Learning to teach with technology: strategies for inservice professional development.

This article describes and reports evaluation results for five key elements of the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project's inservice professional development program. The five elements are: (a) Technology Learning Coordinators (a mentoring system), (b) Minigrants (small local grants tied to a planning process for teachers), (c) Partnerships (partnering of teachers experienced with multimedia projects with novices), (d) Student Interviews (a project-wide organization for evaluating student projects), and (e) Multimedia Fairs (annual exhibitions of student multimedia projects). Each element could be used alone, but evidence suggests synergistic effects emerged when all five were used together. The program as a whole was successful in developing and disseminating effective strategies for technology use, and in finding a level of systemic support for teaching with technology that made strategic use of limited resources.

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What types of support help teachers become proficient with technology and use it as an effective tool? This question once seemed overwhelming, but over the past decade research has provided insight into the content and methods for professional development strategies most likely to be successful. This article reports the results of the teacher professional development strategies used in the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project. These strategies were built on prior research and are highly adaptable to schools and districts that aim to support and expand the integration of technology into their instructional programs.

THE CHALLENGE 2000 MULTIMEDIA PROJECT

In 1995, the Silicon Valley Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project--or the Multimedia Project, for short--was launched as one of the original 19 Technology Innovation Challenge Grants funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The purpose of these grants was to demonstrate, document, and disseminate cutting-edge ways technology could be used to improve education. The success of the Multimedia Project earned it recognition in September 2000 as one of only two educational technology programs nationwide to be cited as "exemplary" by the Department's Expert Panel on Educational Technology. Because the Multimedia Project sought to develop and infuse schools with exemplary educational uses for technology, it was primarily a teacher professional development project. This article describes important lessons and insights developed over the six years of the Multimedia Project. These insights describe how limited resources can be leveraged and used strategically to provide technical and pedagogical support for inservice tea chers who want to use technology as part of an effective instructional strategy.

At the core of the Multimedia Project was its instructional model, called Project-Based Learning Supported by Multimedia, or PBL+MM. PBL+MM is a method of teaching in which students acquire new knowledge and skills in the course of designing, planning, and producing a multimedia product. It is based on progressive educators' ideas about project-based learning from the early 20th century (Dewey, 1997; Kirkpatrick, 1918), but the product students create is a multimedia presentation. The PBL+MM model encompasses seven dimensions that combine to create a successful multimedia project for students and teachers: core curriculum, real-world connection, extended time frame, student-decision making, collaboration, assessment, and multimedia.

Multimedia Project participants included 150 classroom teachers who represent 50 schools in 11 school districts that span the 1,740 square-mile Silicon Valley region. For most of these teachers, multimedia was a new technology, and many had only passing experience with project-based learning. What they shared at the outset was an interest in learning more about technology and a desire to provide the best education possible for their students. As members of what came to be called the Project cadre, these teachers attended summer institutes and monthly workdays. They participated in online discussions. They used and contributed to the Project's web site. They developed new relationships with colleagues from other schools and districts with whom they formed a strong community of practice. Through trial and error, exasperation, elation, and reflection, they shaped the concept of exemplary PBL+MM and what it takes to make it happen in the classroom.

Participating teachers were organized into teams, comprised of teachers from at least one high school and its feeder middle schools and elementary schools. Each team was supported by one or more Technology Learning Coordinators (TLC's), technology-proficient teachers on leave from all or part of their teaching duties. Each team organized its own training and resource allocation procedures, in addition to what was provided project-wide.

The task for participating teachers was to develop and share methods and curriculum that would strengthen each of the seven dimensions of PBL+MM. Every day of their projects, they dealt with questions such as, "How can I help young students collaborate effectively?" and "What kinds of decisions are appropriate for first-graders to make?" These details and situations brought the seven dimensions of PBL+MM to life and made them useful.

Evaluation Results

Evaluations of the Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project provide evidence that teachers' participation in the Multimedia Project transformed their teaching practice in significant ways. In an observational study conducted during the 1998-99 school year, Multimedia Project teachers were found to engage their students in small-group activities focused on extended projects more frequently than teachers in comparison classrooms (Penuel, Golan, Means, & Korbak, 2001). The observational study also found that students in Multimedia Project classrooms spent more time than students in comparison classrooms engaged in more sophisticated cognitive activities, such as analyzing and interpreting information, creating models or representations of information, deciding on the structure of a presentation aimed at an external audience, and reviewing and revising their work (Penuel, Korbak, Yarnall, & Pacpaco, 2001).

The project proved to be particularly successful in scaling and sustaining changes in teaching practice as well. By the fourth year, participation climbed to 114 teachers, then increased 12.5% to 144 teachers in the final year of grant funding. The number of students completing multimedia projects also increased, ultimately reaching an estimated 6,500 students in year five of the Project. Moreover, in the project's final year of federal funding, 84% of respondents to a survey of Project teachers reported that they would continue to use the new teaching practices they had developed in the Multimedia Project (Penuel et al., 2001). The end of external funding was expected to lead to reduced support from teacher leaders to teachers in their classrooms. Essentially, teachers were expected to return to a level of collaboration with, and support from, their peers far lower than the level experienced in the Multimedia Project. It is impressive, therefore, that most teachers planned to continue the project-based learn ing using multimedia approach, motivated to a great extent by the benefits of the approach to student learning.

