Henry Jay Becker

University of California, Irvine | UCI · School of Education

Whole issue. Incl. abstracts, bibl.

A report prepared for the Office of Technology Assessment of the United States Congress. (1993)

This chapter presents a typology of four dimensions of teacher leadership-a disposition to continually learn from and improve practice, collaboration with peers through critical examination and evolution of each other&s teaching, participation in geographically diverse communities of practice, and making professional contributions through speaking,...

Cuban (1986; 2000) has argued that computers are largely incompatible with the requirements of teaching, and that, for the most part, teachers will continue to reject their use as instruments of student work during class. Using data from a nationally representative survey of 4th through 12th grade teachers, this paper demonstrates that although Cub...

As computer technology becomes increasingly prevalent throughout society, concerns have been raised about an emerging "digital divide" between those children who are benefitting and those who are being left behind. This article presents results from new analyses of national survey data describing children's differential access to computers in schoo...

An abstract is not available.

In a recent study of teachers who had reputations as being expert computer users, researchers at the Bank Street College of Education identified teachers who used computer software to provide intellectually exciting educational experiences (Sheingold & Hadley, 1990; Hadley & Sheingold, 1993). In the Bank Street study, the exemplary practitioners di...

ABSTRACT This report describes a number of aspects of the professional engagement,of American teachers. It also examines relationships between professional engagement,and teaching practice, including instruction involving computer use. We defined professional engagement,as a teacher taking effort to affect the teaching that occurs in classrooms oth...

This study explores the possibility that in schools where an informational and social support network is available and where a sufficient technological infrastructure is in place, computer use may be a powerful catalyst leading to more constructivist practices on the part of teachers. Survey research at 153 schools of the National School Network pr...

In this study we examined the use of computers by teachers in their instructional practices and their perception of the impact of computers on changes they have made to their classroom practice. These data draw from 47 teachers from 20 K -12 schools across 3 s tates who each completed a questionnaire, participated in 3 semi-structured interviews, a...

This report provides data from a survey of a nationally representative sample of more than 2,000 public- and private-school teachers of 4th through 12th grade regarding Internet use by teachers and students. Information is provided about: (1) teachers' access to the Internet; (2) frequency of different Internet uses, including teachers' uses and te...

This paper examines the relationships among teachers' role orientation, the school culture they experience, and their personal teaching practices using information from a national sample of 4,000 teachers across 1,100 schools, including schools involved in major reform programs. We found that where teachers had a collaborative role orientation rath...

This article examines the distribution of student Internet use across 152 schools in the National School Network (NSN), schools that were among the first to provide high-speed direct Internet access simultaneously for many locally networked computers. Apart from identifying the socio-demographic character of these schools, the article shows the ext...

The Panel on Educational Technology was organized in April 1995 under the auspices of the President's Committee of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST) to provide advice to the President on matters related to the application of information technologies to K–12 education in the United States. Its findings and recommendations were set forth in...

Many deregulated public charter schools in California and other states are emphasizing parent involvement in the process of reform. Some even seem to be working from a communitarian model, trying to build an integral school community in which parents play numerous roles in the ongoing events of the school and classroom day. In order to build this p...

Many deregulated public charter schools are emphasizing parental involvement. But to what extent do the initiators of these charter schools use parent involvement and parent contracts to restrict enrollment to students whose parents demonstrate the desired commitments and willingness to meet school expectations? To explore this question, this paper...

Computer-based integrated learning systems (ILSs) constitute one of the major ways in which computers are used for instruction in schools today. Deriving from behaviorist learning theory and with several decades of development behind them, they have become particularly prominent in recent years, with the spread of networkable microcomputers and the...

This chapter presents the results of a study of computer-based integrated learning systems at two elementary schools using different vendors' ILS software. The research design incorporated same-classroom pretest-matched controls in which one-half of each class used the ILS for mathematics while the other half used it for reading. Overall effects at...

This paper uses the national survey data from the Comped project to address the centralization and decentralization of decision-making about computer use in American schools.In U.S.A. schools the development has proceeded in a very decentralized fashion: computers were first acquired primarily by individual schools rather than districts. Gradually...

An abstract is not available.

American schools steadily increased their stock of microcomputers during the latter half of the 1980s, but made only modest changes in their pattern of hardware and software use between 1985 and 1989. Early in the decade, computers were valued for providing highly motivational skills practice and for enriching the curriculum with the subject of "co...

Data from the US administration of the 1989 I.E.A. Computers in Education survey show that the centralization or decentralization of decisions about computer use affects the outcomes valued by leaders in computer-based education. Desired outcomes included a variety of district-led and school-led staff development activities, dominance of curricular...

Currently, schools are investing substantial funds in integrated learning systems (I.L.S.'s)—networked comprehensive basic skills software from a single vendor. Although rational arguments can be made for the effectiveness of I.L.S.'s, districts want—and vendors are supplying—empirical evidence for decisionmaking. This article reanalyzes results re...

Discusses methods of improving the performance of integrated learning systems (ILSs). Topics addressed include the theoretical basis of ILSs; appropriate level of instruction; academic learning time; motivation; quality of instruction; a study of elementary students' use of ILSs; individualized and homogeneous group activities; mixed-ability cooper...

Discusses equity issues surrounding the use of technology in schools. Topics addressed include a global perspective; the effect of information and communication technology on government and business; the impact of technology on student learning; cultural transformation within schools through technology; and the importance of demonstrating successfu...

Data collected for the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (1989) within U.S. secondary schools revealed that computer usage more than doubled from 1985. Discussed are the regular and systematic uses of computers in the classroom and laboratories, the types of software used, and the goals for teachers using compu...

