally been strong learning environments. The shared learning involves new skills and current technology. Students working on the Web server, for example, learn new operating systems and scripting languages as well as interpersonal skills by working with the other MSTE staff.
An example of a network of practice that is facilitated by MSTE is the network of teachers who create lessons that are on the MSTE Web site. Members of this network include university students as well as practicing teachers within the State of Illinois, in other areas of the country, as well as abroad. Many of the people in this network of practice have never met each other face-to-face.
Information Ecologies
Another model that sheds light on an organization like MSTE is that of an information ecology. Nardi and O’Day define information ecology as “a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular local environment. In information ecologies, the spotlight is not on technology, but on human activities that are served by technology” (Nardi & O'Day, 1999, p. 49). They choose the word “ecology” because it emphasizes “continual evolution,” while the term “community” does not put that same emphasis on change.
This view seems especially suited to MSTE since the notions of evolution and change are integral to any description of the organization over time. Such an approach extends the view of communities of practice to focus specifically on the people and their interactions with technology. This is certainly an important aspect of the story of MSTE. While the definition of an information ecology suits MSTE, the term itself is evocative of other political and social issues that I will not discuss. For this reason, I refer to communities of practice rather than ecologies.
Mathematics Education
The majority of the resources on the MSTE site are in the field of mathematics education. MSTE was founded and continues to evolve in a time in which the rhetoric of reform is pervasive. Groups like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) (1989; 2000), The National Academy of Sciences (Mathematical Sciences Education Board and the National Research Council, 1989), and “The Glenn Commission” (National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, 2000) have all called for reform of mathematics education with a focus on better preparation and sustained professional development for mathematics (and science) teachers. . Since the publication of the NCTM Standards in 1989, much of the research that has been published in scholarly journals in mathematics education has been related to the NCTM guidelines for reform.
Aspects of reform efforts include more mathematics and science for undergraduates, increasing the number and quality of mathematics and science teachers, integration of technology into the mathematics and science curricula at all levels, more collaboration between teachers, mathematics for ALL students (where “ALL students” emphatically includes groups, such as females and Native Americans, traditionally underrepresented in mathematics and science courses), and a better understanding of the concepts and knowledge that students bring to the classroom. To use Schön’s term, these are the ideas that are in “good currency” as the MSTE program develops.
It is appropriate to examine MSTE in the context of the current reform effort in mathematics education. Issues such as the use of graphing calculators in the classroom, or the impact of particular software packages have been looked at extensively in the mathematics education research literature, as have the impact of Standards-based curricula and constructivist pedagogies. However, the reform efforts provide a political and rhetorical backdrop for the MSTE approach to curriculum development rather than a framework for examining MSTE events as an organization.
MSTE as an Interdisciplinary Mission Organization
MSTE is a small unit in a large University. Within the structure of the University, it can be thought of as “Interdisciplinary Mission Organization” (IMO). Such an organization is one “directed to addressing problems transcending the know-how and knowledge of any one discipline” (Alpert, 1985). Alpert contrasts this type of organization with the “multidisciplinary facilities” (MDFs) such as libraries and computer centers.
The management of MDFs is well understood in the academic community…
Operated under guidelines and priorities established by an interdepartmental advisory committee, the MDF is so commonplace, on the campus that some academics take it; for granted that all interdepartmental activities can and should be governed in the same way. Because a prime goal of the MDF is to provide access to shared facilities by the participating faculty, administration of the MDF is typically assigned to a director, operating under guidelines specified by a representative committee made up of the various departmental clients. The MDF may be staffed by non-faculty professionals to provide sophisticated services to its faculty clients. In some cases, the MDF includes a common building, offering contiguous offices or laboratories to encourage collaboration between individuals in different disciplines. However, the research goals are set, not by the organizational unit, but by the faculty investigators acting individually or at most with a few colleagues working on related research problems: The problems under investigation are typically disciplinary in character, occasionally applying techniques developed in one discipline to, the problems posed by another.
…
Contrasting with MDFs, the successful management of interdisciplinary mission organizations runs contrary to traditional ways of doing things in academia. If the operating metaphor for managing the MDF is the faculty advisory committee, the corresponding metaphor for the management of IMO activities is the participating network or team. Since the IMO is typically utilitarian, problem-focused, and accountable to mission-oriented sponsors, success depends critically on the commitment, inventiveness, and breadth of problem-related experience of the participants rather than their expertise in specialized fields. (pp. 260-261)
This description of an IMO corresponds with the description of MSTE. We are responsible to a number of mission-oriented sponsors, including corporate and government granting agencies and supporting programs, such as Partnership Illinois. The type of personnel necessary for successful IMO also fits MSTE. Most of the Office personnel at MSTE are graduate or undergraduate students. There has not been sustained involvement by any untenured faculty. But this is not surprising in the context of IMOs, as Alpert points out.
Because project success depends on collaboration, invention, and concern with the solution of problems while promotion depends on individual scholarly (scientific) achievement and publication in refereed journals, interdisciplinary, problem focused activity is dangerous territory for untenured faculty members (pp. 261-262).
It is interesting that MSTE corresponds with this description in that Alpert described the characteristics of an organization like MSTE in the context of a research university and made the description ten years before MSTE emerged. While Toffler, Malone & Rockart, and Schön described the broad characteristics of the learning organization, Alpert described it specifically in the context of the research university. Viewing MSTE as an IMO situates it with the university structure.
Schön’s Model as a Way of Viewing MSTE History
I have chosen Schön’s model of viewing a social system through theory, structure, and technology because it provides a multifaceted lens through which I can discuss the events of MSTE. It also does not exclude any of the other views discussed above. Throughout the thesis I refer to the literature on such topics as mathematics education reform and communities of practice as they arise in the context of the history.
CHAPTER 3
A CHRONOLOGY OF MSTE IN THE CONTEXT OF TECHNOLOGY
Many things remain inexplicable until we consider the history of the person in the task environment. This seems especially pertinent to the nature of learning, since learning must be a consequence of interaction with an environment through time. (Hutchins, 1995, p. 292)
In this chapter, I present a chronology of the MSTE Program with a focus on the evolution of the technologies in use or in process of development. In keeping with Schön’s model, I note that organizational structure, theory, and technology are three inseparable components of the MSTE system. However, a focus on technology is helpful in articulating the historical story line that is developed herein. The MSTE technologies include computers, networks of computers, and software such as databases, Web servers and client programs, and Java applets. Key events in MSTE’s history such as getting a Web server, creating a database of lessons, developing resources to work with teachers in DuPage, and creating interactive Web pages, all involved new technologies.
1993-1995: Genesis of MSTE
The early developments in MSTE were associated with a major advance in technology: the development of the first graphical Web browser.
The first objective of MSTE, as initially proposed to the UIUC administration, was to create a list of UIUC projects that involved technology-supported instruction in the fields of mathematics, science, and technology. This was to be followed by video-taped presentations of project goals, make-up and methods and to enhance communication among the various projects.
The first change in technology occurred prior to my involvement with the Office. Even before the MSTE Board of Advisors was established, Travers, the Office Director, was persuaded by Professor Daniel Alpert to create and maintain the project list as a Web document rather than as an archive of videotapes. Thus the MSTE Director decided to use the World Wide Web rather than videotape technology as the vehicle for communication and dissemination.
MSTE started in the fall of 1993, the same year the Mosaic Web browser was invented at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA[4]). At this time, Mosaic was already available to a number of communities around the Internet. In fact, it was said to be “the most rapidly propagating software program ever written” (Gilder, 1995). However, “World Wide Web” was not a common term, and it would be a couple of years before URLs were ubiquitous in magazine advertisements and television commercials. It was not yet the communication mechanism it was about to become.
It the early days of MSTE, the term “Mosaic” was often used as a synonym for ”World Wide Web.” That is, the Mosaic browser was discussed as though it were the Web itself. Some of the early MSTE email refers to our files as “Mosaic documents” rather than as Web pages. This was not ignorance, but exhibited an easy association of the sole graphical browser with the network of pages it traversed. The NCSA pages that announced the arrivals of new sites on the Web were titled, “What’s New with Mosaic” and not “What’s New on the Web.” An early task of MSTE was to put our pages on Mosaic as much as on the Web.
The decision to use the Web was a key feature of the MSTE’s early history. The Web was clearly emerging as a powerful means for storage and dissemination, and it is likely that MSTE would later have found it necessary and desirable to make this choice if the MSTE Office were to gain in popularity and accessibility.
Using the Web
Using the Web brought up a host of other issues. How were we going to update our list of projects and our lists of links to mathematics, science, and technology centers? Would we need a mechanism for users to do this through the Web? Would it be our responsibility or that of the users? Would the MSTE list be the authoritative list of campus projects? That is, since this was not going to be a static library of videotapes, but a dynamic library of text information (video on the Web was too new and expensive to be a consideration at this point), the array of questions surrounding the “Mosaic document” changed. Among those questions was, ‘Where should the list be located?’ That is, on what Web server should the list be hosted? In an effort to illustrate the list as a campus-wide endeavor, the director decided to put the list on the server at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).
Evan Glazer was the first research assistant for MSTE. He developed a set of 80 descriptions, taken from printed and online project information and saved them to a set of electronic files. He also developed a “Hotlist” page with links to NASA and other sites that illustrated the growing power of the Web. An initial list of approximately 100 projects was completed in the fall of 1994 and was placed on NCSA’s web server. While there seemed to be interest in the list of projects, there was little interest in adding to them. That is, the list did not have sufficient recognition to motivate persons to add their projects to the list. At the time, MSTE aspired to be recognized as having the best list of resources on campus. Discussions of the future included having an MSTE award and the hopes that being listed in the MSTE directory would confer status on the included projects. In September 1994, the list of projects was placed on the NCSA Web pages at ncsa.uiuc.edu/edu/MSTEintro.html.[5]
Since I had some experience with computers, and in particular the UNIX operating system, I sought and was given an account on the NCSA machine that allowed me to use Telnet (a command line computer interface) to upload files to the server and make changes. The process of creating Web pages involved writing them in HTML with a text editor, viewing them locally with the browser, then using Telnet and a UNIX program called “ftp” to upload them to the server at NCSA. MSTE had only two computers: a Macintosh Quadra that the Director used, and a Macintosh SE that had been donated to MSTE since it was not being used by the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. While the capabilities of these computers were limited, they were adequate for the purpose of updating the MSTE files.
Presentation Technology
MSTE personnel made several presentations on its work in 1994 and early 1995. All of these emphasized the power of using the Internet as an access to educational resources. The presentations were done around the UIUC campus to audiences of 15 or fewer people. Each session involved several days of planning, including coordinating with the local technology person to be sure that a display device was available. At one site, we used television monitors, at another, an LCD panel. Since each presentation involved showing resources both around the campus and elsewhere, it was necessary to have a live Internet connection. This, too, was complicated by the fact that different settings had to be prepared for each site. If the NCSA server went down during a presentation, then we were stuck. If the Calculus&Mathematica site went down, we could only talk about it and show the text of our summary files. Since we were using the machines of other departments for the presentations, we were forced to rely on their preparation and bring copies of files in case the network was down. For some projects that had dynamic interfaces (ones that returned information on the fly), we were unable to simply capture the pages and show them. In short, for all of our presentations, we had to depend on the support of other organizations and individuals. Any one of them could throw a kink into our work. Yet we soldiered on and received a modicum of interested responses.
Most of those in the audience were interested in creating and publicizing sites of their own (for example, Architecture, Plant Sciences, and Invertebrate Biology). One biology professor wanted to illustrate the uses of the Web to his undergraduate biology class. I did a demonstration for him in December 1994. In February of 1995, I talked with a technician who had a diffusion furnace in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) that was controlled through a Web interface. The technician claimed it was the only piece of machinery he knew of that could be controlled through a Web page. This, and other interactive sites like CyberProf (an online program for doing completing university course assignments), made it clear that there was more power to the Web than we were exploiting with our list of links to projects.
The frustrations of presentation were somewhat ameliorated in March of 1995 when MSTE was able to purchase a 25Mhz laptop computer that allowed us to save more files to the computer. Unfortunately, this created a new presentation problem—the compatibility of the laptop computer with the presentation equipment at each site.
In retrospect, it is amusing to think of these problems. From our current vantage point they are much less of an issue. MSTE now has three projectors of its own. When we make presentations, the major contents of the server are stored on a CD. Most often we are able to connect directly to the Internet through either a phone line or an Ethernet connection. Internet servers rarely crash as they did frequently (almost daily it seemed) in the early days. To continue with the development along these lines at that time often seemed an act of faith. But in fact, the tools have become much cheaper, more stable, and more reliable. In 2001, MSTE made over 20 presentations. We bring our own projector and laptop and connections to the Internet at presentation locations are common. The frustrations in the early days have allowed us to empathize with the struggles of teachers who are just beginning to use these tools in their classrooms.
Other Network Technologies
While MSTE was still learning about the Internet, in December 1994 Netscape had made an arrangement with the University of Illinois allowing the sale of the Netscape browser. We were able to get copies of the browser from “” but were still primarily using Mosaic. By spring 1995, MSTE was using Netscape almost entirely.
I was also experimenting with synchronous uses of the Internet for teaching. In spring 1995 I worked with an undergraduate who was doing her student teaching to use a UNIX tool called “ytalk” to have an Internet chat with her class twenty miles away.
Listservs were another growing tool. I used the University’s “majordomo” program to administer the listservs for classes taught by Travers. I could administer the program (add and remove users, approve messages, etc.) but control of the program was at the University level, not at MSTE’s level.