The project was also successful in improving student outcomes and project quality. In a performance assessment measuring content integration, attention to audience, and design, project classrooms significantly outscored comparison classrooms in all three areas (Penuel, Golan et al., 2001). Furthermore, the percentage of student multimedia projects receiving the highest rating of "exemplary" at the annual judging event jumped each year, from 22% in 1998 to 73% in 2000 (Penuel, Korbak et al., 2001).

METHODS

The conclusions and insights in this article are supported by six years of research conducted by SRI International (SRI) and the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL). Researchers employed a range of quantitative and qualitative methods to evaluate and understand the effectiveness of the Multimedia Project and the reasons behind its successes and failures.

SRI's evaluation of the project included, among many data sources, annual surveys of project teachers, surveys of teachers who participated in Project professional development opportunities, observational data collected in Project and comparison classrooms, interviews with project teachers and staff and a student performance assessment. (1)

In separate but related projects, IRL undertook indepth studies of two aspects of the Project's professional development program: Technology Learning Coordinators (TLC's) and Partnerships. These studies were conducted using ethnographic, interview, and survey data.

The purpose of IRL's TLC study was to understand the many ways TLC's defined and functioned in their jobs. Five TLC's were shadowed for one work day each. Activities at TLC meetings, rich sources of TLC-to-TLC discussions and collaborative problem solving, were video taped, and artifacts produced at these meetings were collected and analyzed. A researcher also attended training days organized by TLC's in two of the project teams. A preliminary analysis of this data was used to define issues and construct an indepth interview protocol. All TLC's working in the year of the study were interviewed. In a second round of analysis, video tapes were transcribed, and data sources were analyzed together for emergent categories and themes.

Teacher Partnerships were implemented later in the Multimedia Project in response to the growing skills of the original group of participating teachers. The partnership model was evaluated using four data sources. First, all teachers who participated in partnerships were surveyed. Second, a researcher attended at least one meeting of each of three partnerships (a total of six meetings). Third, the same researcher interviewed five participating teachers to explore their experiences more indepth. Fourth, researchers visited the classrooms of four participating teachers at least once while they implemented their units. The researcher visited the classrooms of two of these teachers extensively during the two months of their units' implementation. The interviews, meetings, and classroom visits were used both early on to define the issues that should be surveyed, and later to add perspective and insight to analysis of the survey data. The classroom visits were invaluable in seeing how issues that were raised in par tnership meetings affected classroom practice, and how issues that arose in the classroom made their way through partnerships.

SHAPING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Lauro (1995) summarized five models for developing teachers' technology expertise:

* Comprehensive: Ongoing, systematic professional development by outside experts with support over four or five years.

* One-shot deal: Workshop over 1-3 days related to a specific topic.

* Conferences: Sending staff to conferences and, ideally at least, having attendees communicate their learning to other staff.

* In-house professional development: An in-house technology/curriculum expert provides ongoing training and support.

* Video (or online) courses: Teachers use outside training resources to train themselves.

While all these models may have value in certain contexts, it has long been recognized that professional development needs to be sustained and collaborative to affect teaching practice. In fact, a 1995 policy brief by the Consortium for Policy Research in Education goes so far as to call one-shot workshops "virtually a waste of time...because they lack focus, intensity, follow-up, and continuity" (Corcoran, 1995).

Despite such criticism, workshop models are still the norm for technology training, according to the most recent available data. Though classrooms increasingly have greater access to computers and the Internet today, the lack of release time for teachers to learn how to use technology effectively (NCES, 2000) remains a barrier to integrating technology in their classrooms. Most teachers have received introductory training on software applications, the use of the Internet, and the use of computers. But follow-up and advanced training are generally less available to teachers than is introductory training (NCES, 2000; Solmon, 1999). Training in how to integrate technology into classroom practice is widely advocated, but such training is not widely available.

Learning how to design classroom opportunities to optimize student learning takes at least as much time as learning how to use new technology. To engage students in authentic projects or investigations, for example, teachers must be able to coach students who are working independently or in small groups, address unexpected questions, adjust timelines in the midst of projects, and relate students' own ideas and perspectives to curricular content (Linn, Slotta, & Baumgartner, 2000). Teachers' incorporation of these kinds of classroom practices varies greatly, and in some cases, teachers' own philosophies of instruction may reduce the likelihood that they will engage their students in complex inquiry or extended projects (Ravitz, Becker, Wong, 1999). Designing professional development to allow teachers to experiment with new pedagogies requires a sensitivity to teachers' current ideas about teaching, their preparedness to act as coaches and facilitators of learning, and their skill in incorporating new and advan ced technologies to support new forms of instruction. Ideally, this professional development is ongoing and allows for multiple opportunities for teachers to reflect on what they are learning within a community of practice (CEO Forum on Education and Technology, 1999; Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt [CTGV], 1997).

The value of teachers learning from, and with, other teachers has been well established in the research literature. Teachers have explored learning together in teams as small as two, in school-to-school partnerships, and in networks of hundreds of teachers. Teachers in all configurations cite the value of other teachers' practical knowledge, but are most enthusiastic about breaking through the isolation that characterizes traditional teaching arrangements. Arrangements abound. In mentoring, a more experienced teacher advises a less experienced teacher. In collaborative projects, teachers learn by creating something together (CTGV, 1997). Teachers also learn through collaborative evaluation of student work, and through collaborative study of subject matter (Ball 1996; McLaughlin & Oberman 1996; Lichtenstein, Weissglass, Ercikan-Alper, 1998; Stein, Silver, & Smith, 1999).

Brand (1997), in addition to recommending sustained, flexible, and collaborative professional development, also pointed out that teachers should be compensated and recognized for their work and progress. He also pointed out that professional development needs to be supported by the administration, for example by helping teachers link technology projects to state standards.

The Multimedia Project sought to organize professional development to reflect best practices from this literature. That is, professional development would be ongoing, systematic, adaptable, and support long-term mentoring and collaboration among teachers. Professional development would also focus on the pedagogy-technology relationship, rather than on technology alone.

KEY MULTIMEDIA PROJECT PROGRAM ELEMENTS

The Multimedia Project sponsored a variety of professional development activities for its cadre of teachers. From the beginning, the project adhered to a philosophy of growing grass-roots expertise in its cadre of teachers and encouraging teacher-to-teacher learning. After launch of the project, TLC's gradually took on responsibility for professional development activities until, by the project's conclusion, all such activities were planned and implemented almost entirely by teachers and TLC's. These activities included teacher work days, summer institutes, dinner meetings with guest speakers, technology training days, and other activities based on needs of smaller groups of teachers.

Multimedia projects, with all their rewards, are a lot of work, and the first project is the hardest. What kind of support makes a teacher take that leap? Because membership in the Multimedia Project cadre was always voluntary, this was a central question. Five elements of the project's professional development model had a particularly significant impact on the number of teachers recruited, as well as the number of teachers who completed successful projects year after year. The five program elements were key to Multimedia Project success and are all adaptable to the needs and resources of different schools and school districts. In fact, each Multimedia Project team adapted all the program elements to meet their local needs and take best advantage of local resources. These elements were:

* Technology Learning Coordinators: A system of teacher leadership for providing support and training.

* Mini-grants: Project teachers could apply to the project for small grants for equipment and software.

* Project-based teacher partnerships: Inexperienced teachers teamed up with an experienced teacher to do a PBL+MM project together.

* Multimedia Fairs: All of our teachers exhibited projects in district or school-wide multimedia fairs at the end of each academic year.

* Student Interviews. Each district team chose six of its best projects, and the students who created them participated in interviews with a panel of adult experts. The experts rated the projects using the Multimedia Project Rubric.

Technology Learning Coordinators (TLC's): Support and advocacy

During the school day I'm a Swiss army knife with an identity crisis. -TLC. The Multimedia Project organized and supported a network of teachers on leave from part or all of their teaching duties. These teachers, called TLC's, were responsible for recruiting and supporting the teachers of the project cadre. Each TLC supported between 3 and 18 teachers at their own school and other schools in their districts. They were released from their teaching duties, anywhere from one period per day to full time, and paid their regular salaries. The TLC's main responsibilities were:

* design, organize, and provide training, coaching and other support to assist Multimedia Project cadre teachers with the design and implementation of exemplary PBL+MM, as defined by the Challenge 2000 Multi- 

* attend and support monthly TLC professional development meetings;

* coordinate an annual exhibition of student multimedia projects;

* initially provide onsite technical support to cadre teachers, if needed, for the use of multimedia software and network tools;

* serve as a coach to support the integration of technology into instructional programs throughout the TLC's home school and district; and

* assist with planning, coordination, and implementation of project-wide professional development activities.

In many ways TLC's were the core of the Multimedia Project. They brought to the job energy and passion born of deeply held beliefs in the value of technology in education. TLC's coordinated the other professional development activities, organized the yearly cycle of classroom activity with project teachers, and acted as liaisons between project staff and the teacher cadre. For the teachers, they were indispensable sources of advice, troubleshooting, and moral support. The ideas and problems they brought to the attention of project staff were crucial to the development of the PBL+MM model into a practical resource that could be easily shared and used by new and experienced teachers.

Moreover, the TLC's were responsible for recruiting teachers in their teams to join the project and/or try their first PBL+MM units. MMP membership was always voluntary, and it was up to the TLC's to convince teachers to try doing a PBL+MM project.

In the final year of the Multimedia Project, researchers were given the task of documenting the TLC job as it had developed in the various teams, as well as documenting and disseminating some of the TLC's knowledge about supporting technology use in schools. The following insights are those expressed by almost every TLC and supported by observations of TLC activities and discussions.

Six important insights about the TLC job are discussed in detail:

* support needs to be more than technical;

* innovators and early adopters make ideal TLC's;

* the TLC role should be flexibly defined and continually redefined;

* onsite is best;

* networking opportunities are key to TLC's ongoing learning, motivation, and success; and

* the rhythms of the school year can unify the group.

Support Needs to be More Than Technical

Technical assistance is a small (though necessary) part of making a multimedia project successful. Teaching and learning issues are complex and intertwined with technical concerns. The ideal support for teachers should come from someone who can not only tell a teacher how to hook up the scanner, but can suggest ways to organize the scanning process to maximize student learning and engagement. TLC's were emphatic in their belief that it is far easier to teach teachers technology than to teach technicians about education.

By the final years of the Project, many of the MMP districts did have technical support for things like hooking up a network and maintaining equipment. This is also necessary. TLC's provided instructional support in addition to pure technical support, as well as on-the-spot technical assistance beyond what a school or district could provide.

Before TLC's could begin the task of helping a teacher plan an instructionally sound project, their credibility as teachers had a large role in recruitment and motivation. As one teacher and TLC explained,

I do think that the teacher helping teacher is a much stronger model than some outside person-helping teacher. Now if you had some outside person with a lot of credibility already in place, and you wanted to give them this extra TLC anointment, that might work. But I'd rather have somebody that's in the classroom and has tried this stuff with their students.

An important role for TLC's was helping teachers in their teams plan their unit. They would meet with each teacher or with the team as a group and work through planned projects in detail, helping the teachers define their instructional goals, match them to activities that would help students meet those goals, and creating realistic timelines for projects. Teachers' needs spanned a broad range of topics. For example, in one group planning session, a TLC began by helping a teacher modify a project to incorporate more math content. The next two questions she tackled were about first, what software would be best for incorporating animation into a presentation about earthquakes, and second, who in the team could help a teacher learn a particular piece of software. Next she was asked to schedule time to be in a teachers' classroom to help her students with their first experiences with HyperStudio. She also reminded teachers they could use their two days of substitute teacher time to give a sub to another teacher so that teacher could come help on a computer lab day. In the span of 10 minutes the TLC had called on her pedagogical, technical, logistical, and MMP expertise.

Make Use of Innovators and Early Adopters

All of the TLC's were interested in technology before the Multimedia Project came along. Many were passionate about it. Not just because it was fun, but because they saw the changes it brought about in their classrooms, and how it engaged students they had never engaged before. Most had been involved with technology for many years. One commented, "Before there were computers, I was the person who could thread the film projector." TLC's for the most part did not serve the Multimedia Project; they used and learned from it to help them with a mission they already had. They were happy to get the release period--it allowed them to do the work they would have done anyway, and to get paid for it instead of burning out. A TLC explained, "All the TLC's in this project had technology as a hobby to start with--that's what gets them through the frustrations. They'd be doing it anyway--if not in the school environment then they'd be going home and putting their web pages together."

When TLC's were asked how they had come to the job, nearly all said that their prior work in technology had already come to the attention of the district office and they were considered an obvious choice for the job. Although several initially resisted yet another addition to their workload, they were enticed by the extra money, release time, and support they would receive. Once they began the work, they became enamored of the opportunities it provided to learn, provide leadership, and spread the use of what they considered a very effective and important instructional strategy. As one TLC said, "I've never learned this fast in my life." She continued, "I like that the subject matter's always changing--that's a part I like. A lot of what you learned in Hyperstudio applies to web pages."

Because of their passion, credibility, and expertise, some TLC's became important and successful advocates for effective technology use, and their efforts resulted in PBL+MM becoming a supported, mainstream instructional strategy within their schools and districts. One group in particular, the Palo Alto team, spent the years of the MMP meticulously collecting data about how district standards were met by multimedia projects. The effort culminated in a successful presentation to the school board advocating formalization and funding of technology support structures.

The TLC Role Should be Flexibly Defined and Continually Redefined

Every district is different, not only in its available money and equipment but in the particular people that are available to fill the TLC role. That is why the TLC job was defined somewhat differently in every team. Indeed, the flexibility to adapt the TLC job configuration was a key factor in the success of the TLC role and the Multimedia Project itself.

For example, some TLC's did the job full time. Others were released from just one or two periods per day and supported fewer teachers and schools. Elementary school teachers tended to become full time TLC's, because it is so much harder for elementary school teachers to carve out a part of their teaching days for release time. A middle or high school teacher has a more segmented day to portion out.

There were advantages and disadvantages to part and full-time versions of the job. The part-timers enjoyed the credibility that comes with doing a project in their own classrooms concurrent with their TLC duties. The disadvantage was that they were always faced with balancing the demands of their own teaching with their duties as a TLC. Furthermore, part-timers sometimes had trouble providing adequate instructional support because the school pulled them away to provide technical support. Full-timers could focus all their attention on their TLC role, and manage their schedule without worrying about being back for their third-period class. They were freer to help out in another teacher's classroom. They could spend a whole day debugging a problem if they had to.

A high school teacher who became a part-time TLC thinks the credibility associated with concurrent teaching was worth the drawbacks of a part-time arrangement:

The "pro" of being both a TLC and a teacher is that when you're talking to someone else you're a teacher, so you're not talking at them, you're talking with them. I'd always rather be a trainer who's doing the same kind of thing as the person I'm training. They know that I know how hard kids can be, or how hard it is to work with the schedules or when the technology fails-all of these things because its happened to me. The hard part is the time it takes.

An elementary school teacher who had tried part-time before going full-time saw benefits and drawbacks to both:

I was in tears the year I was a part-time TLC, trying to balance everything. But now, this being my second year out of the classroom, I'll realize I'm not always remembering what it's like, I'll suggest something and people look at me like, are you nuts? I still have instructional, assessment [skills], but day-to-day my expectations are different from what teachers can actually do. Like getting everyone together to meet is harder than it should be.

Each team took the TLC money available to them and used it in different ways. Some split the money for small amounts of release time for several TLC's, while others used the money for one or two full-time TLC's. A TLC who shared the job with four others thought the job share could have been taken even further:

I think what we did of splitting the job in five people is best model, rather than having one person. A mistake was, we should have rotated out and put new people in. Part of the goal of the project was getting more people involved. We kept our [TLC] core and added teachers around the edges. We could have very easily rotated, in for three years and then you're out. We could have brought in other people, given them the chance and the time to learn the job. You learn about how other people work. It's a trick to learn how to intervene.

TLC's, once in the job, adapted the formal job description to the needs of the teachers they supported. Particularly in the beginning of the Multimedia Project, TLC's did quite a bit of pure technical support--to the extent of wiring networks and restoring crashed hard disks. Some TLC's found that all their teachers needed basic technical training, while others found teachers just needed a little help with a particular piece of software. Many surveyed their schools to assess training needs. Others used their already substantial experience as a teacher in the district to create appropriate resources. Once teachers were implementing their projects, TLC's supported them in different ways. Some scheduled weekly visits. Some responded to calls for help in a more on-demand way. TLC's agreed that finding out how much hand-holding each teacher needed and wanted was a key skill they learned on the job.

As time went on, TLC's found themselves doing less pure technical support as district support infrastructures improved and equipment became more reliable. This freed them to do more instructional support. Similarly, the teachers they were supporting became more knowledgeable over the years, and even new teachers joining the project in the later years tended to be more technically adept as technology became more ubiquitous. TLC's began spending more time on technical issues unique to multimedia production, such as the use of multimedia software and peripherals.

Onsite is Best

Most of the TLC's supported teachers at their own school and at least one other. There was general agreement among the TLC's that they were more effective in their home school. First, people already knew them and credibility was less of a problem. Teachers could catch them in the halls with quick questions. They could take five minutes between class periods to fix a problem. Teachers new to technology felt much more willing to take risks if they knew they could get help within minutes, rather than hours or days. As one TLC explained, "People can learn faster, because of ongoing onsite support from TLC. I don't just do a workshop and walk away, leaving them to figure it out on their own. They have someone there beside them, getting them to open up to new perspectives."

Teachers at schools other than the TLC's home school were less likely to use the TLC, because they couldn't wait for the next visit to solve a problem or because they felt less comfortable "bothering" the TLC to come all the way over. TLC's felt that the degree of buy-in to the Multimedia Project was directly tied to the availability of the TLC.

Having a TLC there onsite, onsite is where the buy-in went way up--at my school the whole 3rd and 5th grades are participating. It's harder (at the other schools I support). The teachers don't know me, they have to call me to come over when they have a problem.

This finding makes sense in light of the way teachers learn to do multimedia projects. To an even greater degree than with nontechnology based pedagogies, the training a TLC can provide in advance of the project is slim preparation for the issues that emerge once students begin to work. The curricular demands, technical problems, and students' diverging skills and interests all combine to create a situation in which a teacher learns much more during the project than before it. Teachers' conceptions about what they are doing change in mid-project (Cole 2000), raising new questions requiring new kinds of support from the TLC. As one TLC pointed out, "Transformation of education not a training issue, but a feedback cycle."

Networking is Crucial

The TLC's formed their own peer "community of learners" (Brown & Campione 1990). In other words, they provided each other with mentoring, support, and information that enabled them to do their work as TLC's. One of the most common ways that TLC's talked with each other was through email. Within teams, it was common for TLC's to talk with other TLC's anywhere from one or two times per month to one or two times per week. They relied on one another, moreover, in many of the same ways that other project teachers relied on them: for implementation and technical support. The TLC's met formally every month. Some TLC's also met monthly with TLC's from their own teams. Once they all got to know each other, they phoned or e-mailed each other with questions, or got together to learn a new piece of software or develop training materials. Nearly all the TLC's came to depend on this network--in their collective brains were the answers to nearly every conceivable question. The monthly meetings were opportunities for profess ional development activities and project business, but most importantly they were opportunities for idea sharing and collaborative problem-solving. The energy and delight in these exchanges was captured by one TLC as she described the meetings: "We TLC's always yak yak yak--how do you do this and that."

Within the group, certain TLC's became known for particular kinds of expertise. One TLC was known for technical expertise--for example he could always solve problems with peripherals. Another was mentioned by several TLC's as being helpful about organizing the TLC job itself.

Some of the TLC's became ongoing partners in particular work or projects. One group developed a curriculum on PBL+MM that became an online course for the Connected University. It was quite common for TLC's to work in two's and three's to learn a new piece of software together, or develop training materials that all would use. This collegiality was often cited as a benefit to the TLC job, breaking through the isolation that is endemic in the teaching profession. TLC's pointed out that the relationships they formed in the TLC community were ones they would never have formed otherwise--with teachers from other schools and districts. They valued these relationships tremendously, both professionally and personally.

