Information and Communications Technology and Whole School Improvement:

Case Studies of Organisational Change

Authors:

Dr. Alison Kington

Dr. Susan Harris

Ms. Barbara Lee

Dr. Marilyn Leask

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Leeds, 13-15 September 2001

THE RESULTS IN THIS PAPER ARE NOT FOR PUBLICATION AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE FINDINGS OR OPINIONS OF OECD.

Introduction

Eighteen OECD countries participated in a study to identify the conditions under which information and computer technologies (ICT) have been a catalyst for school reform. Through case studies of innovative schools, including their use of ICT, the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) of the Paris based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) gave policy makers and practitioners guidance on how investments in ICT can make schooling more productive.

In addition to requiring a descriptive account of each school’s innovative pedagogical practice relating to ICT, the study also put forward five hypotheses to be considered for each case. These were:

Hypothesis 1: Technology is a strong catalyst or an additional resource?

Hypothesis 2: Traditional diffusion patterns apply or is the diffusion pattern of ICT innovation different?

Hypothesis 3: Staff ICT competence is critical or are infrastructure and student competence more important?

Hypothesis 4: Is the gap between more and less advantaged students stable when ICT access is increased?

Hypothesis 5: With improved ICT academic standards will stay the same or increase, or decrease?

This paper, therefore, reports on this study and includes the following:

  • a brief description of the background, aims, methods, and focuses of the study;
  • an overview of each of the three case studies; and,
  • a summary of the findings in response to the five hypotheses.

Over the past six years large investments in ICT for schooling have been made by all 29 OECD countries, as well as by many developing nations, but there has been little evaluative evidence for determining the impact of these investments. To meet this need, the ministers of education of the OECD countries called in 1998 for a new programme, entitled ICT and the Quality of Learning, which itself was part of a wider programme, Schooling for Tomorrow. Coupled with quasi-experimental studies of the impact of ICT on learning, it was hoped that the case studies would illuminate policy options for schools at the beginning of the 21st century.

The aims of the project were:

  • To examine the different ways that ICT relates to school innovation and improvement and under what conditions it functions as a catalyst for these.
  • To uncover the critical variables that relate to successful implementation of school improvements and effective ICT.
  • To detect undesirable impacts of ICT upon school functioning and student learning.

Many of the countries involved in the OECD project were also participants in the SITES study[1]. The national research for both projects was carried out by the NFER and was funded jointly by NFER and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). Schools were selected to participate in the OECD study based upon whole school reforms they had made supported by ICT, but also on their suitability for the SITES study. Separate and combined research instruments were used so as to collect reliable data for both projects simultaneously. Therefore, data were collected by means of:

  • interviews with teachers and pupils, administrators (headteacher, governor), students, parents and technology specialists
  • observations of school and classroom activities
  • review of such school products as Web sites, student project work, and teaching plans
  • a survey of teacher ICT practices.

Information gathered was organised to stress the past (how the innovations originated and were brought to fruition), the present (how well the innovations work and how they relate to each other), and the future (whether the innovations can be sustained and transferred to other schools).

Pilot studies consisting of a single school per country were carried out in spring 2000, followed by three full studies in autumn 2000. These schools were selected from a long list drawn up by the national expert committee overseeing the project. All schools had to demonstrate that the achievement of their students was above average for their school type and was improving, and that they were undertaking whole school development in which ICT had a key role.

The three case studies illustrated major applications of ICT to the educational context which innovative schools in England were exploring. They focused on:

  • the use of ICT in monitoring student progress and target setting
  • changes in teaching and learning strategies for ICT rich environments
  • the role of the school in using ICT to encourage and support lifelong learning in its local community.

The specific details of the studies are provided below.

An overview of the case studies

Case Study 1: Highgrove School - Development of a computer-based student tracking system in order to monitor student progress

Background

Highgrove High School was a large co-educational secondary school (11-18yrs) located on two separate sites on the outskirts of a large city. The school catered for students at Key Stages 3, 4 and 5 (age 11-18 years) of their education. The students attending the school came from a range of backgrounds. Seventy per cent had English as a second language and 18 per cent were eligible for free school meals (a socio-economic indicator). The number of students on roll at the time of the data collection was 1914, including 450 in the sixth form. Around 60 per cent of students overall (and 80-90 per cent in the sixth form) reported having a computer at home, with at least 40 per cent having internet access.