Furthermore, we continually encountered problems with these tools. The “ytalk” was not a compelling useful communications tool. The telephone seemed to be a more powerful way of communicating than did a Web-based chat. There were difficulties as well with the listservs. When graduate assistants had questions or problems with the majordomo program, administrators at the University level had little time or patience to deal with them. The need for technical support and the difficulty of providing such support was a recurring problem for MSTE.
The situation in spring 1995 was a striking contrast with the current state of network technologies. Chat tools, for example, are now commonplace on the Internet. Even young children readily use them.
The Need for More Control Over the Technology
The point in discussing these technologies is to show that there was a broad array of new tools at the time, and that experimentation with these tools was part of MSTE’s work from the beginning. Each choice regarding these tools had an impact on MSTE theory and structure. For example, in 1995, two undergraduate students, John Meseke and Mikkel Storaasli, began doing work for MSTE by updating our lists of projects. The task entailed surfing the network for sites to add to our list and creating files for lists of national centers and international centers of mathematics, science, and technology education. We then developed ways of classifying the lists by content area (mathematics, science, technology), and by source—national and international. In spring of 1995 I complained to the MSTE director that we had eight different lists of links to update whenever we needed to add a project.
While there were frustrations with our developing the MSTE Website, the power of the Web in general was becoming more and more clear. On 17 January 1995, a huge earthquake hit the city of Kobe in Japan. A Website was made readily available with regular updates and information on the disaster. Other interactive sites that gave current weather information, currency exchange rates, and sports scores were also popping up. It was clear that the Web was becoming a powerful medium for communication and interaction of all sorts. But how to exploit the power of the Web in the service of improving education was still an open question.
What Educators Could and Could Not Do with the Web in 1995
In spring 1995, Travers and a group of students, including me, met with programmers and the Education Group at NCSA. We were interested in a electronic notebook where students could create web-accessible portfolios of their work that was done in Geometer’s Sketchpad® files, Excel® spreadsheets, graphing calculator files, and word processing documents. The NCSA programmers wondered aloud, “why can’t you do that now.” In truth, we were too embarrassed to say that we did not know how.
The problem was that even though there were tools for carrying out individual tasks such as making files available on the Web, there was no easy way to carry out the myriad set of tasks that a curriculum writer would like to do on the Web. For example, if a teacher had written a lesson that used Sketchpad, and had a file to share, s/he would have to find a server on which to put the lesson and a method for uploading the document(s) to that server. If the teacher wanted to make changes in the lesson, s/he would again have to access the server. All this required permissions and administration by a central authority such as the UIUC Computing and Communications Services Office (CCSO) or NCSA. Getting those permissions was possible, but there were more challenges. If a teacher created a file in a spreadsheet program and then created a link to that file in his/her Web page (all of which required learning to use new tools), and then placed the HTML file and spreadsheet file on a server, a user should then be able to pull up the appropriate Web page and click on a link to download the spreadsheet file. But that was often not what happened. When the link was clicked, the browser (Netscape by this time) would display a series of characters that were gibberish to the user. The problem was that the browser did not know how to appropriately download and display the spreadsheet file. So the user had to learn how to use additional tools to circumvent this problem. If a spreadsheet were created on a Macintosh, it was then “binhexed” so that it could be sent in a format that the browser would recognize and download to the user’s (presumably Macintosh) computer. Files for the Windows operating system had to be “zipped” and served that way. Zipping (compressing and extracting files) added another level of complexity to the already intimidating technologies. In short, a user had to have a level of sophistication that was far too daunting for most already too-busy teachers and other users ‘on the street’. Thus, what was in principle possible was not necessarily practical.
Teachers as well as other users both then and now look for computer tools that work seamlessly with the resources they have. That is, they look for tools that will quickly and easily enhance what they are doing and that require little time learning a new interface or trouble shooting software and hardware problems. The challenges for teachers are well put by Texas teacher Susan Boone, one of the early users of the Internet for teaching (and one of MSTE’s first, and best, ‘clients’). She describes the environment for her motivated colleagues who were creating lessons in the early 1990s for dissemination on the Internet.
Boone: You have to understand our lessons…Our lessons are coming from in-the-field teachers. This is not a graduate course. You get no credit. They’ve given up two weeks of their summer. We don’t pay them. So, it’s a gratis thing.
Reese: They’re just doing it to learn about the Internet?
Boone: Absolutely, no credit. Absolutely no incentive other than the good graces of their well-being. I mean, I have been in programs where you get graduate credit, but that's pretty hard to do these days. So, these are just teachers that want to know because they need to know that in their classrooms. But their computer skills are extremely minimal. We teach them how to draw with a mouse, not how to do Java. Literally, you know the file structures, just how to store things. All that's really critical, but not very glitzy.
For such persons, the Internet was a very complicated and difficult tool to use. It took perseverance and determination to make it work. But there were teachers who were indeed making the Internet work. Some of these teachers, like Susan Boone, were elsewhere on the Internet. But some came through MSTE as pre-service or in-service teachers taking courses.
At this time, there were pages on the MSTE server that had been developed as lessons. Evan Glazer, an MSTE alumnus who was teaching mathematics in suburban Chicago at the time, created one such popular lesson, “Bon Voyage.” Through this lesson, students were asked to plan a trip to a foreign country. They then went to a Web page that gave up-to-date currency exchange rates to gather the data for their trip. John Meseke, a pre-service teacher working at MSTE, created pages with links to sites that had current data on earthquakes and weather information. Students used this information in mathematics lessons available on the MSTE website. In Texas, Susan Boone used “The Internet Pizza Server.” This was a site on which a user could enter the specifications of size (small, medium, or large) and add a variety of toppings (everything from anchovies to hardware). A computer script behind the scenes would then produce a picture of a pizza with the specified size and toppings (Beej, 1994). She used the site as a resource for a lesson on the measurement of circle area (Boone, 1995).
All of these sites used interactive pages that returned information in real time. However, few teachers were creating such interactive sites for themselves, and it was still difficult for them to share files. It required a determination to do such work. Again, Susan Boone describes what it was like teachers working with the Internet at that that time.
Boone: With teachers that were teaching, [but] were well versed in [computers], they knew what the Internet was and, you know, most of it was UNIX-based stuff. The Internet itself was there, but if you searched for algebra lessons, maybe three of four things came up. Not much!
Reese: And those weren’t things but what a textbook gave you anyway.
Boone: Oh precisely. And our [instructor] was a computer kind of person. HTML was hard, it was clunky. And the twenty people in the class weren't computer science people. They weren't programming people. They were math teachers. But the bulk of the twenty people were pretty savvy and go-getters, and from that class, most of the master teachers came, and [they] have gone on to do really swell things. We don't claim to do anything that's technologically difficult. And the reason is that we've got you guys to be our friends and we'll call you and tell you "you need to do this," but we don't know the computer, we know education. We know lessons. We've got a vision. And I think that's what's been so much fun. …You think, "I want to do that." And if you don't have the background, it's pretty scary. But it was an energizing effect that really did give you a boost to go out and do wild and crazy things. And that's fun. I think that if you're an educator that’s what keeps you going.
While teachers like Susan Boone were trying to find ways to make the Internet functional in their teaching, MSTE was trying to manage ways to point to what those teachers were doing. But it was not easy. At times, even maintaining a coherent list of links was difficult because of the need for constant updating. Organizing the lists in different ways required updating several files whenever a change was made. Clearly, what was needed was a database that could be searched through the Web. There was no doubt that it was possible, but at that point in time, it seemed only places like NCSA and NASA that had such resources. It was not a simple task to create one’s own interactive database for a small-scale education project.
In April of 1995, I began to correspond with an undergraduate at NCSA to try creating interactive forms for our Web pages on the NCSA server. After several days of work, it turned out that NCSA would not give me permission to run programs on their main machine and neither would CCSO allow users to run cgi[6] programs from their student accounts[7]. The only way to create an interactive interface was if one had access to a server on which programs could be run.
As it turned out, there was precedent on the Web already. Paul Reese, a teacher at Ralph Bunche elementary school in New York had put a up page called “The Great Penny Toss” that asked users to toss ten pennies repeatedly and put the results in a Web form. Students at the school then tabulated the results (P. Reese & Monroe, 1997). We wanted to bring at least that level of interactivity to MSTE.
MSTE Gets Its Own Web server
An obvious solution to many of our management and pedagogical problems at MSTE was to get our own server. This required only a computer, server software, and a link to the Internet. Since by late spring 1995 we had all three components, in June we were able to install “MacHttp” on a new 66Mhz desktop PowerMac computer. It was the newest of MSTE’s modest inventory of three computers. We obtained the domain name mste.uiuc.edu from the University for use on the server. Next we moved all the pages from the NCSA server to our machine. Finally, we changed our page on NCSA to be a link to our new address on 17 July 1995—the first day of logged activity on the MSTE Web site.
After one week, the MSTE log files showed 328 hits to the site. Remarkably, this number included hits from eleven different countries.
The MSTE Web Server: Changes to MSTE Structure and Theory
A major consequence of having our own Web server at MSTE was that we now had the ability to modify our list of links without going through layers of interaction with some unit on campus over which we had no control. At a superficial level, this meant only our having the freedom to easily enter text on a few pages. But at a more fundamental level, were able to explore ways to take greater advantage of the interactivity on the Web and to find ways to assist teachers in working with this new tool. Not only could we control the pages, but we could also observe its hits, and attempt to determine who was using our site. The greatest change to MSTE was that we could now, as an organization, directly investigate ways to make our site more in line with the burgeoning dynamic nature of the Web in the service of enhancing teaching and learning at all grade levels.
From surfing to serving
James Levin, a professor in the UIUC College of Education, coined the phrase, “From Surfing to Serving.” He used this as the motto for the “Learning Resource Server” on the College of Education’s Web site (Levin, 1995-2000).This slogan nicely summarized the general trend in education to exploit the power of the Web as a resource. While many sites were creating “lists of lists”, the most useful Web locations contained information in themselves rather than merely pointing to information elsewhere. Broad lists of links were difficult to maintain. With the number of world-wide sites growing from 130 in 1993 to an estimated 230,000 by 1996 (Gray, 1996), the task of listing new Internet sites quickly became insurmountable. The “What’s New With Mosaic” site mentioned earlier was one such list. It ended in 1997 (McLaren, 1997). In addition, Web search engines were appearing, which made the task of linking to sites even more redundant.
So, without ever making a formal statement of change of mission, MSTE began to change; moving away from simply having a list of links to having a site that a user could search and, to some degree, in the direction of tailoring to a user’s needs. The changes involved making those lists we already had more dynamic through a searchable database, but also creating resources that were more useful to teachers. That is, we were moving from surfing, to serving, from pointing to things, to actually producing resources. As the person in charge of the MSTE server, I had responsibility for overseeing these changes. By mid-1995 the Web as a tool for information dissemination was taking off. While MSTE was trying to make its lists more dynamic and create resources of its own, organizations like Yahoo and Excite were creating huge lists of resources on every conceivable topic including, of course, education. It is true that the MSTE site was pointing to projects on the UIUC campus that used technology. But many of those projects were interested in developing their own sites and achieving visibility in broader search engines than simply a local one. In other words, a new site at the University would more likely submit its pages to Yahoo or larger dissemination places than to MSTE. Also, many of the search engines had “spiders,” programs that would go from link to link on Web pages and archive information in a database. Thus, search engines could automatically generate huge lists with little human interaction. At MSTE, on the other hand, we had to find many of the programs on our own. Much of the information on particular campus projects came from the MSTE Board of Advisors. Others found out about MSTE through our Web pages, but there were less than a dozen submissions by project directors themselves. By 1997, many University of Illinois academic programs had their own Web sites, and tracking programs that used technology was tantamount to tracking all the programs of the University. In short, technology was becoming ubiquitous in the academic sector and large search engines were becoming the most popular sites on the Web. The original task of MSTE to track mathematics, science, and technology projects seemed on the one hand overwhelming and on the other hand redundant.
Nonetheless, a focused list of links still had potential uses for MSTE. Mathematics teachers, for example, were looking for places that linked specifically to resources for their instructional needs. This is much like the current idea of creating portals—a focused set of links and perhaps other tools that are tailored to the needs of a particular group and serve as a good entry point for that type of user. I had developed a small database of mathematics lessons that used the Internet. Originally, it was done as a project for a class with Professor Levin. The “back end” of the interface used the Filemaker Pro® database program that, with the addition of a cgi script, could be searched through the “front end” of a page on the Web. Thus the database was interactive. A user could come to the Web page and conduct a search based on topic or grade level. I wrote the program to do this in AppleScript®. The popular language at the time was Perl. But the easiest tool for working on a Macintosh was AppleScript, and since Levin also knew that language, and I was comfortable going to him with questions, I used that language.
The script worked, but it was very slow. A search of the database could sometimes take 30 seconds. But the script had obvious advantages. One was that with a database, one could add a record once and it could be searched in a variety of different ways, thus saving enormous time in updating files of the list of projects. The script also allowed one to create a repository for information on small set of mathematics lessons (those created by Glazer, Meseke, and Boone) that were making use of the Web. The lessons database was put up in December of 1995 and quickly became the most popular part of the MSTE Web site. All of those lessons used the Internet some way. That is, they contained programs that could be downloaded, they used email correspondence, they used live data, or they required some type of input by the user.
As with the list of projects there were few submissions to the lessons database. However, the number of users who browsed the MSTE lessons database increased steadily. By the spring of 2000, the site recorded 40,000 separate users each month. Log files of the visits indicated that the most popular resource was the lessons database. This pattern of usage has since persisted, with the result that through the last several years of connected projects, the lessons database has been MSTE’s core resource.
By January 1996, we had interactive databases for the list of UIUC projects and the mathematics lessons. Over the course of the next two years (1996-7), hits per month to the projects database and all the projects pages went to a high of 5,091 in October of 1996 and declined from that point (see Figure 2).
