April 1998 — Editorial
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The Changing Teacher / Student Relationship
The role of the teacher has changed from the deliverer of instruction to an academic guide and creator of learning experiences. Teachers help students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. They foster collaboration and cooperative learning. The learning environment is being redesigned for learner-centered activities rather than teacher-dominated assignments. This trend can be observed in many K-12 schools and university environments. Each institution is, of course, limited by its resources, teacher preparedness, organizational pattern and community involvement.
An interesting project that has received a great deal of publicity is the reform of the Union City, New Jersey school system. The final report on the educational use of technology has not been completed, but a preliminary teacher survey on the impact of the reforms, computers and/or the Internet on teachers' practices contains some interesting information. The final report will be available from Margaret Honey, Deputy Director of the Center for Children and Technology Education Development Center, Inc. (http://www.edc.org/cct/)
The Education Center for Children and Technology (CCT) first began to work with the Union City Schools in 1992 and has collaborated with the district in numerous ways since then. The investigation of the impact of using state-of-the-art technologies in a reformed educational context on students' learning, teachers' teaching and parental involvement is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Jerry Lee Foundation. Jerry Lee is President of radio station B101 in Philadelphia. As experienced educators, Harvey Long, Frank Withrow, Margaret Withrow and I are volunteering our services to Jerry Lee. We shall probably also document our observations and conclusions in the near future.
Investment in Technology
Union City School District, faced with the need for systemic changes to reform the entire educational system, extended classes in most subject areas to 111 minute periods at the elementary and middle school level and 80 minute periods in high school, increased in-service training for teachers from eight hours to 40 hours, replaced individual student desks with cooperative learning tables, and replaced textbooks with class libraries. In addition to curriculum reform, the district made a significant investment in technology resources. During the last seven years approximately a 4:1 ratio of students to computers was established by placing computers in student and teacher homes and increasing connectivity in the district. Union City is now one of the most, if not the most, wired school districts in the United States. It is, however, the restructured school day and the change from the traditional teacher-centered model of learning to the student-centered approach which helped meet the key goals of educational reform.
Five factors are attributed to the success of Union City:
