September 2004 — Features
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Enabling Distributed Learning Communities Via Emerging Technologies - Part One
Emerging devices, tools, media and virtual environments offer opportunities for creating new types of learning communities for students and teachers. Examples of learning communities include a national mix of kids working together to create an online encyclopedia about Harry Potter’s fictional world, or groups of mentor and novice teachers in Milwaukee sharing ideas about effective instruction.
According to Bielaczyc and Collins (1999): “The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding. There are four characteristics that such a culture must have: (1) diversity of expertise among its members who are valued for their contributions and given support to develop, (2) a shared objective of continually advancing the collective knowledge and skills, (3) an emphasis on learning how to learn, and (4) mechanisms for sharing what is learned. ... This is a radical departure from the traditional view of schooling, with its emphasis on individual knowledge and performance, and the expectation that students will acquire the same body of knowledge at the same time.”
Both opportunities and challenges arise in applying this model of learning communities to the instruction of students and to the preparation, induction and professional development of teachers. Before discussing these issues, delineating my perspective on educational improvement is necessary for understanding the assumptions underlying this two-part article, which will conclude in the October issue.
Six Assumptions About Educational Improvement
1. The most important challenge the U.S. education system faces is not preparing students to do well on high-stakes tests, but rather fostering 21st century skills and knowledge in learners so that they are prepared to participate in our global, knowledge-based civilization. This challenge requires that teachers understand what types of knowledge and skills are required in leading-edge workplaces (e.g., decision-making under uncertainty, just-in-time learning, information filtering). It also requires that teachers themselves are adept in generic higher-order cognitive, affective and social skills such as systems thinking, creativity and collaboration (Dede 2000; Dede 2003; Partnership for 21st Century Skills 2003).
2. Current professional development that focuses on how to optimize teachers’ knowledge and skills within the current high-stakes testing environment is tactically useful but strategically inadequate. To fully prepare students for 21st century work and citizenship, the U.S. education system must transform to provide support for inquiry-based learning in classrooms, in homes and in communities since this is how complex skills such as systems thinking, creativity and collaboration are acquired. Therefore, teacher professional development should include methods to improve the effectiveness of schools as they are, as well as focus on transformational strategies for developing deeper forms of content, new models of pedagogy, and organizational partnerships for learning with parents, businesses and community institutions (Dede 1998).