[pic]
Total hits to all pages in the Projects directory compared to the hits to the single Lessons Database Search page, “queryform.html”.
However, during the same two years (1995-1997), hits to the lessons database search page increased to a high of over 30,000 hits per month and repeated these high numbers near the middle of each semester. The lessons database was clearly attracting new users, and those users were accessing the database less during the ends of the academic semesters and more in the middle. The MSTE Lessons Database was becoming more popular as hits to the Projects database and all the projects pages had plateaued and then declined. As a percentage of the total hits to the MSTE server, the projects were becoming smaller and smaller (see Figure 3).
[pic]
Declining portion of total hits to the Projects directory.
Hits to the entire MSTE site increased steadily, from a few thousand in August 1995 to over 160,000 in October 1997 (see Figure 4). Similarly activity on the Web at-large doubled every six months (Gray, 1996).
[pic]
Total hits to the MSTE Web server dwarf the hits to the project directory. Instead the most popular pages become those in the lessons database.
The data from analyzing the MSTE server hits confirmed our intuition that the lesson materials were the most popular components of our site. Creating such materials was also the task that garnered the most enthusiasm from the pre-service teachers who were working for the MSTE Office. With the acquisition of a Web server in 1995, MSTE began to use the machine as the nexus for development of such resources.
1996-1998: Organizational Growth
After MSTE started its own Web server, adding content to that server became an increasingly important task. It also became important to find people who could make the most of the limited technology that we had available. Many of these people came to MSTE through UIUC classes or word of mouth, connecting from someone who had previously worked for the office.
MSTE began to grow as an organization, partly as a result of linkages to UIUC courses taught by Travers and his teaching assistants, who were constantly on the lookout for students who could contribute to MSTE’s work. Since MSTE was housed within the College of Education, those courses offered an opportunity to find students whose interests and skills were aligned with MSTE’s mission. One such discovery was Nicholas Exner.
MSTE “discovers” Nick Exner
An important person in the evolution of the MSTE program was and is Nicholas (Nick) Exner, who worked at MSTE for six years. Currently, he is a mathematics and computer science teacher in China. Exner is the person primarily responsible for the current look of the MSTE Web pages and has programmed most of the Java applets on the site.
Exner began working for MSTE in the summer of 1996. The first contact he had with MSTE was through a UIUC “discovery” course. The goal of discovery courses at the University of Illinois is to have incoming freshman exposed to senior faculty. Travers, the MSTE director, has often quipped that, rather than Exner discovering us (MSTE), “we discovered Nick” through that course. I was a teaching assistant for the course so was a partner in that discovery. Exner’s first email to me came soon after the start of this class.
Dear Mr. Reese,
I have been trying to set up a listserv for quite some time and I >was wondering if you have any ideas on the best way to do it. This listserv is just for my high school friends and I was just wondering if it would be possible to put it on my next account? I'm running procmail in my students account, but I can't quite get it to work right in my Next account. Do you have any suggestions? All help is deeply appreciated.
Sincerely,
--Exner—
\\|//
(o o)
~oOOo~(_)~oOOo~~~~~~~~~~
The note indicated his familiarity with technology and his interest in exploiting its power. Travers noticed Nick’s ability and asked him to manage the Web pages for the course and enticed him to join the Office staff. Exner began working for MSTE in the summer of 1996. His responsibilities included revising and updating Web pages as well as maintaining the Web server. At this time, Exner and I were also learning Java, the new programming language for Web-based programs with a graphical user interface.
This organizational shift in MSTE was liberating for me in that I no longer had to focus on maintaining the Web server. From that point on, the Web server became the primary responsibility of another person.
Exploration of Different Web Technologies
The next few sections discuss some of the changes in Web serving technology that we attempted to exploit at MSTE as we began to use the Web server. The uses of each of these technologies were heavily influenced by the people worked with and adapted the tools. The also represent a somewhat chronological enumeration of the technologies we used.
Populating the Lessons Database
The lessons database facilitated an organizational shift in MSTE. While Exner represented the most technologically sophisticated of MSTE’s technical staff, others, especially pre-service teachers, were connecting to MSTE by using our Web server and the lessons database to provide lesson modules for practicing teachers. Jay Hill, Ed Malczewski, and Amar Patel were all prospective teachers who took classes taught by Travers. Hill became a teaching assistant in the UIUC Statistics Department and wrote several lessons including one on descriptive statistics () that remains one the most popular resources on the MSTE site. He is currently a teacher in Florida. Malczewski is currently a teacher in suburban Chicago. While working for the Office, he created a lesson on exponential decay. Patel, who also is teaching in suburban Chicago, created lessons on linear regression and Chi-square.
Links to all of these lessons went into the database that I made in the fall on 1995. The goal of the database was to have a collection of lessons that contained some value added by using the Internet; so populating the database became a natural outgrowth of courses in curriculum development with technology. Students in Travers’ courses were assigned to write curriculum units, some of which were entered into the MSTE database. The lessons by the pre-service teachers often involved downloading live data, such as Glazer’s lesson that has students use a currency exchange site to plan a trip[8]. Other lessons had program files such as spreadsheets in Excel that were downloaded as part of the lesson. These spreadsheets had data in them already and some interactive features created by the author. For example, Patel created a spreadsheet, as part of his lesson on regression that plotted a line of best fit for points that could be entered by the user[9]. This involved a somewhat sophisticated use of the spreadsheet. Including it in the lesson illustrated the concept in a dynamic way, and users would not have to go to the trouble of preparing the spreadsheet file. They could simply download the file to their computers and run it from there. Patel’s lesson was thus a good candidate for inclusion in the database because it used the Internet in an important way. There was one drawback to the downloadable programs. They were often dependent on the platform of the machine that was downloading them or even on specific applications. That is, some programs would only run on Macintosh computers and others, only on PCs. In order to be useful, some programs, like Patel’s spreadsheet, required a specific application (in this case Microsoft Excel®).
Cross-platform capability has since become much less of a problem and applications often have methods for importing data from one file type to another. For example, a ClarisWorks® spreadsheet can view the data from an Excel spreadsheet. In 1995 and 1996 when these authors were creating their materials, this was much more of a problem. Even separate versions of the same program could lead to a file being inaccessible. Thus, these MSTE lesson authors were among the more sophisticated computer users from the ranks of the pre-service teachers.
The database contents were popular and the database interface was functional but slow. At the time I wrote the database interface program, I did not know that there was already a free program on the Web that had been debugged by a network of users. It was called, ROFM; an acronym that stood for “Russell Owen’s FileMaker” cgi. Russell Owen had created the program and distributed it free. There was also a listserv set up for support of the tool. When we discovered this, it immediately made the AppleScripts I had been using obsolete, as ROFM was faster and more reliable. I had begun writing AppleScripts in fall 1995. We learned about the ROFM cgi in late summer of 1996. The cgi was in turn made obsolete by the incorporation of a Web interface directly into FileMaker Pro in 1997.
This illustrates a useful aspect of the MSTE theory: that is, the readiness to abandon tools in favor of new ones. Experimentation of this sort occurred frequently. We tried different programs, sometimes wrote our own. If they did not do what we needed, or we found a better tool, we moved on. Because of this, it is not surprising that MSTE has used five different programs to manage listservs (majordomo, macjordomo, ListSTAR®, LetterRip®, and Mailman).
On the other hand, MSTE has stuck with the FileMaker Pro database program and but has changed in the way it is used. MSTE has had dozens of databases of interactive databases on its Web site. At one time we had fifty different databases in operation and were forced to shut some down because we had reached the limit of the software.
With so many different technologies, and complex issues for using each of them, MSTE required an influx of talented individuals. I now mention two more: James Dildine and Lisa Silver, and discuss and recount some of the ways in which they used the technology tools available at MSTE.
In the quote below, Silver describes how she learned about databases at MSTE.
Reese: Do you remember learning Filemaker (the database program)?
Silver: Yes. Filemaker 2.0 just came out I believe. I found that the software itself was very user-friendly. However, creating a web page that would search or add records to the database was quite challenging at first. It wasn't until Filemaker Pro 4.0 and Claris HomePage that the Web design became more user-friendly.
Reese: Do you remember learning ROFM (a database interface program)?
Silver: Yes. I remember you were SOOO excited that we finally had a cgi script and that someone else had the desire to put together something so nice. That made very little sense. I also remember that it was no big deal to work so hard on something and have it available on the Internet for FREE.
Reese: What was it that made very little sense?
Silver: Well, I remember that this guy Russell Owen took tons of time and energy to put together such a long and thorough CGI Script. Also, he put together the literature for people to use it. Although I thought that the manual was difficult to follow, I eventually figured things out and found the script to be very useful for MSTE's needs.
Reese: You contacted him too with some questions, didn't you?
Silver: Gee, I don't remember. Now that you mention it I did. I contacted either him or the listserv with a question that I can't recall. All I do know is that he responded immediately with a very detailed answer.
Once Silver was comfortable with database scripting it became a common tool for her to use at MSTE. While she was assigned tasks to do at MSTE, she also took responsibility for finding the tasks she was most interested in within the framework of the MSTE theory.
Silver: You told me on one of the first days that I worked at MSTE that everyone felt overwhelmed. Eventually, once I figured out what I was doing with computers and web stuff, I decided to be overwhelmed with stuff I enjoyed rather than backups and Serverstat[10]. I found that my forte was database stuff and just ran with it.
This is a recurring theme at MSTE, that people within the program find a niche or a project in which they can invest energy that both fits within and at the same time influences the theory of the program.
James Dildine began working at MSTE in the spring of 1997. He assisted me with a course in middle school mathematics methods, and was very popular with the students. At the same time he was teaching these tools, he was also learning them himself. In the following quote from an interview with me, he describes his motivation to be learning so many new tools.
Reese: But it's cool for you to be the expert on stuff? You work for that?
Dildine: Totally! I know all kinds of stuff about technology. I won't get over my head, but MSTE kinda fosters that in terms of "flying by the seat of your pants" You gotta know what your doing and you gotta know everything [because] you never know when you are going to be in front of 50-500 people and the database will not work right and you have to reroute or if TCDs version of Excel has no toolbars and you suddenly have to explain how to get to Chart-maker; you have to know your stuff “up and down,” “in and out.” Oh, and don't even forget about the "in-the-field" teachers who quiz you on "How can I get this in my classroom?" Or "Where is the math when they can have the computer do it for them?"
This is remarkable aspect of MSTE theory that has been influenced by MSTE personnel. Time and again, students like Silver and Dildine have appeared who are able to teach themselves new technologies that interest them. They are then able to share their knowledge with other teachers or use that knowledge for developing online materials. Over time, it has become part of the MSTE theory that learning new tools is essential.
Running Programs through a Web Form
The first interactive pages on the MSTE site were run through the common gateway interface (cgi) programs where a user puts information into a form such as a keyword like “algebra.” When the user clicked on the “Submit” button, the Web browser would contact the server, that would run the cgi program. The cgi program would search the database for records containing the word “algebra,” and return the results in a formatted Web page. This type of program was obviously essential for database interactions, but we also used it for interactive lesson resources. These lessons modules first appeared on our server in 1996.
Creating interactive lessons at this time was challenging and the results were not immediately obvious as an advantage over tools that did not use the technology. An early lesson on the MSTE Web site, was “the cereal box problem” (Travers, Reese, & Exner, 1996-2001). The problem is stated this way.
Suppose there was one of six prizes inside your favorite box of cereal. Perhaps it's a pen, a plastic movie character, or a picture card. How many boxes of cereal would you expect to have to buy, to get all six prizes?[11]
[pic]
A sample of output from the Applet of the Cereal Box problem. Each picture represents a prize (an animal card) in a box of cereal. In the case above, it took 14 boxes to get all six cards.
In the original textbook problem, students simulate shopping trips by rolling dice. Each roll represents the purchase of a box of cereal. The value on the die represents one of the prizes. If there are six prizes, the number of boxes purchased is represented by the number of rolls required to get all six values of the die. Students keep tally on a table. I wrote a cgi version of the problem through which users could enter the number of prizes and get find the results of a trial in which they got all six prizes. A user enters a number of boxes and when the hit the “submit” button, the server would run an AppleScript program that would return an html page with the number of trials and images of each prize. This version of the problem used animal cards as prizes. So, if a user entered “6” and hit “Submit,” the program would return a number, say “12,” and with it, twelve pictures of the six different animal cards. On the next trial, it might take eighteen boxes to get all six pictures. The program took 15 seconds or more to run. This was perhaps three times as fast as doing the problem with an actual die. However, if ten users on ten different machines were accessing that page, they would require that the program run one time for each time one of them hit the Submit button. For our server, if groups of ten or more people were using the Cereal Box Problem on the Web, they would have to wait over a minute to get the responses. Sometimes running the program this way would crash the server and thereby prevent access to any pages at all until the server was rebooted. For one class in which we attempted to use the program I was compelled to run back and forth between the Armory building where the server was housed and the classrooms in the basement of a building 100 yards away. If someone was available in the Armory to reboot the server, we could use the telephone to ask him or her to restart the machine.
Downloadable Programs
To get around the problem of taxing the server’s cpu, our first effort was to write programs that could be downloaded (in binhexed form) and run on the user’s computer. I used a program called FutureBASIC® to create a simulation of the Buffon Needle (G. C. Reese, 1996). Then Jay Hill created a simulation of The Hermit Problem (Hill, 1996). The limitation of this was that the programs had to be downloaded, “unstuffed,” and then run. Also, the program would only work on Macintosh computers.
Learning Java®
A better solution was to use the Java programming language. Through Java we could create programs that a user could download and run locally on their computer; thus freeing the server’s cpu from the load of running the program repeatedly.
