Patrina Huff's List: Education Research

In this paper we explore the match between the dominant model of schooling and its effects and the experiences of children and adults in other sectors of society. We suggest that in comparison with other major sectors in which individuals are involved, public\nschools have lagged in completion of the modern project, that is, the rationalization of means and ends. It is this project that seeks to connect the structure and processes of schooling to a set of uniform predefined outcomes or effects. The school reform\nmovement of the last quarter of the twentieth century has embodied this project in one form or another under a number of rubrics, including more effective schools, school restructuring, whole school reform, systemic reform, and standards. Because schools are still occupied with the completion of the modern project, they are not in a position to move beyond the modern model to provide consumers with the types of experiences they increasingly find in transactions with other service providers. These emerging consumer experiences are rooted in a post-industrial logic that emphasizes more intensive use of refined information technologies that support more differentiated and individualized conceptions of client needs and highly customized services and products.

Course management systems (CMS) play a critical role in supporting learning and teaching in online degree programs and virtual high schools, as well as augmenting traditional classroom environments. Simultaneously, they provide a tremendous amount of system data about user activity in online spaces, and a unique technology for collecting custom educational data asynchronously and confidentially. From highlighting diverse instructional strategies to elucidating student evaluation practices, CMS can help researchers understand the processes by which learning happens in both online and offline environments. This paper will detail an innovative course management data collection project called the Networked Education Database (NED). As part of NED, during the 2006-2007 school year, 732 students and 19 teachers in 37 classrooms across three secondary schools will be using their school’s e-Learning system to submit anonymous socio-metric, social psychological, and student performance information, longitudinally, to a central database. The paper will report on the logistical issues in operating a networked data gathering system, as well as the results from the pilot data collection activities.