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Using Technology to Support Education Reform -- September 1993

Integrating Technology-Supported Inquiry Learning with the Larger School Experience

Many students' first experience with technology-supported inquiry learning is an isolated one--as part of a pilot project, a new program, or an individual teacher's experimentation. Until school reform makes this a more pervasive learning environment for students, they may experience a discrepancy between their inquiry learning experiences and the emphasis on factual memorization in other classrooms. Students in the Geometric Supposer research project sharply experienced this dissonance and isolation in comments like "I feel so strange. We're the only class..." and "We can t even associate with other kids in the other classes. We're completely different" (Yerushalmy, Chazan & Gordon 1990, pp. 26-27). When discrepancies in philosophy and approach across classrooms are made explicit, particularly at the middle and high school levels, students are more able to adapt to these discrepancies. Their resulting awareness of the ways they are learning can help them to generalize new inquiry skills to new, appropriate situations.
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[Challenges for Students Using Technology] [Table of Contents] [ Chapter IV: Support for Teacher Functions ]

This page was last updated December 27, 2001 (jca)