Focus of the case study

The focus of the case study at Highgrove High School was the use of a whole school tracking system to provide data to parents, teachers, and students in order to monitor student achievement (compare current achievement with predictions from a variety of tests), set goals, identify areas which students needed to focus on and compare differences in performance between teaching groups. The sharing of some of this data (e.g. NFER Cognitive Abilities Test (CATs) results) with parents, as Highgrove staff do, is not common practice in English schools.

The school’s initiative to build a comprehensive database holding the data on all students was intended to facilitate monitoring of individual students’ progress and achievements throughout their whole school career. The intention was that the use of the system should:

  • enable classroom teachers, form teachers and heads of year (HoY) to review students’ performance at any time;
  • ensure that students who were underachieving could be identified;
  • encourage students to monitor their own progress against their personal targets, which they had set with their teachers;
  • provide detailed information for parents, students and teachers about a student’s estimated capability and current achievement.

Highgrove High catered for the school years 7-13. After students had taken formal tests (NFER CATs) in Year 7 (aged 11-12) and Year 9 (aged 13-14), their parents were invited to the school for an evening of discussion regarding the results of the tests. The parents were invited to work with the school to ensure their child built on the baseline provided by the tests. At the end of Year 11 (aged 15-16), students were presented with a Record of Achievement which recorded achievement in all areas of school life.

The data tracking of each student was particularly well developed for target setting once a student reached the Sixth Form. Prior to the beginning of each term, subject teachers negotiated a Target Minimum Grade (TMG) with each student as well as three Individual Learning Targets, which were designed to help a student reach his/her TMG. At the end of each term, subject teachers met with students to assess whether or not targets had been met and to agree new targets for the following term. All of this was recorded on an Individual Action Plan. The use of the computerised data tracking system enabled the school to produce Grade Reports each term documenting students’ levels of attainment alongside their TMGs, as well as internal test results.

Implementation

There had been considerable changes in the area of ICT in recent years at Highgrove High School, especially in the development of the whole school tracking system. The development of ICT within the school had proceeded in two main stages. The first stage began in 1988 when the headteacher decided that their investment should focus initially on the administrative use of ICT. He gave the administrative staff dedicated tasks to perform and brought in Apple Macintosh computers, encouraging the staff to improve their ICT skills in general, and in particular to take National Vocational Qualifications.

The second stage of his whole school plan was to have computers in all classrooms. Many of the current staff can remember the school having BBC computers, followed by an Archimedes computer network. The first student tracking system was developed using the BBC computers to help students pick their options and make future course choices. With the demise of the BBC computers, the school looked for another system but staff were unable to find ‘information management’ software available on the market that would suit their needs. This resulted in the school developing its own system, using Claris Filemaker (Version 3), which staff used extensively, initially tohelp with options and issues relating to thecurriculum, but later, with the help of the technology teacher, to collect and give an overview of students’ grades.

Teachers’ access and involvement

The benefit of this system was related to the teachers’ access to the student data stored on the database, which could be easily shared and discussed with students and parents at appropriate times throughout the academic year. The tracking system also enabled teachers to use the data for the purposes of grouping students into classes or ‘sets’, and for targeting students who were underachieving.

Teachers had different levels of involvement with the student tracking database. Subject teachers were expected to enter the grades for all students in their classes. Those with managerial roles also had to know how to analyse the data and, therefore, training had been given at various levels. Several teachers commented on the benefits that the tracking system had afforded them. One teacher said: ‘I know more about them [students], there’s now more linking with the curriculum.’

Within each Key Stage, particular teachers were responsible for specifying the content for the records in each year group. Heads of year and heads of department could trace students’ performance in all subjects, enabling them to have a better understanding of a student’s progress. At Key Stage 3, the headteacher of the lower school was responsible for overseeing the entering of grades onto the database each term. He also manipulated the data, enabling him to provide feedback to teachers, parents and students. The data recorded at Key Stage 3 included results of the National Curriculum Assessments and NFER Cognitive Abilities Tests (CATs). Progress on students’ performance was reported to parents at an interim stage and in the form of an end of year report. The database allowed students’ progress to be monitored at two points each year throughout Years 7, 8 and 9.

At Key Stages 4 and 5, the responsibility for tracking students’ progress fell to the relevant Key Stage heads. Again, students’ achievement and effort grades were entered for each subject and these were reported to parents as interim and end of year reports. In addition, Target Minimum Grades (TMGs) were set for students which were predictions of the grades that students would achieve in examinations at 16 and 18 years of age.

Summary

Highgrove school used data from a wide variety of sources to inform its student progress monitoring systems. Distinctive in the school’s practice was the sharing of all information with parents, from the student's earliest days in the school, in order to promote home/school collaboration and thus maximise the student’s individual achievement.

Case study 2: Greenfield College - Integrating ICT into teachers’ practice

Background

Greenfield College was a co-educational, 14-19, comprehensive community college serving the community at the edge of a large town in the Midlands. The school was over 600 years old, during which time it had evolved from a single-sex school into its current form. The school was situated in a relatively affluent area and, although its catchment area included rural communities, over 40 per cent of students were from outside the catchment area. The school had 1850 students on roll, 900 of whom attended the sixth form, which was above average for maintained schools nationally. The school had 100 teachers on its staff list. If normal staffing ratios were applied the staff list would number over 120. However staffing was organised so that teachers could focus on student learning and a high level of administrative support was provided. In addition the technical support team had seven members.

History of the innovation

The school had a vision of staying at the forefront of educational developments and aimed to get involved in every new initiative that would benefit students including those related to ICT (e.g. Computers for Teachers’ Scheme, on-line GNVQ, Advanced Skills Teachers,Technology College status). One means of achieving this was through on-line assessment, whereby teachers could deliver assessment of their subjects via ICT. The ICT co-ordinator and other teachersdescribed the idea of the ‘virtual department’ where ICT resources were used fully to support the lessons, departmental planning and departmental resource banks.

The school had 500 computers arranged as five computer suites and eight computer hubs linked to the teaching areas for maths, science, English, design, economics, physical education, modern foreign languages and for the sixth form. There were also 23 mobile computers. Of these computers, 450 were networked and 100 were multimedia computers. The school also had laser and colour printers, scanners, digital image or video processing equipment, video projectors and electronic bulletin boards which provided up-to-date information of clubs, societies, local events and room changes to students. Pupils were required to agree to abide by the school's IT code of conduct and all emails and internet usage were logged. Searches for groups of words or websites that shouldn’t be accessed were periodically undertaken. Filtering software was also used.

ICT featured in ‘99.9 per cent of all lessons at some point’, according to the headteacher who, with the senior management team, had encouraged the rest of the staff to take advantage of the benefits technology could offer.

Since joining the school staff in 1982, the headteacher had been involved in many initiatives involving ICT in a successful attempt to increase resources and improve access to technology at the college for all staff and students. This began when Greenfield College became one of the first TVEI schools, being involved in the first round in 1984. This resulted in the school receiving funds to develop vocational courses for its students to run alongside the more traditional, academic ones.

In 1996, the school became a specialist technology college for which the school had to raise a one off payment of £100,000 in sponsorship and present a bid to the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE). An anonymous donor provided the sponsorship through the Technology Colleges Trust (TCT). The DfEE released £100,000 pounds to match the money the school had raised plus an additional £100 per student per year. This enabled the school to improve ICT facilities for staff and students in many ways.

The College subsequently became involved with the Advanced Specialist Teachers (AST) Initiative introduced by the Government. Teachers who fulfilled the criteria for this status were provided with their own laptops. The headteacher of Greenfield College wanted to extend the access to laptops to all staff and became involved in the DfEE ‘Computers for Teachers’ scheme offering money to buy laptops for teachers. The DfEEsupplied £500 and the college supplied a further £700 for each machine.

The focus of the case study

The school benefited in 2000 from its involvement in the Computers for Teachers national initiative that enabled teachers to buy laptops to support their teaching. This meant that teachers could prepare lessons at home and, when in school, connect their machines to the projectors, intranet and internet in the classrooms to deliver their lesson materials and resources. About 60 of the 100 staff took up the offer (many already had computers through other initiatives). Teachers were issued with a contract between the school and the teacher to give the teacher exclusive use of the machine.