The first version of Java was released in May 1995. We began to investigate its uses in the spring of 1996. Java was still in version 1.0 and learning it was more complicated than learning AppleScript or FutureBASIC. Nonetheless, since it had obvious benefits, a group of MSTE students, Nick Exner, Lisa Silver, Louie Beuschlein, and I began to teach ourselves the language. The MSTE organizational structure encouraged this kind of collaboration in several ways. The first was that we had the interested individuals within the organization. The second is that we had access to the tools to facilitate the exploration: computers, software, and manuals. Finally, we had the extended University and network communities on which to pull for expertise.
By 1997, Java had was all over the Internet and embraced by the development community(Segaller, 1998, p. 338) and MSTE too had several programs on its pages. I wrote two of the initial programs: one for the Buffon Needle and another for the popular probability problem, “Monty’s Dilemma.” However, Exner took to the language and subsequently produced the majority of applets on the MSTE site. He upgraded the cgi of the Cereal Box Problem to Java. He also create applets to roll dice, plot points a line of best fit, and draw polygons, to name only a few. Lisa Murphy, a graduate student in mathematics education, taught herself the language and contributed applets on Ohm’s Law and a simulation for visualizing the distance-time relationship between a man and an object he was moving towards and away from. Currently, in 2002, a new set of programmers: Kristen Carvell, Michael McKelvey, and John Wofford are writing applets for the MSTE site. All of the Java programmers working for MSTE are self-taught to some degree. Some have taken courses after they learned the rudiments of the language at MSTE.
MSTE/TCD Collaboration
While focusing on the evolving MSTE technologies, I have skipped past a major event in the MSTE evolution—the collaboration with the Technology Center of DuPage (TCD). Through this collaboration, MSTE has explored new technologies, created new courses, and sought ways to enhance the quality of its materials in reaching a greater variety of students and teachers. In subsequent chapters, I will elaborate on the implications of this collaboration. In this chapter, I will recount the history, again, in the context of the projects and the technologies used.
In 1995, Ed Susmilch, the principal at the TCD (at that time it was called the Davea Career Center) contacted MSTE expressing interesting the MSTE program. In fact, he was one of the first to notice the MSTE site. Susmilch found the MSTE Web pages while they were still on the NCSA server (July of 1995). He both phoned the Office and sent email to the mste@uiuc.edu address. He was the first person to call MSTE after having found our site on the Web. Below is the text of his first message to us.
To: mste@uiuc.edu
Subject: Aviation Program
I am the principal at the Davea Career Center in Addison, Il.
Currently we have an aviation program that certifies students as aviation mechanics. I am interested in upgrading the math and science components of the program and also making a connection with the aviation program at the U of I.
We have also just gotten connected to the Internet and I feel that our connection could somehow help to bring this all together.
I would be most interested in speaking with you about this project. I have a phone call in to the Aviation Institute and expect a call from them tomorrow (7/11).
I can be reached by land line at ***-***-****. Please use the e-mail address above (esusmilch@). Until I have more confidence in my ability on our Internet connection I am using my old address.
Thanks
There are a number of interesting points to make about this message. First, is that I did not think it was anything special, but passed it on to Travers, who seized on it immediately. What Travers saw was someone who both recognized the potential of the Internet and who was interested in improving mathematics and science at his school. He also saw that the TCD students were a special population, and working with them was in line with the mathematics reform effort to reach ALL students, especially those students often tracked out of mathematics classes. At the time, I did not recognize these implications and opportunities. My response to him was to point him to some of the projects in our list and to say that we were happy to talk with him any time. He called us. And we met for lunch that summer (1995) and agreed to plan projects together. But it was not until the spring of 1996 that a project actually materialized.
TCD is a career-oriented school that serves 22 area high schools in DuPage County. They offer training in fields such as Automotive Mechanics, Computer Aided Drafting and Design, Culinary Arts, and Machine Tool. The MSTE/TCD collaboration has the goals of integrating more mathematics and science into the curricula and at the same time, making the mathematics and science of career preparation courses more apparent. As well as the interest and enthusiasm of Susmilch, the collaboration with TCD had an advantage in that TCD already had a strong technological infrastructure. Yet, there were still many challenges for the project.
The first challenge was to establish meaningful communication over the 150-mile distance between the two organizations. Travers and I made several visits to the site that first year to meet teachers and learn about the campus.
Using the Network technologies for Mathematical Communication
Once communication was established, we found the financial[12] and human resources to begin collaboration. The first challenge was to come up with a meaningful project that would connect the mathematics to the career areas. We started on a project with the machine tooling class at TCD. It was called “The Cooperative Manufacturing Project.” In it, students work through a lesson on MSTE Web pages that requires them to translate a blueprint of a computer game base plate into coordinates that are then sent to the machine shop at TCD. The students at TCD then mill the piece and send it back to the students. This was a step ahead from the typical interactive lesson in that this involved communication between students who had not met and the exchange of a physical product (the base plate). [13]
The first sets of pages for the project were written over the spring and summer of 1996. The project involved the unification of two groups: a mathematics class and the machine tool class. To prepare the students for working with the coordinate geometry, Anne Munroe, a mathematics teacher at Champaign Central High School, designed some activities that she then added to the Web pages on the MSTE site. These introduced the Cartesian Coordinate system to the students and gave them the basic concepts to be able to do the project. When the students were ready, they went to the computer lab and used a Web browser to locate a form on an MSTE Web page. They filled out the form and hit the “Submit” button. This sent an email with the information to the Machine Tool instructor at TCD. He then had his students mill the part according to the specifications. Within in a week, the metal pieces were sent to Champaign, milled to the specifications sent by the students.
We quickly learned that communication was a tricky business. Not all the pieces came out as the students had intended. Susmilch sent me the following message:
The form in which Anne's students sent their calculations was not what Jim and his students expected. I was kinda afraid that was going to happen. This is one area will we have to look at. There is a definite language that the machinists speak. Either we will have to learn to speak "math" or they will have to learn to speak "machine". I am not sure which is the correct direction.
Filipek, the TCD instructor, had sent the following email to Munroe.
Thanks for the numbers. We cut the parts today and we need an address to mail them to you. How many more groups can we expect in this run? My students and I are enjoying this because it is a "real world" experience. Some of the info you sent was not what we expected, but we made it work. I explained to my students that you must be able to adapt to what the customer wants, not what they say. When all the groups are in we will evaluate the project and the results.
As soon as I get your US Mail address I will send you the parts. (Our E-Mail is not capable of sending aluminum baseplates yet)
[pic]
Base plate parts made from student specifications.
In Figure 6, nine base plates are displayed. Number 1 is the master. All the other base plates should look like it. Numbers 2 and 6 are made from the correct specifications. The rest all have errors that would make the plate unusable. Some are missing the holes where screws would go, some put straight edges where arcs should be. Some have edges with inclines where the edge should be vertical. Many of the students were surprised when they saw the products that came from their specifications.
Effective communication is difficult. This project was a clear illustration of that fact, and that accounted for the “real world” value of it. The students in Munroe’s class also needed some adjustment to the idea that they were sending information that was actually going to materialize into a product. To ease the students into the project, Anne created a set of lessons to go with the project and put them on our Web site (Munroe, 1996). Several other schools tried the project in the spring of 1997 at the end of the semester.
This project involved a complex set of technologies. First, there were the traditional classroom technologies of pencils, papers, rulers, and handouts. Munroe used these to give students the mathematical background for interpreting the blueprint and translating it to instructions in a coordinate plane. An additional technology was the sophisticated milling machine used in the TCD Machine Tool class. Finally, there was the Internet technology that joined the two classes. All of these technologies worked well even though many of the base plates were flawed.
A similar project created in spring of 1997 where students designed a cup and sent the specifications to the autoCAD class at TCD. The students were then sent a 3-D rendering of the they specifications (G. C. Reese, 1997). This visualization tool allows students to see a picture of their design on the computer and then resize or rotate the picture to see their design from different points of view. Again, the responses by the students led to interesting lessons in communications and clarity, with many students being surprised by the translation of their specifications into a 3-D rendering.
Several different classes did both these projects. However, the teachers treated the project as ancillary to the curriculum and the projects typically done at the end of the semester when teachers were looking for a supplemental activity. Only Champaign Central High School did it during the year as part of the regular coursework.
Some Lessons Learned from the First Projects
The TCD project represented a technology shift for MSTE. Until this time our focus had been on the Web page without a direct connection to the classroom. The Web resources were freely available, and we could have some measure of their impact by the number of accesses and only occasionally received direct feedback on their uses. With the TCD project, we began to look at technology that would have immediate impact in both the mathematics classroom in a TCD feeder school and the milling class or AutoCAD classroom or other career area. This was a larger challenge in that it asked both sets of teachers and students to engage in a type of communication that was unfamiliar to them. This was also a challenge for MSTE in facilitating the project.
One problem was that even though the milling activity was authentic, the base plate was an ersatz product, not actually used by anyone. So too, the cup design was vehicle for the collaboration and not a true design. Another problem was that the mathematics appeared to be ancillary to the mathematics of the high school classroom. For the next set of projects we sought greater authenticity in the type of activity and a closer connection to the mathematics curricula.
Data Collection Projects
The next to projects with TCD involved data collection. One, the Point-Of-Sale cash register, was done at the on-site at the culinary arts department at TCD. The Automotive Repair and Progress Evaluation (ARPE) database was a collaboration with the Automotive Mechanics department at TCD.
The POS Database
The POS database was the most ambitious project with TCD to that point. It began in 1996. The TCD principal and the lead instructor in Culinary Arts were discussing possible projects and came up with a seemingly simple plan.
[The lead culinary arts teacher] and I were talking yesterday and she was saying how much she would like a "point of sale" cash register.
Wellll
What about creating one on the Internet. We could list all items we sell on a page. As students order their food, our "clerks" would click on the appropriate link. We could also add an additional field for "amount tendered" which would be manually entered by our "clerk". The computer would figure the amount of total sale, amount to the cash drawer, the amount to be returned to the customer. We would also obviously have the total number of items sold throughout the day and an accounting of all money in the cash drawer. Another item that could be tracked would be the amount of time per sale, if we linked in a clock. I am sure there are lots of other things we could do just with the cash drawer and sales
In a follow-up email, Travers expressed interest in the idea but saw it as a lot of work. At the time, Susmilch also had the thought that this could be done through cooperation with a fast food company. Some contact was made with officials at Lucent, who had consulted with TCD on business connections, but no product or plan came of it. After several months, we decided to write our own interface using the database program Filemaker Pro.
The purpose of the interface was to provide a database display that students could use as a cash register for the operations at the small delicatessen and restaurant that was run by the Culinary Arts Department at TCD. Managing these sale areas was part of the training for students in culinary arts and at the same time provided a service to the student body and faculty at TCD. Teachers ate at the restaurant, and students stopped by the deli after class on their way to the buses. The deli was very popular. It seemed a good idea to track the sales from the deli and gather information that could be used in a statistics class and at the same time the data could be used to promote efficiency within the deli operation.
[pic]
The original interface for the point-of-sale (POS) cash register, summer 1997.
Susmilch directed culinary arts teachers to work on a curriculum that would include the computer. Meanwhile, I pondered ways to modify the database display and prepare it to interact with a cash drawer. Susmilch came down to Champaign at the end of August with several poster-sized write-ups of the current methods for calculating expenses and profits using the handwritten forms that were part of the deli curriculum. With that as a background, I began work on making the database interface fit the current system and contacting cash drawer manufacturers. Figure 7 shows the early version of this database that was displayed at the summer 1997 meetings. By September 1997, we had connected the interface with the cash drawer.
Ed Malczewski, who had been part of MSTE and was then a teacher at a nearby school, came in to troubleshoot problems with the database. His help was well received by the staff culinary arts staff. Throughout the semester, twenty students used the POS interface as a cash register. The computer program kept track of their names, what they sold, and when they sold it. Figure 8 shows the POS interface as it was used throughout the spring of 1998.
[pic]
The POS cash register as it was used for spring 1998. Fields for the school have been removed and others that provide totals (“z-out”) were added.
The final POS interface was used as the cash register for a full semester. The data that was collected was not compelling enough to the culinary arts instructor, who also found the computer interface bulking and difficult to use. The POS system was abandoned in spring 1998 in favor of a professional system.
ARPE Database
With each of the technologies mentioned above, I have included the names of MSTE personnel who have done work with them. Each of them found ways to take responsibility for particular sections. Some were assigned tasks that involved particular technologies (e.g., writing Web pages or running program to analyze server hits); others chose particular tasks. Some learned on their own, some learned cooperatively. An example of the latter is the ARPE database. This was the Automotive Repair and Progress Evaluation (Dildine & Silver, 1998). It illustrates how two people cooperatively took responsibility for creating a resource on the Web. It also illustrates the way in which individuals influenced the uses to which we put technology. Lisa explained the database this way.
Silver: ARPE. Jim and I put together a database (shocker) that was designed for a student to use at TCD in the automotive program. The idea was that students would enter the cars that were repaired in the program and the various repairs that were needed along with the make, model, and year of the cars. The information would be used later for analysis by the students of the program, or in a home school stat class to look for trends in the types of cars and repairs performed. Originally, I created a database in FMPro that was very slick. It looked like tabs at the top. One tab was to add a student and one was to search. The others I can't remember. TCD refused to get FMPro since it already had Access (a different database program). So we created a Web site that looked far worse than the FM Pro database. I think the program might've been more successful if we could've taught the kids FMPro. Actually your lunch program used FMPro and that didn't fly.
Reese: Yeah. I was just thinking of that.
