By Boris Berenfeld, Dan Damelin, Amy Pallant,Barbara Tinker, Robert Tinker and Qian Xie

Two revolutions are on the horizon. Every era seems tobe associated with a revolutionary technology thatreshapes society. In the process, each technology attractsmassive investments, demands new infrastructures, andcreates vast new employment opportunities. Each alsorequires education to focus on new skills and under-standings. In the 19th century it was steam and railroads.Then came electricity, the automobile, telephones, air-planes, and chemistry. While in the 20th century digitalelectronics were ascendant, two coming revolutions –biotechnology and nanotechnology – promise to domi-nate the 21st century.

Biotechnology and nanotechnology are close cousins.These two revolutions are related across the organic-inorganic divide, operate at the same scale, and are bothbased on the capacity of molecular machinery to providethe answers to practical challenges. Both revolutionsdemand that students learn more about the world ofmolecules and their interactions.

Biotechnology has already become an enormousenterprise. Where only several decades ago, just a hand-ful of companies were based on this technology, now atleast 1,500 firms are employing drug-related researchers.In fact, the number of employees doubled between 1993and 1999, rising to 115,000 (see note 1). Work in thissector promises to deliver more and better food crops forthe poor, more effective and economic medicine, andimproved detection of disease.

Nanotechnology has the potential of becoming asimportant as biotechnology. The field focuses on mak-ing tiny, useful things that are as large as a tenth of amicron (100 nanometers) or as small as ten Angstroms(one nanometer, or roughly ten carbon atoms).Understanding the behavior of atoms and molecules onthe nano-scale allows the creation of materials anddevices from the “bottom up” by placing the right atomsin the right places.

To illustrate how nanotechnology differs from today’smanufacturing, Dr. Ralph C. Merkle, one of the pio-neers of nanotechnology, explains: “Casting, grinding,milling and even lithography move atoms in great thun-

� PAGE 4

Realizing the educational promise of technology www.concord.orgRealizing the educational promise of technology www.concord.org

Volume 7, No. 2 Fall 2003

A researcher and studentuse a mass spectrometer.With the MolecularWorkbench modelingsoftware, which simulatesatomic-scale interactions,students can practice asimulated laboratoryprocedure, such as massspectroscopy.

A Tale of TwoRevolutionsA Tale of TwoRevolutions

Editor Robert TinkerManaging Editor Cynthia McIntyre

Design Pointed Communications

@concord is published twice a year by the ConcordConsortium, a nonprofit educational research and devel-opment organization dedicated to educational innovationthrough creative technologies.

Copyright © 2003 by The Concord Consortium. All rightsreserved. Noncommercial reproduction is encouraged,provided permission is obtained and credit is given. Forpermission to reproduce any part of this publication,contact Cynthia McIntyre at cynthia@concord.org.

The projects in this newsletter are supported by grantsfrom the National Science Foundation (REC-0233649,REC-0115699, ESI-0242701, EIA-0219345), and the U.S.Department of Education (R286A000006). All opinions,findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressedherein are those of the authors and do not necessarilyreflect the views of the funding agencies. Mention oftrade names, commercial products or organizations doesnot imply endorsement.

If you wish to change your subscription information,please clip the mailing label from this newsletter, indi-cate the changes and mail to:

The Concord Consortium10 Concord Crossing, Suite 300Concord, MA 01742

You also may call 978-369-4367 or fax 978-371-0696.

You can access your account or sign up for a free sub-scription online at www.concord.org/members.

Note: We do not make our mailing list available toother organizations.

As a nonprofit organization, the Concord Consortium hasno ongoing support for @concord. Contributions todefray printing costs would be greatly appreciated.

Visit our Web site at www.concord.org for informationon projects, services, courses, and free software.

Nationwide, student achievement in technical fields – mathe-matics, science, and technology – is unacceptably low, highlyinequitable, and headed downward. Scores of students in the

class of 2003 on the ACT test provide the latest indications of the problem. Only a quarter of students taking the test reach a level thatpredicts a satisfactory grade in college science, and this figure is downfrom previous years. The scores for under-represented minorities areunacceptable, with only one in twenty African-Americans reaching thislevel. Only college-bound students take these tests, so national averagesare certain to paint a more depressing picture.