Discussion of ways to effectively use computers in classrooms focuses on a national survey, the CompEd survey of the IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement), that examined computer use in grades 3-12. Highlights include teacher attitudes, teacher roles, and the need for improved software and more powerful hardw...

Since the mid-1980's, computers in elementary and middle grade schools have functioned to a large extent as a medium for student practice in the skills and concepts of basic mathematics and logic. This report presents the results of a 2-year nationwide field experiment designed to provide credible evidence about the effects of using computers in ma...

This report reviews student usage of microcomputers in schools and the effects of microcomputer use on their academic achievement. Data was collected using: (1) a national survey from the 1989 international "CompEd" survey of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement; (2) a 1989 survey of teacher attitudes conducte...

Since schools began using computers for instruction, social critics have questioned the equity of the apportionment of computer resources by sex, race, and social status. Data from our national survey of schools describe how computers are used with different groups of students. We find that the use of school computers differs most dramatically by s...

This study addresses the issue of how different school organizational patterns affect the academic learning of students of different backgrounds and abilities. Using data from the Pennsylvania Educational Quality Assessment (EQA) on approximately 8,000 sixth-grade students in elementary and middle schools, the study examines how instructional speci...

Reviews the results and implications of the 1985 National Survey of Instructional Uses of School Computers, a survey of elementary and secondary schools which examined teacher use as well as student use. Differences in student use are reported according to grade level, subject, ability level, and gender. (LRW)

This review examines three sources of evidence about the effects of school instructional uses of computers on student achievement: national surveys of utilization practices, research reviews of the effectiveness of computer‐assisted instruction (CAI), and recent experimental studies of CAI. The review concludes that existing evidence of computer ef...

Presents preliminary findings from the "Second National Survey of Instructional Uses of School Computers." Areas explored include how many teachers regularly use computers with students, what subjects computer-using teachers teach, who gets to use school computers (boys or girls), and other areas. (JN)

Education is one institutional arena in which women professionals comprise a majority of adult computer users. Using data from a national survey of schools, it was found that women comprise two-thirds of the primary computer-using teachers (PCUTs) in elementary schools, and the proportion of women in this role in secondary schools is nearly the sam...

This report summarizes the results of a national survey of U.S. elementary and secondary schools, conducted during the 1982-83 school year, which focused on the schools' instructional use of microcomputers, including use both as a means of instruction and as an object of instruction. Specific topic areas covered include: the number of microcomputer...

Reports on how teachers organize their classrooms when they have more students than microcomputers available to them. Indicates that seatwork is the primary activity of students in a classroom when other students are engaged at the computer. Other findings (based on data from 1,082 microcomputer-using schools) are reported and discussed. (JN)

This report presents preliminary descriptive data from a national survey of U.S. elementary schools, conducted in 1985, which focused on the schools' instructional uses of computers, including efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Specific topic areas covered include: (1) what hardware is in different types of schools; (2) which teachers use the equip...

Summarizes findings of a survey school use of microcomputers. Results indicate that most schools have microcomputers, secondary schools are more likely than elementary schools to have them, and drill/practice and programing are major uses. Additional findings reported focus on time spent by student users, regular teacher users, and other areas. (JN...

Discusses the value of the microcomputer in education and questions whether or not the hardware now available is a cost-effective method for the type of learning it provides. Microcomputer use in schools in the future is also examined. (Author/JJD)

Educators must think clearly about how they want students' education to improve, what computers can do to help, how that assistance can be accomplished, and whether any of this is affordable. (Author/JM)

Taking the current excitement among educators concerning the uses of microcomputers for student instruction as a point of departure, this paper addresses the problems and possibilities associated with the uses of microcomputers in the classroom and discusses these in terms of instructional techniques and the social aspects of integrating computer a...

Nationally representative longitudinal data on 1394 employed white men aged 15 to 24 in 1966 were used to assess whether job opportunities or vocational aspirations are the more important determinants of later job held. Support was found for two hypotheses: (a) men more often achieve congruence between their aspiration and their field of employment...

A survey was taken to measure how 3700 elementary school teachers and 600 principals in Maryland school districts feel about parent involvement in home learning as a teaching strategy and to see how widespread this teaching strategy is. This summary of survey results provides information on the extent and use of varied techniques to involve parents...

Indices of racial segregation in employment are presented for black and non-Hispanic white workers in the same occupational category. Controlling on the availability of blacks in each category, the most racially segregated groups are laborers and service workers. At each occupational level, women are more racially segregated from one another than a...

Young blacks today are not obtaining jobs. One reason for this situation is the lack of opportunity available to them to learn about specific job vacancies and to be selected by a hiring employer. Recent data suggest that black youth are as likely to attempt to find work as are white youth. The discrepancy between the employment prospects of black...

The use of vignettes-systematically elaborated descriptions of concrete situations-is supported as a means of producing more valid and more reliable measures of respondent opinion than the "simpler" abstract questions more typical of opinion surveys. The fractional replication experimental design described here enables a wide range of situation cha...

Over 100 community college programs engaged in training people for mental health/human-services employment were studied in order to describe the curriculum most generally offered and variations most frequently found. In general, the programs have developed similarly: major emphasis on experiential learning of group dynamics, on techniques of interp...

This report examines the existing literature concerning how young people enter the labor market and specifies what important questions may be analyzed by existing but untapped data and what issues require further research. In reviewing the extent of current knowledge, its scope is found to be limited to three general areas: the role is known of bac...

Abstract Are computers playing a significant role in teachers' instructional practices? Larry Cuban continues to argue that they are not (Cuban, 2000; Cuban, 2001). Using data from a national survey of 4,100 teachers' pedagogy, computer use, and teaching environment, we show that while Cuban is correct in a statistical sense, he draws incorrect imp...