Silver: Eventually we extracted the little data there was and made a lesson out of it. Jim [Dildine] actually emailed me a year or so ago and told me that he looked over the ARPE lesson I made and he couldn't believe how much quality math was there.
This interview took place in the fall of 2001. Lisa Silver, who is currently a mathematics teacher in suburban Chicago, worked at MSTE from 1996 through 1998. She mentions that the database “didn’t fly.” As with the POS cash register, the TCD staff did not readily incorporate this project into their curriculum.
Lessons learned from the data collection projects
Both the POS and the ARPE database were used for a while by the TCD faculty and then abandoned. From this we learned several lessons that have guided the development of the project since then. The first lesson was that it was important to have a person on-site (for the POS, it was Malczewski) to troubleshoot new technological tools. The POS in particular received the most enthusiasm during those periods in which there was active involvement by an MSTE staff member. The second lesson was that, wherever possible, have the instructors themselves create the interfaces for the projects working with tools with which they are already familiar or about which they are willing to learn. In the summer of 1999, Dr. Travers, began teaching courses at TCD. These were offered for graduate credit and were attended by some TCD instructors and other DuPage County teachers. These courses, and the presence of Dildine at TCD, allowed us to move forward to the next stage of the project.
The Next Generation of MSTE-linked Teacher-created Lessons
Lessons created by the teachers are the ones most likely to be used, and the focus of MSTE/TCD project for the past three years has been on facilitating teachers as they create lessons that connect new technologies to their current curricula. In a way, this is simply rediscovering the constructivist principle that humans are knowledgeable learners and that learning involves the negotiation of shared meaning (Peterson, 1994). The teachers at TCD were able to take the context of their classes and adapt it to what they were learning about new technologies. Through this approach we were able to integrate some of the lessons learned from past projects into the current activities.
1999-Present: Integrating Projects
In this section, which chronicles the most recent activities of MSTE, I discuss a few examples of the technology tools used and modules developed in the past several years. During this time, MSTE had grown to a point where its network of practice extends far beyond the bounds of its offices and even the particular projects with which it is directly involved. But even as this growth occurs, we are attempting to enhance the TCD collaboration and connect it with new initiatives.
Classes at TCD
In the summer of 1999 Dildine was hired at TCD. This brought the project to a new phase as the focus of classes shifted from the UIUC campus to TCD. That same semester, University of Illinois courses began at the Technology Center of DuPage. While Dildine’s job was not specifically to facilitate the MSTE/TCD project, he has been integral to the continuing work there. Dildine describes the evolution below.
We decided that we needed someone on site the very first year that we did MST Day (1998). That person was Lisa, who coordinated most of MST Day[14] then Kari Farrell did the job the next year with MST Day 2, and I have been there for MST Day 3 and 4. Initially I was hired by TCD to coordinate their academic credentialing and had little or nothing to do with MSTE. That however went quickly out the window as we had projects flying left and right, and we began to further integrate our goals (MSTE and TCD) for math in the County. As it became apparent that the alignment with MSTE/UIUC/NCSA/TCD would become a powerful clearinghouse for math in DuPage County TCD and DAOES were more content to let me spread projects across MSTE/TCD lines.
My first few weeks Ed [Susmilch] made it a point to say that they were paying me and that I needed to focus on what was happening there [at TCD] but because of Ken Travers tenacity and continued involvement as well as my ties to MSTE and now being at TCD my position evolved into the MSTE liaison as well as curriculum specialist. I never really got a job description. We just kinda made it up as I went along. I like where it is now because I truly cannot describe it the same [way] every day. (Jim Dildine, personal communication, March 10, 2002)
With Dildine at TCD, it was much easier to coordinate courses and work with teachers. Since 1999, there has been at least one course UIUC each semester taught at the Technology Center of DuPage.
This also meant a new level of interaction with the teachers at TCD. Instead of using modules created by MSTE staff, instructors at TCD were taking courses offered through the UIUC that allowed them to create materials directly related the their classes.
Battery Load Testing: An example of a Teacher-Created Module
The Battery Load Testing Spreadsheet created by Fred Dittman, an automotive mechanics instructor at TCD, is one example of a module created through these classes. The students collect the readings from a voltmeter connected to a car battery as the car is being cranked for 15 seconds. The readings are then entered into the spreadsheet, which graphs the data automatically. Other lines on the graph provide an interpretation for the added data[15].
The Project Hand-In
A project that Exner worked on for several years is now in regular use on the MSTE site. It is the “Project Hand-in” page. It allows users from anywhere on the network to log in to our site and upload an assignment. This facilitated a major organizational goal of the office, which was to conduct classes in remote locations like TCD and still have one place on which to store the class work of students. Prior to the Project Hand-in, students would email assignments to Travers or Tim Hendrix (another graduate student at MSTE teaching courses) or Reese or other instructors. Sometimes they would turn in floppy disks with their assignments.
In doing workshops or courses with the teachers, the first task is always to work on how to turn in assignments. When this involves producing pages, the instructor spends several hours familiarizing the students with the Internet and with the client server relationship. Often students (who are themselves classroom teachers) are unsure which computer a file is on. It is confusing for them to us the browser to view a file that is on their local computer and similar one on a server in a remote location. The client-server relationship is disorienting when there are multiple copies of similar files in different places. MSTE courses tend to work through these problems rather than work around them. That is, they work with teachers to build facility with putting pages on the server and learning the rudiments of file structure rather than trying to find a single application that will address these problems. That is not to say, MSTE has not experimented with different applications. We have used commercial tools such as ® and WebBoard® for some aspects of the courses. However, as discussed earlier, using the MSTE server affords the largest amount of control.
The MSTE site has continued as the nexus for materials development, even as other tools have been used in some of the classes. As has been noted, MSTE moves to whichever technologies are most amenable to its tasks. The Homework Hand-in, while only a tool, is now an essential tool for MSTE[16].
The M2T2 Project
In spring 2000, MSTE began a project funded by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to create mathematics materials at the middle school level linked to the Illinois Learning Standards (Illinois State Board of Education, 1997). The resulting set of modules were called, “Mathematics Materials for Tomorrow’s Teachers” or “M2T2”(MSTE, 2000-2002). The technologies of the M2T2 Project involved a rediscovery of the basic technologies; the pencil-paper, rolling dice, building with poster board style of activities. With the M2T2 materials, MSTE was illustrating the ways in which the technology could add the next dimension of learning to hands-on exploration with the old technologies.
The advanced technology only highlights the importance of the basic technology. For example, as part of the M2T2 project, students cut out vertices of a paper triangle to see that the angles sum to 180 degrees. They then cut off the vertices of a quadrilateral to see that the sum of the angles is 360 degrees. Next would be a pentagon, but it is difficult to bring the vertices together because the angles are more than a full circle. A Java applet that allows students to extend the process through a visualization of dragging computer angles onto a circle makes it possible to keep going after the work with pencil, ruler and paper would become too difficult. In addition, students can then use the data as an example of a linear relationship between the number of sides and the sum of the interior angles that they can then plot using a graphing calculator or spreadsheet. The applet (see Figure 9 below) is available on the Web at mste.uiuc.edu/java/java/angleobject/ as part of the M2T2 materials.
[pic]
Angle Object applet by Nicholas Exner extends the activity for the sum of the interior angles of a polygon. The angles in red have been dragged onto the circle. So far, they sum to 332 degrees.
The theory behind this type of activity is to use the technology to visualize the extension of a hands-on problem. Thus, just as with the original mathematics lessons on the Web there is a sense of “value added” by having technology involved.
In terms of structure and theory, MSTE is now extending to the broader audience of the State of Illinois, having done workshops in dozens of schools and regional offices[17] around the State.
TRECC
The Technology, Research, Education, and Commercialization Center (TRECC) is the latest collaborative project for MSTE. The primary partner is the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Through this project, MSTE is enhancing the modules created by TCD instructors and increasing the reach of those projects through tools such as video teleconferencing over the Internet. Information on this project is at . A key aspect of MSTE’s involvement with the TRECC project is its SummerMath program, which targets eighth-grade students who have done poorly in math classes. The goal is to better prepare students for enrollment in schools like TCD.
College Algebra for High School Students
SummerMath focuses on students before they come to a school like TCD. For the students who are already at TCD, the College Preparatory Mathematics (CPM) course gives them a chance to take a course for University credit while in high school. It is part of yet another collaboration, this time between MSTE and the Mathematics Department. The particular project involved is Calculus&Mathematica (Uhl, 2002). Professor Jerry Uhl has created versions of his Mathematica-based courses for linear algebra and differential equations. The CPM course is geared toward high school students. In addition to using Mathematica, the course emphasizes a relaxed atmosphere without lectures. It also provides extensive support from undergraduate teaching assistants. A unique aspect of the course is that it especially targets students, such as those at TCD, who have had little mathematics and little success with the mathematics they have had.
Plans for MSTE Projects
The current directions for MSTE projects lead toward bringing together past work. As the modules for M2T2 are in wider use, more teachers are familiar with MSTE courseware. Collaborations with another vocational school in Bloomington are in the works. An outreach project for middle school science, Prairie Flowers, is using the M2T2 materials for the mathematics component of its summer workshops. In fall of 2002, MSTE will offer a course that will allow teachers to work with students in the CPM course or with their own students to teach algebraic concepts using technology.
CHAPTER 4
MSTE AS A LEARNING SYSTEM—EVOLVING ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
As was evident from the chronology of evolving MSTE technology, those technological changes have inevitably been accompanied by changes in MSTE’s organizational structure, its mission, and other dimensions of its theory. In this Chapter, I focus attention on the evolving organizational structure, and identify four major MSTE transformations that occurred through process of adapting the organization to the challenges and opportunities encountered in its history. I treat MSTE as a learning system, in Schön’s terms, one that can “effect rapid, inventive transformations of itself without falling apart at the seams” (Schön, 1971, p. 60).
In this context, the MSTE organization has made several organizational transformations that can be articulated as follows:
1. MSTE has a built a set of communities of practice that optimizes collaboration as well as individual responsibility and creativity in a non-hierarchical governance structure.
8. MSTE has acquired and maintained a technologically fluent staff whose members are also committed to working with educators. MSTE depends on and benefits from student staff members and pre-service teachers at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
9. MSTE has built a strong external network of practice that includes teachers participating in a new, technology-enhanced profession that combines fluency in the use of computer tools with cross-disciplinary learning.
10. In its institutional context, MSTE has evolved from a role as a multi-disciplinary facility for UIUC faculty/students to an interdisciplinary mission-oriented (problem-oriented) organization with an extensive public service mission.
MSTE as a Set of Related Communities of Practice (COPs)
From the outset, MSTE has been typified by a strong motivation to build collaborative relationships among its student staff members, with its Board of Advisors (BOA), with leaders of other technology-supported teaching/learning projects, and with potential clients for MSTE services. It is interesting to note that most of the members have served on the BOA since the initiation of the organization itself and have found their relationship to the working organization uniquely characterized by collaboration. Hainer has provided insights about collaboration—making it clear that it does not happen automatically, and cannot be established by an edict from above.
Collaboration is not a prescriptive term, it is a metaterm; it does not exist prior to the development of an effective interdependent relationship. A collaborative relationship cannot be established on the basis of injunction; it involves closeness and trust and mutual confidence, and it may even involve affection (Hainer, 1968, p. 32).
As with collaboration, learning is not just the activity of a sole individual, but the primary vehicle for engagement with others. Thus, in the view of Alpert and Rich, learning is a social phenomenon. It is through membership in learning communities—communities of practice—that individuals come to know, and to make use of what they know.
Institutions must find ways to support the development of COPs that link its members meaningfully and productively to the larger goals of the institution and society. Restructuring efforts, whether in schools or in the workplace, must recognize the organic nature of the development of communities of practice … Communities of practice cannot be mandated or even created, but they can be recognized and supported. (See Wenger as paraphrased by Alpert & Rich, 2001)
The Role of Leaders
The personalities and characteristics of individuals, especially leaders, are essential features of an organization, as illustrated by the following story about the British school founded in 1921 by A. S. Neill. The school was built on principles articulated by Neill is his book Summerhill (1960). Yet efforts to duplicate his school based on his philosophy failed. Bruno Bettelheim points out that Neill’s writings neglected to take into account Neill’s own enormous influence on the running of Summerhill, and thus attempts to clone it based on the naive principles he articulated did not work.
Everything about Summerhill expressed Neill. From the moment they came there, children were enveloped by Neill—by what he stood for and lived for. Everywhere was the powerful impact of his person, most of all his common decency. And sooner or later, most children would come to identify with him, however reluctantly.
Since the changes Neill produced in his children were based on identification, he succeeded only with those who could identify with him. And many could, because he was simply one of the grandest men around. But let a smaller person try to apply Neill's naive philosophy, and chaos would follow. (Bettelheim, 1980, p. 173)[18]
Similarly, the role of a leader like Travers at MSTE is impossible to overestimate, since he sets the tone for the entire organization. As one example, we can see that the focus on mathematics modules at MSTE (as opposed to science modules) is related to the fact that Travers is a Professor of Mathematics Education and most of the students who work with him, including the author, come from that milieu. In a similar way, my own role in the MSTE program makes it difficult to be objective in interpreting various MSTE activities from my subjective stance. For example, in other sections, I have mentioned the crucial role of individuals like Exner, Dildine, Silver, and Susmilch. But these people would not have been selected or encouraged to participate in the MSTE community without the explicit or tacit roles of its leadership.
In the final analysis, it is impossible to separate an organization like MSTE from the individuals who interact with it on a daily basis. The organization attracts and rewards particular types of people, and this crucial feature of the communities of practice is an essential part of MSTE as a learning system.