Educational technologies are partof the solution

Although technologies are increas-ingly available in schools, mathematics,science, and technical (MST) educatorsmake insufficient use of technology,

one of one of the few new resources attheir disposal. Information and com-puter technologies (ICT) should be anintegral part of MST teaching. Betteruse of ICT is urgently needed becausetechnology can be used to greatlyimprove learning and it is an essentialpart of modern science. ICT is calledfor in teaching standards and numer-ous reports from government, busi-ness, universities, and academics.

Not all uses of ICT are equallyimportant for improving MST learning.Multimedia, drill and practice, Internetsearches, and student-generatedreports are increasingly commonplaceand do have some role in teaching andlearning, but these applications skirtthe periphery of education. The core ofmath and science is about investigat-ing, exploring, asking questions, ana-lyzing, and thinking – activities thatICT is uniquely able to facilitate anddeepen. ICT can enhance this kind oflearning through student investiga-tions of real events with probes, investigations of highly interactivemodels, electronic communicationsabout investigations, and assessmentsembedded in learning activities. Achieving current MST goals

Information and computer tech-nologies can help more studentsachieve and surpass the current goals ofMST learning. To do this, we makeextensive use of substitution units thatcan be used in place of other instruc-tional materials and require about thesame amount of classroom time.Teachers can, for example, substitute a

unit on phase change based on explor-ing the Molecular Workbench for acomparable unit taught using tradi-tional approaches. (See “A Tale of TwoRevolutions” on page 1.)

Most of the really hard concepts inintroductory science can be addressedwith substitution units and there isstrong evidence that doing so willincrease student learning. Our researchalready has promising data for substitu-tion units for kinematics and dynamics,genetics, physical science, and platetectonics.

Policy makers rightly require morerigorous data, however. For example, adean or district superintendent needsto know whether these materials arereliably better than other approaches,whether they will be effective in col-leges or schools like their own, usingtechnology and professional develop-ment that they can afford. They alsoneed data on a complete range of con-tent, because their decisions mightinvolve technology purchases for anentire course, not for just a unit on onetopic. The Education Accelerator thatwe recently launched is designed to

2 @concord – Fall 2003 The Concord Consortium www.concord.org

PerspectiveTechnology

to the Rescue

Robert Tinker

Information and computertechnologies can help more

students achieve and surpassthe current goals of MST

learning.

provide applied research data that cananswer these policy questions. (See“The Education Accelerator Becomesa Reality” on page 11.)Transforming MST education

But we need to do more than simplyget more students up to the presentstandards for MST education. Themost exciting capacity of ICT goesbeyond simply finding better ways tomeet current educational goals.Technology can fundamentally changewhat is taught in introductory science.For instance, linking genetics and bio-molecular models might permit a treat-ment that connects classical to moderngenetics in middle school. Similarly,molecular modeling might give begin-ning students deep intuition for atomicexplanations of the states of matter.New tools and models could allownanotechnology to become a topic inintroductory physical science, orgenomics to be taught early in biology,

or calculus concepts to be taught inphysics. These advances would not bejust for advanced students, because thiskind of learning depends on explo-rations of the real world and modelsthat any student can undertake. Unlikemost MST teaching, these explorationsavoid mathematical formalism, a barri-er to most students.

This kind of curriculum change isdifficult to justify to decision-makers,and extensive data will be required toconvince skeptics of the value of mak-ing such changes. Any school willing toexperiment with these approacheswould need to find the courage to gowell beyond the current standards.Careful research, of the kind plannedby the Education Accelerator, will beneeded to document the value of all thechanges needed.

Ultimately, the kind of acceleratedlearning that we expect to documentwill give rise to a fundamental

re-evaluation of the science educationstandards. Our long-term goal is togenerate sufficient data to demonstratethat the science standards could profitably address a few core conceptsmore thoroughly, downplay the thicketof minor concepts that follow from adeep understanding of the core ideas,be more focused on cause-and-effectrelationships, and include far moremodern, interdisciplinary content.

As a nation, we are not protectingour technological lead by producing atechnically literate population, nor arewe training adequate numbers of MSTleaders. We are squandering the con-tributions that could be made by largesegments of our population, includingwomen and under-represented minori-ties. The new capacities for learningthat ICT creates could address thesechallenges by fundamentally changingwhat is taught and how learning takesplace.

www.concord.org @concord – Fall 2003 The Concord Consortium 3

Robert Tinker(bob@concord.org)is President of theConcord Consortium.

The most exciting capacity of ICT goes beyondsimply finding better ways to meet currenteducational goals.Technology can fundamentallychange what is taught in introductory science.