Use the Rhythms of the School Year to Unify the Group

With all the flexibility that makes the TLC job work, the TLC's drew cohesiveness from the common calendar they shared, some of which related to the school schedule and some of which was unique to the Multimedia Project. The Multimedia Project had a regular flow of events throughout the school year that provided a structure for the TLC's to work with. The first part of the year, through November, was occupied by training, planning, and project grant applications. In the middle of the year, TLC's supported teachers doing their projects in their classrooms. April was the month for multimedia fairs and project judging. May and June were times for archiving projects and evaluating the year. This structure meant that everyone was doing the same thing at more or less the same time, making it easier to focus TLC meetings and provide assistance to TLC's and teachers.

MINIGRANTS: A LOCAL GRANT PROGRAM

Each year, a pool of money was set aside for small grants for MMP teachers. These grants could be used to buy specialized equipment or software needed for particular projects; for example, scanners, digital cameras, or photo-editing software. The money could also be used for attending conferences or workshops, additional training on specific software or other technology, or to buy occasional extra planning time by hiring substitute teachers. Teachers could apply for up to $2000 to support their projects.

The Minigrant program actually served three purposes: (a) giving financial support to projects, (b) supporting teachers' planning processes, and (c) motivating teachers to join the project, if only for the free equipment and software. Figure 1 shows the questions on the application form.

This application form, though brief, required teachers to think methodically through all seven dimensions of the PBL+MM model. TLC's and project staff evaluated each application, and gave constructive feedback designed to increase the teacher's probability of success. Nearly all applications were funded, some immediately and others after revision to address weaknesses. Though many teachers initially lamented the time it took to develop their proposals, they commented later that their projects were stronger and implementation went more smoothly for having gone through the application process. One teacher described how the grant process drew her into the project.

I guess I was just so intrigued with (free) equipment, that that was the lure that got me to gamble. I can do this once, let's see what happens. I couldn't see beyond this year. I thought, OK, If it fails, fine, I've got the experience now, I've got the equipment now in my room, I can do something else with it. Now I know it for a fact it will be used year after year for multimedia until it dies.

Though minigrant funds could be used for conference attendance, training, and planning time, most of the funds were spent on multimedia technology. An analysis of the kinds of equipment and software requested in the mini-grant proposals shows that computer requests made up the largest line item. Some 44 computers, worth an estimated $73,787 were requested. Peripherals, such as Zip drives and Jaz drives, also comprised a significant proportion of total requests, accounting for $24,213 total. Other items requested included digital cameras; art, graphics, and multimedia software; video cameras; memory upgrades; scanners; printers; storage media (e.g., diskettes); expendables (e.g., printer cartridges); and network tools. Figure 2 shows the amounts of money requested from project teachers, by line item.

The minigrants were an important organizing and accountability tool for the project. The minigrant application became a planning resource for teachers, and the lure of the money was enough to encourage teachers to take the time to plan their units thoroughly on paper and refine them with their TLC's. By accepting their minigrants, teachers committed themselves to completing the projects with their students, putting the work on public display at Multimedia Fairs, and providing the Multimedia Project with quantitative and qualitative data about their overall PBL+MM experience.

TLC's and project staff used the minigrant proposals teachers submitted to identify project-wide strengths and problems. For example, in the 1998-1999 year, after a review of the whole body of applications, a cadre-wide problem with setting goals and objectives was identified. Many proposals had no measurable objectives at all. Some had objectives that were so small they could just as well have been accomplished with a one-night homework assignment (e.g., "Students will list five types of clouds"). Some had objectives that went far beyond the possible scope of one project (e.g., "students will learn to collaborate").

The previous year, Multimedia Project staff identified the assessment sections of proposals as needing to be strengthened, and arranged with IRI to provide consultation to teachers who wanted assistance with strengthening this section in the required rewrite of the proposals. In addition, IRL conducted a series of assessment laboratories in partnership with two teachers, one from an elementary classroom in Palo Alto and a second from a middle school classroom in San Carlos (Family of Schools). IRL worked with these teachers to develop prototypes for embedded assessments during the teachers' PBL+MM projects. The assessment lab process also included an analysis component, in which TLC's helped define key assessment issues and discussed the results of assessment prototypes developed in the classrooms.

PROJECT-BASED TEACHER PARTNERSHIPS

By spring of the Multimedia Project's second year, the teacher participants had gained considerable experience and successfully implemented a PBL+MM unit at least once. When asked how they thought the PBL+MM model could best be spread, TLC's recommended that each of the current cadre members be given the opportunity to recruit and work with one or two colleagues. Following a "craft" metaphor, the TLC's would serve as the "master" craftspeople, each experienced cadre member would be a "journeyman," and the newly invited teachers would be the "novices." Taking advantage of the significant expertise that had grown in the cadre served the dual functions of recruitment and professional development.

In the partnerships, teachers who had already used the PBL+MM model with their students (called lead teachers) joined with one or more other teachers in their schools. Funds that had previously been used to pay for the summer institutes were used instead to provide participating teachers with a $500 honorarium--to novices in recognition for undertaking the professional development challenge posed by PBL+MM, and to lead teachers in the recognition of the time they devoted to supporting and encouraging their teacher partners. Honoraria were not paid until projects were completed and teachers provided necessary documentation and evaluation data.