The importance of personality is reinforced by the fact that many decisions, such as Travers response to the email from Susmilch, are made through know-how—tacit knowledge—based on experience. These decisions, both day-to-day and long-term, are dependent upon the experience and know-how of those making them as well as the environment in which they are made.
Building a Community of Technologically Fluent Staff
Technologically sophisticated students are quite plentiful in academic scientific or engineering departments, which have for many years incorporated advanced technologies in their research programs. In contrast, such students are relatively rare in most educational colleges, in the humanities, and the social sciences. Thus MSTE was challenged to recruit such students from elsewhere or to develop technological fluency in education majors. To meet the challenge, MSTE attracted a number of its student staff from more technically oriented academic departments. The current technology staff includes two engineering majors, an industrial design major, a finance major, and one staff member who is applying to college. In addition, we were successful in attracting future teachers into the communities of practice.
In the course of its history, many MSTE students developed the capacity for curricular innovations that transcended disciplinary boundaries, typified by the innovative modules of the TCD partnership. Thus, for example, members of the MSTE staff developed the capacity for technology-supported teaching/ learning in mathematics, geometry, and garage mechanics—at the same time. And the MSTE leadership style and understanding provided a safe place for both novices and experienced personnel to work together in a friendly atmosphere.
The MSTE staff in 1994 included only the Director and myself (as Assistant Director on a part-time basis). It has since grown to include about twenty students[19] -- all using a connecting office space. While the entire staff may function as a single community of practice for some of its activities, they also form a number of separate, more or less tightly-knit, COPs. Some are clerical, some graduate students working on particular Web modules, some teaching classes both in Urbana-Champaign and at TCD, and some working primarily with the computer tools.
The MSTE Technology Community: Not Quite Hackers
In the section recounting MSTE’s discovery of Nick Exner, I included the signature of his initial email. Signatures and other personal and amusing touches were an important part of Exner’s work with MSTE. Throughout the next five years, his signatures would be an ever-changing and entertaining part of correspondence with him. They are an illustration of his iconoclastic nature.
In addition, Exner brought with a sense of working with computers that is best described by the “hacker learning process.”
A typical hacker's learning process starts out with setting up an interesting problem, working toward a solution by using various sources, then submitting the solution to extensive testing. Learning more about a subject becomes the hacker's passion (Himanen, 2001).
In using the term “hacker,” I am not referring to people who break into computers or otherwise engage in destructive acts through network programming. In the hacker community, such a person is called a “cracker” (Raymond, 1981-2000). The disposition of the hacker, which fits Nick and a number of other people subsequently hired at MSTE is described by Levy in the following way.
Hackers believe that essential lessons can be learned about systems--and the world--from taking things apart, seeing how they work, and using this knowledge to create new and even more interesting things.(Levy, 1984)
This describes Exner and some others at MSTE. In 1998, I discovered the writings of Raymond and others on the hacker community and noticed similarities between Exner and the disposition described as that of a hacker In July of 1998, when I heard about this community from a report on a hacker convention, I forwarded the information to Exner and asked him if he was aware of the community. I told him I thought he was the kind of person who would be a member of it. He replied, “My goal is to become a hacker =) Right now though, I'm only ‘computer efficient.’” I have asked several of the innovative programmers at MSTE if that term applied to them, and none have acknowledged it, most often because they consider their skills not up to that level. Nonetheless, I believe Exner, and some others at MSTE, exhibit the disposition of a hacker that has been a crucial aspect of the community of practice that has emerged among the group of MSTE programmers.
Exner exhibited this characteristic of taking things apart and learning about them from the beginning of his work at MSTE. Soon after he arrived at MSTE he set to work on an old computer workstation piled in the corner of a cluttered office. I had asked him to see if he could get it working. It took him several weeks and some sleepless nights, but he found a student in the Statistics Department to help him learn the rudiments of setting up a server with UNIX. He spent many hours, above and beyond those he was paid for, working on various hardware and software problems in the early days. He describes his motivation this type of project below.
Exner: Here are some of the reasons why I spent so much time on computers in the beginning. Champaign, IL is pretty hot and most of the computer labs were all air-conditioned. I was looking for a way to reach out and be noticed on the web. It was an exceptional medium through which I could express my creativity. During college, I had often had a fear of losing creativity because of forced instruction.
It was obvious that air conditioning was not the crucial factor, since many of the hours he spent working on computers were in the un-air-conditioned MSTE rooms. I choose to emphasize the other components of his statement: being noticed and being creative.
Accordingly, when you play the hacker game, you learn to keep score primarily by what other hackers think of your skill (this is why you aren't really a hacker until other hackers consistently call you one). (Raymond, 1999)
Whether or not Exner and the other MSTE programmers are, in some sense, recognized hackers is not as important as the fact that they have the characteristics of hackers. It is also significant that the growing body of literature on hackers indicates that the community is one marked by the kind of creativity and energy with computers that is common among MSTE technical staff.
MSTE technology personnel like Exner, Silver, and Dildine, add another component to the mix. They have the patient and caring disposition of teachers. In many technologically sophisticated environments, those with more knowledge are frustrated or steer clear of “newbies.” The MSTE tech group works with other students and teachers who are often unfamiliar with the Web or even with the basic workings of computer file structure. That is, the milieu encourages patience and collaboration, and attracts people with those skills and dispositions as well as the skills and dispositions of hackers. This is an uncommon commodity, yet MSTE has been able to attract and encourage people with this rare combination of skills.
Travers recognized at a very early stage of the MSTE program that he needed the help of at least one person in a leadership role who could relate effectively to the students and teachers on the one hand, and the “techies”—he recognized my capacity in this role by promoting me to assistant director in 1996.
MSTE as a Focal Point for Networks of Practice
An essential and growing feature of the MSTE organization is the network of practice that MSTE facilitates. Many pre-service teachers have gone through MSTE (Dildine, Exner, Glazer, Meseke, Patel, Silver, Storaasli, to name only a few). Once they are out in the field, they continue their relationships with MSTE through the Internet as well as through mail, conferences, and courses. I will give four illustrations of how this network functions taken from correspondence that occurred during the week in which I wrote this chapter. They illustrate the ways in which the network of practice brings talented individuals to MSTE, guides teachers to resources, encourages such teachers to use MSTE materials in their classrooms, and provides support for that use.
The following message arrived as I work on completing this dissertation; it came from Patel (a teacher, lesson author, and alumnus of MSTE) to Travers.
Dr. Travers,
I have a student who is coming to U of I next fall who would be outstanding as a programmer for MSTE. If you are looking for the next Nick Exner this young man would be very useful.
His name is ________. He already has already taken AP C++ and is currently in his second year of Visual Basic with me. In addition to programming he is "interested" in math education, although I don't think he really has a clue what is involved in that decision.
If you have any room for an undergrad I would highly recommend him. If you have others you are considering I can send you samples of his work to help you make a decision. He could take the world of web based learning to a new level. (personal communication, May 21, 2002)
This network of teachers and others familiar with MSTE has helped in the recruitment process. MSTE rarely needs to advertise for positions, all the members of the current tech group at MSTE and most members of the clerical group have come through recommendations of individuals familiar with MSTE who recognize others that might fit within our organization.
Members of the MSTE network come from within, but they can also find us, as Susmilch did, through the Web site. Most often, this occurs around a lesson resource, as with the teacher in the following email.
I would like to use this applet with my year 9 class to discover the angle sum for a variety of polygons. At our school, student access to the internet is awkward for an entire class simultaneously - is there a way to download it for student's use? If so, do I have your permission to do so?
thanks in advance
_______,______
Canberra, Australia (May 20, 2002)
The teacher is asking for a copy of an applet discussed earlier that is part of the M2T2 project. In a follow-up message, she explained why she wanted the applet.
My year 9 are doing a geometry unit. We're doing angles, triangles and quadrilaterals right now. I was going to get them to use the applet in conjunction with Excel to create and record a series of polygons, number of vertices, sides and angles, and angle sums - leading them to the relationship between sides/vertices/angle sum. It also extends their use of Excel and gives them practice with it, which is part of our Year 10 ICT competency requirements for students.
Our school doesn't have suitable geometry software and WinGeom (freeware) doesn't do what I want as neatly as your applet does. (May 21, 2002)
The next example is from a teacher in Illinois who was “trained” to use the M2T2 materials. She had asked for an updated binder. The trained teachers receive a binder of lesson modules and a CD along with a kit of manipulatives and a calculator. As it turns out, she was able to update her binder by downloading recent versions from the M2T2 Web page. However, the text of her message indicates the more important aspect, i.e., she was actually using the resources in the binder to improve the character of her mathematics teaching at least as far as making it more enjoyable for her students. (Again, I am withholding the name of the teacher).
Hi George,
Thank you so much for your reply. I must apologize for not getting back to you in a timely manner. I did download the new pdf of the stat pages and have updated my binder so no need to send a new binder. I appreciate all of your work on this great project.
I just recently did the cereal project with the bobblehead figures of baseball players you can currently find in Post cereals. What a riot. I have an advanced 5th grade class of 10 boys. We had the best time with this simulation because the boys were all familiar with these baseball players. We took 10 trips to the grocery store. By the way, you will most likely have to purchase 32 boxes of cereal to get all 10 bobbleheads. One boy said to me, " I didn't like math until this year."
Once again, thank you for all of your great work.
___ ____ (May 24, 2002)
The activity to which she refers can be seen on the M2T2 pages at mste.uiuc.edu/m2t2/ among the statistics and probability activities. An assessment of the impact of project for which these activities are a part is now underway.
Finally, the following correspondence illustrates the usefulness of MSTE materials and MSTE personnel as intermediaries and problem-solvers for teachers who are engaged in new activities. The email below refers to the MSTE module on “the birthday problem.” The problem is stated this way, “What is the probability of at least two people in a group of a particular size sharing a birthday?” Obviously the answer depends on the number of people in the group. With just two people in the group it is highly unlikely, and with 366 in the group, it is certain that at least two will share a birthday. The surprising aspect is that with only 23 people, the probability of at least two of them sharing a birthday is over 50%, and with 42 people, the probability of a match is over 90%. The lesson (at mste.uiuc.edu/reese/birthday/) has been on the Web for five years. During that time I have received dozens of emails about it. This is the most recent.
Dear George,
I'd like to know the formula for working out the probability that a class of students will have a birthday in every month. I'm an English teacher in Japan, and when we play "find someone who has a birthday in..." with a class of twenty students, more often than not we can't finish. This baffled me at first, so I'd like to be able to see the formula, and find out how many students we need to make it more than 50% likely.
Thank you in advance,
_________ (May 20, 2002)
Since I was busy, I referred this problem to an MSTE alumnus on the network, Louie Beuschlein, who is now a physics and computer science teacher in a nearby school. He and one his students are working on the problem. Beuschlein is working on the analytic solution while the student in Beuschlein’s programming class is writing a Monte Carlo simulation to compare with Beuschlein’s answer. They will then email the teacher in Japan and me with the results of their work. The MSTE Web site will then be updated with Beuschlein’s contribution.
I include these messages as examples of the vibrant nature of the MSTE network of practice in mathematics. These four messages occurred within a week, indeed the most recent week for this writer. They also demonstrate the reach of MSTE. The five teachers involved are in an Urbana, IL school, two schools in suburban Chicago, a school in Australia, and a school in Japan.
Evolving toward a Public Service Mission
Though it began as a service to UIUC faculty, MSTE evolved into a public service organization, reaching out to schools and organizations engaged in K-12 education. The transition was most clearly represented by the partnership with TCD and the support of Partnership Illinois. We learned through the TCD/MSTE project, that networking relationships between institutions are greatly facilitated by having a person on the remote site that has knowledge, know-how and understanding of MSTE goals. At TCD, Jim Dildine serves two functions, both taking advantage of his personality and unique capacity to fit comfortably in the TCD teaching and learning environment. One function is to serve the TCD program and staff. The second is to maintain good relations with MSTE—in effect, to act as an extension of MSTE. He facilitates the work and the goals of TCD by being personally available to teach classes, trouble-shoot logistical problems, try out new software and hardware, and organize meetings. Thus, he is doing for TCD many of the same functions that he did for MSTE. While replacing Dildine at MSTE headquarters was a challenge, he fulfills another critical service to and for MSTE by strengthening a supportive institutional partnership. Trust and collegiality with TCD staff come more easily with regular and face-to-face interaction. Thus, the service that MSTE renders is enhanced by Dildine’s presence there.
Summary
The four organizational transformations are the structural aspect of MSTE as a learning system. The concomitant evolution in technology that facilitates these structural changes is obvious. The Internet and all its features (email, Web pages, Java programs, etc.) are crucial components in this learning system. In the next chapter, I conclude with a discussion of the accomplishments and future directions of MSTE. In the process, I discuss the evolving theory.
CHAPTER 5
MSTE AS A LEARNING SYSTEM—ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND NEW DIRECTIONS
It is in a way misleading to distinguish at all between social system and theory, for the social system is the embodiment of its theory, and the theory is the conceptual dimension of the social system (Schön, 1971, p. 35).
Each of the organizational transformations described in the previous chapter were accompanied by changes in MSTE theory. I recall that Schön defines theory as “views held within the social system about its purposes, its operations, its environment, and its future.”
In this chapter, I begin by describing the evolution of the mission—a central feature of MSTE theory. I then proceed with a description of the changing environment for technology-enhanced instruction in K-12 schools and of MSTE’s contributions, both in distinctive online courseware[20] and in the form of related public service. Following an analysis of the expanding Internet-supported opportunities and challenges for the future, I conclude with a concise summary of the three major components of the MSTE enterprise, their emerging features, and their inventive use of the Web/Internet to support the academic public service mission.