Interdisciplinary scienceAn example can help illustrate the possibilities. An introductory interdisciplinary science course could start with our molecular mod-

els of atoms (see http://workbench.concord.org). By exploring what happens to two elastic atoms that collide, students will learn aboutthe energy conservation laws and, because the atoms have an attractive van der Waals force, potential energy. Extending this to manyatoms gives rise to the idea of temperature, which is simply the average kinetic energy. At low temperatures these atoms condense intoa liquid and a crystalline solid, releasing potential energy that can be measured and compared to the attractive forces between atoms.The atomic basis of diffusion, entropy, phase change, latent heats, the distinction between heat and temperature, conduction, crystalstructure and faults, evaporative purification, and many other phenomena are immediately obvious and open to exploration.

Similar experiments can be done with molecules that can break apart at sufficiently high temperatures. Experiments with these lead toa deep understanding of chemical reactions, equilibrium, reaction constants, and that mysterious free energy. The atoms in thesemolecules can be charged, enabling learning experiments with ions, polar molecules, and solvents. Finally, with smart surfaces and someother constructs, molecular biology concepts such as conformation, surface binding, and self-assembly can be subjects of inquiry.

A course with this structure is a blend of physics, chemistry, and biology. It would give students unprecedented ability to understandthe fundamental ideas of all three subjects. It could be taught without a single equation to beginning or liberal arts students, or it couldbe used as the conceptual core of a highly mathematical treatment. By treating topics such as the physical basis of latent heat and givingstudents rich mental models of sophisticated topics like thermodynamics, such an interdisciplinary course would enable students to learna few ideas more deeply and be able to apply these ideas to a very wide range of situations. Science would appear less as a miscellaneouscollection of facts and more as a coherent set of powerful concepts.

A Tale of Two Revolutionsdering statistical herds. It’s like trying to make things out ofLEGO blocks with boxing gloves on your hands. Yes, youcan push the LEGO blocks into great heaps and pile themup, but you can’t really snap them together the way you’dlike. Nanotechnology promises to let us inexpensively

arrange atoms inmost of the wayspermitted byphysical law, get-ting essentiallyevery atom in theright place” (seenote 2). As wedevelop bettertechniques for cre-ating objects thissmall, there will bemany applications,from the ability tomanufacture sub-m i c r o s c o p i crobots travelingthrough our body,detecting illnesses

and killing viruses, bacteria or cancer cells, to making newgenerations of super powerful and inexpensive computersthat can store all the information of the Library of Congressinto a memory the size of a sugar cube!Biomimicry

An important strategy in nanotechnology is to learn frombiology and to mimic the design of cellular machines. Forexample, researchers try to mimic the way living cellsassemble their protein-based machines one amino acid at atime in the sequence dictated by the genetic code. This“bottom up” manufacturing allows cells to obtain materialsof an exact desired shape, using simple principles of self-assembly and help from molecular “chaperones.” As scien-tists understand biology better at the molecular level, theyare emboldened to take further, and we hope, careful, stepsto make new molecular products.The challenge to education

William James described the world of a newborn infantas a “blooming, buzzing confusion.” The molecular world,that universe in which large and small molecules jostle eachother randomly and continuously, exchanging energy andundergoing dynamic changes in three-dimensional confor-mation, can appear much the same to our students – and tous! Yet this vibrating universe underpins the incredible sta-bility of living beings, the regularity of crystals, and thefunctionality of modern electronics.

How can students get a sense of the influence of randommotions and fluctuations that are a manifestation of tem-perature? How can they discover the order that emergesfrom it?

Over the last half-century biology has employed a pro-gression of metaphors, drawings, and microphotographs toprovide students with a glimpse of the molecular world.Although microphotographs present a realistic view of

molecules, they do not permit students to gain a feeling forthe dynamic nature of colliding and interacting molecules.Computer-based dynamic molecular modeling, previouslythe province of academics using supercomputers, now canbe made available to them. Expanding our models to accommodate the new revolutions

Several National Science Foundation grants have allowedus to develop the Molecular Workbench, software for cre-ating molecular simulations that we use in high school andcollege science and technology courses. At the heart of theMolecular Workbench is a simulation that models themotion of atoms that results from forces that act on atoms:mutual repulsion and attraction, bonds, and charge. Thesemodels all show random thermal motions and, therefore,help students gain a deep understanding of thermodynam-ics. The basic models can help explain phase change, diffu-sion, thermal conduction, solutions, crystal structure, andmany other properties of materials.

