July 2005 — SETDA
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A New Competitive Grant Model for Nevada
Girls and boys. The mean interview score for girls in the technology group was about the same as for girls in the control group. Boys' interview scores in the control group were significantly below the girls' scores, but boys' interview scores in the technology group were significantly higher than the girls' scores. A possible explanation for this outcome could be that when males engaged in learning science concepts through integrated technology, they were better able to visualize and make connections at a deeper level of understanding. This allowed them to verbalize their responses to the interview questions better than their peers in the non-technology group could. Girls, on the other hand, were able to verbalize their responses at about the same performance level regardless of their group membership.
Special-education students. One of our most exciting results occurred with special-education students. Interview scores for special-education students in the non-technology group were more than 15 points below the mean for non-special-education students. The mean score for special-education students in the technology group was six points above that of non-special-education students. The interview method illuminated what normal testing sometimes masks: Special-education students often have learning disabilities related to reading and writing, so pencil and paper tests can be much more challenging for them. However, use of interviews as an assessment tool tends to level the playing field for these students and allows them to truly communicate what they know without being encumbered with having to write down their answers. With the interview method serving to level the playing field for special-education students, it became clear that technology made a significant difference in what these students learned, understood, and verbalized.
Reflections & Lessons Learned
Although the model had been carefully planned and organized, a number of hurdles surfaced. Because of the funding structure, the technology belonged to the school districts, but everyone agreed at the outset that the teacher participants would be stewards of the equipment as long as they remained in the district. However, one district collected all the computers from their teachers and held them for a month to load the software. This included wiping the hard drives clean and re-installing a lower-end operating system for compatibility with the district network. The district IT staff held the CDs that came with the computer, and the teachers were not given administrative rights to the laptops. This situation upset the teachers, and the university found itself caught in the middle.
Another hurdle was the lack of clarity among teachers of what technology integration means and what it looks like in the classroom-despite a great deal of time spent on modeling and facilitating best practices during professional development. This resulted in diverse levels of technology integration in the units developed by the teachers. One teacher used a PowerPoint presentation for both the technology and non-technology groups, with the only difference being one was in color and the other was in black and white. To resolve this problem, the researchers developed a four-level rubric describing the criteria for technology integration. Each teacher evaluated the technology component in each unit they taught. Use of the rubric allowed the researchers to examine the effects of four different levels of technology integration on student achievement.