To participate in the program, partner teachers had to submit a detailed plan for the PBL+MM unit they would do together. This plan served as the basis for their minigrant application. Minigrant amounts were increased to $5,000-$7,000, depending on the number of teachers in the partnership. The minigrants were made to the partnerships, not the individual teachers, and the minigrant proposal had to include a detailed budget of how the funds would be spent to support the success of the partnership as a whole.

The partnerships model is significant in its combination of teacher collaboration with project-based learning. Teachers' learning was structured by a classroom project they designed and then did with their students, rather than being structured around a piece of technology. This provided a sense of focus and vividness to learning technology. Teachers did not have to wonder, as they might in a stand-alone technology workshop, how they would use the new technology they were learning. Because the partnerships offered chances for experienced teachers to lead and collaborate, the model had something to offer everyone, expert or novice. Collaboration made technology use possible for teachers who would have considered it beyond their reach working alone. Finally, the project-based nature of the partnerships limited the scope of the effort, making it much more manageable to try out the PBL+MM model. When the project was over, teachers could turn their attention to other things.

Teachers found the experience valuable; 97% said they would like to continue their partnership next year. Teachers learned about technology, but they also learned much more. Teachers cited as benefits: increased skill in using particular technology applications and/or hardware (56%); how to implement project-based learning (54%); new ideas for taking a more facilitative role within the classroom (52%); and specific ideas for the curriculum (52%).

Partnerships took advantage of the expertise of both lead teachers and their partners. Partnerships seemed to have something to offer teachers of many levels of expertise. Lead teachers and new teachers alike said they learned curriculum, pedagogy, and technology from their partners, although new teachers were more likely than lead teachers to learn these. However, when asked what the most significant thing they learned was, lead teachers were far more likely to cite leadership and collaboration experience, while new teachers were more likely to say curriculum, pedagogy, or technology was most significant.

The process was effective in helping teachers complete projects. Of 28 partnerships, 24 (86%) successfully completed their projects. These 24 successful partnerships represented 95% of the 73 participating teachers.

The model owes its success to many factors. Five of these seemed especially significant.

1. The application process: Having to prepare the project proposal lent a formality to their arrangement, and encouraged detailed planning. Furthennore, by going through the application process, teachers were ready to go when approval came, and meetings could focus on the day-to-day planning rather than questions of what the project should be.

2. Focus on a project: The demands of the project itself structured partnership meetings and kept them productive. Teachers were operating in the context of an ongoing PBL+MM unit. Partners would decide together what they were going to do tomorrow, and then go do it. The focus on a project also meant that the partnership was over when the project was over. Teachers didn't feel they had signed on for life, so recruitment was easier.

3. Self-selected, voluntary, local partners: Teachers selected their own partners, and tended to select teachers they had worked with before or were friendly with. Having partners be local--within the school--meant that partners were able to respond to the needs of their partners easily because they met in the halls or the teachers' lounge.

4. Flexibility: Participants were free to decide what they needed and how to support one another. Partners most often met through impromptu encounters rather than scheduled meetings. When they met, they discussed technology issues, looked at student work together, planned activities, and shared strategies.

5. Connection to Multimedia fairs: The project held a series of multimedia fairs at the end of the year. The fairs were open to the public. As part of their agreement with Challenge 2000, partnership teachers were expected to exhibit their students' multimedia work at these fairs. The approaching deadlines helped teachers give projects an ending point that also mattered to students. It led to another round of collaboration among partnership teachers as they worked to consolidate student projects from their classrooms and get everyone ready for the fair.

MULTIMEDIA FAIRS

Annual exhibitions of student multimedia projects were a key feature of the Multimedia Project. Held each year as a culminating activity, these public exhibitions served to motivate completion of projects and reward teachers and students for their accomplishments. Each Multimedia Project team held its own exhibition, typically in a large multipurpose room. Scores of computers, monitors, projectors, and other equipment were moved into the room. Students and teachers manned their particular stations and proudly demonstrated their multimedia projects. As rooms filled with parents, administrators, school board members, and interested members of the public, a spirited, carnival atmosphere prevailed. Sometimes local reporters covered the event and local politicians gave welcome speeches.

Over the years schools experimented with the fairs, changing the size of the fair, the format, or the focus. Everyone agreed that big fairs with lots of schools participating are powerful for engaging the community and building support for multimedia. They are exciting for students, too. But they are so much work to put together that many moved to a smaller, one-school format. Several fairs successfully piggy-backed on open-house night or other existing event. Teachers and students could show off projects without having to move computers and multimedia files to another location, and did not have to do separate publicity and logistical work.

One group of TLC's moved to a smaller, single-school format to involve more people in the planning. One of the group explained,

After four years I put two and two together: By asking people to take small leadership roles in the multimedia fairs we saw people develop awareness, a sense of themselves as leaders. It was nurturing leadership in the area of technology. My question was, "What's our end game? Do we want to see an explosion of best practices?" And my observation was, whoever's hosting the multimedia fair gets a huge boost in terms of leadership.

Teams also experimented with the format. Instead of setting up tables around the room, some teams allowed each group of students five minutes to demonstrate their project on a large-screen TV to the whole audience. Each project had its moment in the sun, and audience members could see the projects better than they could on small computer screens.