In order to expand the utility of the MolecularWorkbench into chemistry, biology, biotechnology, and

4 @concord – Fall 2003 The Concord Consortium www.concord.org

Figure 1. Smart surfaces. This is a model of molecular recognitionbetween polymers. Each bead represents an amino acid. By chang-ing the properties of amino acids, students can alter the effec-tiveness of the recognition.

� PAGE 1

Figure 2. Simulated electrophoresis. Using a control panel, studentscan change the direction and strength of the electric field, thetemperature of the system and properties of the particles.

Figure 3. Fragment of the simulated mass spectrometer activity.Students explore how the mass of particles and the strength ofthe magnetic field affects the deflection angle of moving particles.Their task here is to manipulate the magnetic field so that theparticles hit the detector.

nanotechnology, we have added some unique innovations.By introducing effective hydrophobic and hydrophilicforces, we can illustrate protein conformation in solutionwithout having to explicitly put in numerous solventmolecules. By combining the collision theory of chemicalreactions and molecular dynamics, we can model chemicalequilibria and reaction energetics. By supporting “smartsurfaces” and “splines” (see Figure 1), we enable studentinvestigation of the interactions of larger biomolecules, inwhich their molecular surfaces play a decisive role. We arenow exploring educational applications of these expandedmodels in nano- and biotechnology. Sample explorations

Several key investigations can give students a “hands-on”feeling for molecular manipulation. For example, studentscan compare the subatomic structure of charged, polar andneutral molecules and then practice a simulated laboratoryprocedure of molecular separation, such as electrophoresis(Figure 2) or mass spectroscopy (Figure 3), in which theseconcepts are used. Students are then in a good position tounderstand the role of polar and non-polar amino acids inshaping protein structures (Figure 4) and continue on todiscover the effects of temperature on protein folding.

“DNA to protein” (Figure 5) allows students to experi-ment with changing codons in DNA responsible for the pri-mary structure of a protein, and explore mutations thatchange the shape (and possibly the function) of a protein.“Smart surfaces” (Figure 1) permits students to design sim-ple 2D approximations of proteins shaped as antibodies,receptors or pore components. They can then go on toexplore interactions between “smart surfaces” or betweenthem and a small molecule, thus modeling receptor-ligandinteraction and other aspects of molecular recognition.

These illustrations cannot do justice to the models, whichare in continual motion due to the effect of temperature.Because our models are based on molecular dynamics, theyautomatically incorporate an accurate model of thermalmotion and they exhibit temperature effects. Unlike softwarethat might simply allow students to assemble molecular

designs, the Molecular Workbench incorporates thermalmotions, which must be considered in any nano-scale design.Dynamic molecular modeling is a simple, yet central tool

What challenges will the bio- and nanotechnology revo-lutions pose for educators? It is impossible to know in detailthe educational needs of specific bio- and nanotechnolo-gies, but it is easy to know on what science they will depend.Students will need to know about atoms and molecules, theforces that act on them, and the properties that emergefrom collections of them. Experiences like those illustratedabove could lead to a better understanding of both naturaland designed “molecular engineering.” Simulations like theMolecular Workbench that model these systems will becentral to any instructional strategies, because of the technicaldifficulty of doing actual experiments, and the mathemati-cal difficulty of understanding these systems analytically.

We are looking for high school and community collegescience teachers interested in testing our software. We offera small stipend, as well as community support. Please contact Amy Pallant (apallant@concord.org).

www.concord.org @concord – Fall 2003 The Concord Consortium 5

ARTICLE LINKS & NOTESNote 1. http://www.gene.com/gene/features/25years/biotech-backgrounder/employment.jspNote 2. Silicon Valley Chemist. American Chemical Society. Vol. 23, No 5.See examples of biomimicry. – http://www.biomimicry.orgNational Science Foundation – http://www.nsf.govMolecular Workbench – http://workbench.concord.org Download the Molecular Workbench. It runs under Windows and OSX. –http://xeon.concord.org:8080/modeler/webstart/index.html

Boris Berenfeld (boris@concord.org),Dan Damelin (ddamelin@concord.org),Amy Pallant (apallant@concord.org),Barbara Tinker (barbara@concord.org),Robert Tinker (bob@concord.org),and Qian Xie (qxie@concord.org) are members of the larger Concord Consortiummolecular modeling team

Figure 4. Exploring protein conformation. Students work with amodel protein made of 46 amino acids. Each amino acid can bereplaced by another of the 20 different amino acids. They can thenobserve the effect of polar and non-polar amino acids on theresulting protein shape. Students also can test the stability of thestructure by increasing the temperature.

