Redesigning a Communication Support Systemfor Teachers

Master Project Report

Submitted to Master Program of Learning, Design, and Technology at School of Education, Stanford University

Yasuhisa Kato ()

June 2000

2000

ABSTRACT

I proposed to redesign a communication support system for teachers, which will provide an easy solution for both teachers and project administration staffto archive teachers’ scholarship of teaching, and to exchange their expertise in the teachers’ community. This system is being used under the project of The Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT).

Currently, CASTL participants use a Web-based communication system called Workspace, which provides a document posting area and other functions. Occasionalusers of Workspace are not sufficiently satisfied with its functionality and current state of usability.

My challenges in redesigning this communication system are to investigate what functions are necessary in the system, what level of functionality and usabilityencourage users to frequently utilize this system and to continue to use it, and what role multimedia plays in archiving teachers’ expertise and practices, called the scholarship of teaching.

Informal interviews were conducted and former in-house discussions were analyzed. I proposed a new design of Workspace. In addition, I will assessthe communication process and usability, and present a future direction for further improvement.

For my wife and son, Yukiko and Fumiyasu.

Acknowledgments

This project is supported in party by my internship work at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. I could have not finished my master project work without any help from the Carnegie Foundation. Especially, Dr Toru Iiyoshi, the director of Knowledge Media Laboratory as my internship supervisor, he gave me manyopportunities and allowed me to use high-tech equipment. In addition, his gracious and frequent advice and support enabled me to deeply understand the site and to study in the right direction. Dr. Tom Hatch, a senior scholar of the Carnegie Foundation, gave me insightful comments and excited me to move forward.

I would like to thank Decker Walker and Deborah Kim. Professor Decker Walker gave me useful advice and appropriate comments. Program coordinator Deborah Kim gave me practical comments and encouraged me to keep going. I also thank Professor James Greeno and Professor Brigid Barron for their suggestions and comments.

Comments and suggestions from Dr. Laurie Wayne and Dr. Lois Brooks, at the master project presentation, were very useful and inspired me to rethink the future direction. In addition, many visitors at the master project EXPO gave me valuable advice and comments.

Finally, I want to thank my immediate family. Yukiko, thank you for waiting patiently for me to overcome this long and crucial hurdle. Thanks to Fumiyasu. I was so lucky to have the little interrupting knocks on the door. His smile always encouraged me.

ABSTRACT

Acknowledgments

Table of Contents

List of TABLES

List of figures

Chapter One

Introduction

Background

Chapter Two

SITE BACKGROUND

Carnegie Foundation

CASTL

Scholarship of Teaching (SoT)

CASTL Community

KML

Workspace

Chapter Three

Problems and Needs

Analysis of CASTL community

Problems

Needs

Chapter Four

Design Principles

Technology-enhanced Scholarship of Teaching

Media richness

Increase Interactivity

Enhance Motivation

Consider audience diversity

Chapter Five

Features of Redesign

Chapter Six

Implementation

Chapter Seven

Evaluation & User Testing

Evaluation

User Testing

Chapter Eight

Discussion and Future Work

Limitations

Discussion

Future Work

Appendix A

Screen shots of the current Workspace

APPENDIX B

Sample Project Goal

APPENDIX C

Screen shots of the new Workspace

Appendix D

Resume

List of publications

Journal Articles

Refereed Conference Proceedings

Book Review

University Thesis

References

List of TABLES

Table 1: Classification of the Technology-enhanced Scholarship of Teaching

Table 2: User Testing Plan

List of figures

Figure 1: Mailing List Traffic (1998 Participants)

Figure 2: Mailing List Traffic (1998 Participants)

Figure 3: Mailing List Traffic (1999 Participants)

Figure 4: Design Process

Figure 5: Development Process I

Figure 6: Development Process II

Figure 7: Listserv Archive

Figure 8: Scholars Workspace

Figure 9: Mockup demo of new Workspace

Chapter One

Introduction

Background

Network-based communication, especially asynchronous systems including e-mail, newsgroup, and web-based forums conform well to the time-restricted schedules of teachers. Features such as time and place independence, multiple participants, fast searching, message storage and retrieval, and interactivity validate the ability of the computer network to foster communication among users (Hawkes 1999). Therefore, asynchronous learning tools have enhanced teacher education in many ways, including creating links with the K-12 community, providing professional development opportunities, encouraging collaborative relationships, and developing new ways of mentoring (McMullen 1998).

Specifically, a number of early attempts have met the users’ administrative needs, but not curricular needs. Besides, there have not been many research activities on the assessments of system integration. This project explores in depth one such system: Workspace, and its coverage of various teachers’ needs.