As projects grew stronger in real-world connection, some schools were able to exhibit in a way that made sense for the themes of the projects. For example, in one school all projects had a drug-abuse prevention theme, and the school held a Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) fair that featured the projects.

STUDENT INTERVIEWS

Student interviews were held around the same time as the fairs. Unlike the noisy, frenetic exhibitions, these interviews afforded a protected and focused opportunity to get an indepth look at a selected sample of student multimedia projects. By scoring the students' work with the Multimedia Project Rubric, the Project could gather data over time on the quality of the work being done.

The structure of the day was as follows. Judges reported to the interview site first thing in the morning. During a continental breakfast, judges received orientation and training in the use of the rubric from a project staff member who served as facilitator. This was followed by a series of 30-minute interviews. At each interview, the student authors of one multimedia project shared their project with the judges and answered questions designed to elicit the information necessary to score the project according to the rubric. After students departed, judges completed their score sheets independently. Next, scores were mapped on chart paper or a chalkboard. With the guidance of the facilitator, the judges discussed any large discrepancies in scores. Judges stated the reasons for their scores and cited evidence from the students' project or comments. Typically, the discussion resulted in some judges revising their scores up or down.

Each Multimedia Project team of schools selected six of their best projects to be scored--essentially creating a team portfolio that represented a wide range of grade levels. Why six? With 30 minutes for the interview itself and another 30 minutes for the judges to score, discuss, and settle differences, it required a full hour to evaluate and rate a single project. Even working through lunch, staff found that six is the maximum number of interviews that could be completed in a day.

By using the same rubric and process year after year, the Multimedia Project staff could get a sense how projects were changing and improving. TLC's used their teams' scores to focus their training for next year: was content weak overall? Did teachers need help designing collaborative projects?

A TLC recounted how the scoring helped them plan for the next year's projects. "The projects this year were a huge jump in technology. We looked at our scores from last year, why they weren't '4's,' and for a lot of them it was because the multimedia just wasn't so exciting."

SYNERGY: TLC'S, PARTNERSHIPS, MINIGRANTS, FAIRS, AND INTERVIEWS

These five program elements each helped the Multimedia Projects achieve its goals, and each could be replicated individually. Doing them all allowed the Multimedia Project to leverage the power of each to make the others easier and more effective.

TLC's were central to the success of each of the other programs. They helped organize and support partnerships. They assisted teachers in preparing minigrant applications, and worked together to coordinate efforts to improve them. They organized the multimedia fairs and student interviews and selected the six projects for their teams' portfolios. The programs helped the TLC's too. It gave a rhythm to their year and focus for their work. In the fall they helped with minigrants and partnerships. In the later part of the year everyone had the multimedia fairs and interviews in mind as they polished projects, thought through selection for the interviews, and scrambled to finish on time.

Partnerships were closely related to the minigrant program. While cadre members could opt to continue their participation in the Multimedia Project as individuals, only partnerships were eligible for minigrants. Perhaps as a result, nearly all teachers chose to form partnerships and the minigrant application process again served to help them focus their planning. And, as before, part of the commitment for minigrants and partnership honoraria was that the teachers have their students exhibit their work in the multimedia fairs.

In an era when efforts to effect change are focused at the system level, the Multimedia Project demonstrates how support systems can be systemic and yet be focused on individual teachers who join a project voluntarily. Targeted to individual teachers, who received individual incentives for participation, the Multimedia Project was aimed at changing teaching practice one classroom at a time. Still, the programs described here provided support at the team level. Future funding of individual teachers, however, was not tied to particular student outcomes, but rather to implementation of projects at the classroom level, a funding approach familiar to most teachers. Yet the project was successful by many measures, including better student learning outcomes, ever-increasing teacher participation rates, and rising quality of students' multimedia products.

Figure 1

Minigrant Application Form

* Title of Project.
* Names of lead teacher, partners and grade level/subject area.
* Number of students who will contribute to multimedia
  product(s).
* Abstract--An abstract of 2-3 sentences that includes both
  the content of the project and the type of multimedia
  product students will produce.
* The 3 main instructional goals of the project. These should
  be drawn from the California content standards, frameworks,
  or local district curriculum.
* A concrete, measurable objective for each of the goals above.
* Choose one of your measurable objectives. Describe how you
  will determine if it has been met.
* Describe the final multimedia product and the elements to be
  included (e.g. sounds, pictures, animations, text, etc.).
* Describe what forms of collaboration will be represented in
  this project
* Describe the kinds of decisions students will make in the
  course of this project.
* Describe the real-world connection(s) in this project.
* Provide a project calendar that shows key milestones for
  completing the project.

Figure 2

Items requested in mini-grants from teachers

Line Item Requested *                                 Amount

Computers                                            $73,787
Peripherals (e.g., microphones, video in/out cards,   24,213
 external drives)
Digital cameras                                       14,840
Video cameras                                         14,020
Software (art, graphics, multimedia, productivity)    10,880
Printers                                               5,910
Scanners                                               5,655
Storage media (e.g., diskettes)                        5,375
Memory upgrades                                        2,340
Expendables (e.g., printer cartridges)                 1,856
Network tools                                            370

* Total requested exceeds funds actually awarded.

Note

(1.) Full descriptions of these methods can be found in annual and final evaluation reports available online at http://pblmm.k12.ca.us

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