Figure 5. DNA to protein. Students can substitute or delete anynucleotide in the model gene that codes for the protein above, andexplore how this mutation affects the resulting shape of the protein.

6 @concord – Fall 2003 The Concord Consortium www.concord.org

By Eric Brown-MuñozGreat educational “gadgets” beg to be explored. When I

was teaching, I had a set of iron puzzles on my desk thatboth students and fellow teachers found impossible toresist. The most compelling gadgets are simple objects thathave profound ideas behind them; they spark curiosity andoften lead to “teachable moments.”

Highly interactive software models can provide the same“feel” and learning opportunities. Computers provideengaging models that are difficult, if not impossible, to setup in real life. Learners of all ages are naturally drawn toshort, discrete programs that are fun to play with. Softwareprograms thus greatly extend the range of things that canbe learned by “gadgets.”

The challenge is to design activities using computer-based models that lead to successful learning experiences.For example, scientific games that involve setting the veloc-ity and elevation of a cannon to hit a target are very popu-lar, but not very effective. Students solve the problem bytweaking variables to find the correct answer, but they arenot challenged to understand the underlying physics ormathematics.Teachable Applets

I define a “teachable applet” as a focused computer pro-gram that is both fun and educational. Teachable appletshave three things in common:

• They are simple to use.

• They provide a challenge that is interesting and relevant.

• They have one profound idea at their core.

Teachable applets exist to present one concept in a waythat is both powerful and simple. The most effective appletsare those you use once or twice to help master a concept,and then throw away.

The best applet captures the imagination of the students.It shows the deep ideas in ways that are inherently interest-ing and provoke curiosity. If the interface is simple, thetechnology and the procedures are transparent and the con-cepts take center stage.

I judge the best applets with a fairly demanding standard:the interest of my nine-year-old son. I give him an appletand a few minutes of help. If he is still exploring it 30 min-utes later, the applet passes the test.

The Shodor Foundation and the Freudenthal Instituteeach have collections of applets well worth exploration.

Start with the following (or try them out on your son,daughter, niece, nephew, friend, or student). Lathe

The Lathe applet from the Freudenthal Institute is anengine for “revolution.” For the student, it’s an interestingway to make “cool” three-dimensional objects.

Point your browser to: www.fi.uu.nl/wisweb/welcome_en.html

Click the applets button on the left, and select Lathefrom the list.

You are presented with three controls: a grid to draw on(half is grayed out), and two buttons – “One step back” and“Clear.”

Click points on the grid to create a two-dimensional segmented line. The applet draws the related three-dimensional object in the main display window (this is asolid of revolution). Use your computer mouse to click ortwist the resulting 3D object for easier viewing.

The idea behind the applet is profound: the two-dimen-sional diagram in the grid is half of a cross-section.

So how is it educational?My son saw this applet on my computer as I was review-

ing it. Immediately, he wanted to play with it. A good firstsign!

Monday’Teachable Moments w

The Lathe interface is wonderfully simple, though the appletillustrates a fairly complex concept.

www.concord.org @concord – Fall 2003 The Concord Consortium 7

His first inclination was to click in the box to see whatcame up. After playing for a while, he made several thingsthat appeared to him like “airplane jet engines.” He wasexploring on his own, but I knew a challenge would helphim figure out what was happening.

“Miguel, can you make a spear?” I asked. He started outdrawing a spear in the middle of the grid. The result wassomething shaped oddly like an airplane jet engine.

I continued, “let’s start with the stick. Can you make athin stick?” Miguel soon discovered that he wanted a hori-zontal line. Then he figured out that the lower the line, thethinner the 3D stick.

That was all of the prompting my son needed. After sev-eral minutes, he figured out that the bottom of the gridmapped to the center of the object. The rest was easy. Hesoon had a pretty convincing spear with a nice sharp point.Plop It!

The Shodor Statistics applet “Plop It!” has the sameadvantages: it is engaging and focuses on one concept. It isdesigned to teach basic statistics.

Point your browser to:http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/

Look at all the great software and select Plop It! This applet presents a histogram. Click inside the graph,

and an object (represented as a blue box) falls into one ofthe columns. This is equivalent to adding a data point to asample.

This type of applet is effective because it allows the stu-dent to focus on only one thing. The applet performs thecalculations, freeing the student to think about what the

calculations mean. (Of course, the mechanical act of calcu-lating the average is important, and the student should haveexperience making this calculation. But students can dothese exercises elsewhere.) Here, the student can wrestlewith the more profound ideas about the meanings of“mean,” “median,” and “mode.”