Boyer, the last President of CFAT, initially used the term “scholarship of teaching”. Shulman, CFAT’s current President, has identified three requirements for transformingexcellent teaching into the scholarship of teaching and learning: ”We must make documented teaching and learning theory and practice publicly accessible, open to peer critical review, and available for reuse” (Cambridge 1999). Web-based computer systems can play an important role to fulfill Shulman’s three requirements and develop a practical system. Web-based communication systems enable a large audience to access the data in the system. Specifically, threaded discussions and real-time chats enhance peer reviews of teaching practices, even if participants are located in different places. In addition, a web-based database and search functionality increase the reusability. After teachers browse and retrieve teaching practices and multimedia data on this web-based system, they can recreate their own teaching materials and curriculum.

The Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) is a project aiming to build a scholarship of teaching on a nation-wide scale. In thisproject, participant teachers, called Carnegie scholars, develop their scholarship of teaching and learning, which will: “(1) Foster significant, long-lasting learning for all students (2) Enhance the practice and profession of teaching (3) Bring to faculty members’ work as teachers the recognition and reward afforded to other forms of scholarly work in education.” (CFAT brochure, 1999). This project includes a two-year program for teachers and teacher educators from K-12 and a one-year program for teachers from higher education. They investigate and document their work on issues in the teaching and learning of their ownfield. Carnegie Scholars usually spend two 10-day summer sessions together near the campus of the Carnegie Foundation and additional time during the academic year. They work primarily in their own academic settings, which are located nation-wide.Given this opportunity, an effective communication system will become an important toolamong Carnegie Scholars and administration staff.

Workspace is a communication support system for teachers and administration staff in the CASTL project. To satisfy the three requirements mentioned above, this web-based system provides e-mail, threaded discussion groups, and posting and sharing multimedia documents to promote mutual assessment.

Up to this point, Workspace has been used for one and a half years in the CASTL project, primarily for making announcements, posting teachers’ project proposals and final documentations, and for sharing all of these. However, the participants have not frequently used Workspace. Because there are few peer reviews through the threaded discussion forum, users lack feedback from the system. It is not clear whether they benefit much from this web-based system.

Chapter Two

SITE BACKGROUND

In this chapter, I describe a targeted communication support system and its organization and community. Carnegie Foundation has a professional development program called CASTL (Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning). The Knowledge Media Laboratory have developed its communication support system, called Workspace for CASTL community.

Carnegie Foundation

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) is a not-for-profit corporation founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered by an act of Congress in 1906. CFAT has a long and distinguished history. It is an independent policy and research center, whose primary activities of research and writing have resulted in published reports on every level of education. Eight presidents have guided the Foundation through its history, each bringing unique shape to its work.

The mission of CFAT as expressed in the founding charter is: “to do and perform all things necessary to encourage, uphold, and dignify the profession of teaching.” The founders created institution dedicated not only to the advancement of teaching in general but also to the “profession of teaching” in particular. To this day, the Foundation is rooted in its original mission, strengthening the future of the profession of teaching and the calling of educator. The Foundation fulfills its mission through its contributions to improvements in education policy and practice.

CFAT has several programs. One of the most proactive programs is the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL). In the CASTL project, participant teachers, called Carnegie scholars, will seek a scholarship of teaching and learning that will: (1) Foster significant, long-lasting learning for all students (2) Enhance the practice and profession of teaching (3) Bring to faculty members’ work as teachers the recognition and reward afforded to other forms of scholarly work in education. This program includes a two-year program for teachers and teacher educators from K-12 and a one-year program for teachers from higher education.

CASTL

The Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) seeks to support the development of a scholarship of teaching and learning that will:

Foster significant, long-lasting learning for all students
Enhance the practice and profession of teaching
Bring to faculty members' work as teachers the recognition and reward afforded to other forms of scholarly work

CASTL entails work on several fronts. These include a Program for faculty in Higher Education and a Program for K-12 Teachers and Teacher Educators who spend one or two years documenting some aspect of their teaching practice and partnerships with a variety of campuses, school reform networks and scholarly societies in both K-12 and Higher Education.

Through these efforts CASTL hopes to help establish and refine scholarly standards for the critical review of work on teaching and learning; to establish new settings, forums and forms through which the scholarship of teaching and learning can be exchanged widely; and underline the character of teaching itself as a complex and challenging endeavor worthy of support and reward.

Scholarship of Teaching (SoT)

SoT includes three features. One is being public, which means that teaching practices and methodologies would become community property. The second open to critique and evaluation and the third is availability for reuse, which means SoT should be in a form that other people can build on.

Besides, there is a forth feature, which is implied by the above three, it involves question-asking, inquiry and investigation, particularly around issues of student learning.

CASTL Community

CASTL community has unique features. First, it is a closed community. When members are selected and fixed, no change has occurred throughout the program period. There is no addition and no subtraction of members. It is different from a community open to public. Besides, participants are located across the country. Therefore, it is impossible to meet once a week or even once a month. Participants have face-to-face two-week meetings twice a year. The first one is held in mid-June, that is the beginning stage of this program, and then, members can know each other at that meeting. It is not a community which is totally virtual, or on-line. The size of this community is about from 20 to 30 in one program. It is relatively very small community. Therefore, they can make deeper connection with each other

Members are selected by their project proposals, and the selection process is independent of their technological skills. Therefore, it is different from a community in which all participants are interested in technology and computers.