The Changing Missions of the MSTE Program
It is the legitimate aim of many scholarly studies to discover or validate laws. But the aim of the practical arts is to get things done. The better generalizations often are those more parochial, those more personal.(Stake, 1978, p. 7)
MSTE has always been about getting things done. Its mission has changed in the course of its efforts. I have used the term “mission” to describe a set of activities that serve the system’s purposes and hence are worth doing. Like many other organizations that emerged during the short history of the Web and related technologies, we have proceeded simultaneously to pursue what seemed worth doing, and what we believed doable. Thus the MSTE program has developed along pragmatic lines—without adherence to a prescribed organizational mission statement.
In December 1998, the MSTE Board of Advisors was called upon by Dr. Travers to develop a mission statement in the context of the changing nature of MSTE activities. At the outset, each member was asked to write a “mission statement” to portray the purposes of MSTE. The following statements (some paraphrased for brevity) give an impression of the wide diversity of “missions” perceived by these BOA members, most of whom had been associated with MSTE during its entire history:
1. Build a digital library/knowledge-base for math and science education
11. Prepare leaders to use technology as a catalyzing force in education.
12. Serve as a locus for activities of the math and science education team in the department of Curriculum and Instruction.
13. Coordinate mathematics and science education and outreach across the UIUC campus.
14. Develop a cross-disciplinary curriculum (for math, science and technology) that "intersects" rather than coordinates.
15. Collect, coordinate and disseminate evaluative experience in mathematics, science and technology education.
16. Assemble examples (for use by professional practitioners) of educational uses and evaluations of small-scale interactive Web-sites.
No two members of the Board had identified the mission in the same way. As it turned out, we were not able to agree on a simply worded statement that was suggestive of MSTE principal activities or purposes. Only by hindsight can we begin to place this diversity of missions into an evolving picture. The emphasis on particular activities and related financial support has changed from time to time, and a change of priorities has often seemed to be a change in mission. As a result, MSTE has not adopted any one mission statement; nor have we abandoned many of the activities to which the above statements refer. Rather, the MSTE staff has proceeded in an opportunistic, entrepreneurial way to work on what seems worth doing (the mission) often in the process of learning what is doable with the personnel and resources available. That is, MSTE has transformed itself in many ways, with new personnel, new projects, and new directions. Yet it has managed to “hang together,” and to maintain its core commitment to use technology to instigate and support educational reform.
MSTE is one of many service centers or academic units in the nation’s major research universities devoted to enhancing the efficiency and/or effectiveness of technology-supported teaching and learning at the K-16 levels. In this thesis, I have presented some of MSTE’s unique features and outcomes. It was not my intention to offer this pattern as a means for replicating the MSTE structure or as a model for other such units. Academic units at other locations, and differing purposes or clienteles might well incorporate some of the efforts and learn from some of the MSTE experience while at the same time orienting them in other directions.
Evolving Perspectives in the National Environment for Technology-Supported Instruction
[W]ith the Web, we suddenly have a medium that honors multiple forms of intelligence—abstract, textual, visual, musical, social and kinesthetic . . . The Web affords the match we need between a medium and how a particular person learns. (J. S. Brown, 2000, p. 12)
Acquiring expertise [in any field] requires learning the explicit knowledge of a field, the practices of its community, and the interplay between the two. And learning all this requires immersion in a community of practice, enculturation in its way of seeing, interpreting and acting. (p. 15)
In the years since MSTE was founded, there has been a major expansion of technology-supported teaching and learning in the U.S., especially at post-secondary levels. Government officials and the general public initially greeted the introduction of technology-supported instruction with widespread enthusiasm. As with many previous technological innovations, there were great hopes (and expectations) that technology would “solve” the many problems faced by K-12 schools. However, as the initial enthusiasm was tempered by experience, many thoughtful proponents have warned us that technology can be a valid tool, but it is not likely to “solve problems” automatically:
There has been increasing recognition that technology may be a valid asset in a more complex process of change that cannot be accomplished by technological fixes alone. As a result, researchers are increasingly asking questions about how technology is integrated into educational settings; how new electronic resources are interpreted and adapted by their users; how best to match technological capacities with students' learning needs; and how technological change can interact with and support changes in many other parts of the educational process, such as assessment, administration, communication, and curriculum development. (Honey, McMillan, & Carrig, 1999)
Stephen Ehrmann, a long-time contributor to technology-enhanced teaching and learning, also urges caution:
If you are headed in the wrong direction, technology won’t help you get to the right place . . . Technology can enable change, but technology availability almost never compels change . . .The results of technology use are determined by the activity for which the technology is used.
He observed that in the field of technology-supported education, what matters is:
• not the technology per se but how it is used
• not so much what happens in the moments when the student is using the technology, but more how those uses promote larger improvements in the fabric of the student's education, and
• not so much what we can discover about the average truth for education at all institutions but more what we can learn about our own degree programs and our own students. (Ehrmann, 1997)
The uses of technology at MSTE are not illustrations of how successful a particular technology is in addressing educational problems, but rather of how the process of designing and using new technology tools evolves. As Bruce (1993) says,
The design of any technology must be understood not simply as the construction of a physical artifact to meet a functional specification, but as a process in which relations among people are realized. (p. 15)
Notable MSTE Contributions to Educational Courseware
Some modules on the MSTE site are quite popular. The popularity is not a function of the innovativeness of the module, but rather of both its creativity and its immediate utility.
In February 2002, the Smithsonian Institution linked to an MSTE resource page. Professor Levin noticed this and called it to the attention of the Dean of the College of Education and the UIUC Campus News Bureau. When the news editor asked for more information, I responded by noting the popularity of the lesson resources on the Web. However, Professor Levin followed this exchange with an illuminating email to the news editor:
I saw George's response to your request for more details. Let me provide a different perspective, that of a person outside of MSTE who has been very interested to see it develop over the years into a substantial resource in mathematics education. The MSTE web site that is linked from the Smithsonian site has developed over the past 6 or 7 years, which makes it one of the oldest but still one of the most innovative web sites focused on mathematics education in the world.
The most exciting advanced technology element is a library of math education oriented Java applets, each of which is really impressive. However the most heavily used of those applets are those that have had lesson plans and other curricular materials supporting them. In this way, the MSTE web site has shown how no technology, no matter how advanced and how simple to use, will have an impact without the effort that the MSTE project has been making to provide a substantial curricular content for teachers. (personal communication, 2/16/02)
These favorable observations are corroborated by other independent ratings. The well-known search engine “Google” uses software called PageRank© to rank Web pages based on the quantity and quality of pages that link to them[21]. Using this search method, the following queries on common mathematics topics (search items) produce rankings of various Web pages. MSTE pages receive prominent positions:
• The search term “Descriptive Statistics” produces approximately 380,000 links. An MSTE lesson by Jay Hill is the first on the list.
• The search term “Exponential Decay” produces approximately 91,100 links. Fourth on the list is an MSTE lesson by Ed Malczewski.
• The search term “Linear Regression” produces approximately 379,000 links. The first on the list is a MSTE lesson by Amar Patel.
• The search term “Parabolas” produces approximately 20,300 links. The third link on the list is a set of interactive resources on the MSTE site created by Jim Dildine.
In addition to the above, we know from personal communication that the M2T2 mathematics modules on the MSTE Web site are in use in eighteen of the regional offices of education in Illinois. They are also adopted in mathematics education courses at various Illinois colleges, including the University of Illinois, Eastern Illinois University, and the College of DuPage. As mentioned earlier, there is a large and growing number of individuals, projects, and programs that use the MSTE Web site in link to its pages. Including organizations like the Smithsonian, the GEM project, the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse (ENC), the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and the Math Forum at Drexel University (formerly at Swarthmore).
The above testimonies to the quality and popularity of MSTE courseware lend powerful recognition for MSTE achievements and operations. It is important to note that undergraduate and/or graduate student members of the MSTE staff developed virtually all of these materials.
Challenges Faced by Teachers in Introducing Courseware to the Classroom
Making well-designed courseware available is not enough; there are a number of challenges to deal with in the process of introducing such materials to students. There are many institutional and situational constraints that conspire to make technology-supported teaching difficult in conventional school settings. How do teachers find the time and resources to use new tools? What can MSTE do to help with this problem? How do we use technology to reach more than those (typically male) students who are already inclined towards using it? Teachers may be required to cover content and to contend with a variety of many unrelated responsibilities. In the words of one of the most devoted teachers on the MSTE Network, Susan Boone:
I have lost no responsibility [when I teach with technology]... I still have to supervise service projects, I have to chaperone dances, I have to be a club sponsor, and I have to do lunch duty. What's going to give so you can sleep? I don't know that answer, but something's got to; especially for the older teachers that don't come in knowing the stuff.
It appears from user responses that lessons on the MSTE have varying appeal for teachers. The most popular are those that fit within the traditional textbook-based curriculum, and at the same time, add a new twist to learning relatively standard topics. For example, Hill’s lesson on Descriptive Statistics[22] makes use of an amusing and colorful Web-based display to present the familiar content of mean, median, and mode. A lesson that does not fit into the prescribed textbook is far less popular. A tool with no curriculum around it, such as the current 3D Box applet[23], is little noticed by teachers surfing the Web. Yet, from the viewpoint of lesson designers, the 3D Box may be more powerful than some more popular ones in terms of its open-ended possibilities of application.
The MSTE approach to mathematics teacher preparation is in line with that of Noddings (Noddings, 1994, p. 101) who advocates a teaching model as used in the preparation of future engineers. In general, teachers learn the mathematics they will teach very well, but may enhance their teaching by developing perspectives on the historical, social, and psychological dimensions of mathematics. MSTE adds to this understanding the value of designing or adapting interactive technology in the teaching process.
To this point, I have made little mention of individuals who have struggled with MSTE projects. It goes without saying that with any innovative project, there are likely to be some teachers who are dubious about the proposed change. Others become disillusioned along the way. This is no doubt part of the well-documented tendency for new technologies and approaches to be rejected because they do not fit within the existing practices (Cuban, 1993; Hodas, 1996; Peck et al., 2002).
I also note that, like all innovative projects, the MSTE program has had its share of challenges. These constitute experiences from which the MSTE has learned a great deal, and has much further to learn, about the school environment, about the variation among students in their aptitude or motivation to learn, and in the commitment and preparation of teachers to adopt new approaches. Although there are still many problems to work out, MSTE has demonstrated an “existence proof” in the form of many examples of successful technology-supported learning. They include the modules in widespread use, teachers learning outside their content areas, and students working across disciplines and as members of MSTE networks of practice.
As described n Chapter 3, the instructional materials developed in collaboration with TCD were typically more ambitious, more cross-disciplinary, as well as more innovative than those intended for conventional academic courses. These include the career-oriented modules such as the Bolt-Circle Diameter module[24] and the Battery Load Test Spreadsheet. Teachers at TCD participated in the design of these modules and they use them in their classes. However, even at TCD, teachers did not accept some projects such as the Automotive Repair and Progress Evaluation (ARPE) database and the Point of Sale (POS) cash register. In retrospect, some projects far exceeded the experience or the interests of the teachers most closely related. It remains to be seen whether these projects may come into their own in the future through either a change of teachers or a change of the supporting technology. I see this as part of the reflective process of “successive refinement” that goes with design-experiments in education (A. L. Brown, 1992; Hawkins & Collins, 1992).
Disseminating Courseware and Offering Services to Network Participants
In Chapter 4, I described the MSTE networks of practice as powerful systems for the widespread dissemination of courseware. From the beginning, MSTE courseware has been available on the Web at no cost as a public service rather than a commercial product. In addition, we have welcomed the contributions of other network participants to the design of instructional materials, either as individual authors, as partners, or as critics or modifiers of instructional modules. Thus there is an analogy of our approach to courseware development and that of open-source software as pioneered by the Open Source movement. MSTE lessons have been designed in the “Bazaar” (Raymond, 1998) of Internet critiques and responses.
When University President Charles Vest announced MIT plans to make all of its course materials freely available on the Internet as “OpenCourseWare” (NetWatch, 2001), this plan represented a notable decision at the institutional level of a ranking university. In view of MSTE’s modest size and status, we have not made any such formal announcement. However, we have already made use of the potential opportunities and challenges of open courseware by incorporating the contributions of MSTE network participants to expand and make improvements on the MSTE resources.
An interesting example of the open courseware approach is illustrated by the subsequent recent contributions of two members of the MSTE Network to the “solution” of the “birthday problem,” previously described in Chapter 4. The problem was initially posed at (mste.uiuc.edu/reese/birthday/) and has been on the Web for about five years. About a month before this writing, a student at Tulane University asked if we had a solution to a version of the problem in which more than two people had the same birthday. As with the request from the teacher in Japan, I forwarded this task to Louie Beuschlein who, with the help of his student, Luis Mendez, prepared a solution to the problem. Then a MSTE staff member, Kristen Carvell, turned their work into a Web page with an applet and made it available on the MSTE site (mste.uiuc.edu/users/carvell/birthdayProb/). In the previous chapter, I mentioned the inquiry by a teacher from Japan on yet another version of the problem. He wanted to know the probability of having at least one birthday in each of the twelve months in a group of twenty students.
This process illustrates the power of the MSTE network. A lesson or module appears on the Web, and teachers find questions about it or extensions to it that intrigue them. MSTE then finds someone to extend or improve the module. The network is used both to seek help and to provide help. This is done at no cost to initial inquirer. The responders, Beuschlein and Mendes, incorporated it into their classroom work. The process itself is motivational to MSTE in terms of the positive feedback received and the sense that the modules are making a contribution. This is similar to the motivations for contributing to open-source software.
