October 2000 — Features
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Technology Enabling School Reform
The School Design Model at Brewster Academy, Part IIIn the May 1996 issue of T.H.E. Journal, we described a secondary school reform project at Brewster Academy, a c'educational independent school in New Hampshire. At that time the project was midway through its implementation phase, facing the many and varied challenges associated with a comprehensive school reform effort. The Brewster project was an early example (1992) of systemic site-based reform using a design approach. The School Design Model (SDM) (Bain 1994) developed at Brewster included reforms as fundamental to the recreation of position descriptions, salary structures and the career progression path; the design of new buildings; and the creation of a new curriculum.
The school
was also a pioneer in what have become known as “laptop schools,” places where
all students and faculty carry portable computers and access a ubiquitous
campus network. Brewster was one of the first secondary schools to introduce
this kind of access to information technology, and certainly the first to
accompany a laptop program with a comprehensive school-wide re-engineering
effort. In the intervening years, the school has been cited widely as an
example of systemic site-based school reform (Bain 1996; Bain, Fallon &
Smith 1999; Brosnan 1996; McCord 1999; Brown 2000; Dimmock 2000).
Eight years have passed since the development of the design
plan and four years since the original T. H. E. article. In that time, much has changed in the broader
educational landscape and in the evolution of the SDM at Brewster Academy. The
school has managed to sustain its effort and energy for reform, evolving into a
genuine learning community enabled by a technological operating system (School
Tools OS) that automates Brewster’s reforms in unique and powerful ways.
In this follow-up we will review the design approach, and
use examples to focus specifically on the way technology has been used to
enable and sustain a successful school reform effort. We will also summarize
the results of the project to date.
The School Design Model at Brewster Academy
The SDM is a methodology for site-based school reform. Each
element of the SDM is based upon established research in teaching, learning,
technology and school leadership, which is then combined with an intensive
implementation process at the site (Bain 1996). The model includes the
following elements:
· Needs Assessment.
· Policy Building.
· Teaching and Learning from a Student
Perspective.
