Session II: Bridging the Achievement Gap
December 6th, 2004 | by Tim Wilson |Cheryl Lemke, CEO of the Metiri Group, is sharing her thoughts about technology solutions that help bridge the achievement gap. She is emphasizing research-based solutions in her presentation. This is especially relevant because of the federal government’s requirement in the NCLB law that new initiatives have a base of research supporting their use. Links to the Web sites she mentions in her talk are available separated by K–6 and 7–12.
Two types of research are important: impact studies and theoretical research. NCLB calls for demonstrated benefits. Some technology products have been “ported” from non-technology uses. The Lexia company, for example, took their effective phonemic awareness program and incorporated technology.
Cheryl is showing the WISE Project site at Cal Berkeley. The site features inquiry-based science units that deeply integrate technology. The students do their work through the Web and their progress is tracked on the site.
There are some products that have good scientific evidence supporting them. She’s talking about Read 180 from Scholastic. This is a product we use in our district. There are impact studies that support using Read 180 with struggling readers. Another product that has good impact study results is Fast Forward from Scientific Learning. Next is Little Planet from Sunburst, an early intervention reading program.
An interesting resource is the Metiri Group’s Tech Solutions That Work site. Like the CARET database, this site includes analyses of the research on various educational technology products. This is a good reference to use to challenge the software vendors’ sometimes exaggerated claims.
Another tool with good research is Cognitive Tutor for better algebra performance. The Apple Classroom of Tomorrow had some interesting results as well. Though the students with computers didn’t have significantly better academic performance, nearly all ACOT student went on to college which greatly exceeded the performance of the non-ACOT students.
Now Cheryl is talking about the theoretical studies. She’s talking about visualization as a tool for teaching and showing a graph depicting the power struggle between Jack and Ralph in the novel Lord of the Flies. The teacher who created that graph had the students create their own and combined their results to generate the graph.