One of the things that made Linux good and motivational was the feedback I was getting. It meant that Linux mattered and was a sign of my being in a social group. And I was the leader of the social group. There's no question that was important, more important the even telling my Mom and Dad what I was doing. I was more concerned about the people who were using Linux. (Torvalds & Diamond, 2001, p. 111)
The above anecdote on the birthday problem also reveals a beneficial outcome from the participation of student staff in MSTE activities as a valuable part of their career paths. In short, a year or two working in a MSTE community of practice offers an effective and pleasant way to acquire technological fluency—to feel comfortable working with “techies” or even to become one yourself. Many “graduates” of the MSTE experience (like Beuschlein) have continued in subsequent teaching careers as active participants in the MSTE networks of practice.
MSTE Staff Activities: A Learning Opportunity for a New Educational Profession
Maintaining all of MSTE’s tasks with no full-time staff has been a remarkable achievement given the wide reach of MSTE responsibilities and the limited availability of resources. Of perhaps greater significance, we have adopted a new perspective on staff activities, namely, that participation of students and pre-service teachers as operating staff has offered an effective system for student learning. Not only is it effective for achieving technological fluency, but it also offers the valuable experience of pre-professional participation in a collaborating mode. This experience has become an important feature of the MSTE program. And it is well known that the organizational structure of schools may limit collaboration and know-how among teachers:
Knowledge has two dimensions, the explicit and the tacit. The explicit dimension deals with concepts--the 'know-whats’—whereas the tacit deals with 'know-how,' which is best manifested in work practices and skills. Since the tacit lives in action, it comes alive in and through doing things, in participation with each other in the world. As a consequence, tacit knowledge can be distributed among people as a shared understanding that emerges from working together. (J. S. Brown, 2000, p. 15)
Many of the students who have participated m the MSTE program are in the process of earning their teaching certificates, while “graduates” of MSTE who are now teachers have continued their relationships as productive members of MSTE networks. The courseware they have produced while at MSTE have contained both imaginative presentations of course concepts as well as innovative technological software. A number (Munroe, Beuschlein, Dildine) have made continuing contributions in their subsequent teaching careers.
MSTE has played a unique role, not only in that it has crossed disciplinary lines, but it has also crossed the lines of teachers and learner. Role reversals are part of learning in the digital age. It is a frequent occurrence for a younger person to show and older one a computer trick. And this continues to happen. MSTE has been able to incorporate this trend into its work. The more recent MSTE projects (e.g., Mathematics Materials for Tomorrow’s Teachers[25]) focus on teachers as learners. Within an MSTE-led summer mathematics course where teachers take a class down the hall from 8th-graders, we have seen the 8th-graders come in and teach a lesson to the adults. This sort of event is a glimpse of what is possible in education and particularly mathematics education reform.
Software Tools for Tracking and Analyzing Historical Transformation
This dissertation has drawn on a large body of information and artifacts that are by-products of the MSTE program. The email folder of the author is nearly 200 megabytes of text files that, fortunately, are easy to search. It is an archive of many of the interactions that took place at MSTE between 1995 and the present. There are over six gigabytes of text in the MSTE server logs. This is increasing now at a rate of 400 megabytes a month for the access logs alone. Lists of referring pages add hundreds of megabytes more. The opportunity to correspond through email has allowed correspondence with teachers around the world who could not have found our resources otherwise, let alone found the time or money to write or call. There is no question that without the advancing technology of the Internet an organization like MSTE would be totally different in character, and documenting its growth would be much harder.
Individual recollections are important. The interviews I have included took place some time after most of the events in the chronology. However, email messages and other artifacts were handy to help jog the memories of the interviewees and bolster their recollections. Aside from new software, the MSTE experience suggests the development of new ways of soliciting information from clients, users and contributors.
The Public Service Role
The above developments in the history of MSTE have led to a very positive and supportive attitude toward its role and contributions. MSTE has received wide recognition from the many organizations and teachers in Illinois and elsewhere. We have emerged as a contributor in key areas of national interest, including the following:
• Technological innovation and no-cost courseware for teaching and learning at all levels both in this country and abroad,
• New approaches to curriculum and cross-disciplinary courseware, and
• University public service in support of K-12 teaching and learning.
Questions about MSTE’s future asked by interested observers are typically motivated by a widely perceived need for transformation of K-12 schools and for the “engagement” of research universities in addressing the challenges involved: In a paper entitled “Rethinking the Land-Grant University for the Digital Age,” (2001) Parker et al. argue that “K-12 education should be a new mission focus.” The article proceeds to discuss the differences between the cultures of the differing levels of education. It does not dwell on the financial or political challenges of establishing a national distributed program.
Typically, research universities' interaction with K-12 schools has been the province of Schools of Education. Attention has been dedicated almost exclusively to teacher preparation or to a largely uncoordinated set of outreach activities designed to identify and recruit well-qualified students from diverse backgrounds. A more robust, inclusive engagement is needed today between university and K-12 faculty in order to build the kind of understanding, collaboration, respect, and innovation that will be needed to improve K-12 student achievement. (p. 15)
Since MSTE has demonstrated an effective bridging of the cultural and institutional gaps between the university and K-12 institutions, we are often asked how to expand MSTE’s demonstrated public service role and to emulate its enviable relationships with schools, teachers and administrators in the State of Illinois and elsewhere. The questions posed may be “Is MSTE replicable elsewhere?” or “Is MSTE scalable upwards to a larger clientele?” As to the first question, I stick with the assertion that this thesis cannot develop a menu for designing a learning system similar to MSTE. Alpert has argued persuasively that any such “problem-oriented” center “is unique to the campus on which it is located even when committed to the same goals as those on other campuses (Alpert, 1985, p. 261).”
Is MSTE Scalable?
The question of scalability is interesting. First of all, the MSTE network of practice already extends to anywhere in the world that access to the Web is available. Thus, the MSTE network is already global in geographical scope. The question of scale, therefore, should refer to the size of the network rather than its reach. It seems reasonable to believe that increasing scale would be measured by the number of organizations or individuals that link to each other, or that share a common interest in technology-supported educational reform. In such an arrangement, the various academic units or R&D centers could be structured in a variety of ways and led by diverse personalities with support coming from a range of government or commercial organizations.
As to the dissemination of no-cost courseware, it remains to be seen whether open courseware will be widely accepted on a regional, national or international basis, the way open-source software has been. MSTE materials such as the M2T2 modules already have a strong regional use, and many lessons on the MSTE site are used internationally.
Three Major Components of the MSTE Program That Have Evolved from 1993-2002
I conclude with a summary of what this historical analysis has revealed about MSTE’s organizational learning and evolution since its founding in 1993.
The Roles and Functions of the MSTE staff—Self-selected as Communities of Practice
Implementing all of MSTE’s tasks with a rotating staff of part-time student employees is a remarkable achievement, given the wide reach of MSTE resources, the size of its responsibilities, and the limited availability of financial support and other resources. These efforts have been:
• A source of innovative courseware and supporting technology of distinctive originality and utility,
• A mechanism for curricular reform and cross-disciplinary collaboration with other students and teachers at all educational levels,
• An ongoing process for educating student participants for a new educational profession; one that incorporates experience in a collaborative organizational setting with fluency in computer and communications technologies.
The MSTE Network of Practice—Collaborating with Off-Campus Teachers, Students and Institutions
The MSTE networks have used the Internet as the vehicle for:
• Disseminating innovative approaches to technology-supported teaching and learning,
• Receiving feedback from participating networkers in the form of questions, criticisms, evaluations, and ideas to support new instructional approaches,
• Identifying needs and offering moral support for widely distributed individuals and institutions.
MSTE as a Distinctive Contributor to the Academic Public Service Mission
As a public service entity, MSTE has performed the following functions:
• Making MSTE courseware available to K-12 schools on the Web at no cost or low cost,
• Offering services to participating MSTE network participants on a cost-effective basis,
• Encouraging the design, use, and enhancement of MSTE courseware on an “OpenCourseWare” basis.
MSTE is an organization that has transformed itself in many ways, with new personnel, new projects, and new directions. Yet it has managed to “hang together,” and to maintain its core commitment to design and use technology to instigate and support educational reform.
Concluding Comments
The process of analysis that is exemplified in this thesis, using an adaptation of Schön’s model to the field of education, clarifies many of the opportunities, challenges and problematic issues encountered in the course of the history of the Office for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education at the University of Illinois. This analysis helps to evoke new perspectives of past history, and may be transferable to other disciplinary settings and help provide new insights to challenges that lie ahead.
Numerous implications and lessons can be learned from such an analysis Perhaps these can best be described by a return to the first sentence of this dissertation where I mentioned the MSTE program today.
What would a visitor today observe during the course of a visit to MSTE Office? First, s/he would see that most of the active staff members are students, undergraduate as well as graduate. They are working on projects in which they have a major role that they often choose and create for themselves. They operate in a collaborative mode, in what has been called the “hacker” or “open source software” mode. Every individual seems encouraged to seek or to offer help and advice from anyone in his or her community of practice.
Next, the observer would note the important role of pre-service and in-service teachers in the MSTE program, as well as the important role the MSTE plays in the experience of the teachers with whom they work. In particular, participation in the “problem-oriented” projects offers opportunities for future public school teachers to become technologically fluent and technologically qualified students who are gaining insights into the teaching learning process. When pre-service teachers “graduate” from MSTE, and take educational positions elsewhere they usually continue their associations with the MSTE office as members of “networks of practice,” and contribute as critics, designers and disseminators of instructional modules or “courseware.”
The observer would see that the Internet (and especially the Web) is used as a transformative system for local and worldwide dissemination of courseware, for communications with networks and communities of practice, for feedback from users, and for redesign of technologies as well as instructional efforts. Network participants include schools and other institutions, which also identify needs, ask for and extend help, and offer moral support for individual networkers.
Third, the observer would note that collaboration among course-designers, teachers, and students is obviously prevalent in day-to-day activities, but is not demanded or “commanded by injunction.” In a process of “learning by doing,” future teachers attain technological fluency, and also learn the art of collaborating with other professionals who take part in the various activities. The courseware development includes cross-disciplinary curricular reform as well as technology-supported enhancement of teacher/learning modules, and many of the instructional modules are designed to relate abstract knowledge to student experience.
Fourth, the visitor would see the MSTE program is a viable system within a research university for public service that has targeted K-12 education. The courseware and the networks of practice mentioned above demonstrate a powerful method for providing outreach to schools, few of which have the resources or personnel to go it alone.
Finally, the observer would note that the program is in a continuous process of change in personnel, in personalities, and in projects while providing for its own renewal and carrying out educational research and development. This continuous change and renewal is essential characteristic of a learning system.
While the hypothetical observer was expected to gain insights about the above interdependent activities within MSTE, it was not MSTE’s intent to replicate this pattern as a necessary feature of any other organization. Organizations and programs at other locations and with differing clienteles might well incorporate some of the above activities while offering and maintaining other categories of service. The identification and the analysis of the various activities, as well as the corresponding technologies, structure and theory, of the MSTE program is a process that is transferable to other programs whether or not the activities or attributes match those of MSTE program. MSTE has collaborated in the past with units that share mutual interests and goals and is ready to do so in the future, and, through this collaboration, to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.
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[1] This special meaning of the term, “theory” will be discussed in Chapter II.
[2] More information on Donald Schon is available at .
[3]The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved.
[4] NCSA is a large, nationally visible R&D Center administratively administered within UIUC that had made a number of major advances in computer and communications technologies
[5] Old versions of Web pages are available through “the Wayback Machine” Web site. MSTE pages from as far back as 1997 can be seen at */.
[6] “cgi” stands for “common gateway interface.” It is a computer program that provides the connection between the Web forms in which a user enters data and the program on the server that processes that data.
[7] In late June, the Education Group at NCSA did offer a work around to put forms on their machine. However, by then, we had begun work on our own server.
[8] This lesson has since been moved from the MSTE site and is now available at glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbs/Academics/gbsmat/Internet%20Projects/travel/bonvoyage.html
[9] This spreadsheet is available at mste.uiuc.edu/patel/amar430/spreadsheets/bestfit.xls.
[10] Serverstat was a program for analyzing log files on the Web server.
[11] A version of this problem appears in “Using Statistics” (Travers, Stout, Swift, & Sextro, 1985)
[12] Support for the project came from a seed grant from Partnership Illinois ().
[13] The pages for this project are available at .
[14] MST Day was a one-day open house in the spring of each year that highlighted projects in the MSTE/TCD collaboration.
[15] Dittman’s work can be found at
[16] Since Exner’s departure, this tool has also been revised. Wofford has rewritten it in June 2002 for a new server platform.
[17] In Illinois, there are 48 regional offices of education. They are centers for professional development of teachers.
[18] I was a counselor at Bruno Bettelheim’s school some years after he left the directorship. And it seemed to me that in his writing he too underestimated the impact of his own personality on the school he ran. Students and counselors who had been there when he was seemed much more impacted by him as an individual than by any other aspect of the school.
[19] The number is not specific, since it varies somewhat each semester and even changes within semesters.
[20] With the term, courseware, I refer not just to the syllabi of courses taught by Travers and others, but also to the modules and units of instruction that MSTE personnel have placed on the Web site. This also includes the workshop materials that are online for the M2T2 project.
[21] For more information on the Google “PageRank” system, see (Google, 2002). It should also be noted that there are many other MSTE resources that rank highly, I have chosen these four because they are all done separate individuals who worked for MSTE and are now working in schools. The queries to Google were done on June 9, 2002.
[22] Available at mste.uiuc.edu/hill/dstat/dstatintro.html.
[23] Available at mste.uiuc.edu/carvell/3dbox/.
[24] Available at mste.uiuc.edu/davea/Bolt_Circle/frame.html.
[25] mste.uiuc.edu/m2t2/
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