Participants are from variety of subject areas. This year’s participants are from Chemistry, Mathematics, English, History, Business, Psychology, and Performing arts.

KML

The Knowledge Media Laboratory (KML) is a multimedia laboratory in CFAT. KML provides resources and information to support and document the development and pursuit of the scholarship of teaching. One of the main projects in KML is to develop the Workspace, which provides such resources as a virtual workspace for teacher-scholars, exhibitions of the scholarship of teaching in multiple formats and multimediaresources for the support of the scholarship of teaching.

The Knowledge Media Laboratory (KML) is a multimedia laboratory, which is designed to take advantage of emerging technologies to support thedevelopment of the scholarship of teaching in both K-12 and HigherEducation. Its functions include:

Developing online communication tools, such as a virtual collaborationenvironment called the Workspacefor a small group of faculty who are documenting their teaching and sharingwhat they are learning with others as part of the Carnegie Academy for theScholarship of Teaching and Learning
Facilitating the efforts of those and other faculty who are attempting touse a variety of media in order to present their investigations
Developing resources that promote the understanding and pursuit of thescholarship of teaching. These resources include articles, annotated bibliographies, materials related to intellectual property, technical tutorials, etc. and are provided in a variety of formats such as Website, CD-ROM, and DVD.
Helping to build a larger network of faculty and organizations that areinterested in advancing collective understandings of teaching and learning.

While the development of the KML is still in the early stages, it seemslikely that the development of a scholarship of teaching in which teachersmake their work public, subject it to critical review, and share what theyare learning with others may benefit substantially from the opportunitiesto communicate and share resources with other faculty around the countrythat come with participation in online environments like the Workspace. Atthe same time, the further development of these environments depends ondeveloping new models of the scholarship of teaching, new forums forsharing reflections and investigations of teaching across suchenvironments, and more substantive connections among many of theindividuals and groups that are involved in related work.

Workspace

The Workspace is designed to enable the participants in the CASTL programs and Carnegie staff to post and share project documents (drafts as well as final versions), comments, and resources (articles, websites, and other online materials) that may be useful in the completion of the participants’ projects. The Workspace is comprised of a set of asynchronous and synchronous web-based communication tools and online resource databases. There are eight components.

Scholar Workspace

Scholars’ Workspace displays a listing of users’ posted documents relating to their project and response documents.

Discussion Listserv

This database is used as an email repository for information relating to the Carnegie Foundation. This enables users to post, respond, and reply to various topics related to the Scholarship of Teaching.

News

This news forum is designed to serve as a “bulletin board” where any member of the project can post information about events, publication, important statements, presentation, etc.

Program Documents

This area is used as announcements from administration staff of CASTL program.

WWW Resources

This database contains related organization and project inside/outside of CASTL program.

Scholar Directory

This is a directory of each member’s contact information.

Email Speed Dial

This is a list of email addresses, which has hot link for launching users’ email software.

Calendar of Events

This is a calendarschedule, which can be posted only by the CASTL administration staff.

There are a few screen shots of the current version of the Workspace in Appendix A.

Chapter Three

Problems and Needs

Analysis of CASTL community

In the CASTL community, each participant has his/her own project. Therefore different people have different goals. Some one is trying to frame problem-based learning, and some one is trying to investigate project-based learning. No same goals are shared in this community. In this CASTL program, participants spend most of their time on their campuses of schools. Therefore, they would do self-learning or may learn from their colleagues or their students. Peer review is the main learning opportunity in this program. Participants join two face-to-face meeting a year. They may directly email or call each other. In addition, they have possibilities to do peer review through the Workspace. This is my focus in this master project. One sample participant’s project goal is in Appendix B.

Problems

Like other systems, the current version of Workspace was designed and implemented without sufficient investigation of user needs or systematic analysis. It is somewhat preliminary as a system to startactual trials.Therefore, initially it was used mainly for such administrative communications as posting announcements and archiving proposals and final documents. In addition, this system is hindered by several functionality and usability problems, mainly because this system was quickly built and designed in an administrator-oriented style, not teacher-oriented.In addition, there is a wide range of computer skills among the participant teachers from novice to expert. Consequently, it is very difficult to meet the needs of all users in one system. From the teachers’viewpoint, there aretwo major problems: (1) Functionality issues such as confusing categorization and (2) Usability issues such as lack of consistency and difficult navigation. Therefore, participants do not always actively use this system,, then they have not received enough advantage through this communication system, such as peer reviewand understanding of other’s work. They might have a chance to develop their project more deeply when they had used the Workspace effectively.