There are several ways to use this applet. For example,you can use this in a classroom discussion to introduce thethree Ms (mean, median, mode).

Once students are familiar with the concepts and the tool,present a challenge. For example, “create a set of 15 itemsthat has a mode of 6 and a median of 6, but a mean of 8.”This is not an easy task. Students will have to understandwhat these terms mean on a fairly deep level to attack thisproblem. This elegant applet allows students to focus exclu-sively on the important math concepts.Using Applets in the Classroom

Applets like Plop It! make great classroom demonstra-tions. With a projector, you can demonstrate the computermodel and use it to spark classroom discussion.

Applets also are great for small group or individual work.The key is to give clear tasks with objectives that studentscan measure themselves. For example, if the task is to findfactors, the applet should make it clear when the studentshave the correct answer.

When the applet and the task are interesting and rele-vant, the computer model naturally captivates students. Theteacher then has the opportunity to walk around the class-room to help, prompt students with a question, or presentthem with new challenges. Students are engaged. Andthey’re learning.

Eric Brown-Muñoz (ebrownmunoz@yahoo.com) is an independent Java programmer who isdeveloping interactivematerials for teachers.

’s Lessonwith Teachable Applets

ARTICLE LINKS & NOTESShodor Foundation – http://www.shodor.orgFreudenthal Institute – http://www.fi.uu.nl

Plop It! is a simple tool that is engaged, focused, and effective.

Teacher quality is one of the mostimportant determinants of student success. But certified teachers are inshort supply in low-wealth schools.More than 70% of mathematics cours-es in high-poverty, high-minority mid-dle schools are assigned to teacherswho lack even a minor in mathematics(see note). Thus, the consequences ofthe shortage of qualified teachers inschools serving high-poverty, high-minority communities are predictable:

lower performance of students fromthese schools. The glaring gaps inachievement between students in theseschools and students in other schoolswill continue until the teacher certifi-cation gap is closed.

Drastic and immediate efforts areneeded to address the problem ofuncertified teachers in high-povertyand high-minority schools. There isnew urgency for solving this problembecause “No Child Left Behind” isnow federal law that requires schools tohave “highly qualified” teachers in allclasses by 2006 to continue to be eligi-ble for federal education funding. Newways of dealing with this problem areneeded that can leverage availableresources quickly and effectively.

The Ready to Teach programThe Concord Consortium’s Seeing

Math Telecommunications Project andthe PBS (the Public BroadcastingService) Teacherline Project havejoined together to create a programcalled “Ready to Teach” that willaddress the problem of under-qualifiedsecondary mathematics teachers. Theoverall goal of the joint Ready to Teachprogram is to develop, implement,evaluate, and disseminate an afford-able, scalable support program foruncertified algebra teachers. By joiningtogether, the two projects can pooltheir resources to create a powerfulnew strategy for addressing the prob-lem of under-qualified teachers: eco-nomical, effective teacher professionaldevelopment that is delivered online.The solution could be expanded toencompass most disciplines.

The core innovation of the Ready toTeach program will be online CloseSupport™ courses for algebra teachersthat will address both content and ped-agogy needs of participating teachers.Close Support courses will providecontent-specific, just-in-time assis-tance to teachers of Algebra I and II.Each teacher participating in a CloseSupport course will, at the same time,be teaching the same topic to students.Our goal is to ensure that each partici-pant gets content and teaching supportthat will pay off immediately in thecourses that the participant is teaching.This should maximize the impact ofthe teachers’ professional developmentand result in measurable gains in theirstudents’ learning.

Creating Close Support onlinecourses that are synchronized withclassroom teaching is a major chal-lenge. Teachers use a wide range oftextbooks that have different approach-es and even teachers with the same textcover the content at different rates,emphasize different sections, and

bypass different chapters. In addition,we do not want to be too closely tied totextbooks, because their treatment isoften chaotic and fails to incorporatewhat has been learned about how stu-dents learn.

Our design for Close Support courses for teachers begins by dividingthe online Algebra I or II course intothree-week modules, each of whichfocuses on one major topic. A modulewill not attempt to cover every detail ofthe different texts. Instead, the mod-ules will be organized around a limitednumber of central ideas and will pro-vide many ways for learning and teach-ing these ideas. Each module willinclude video of classroom teachersaddressing the core ideas. The videoprovides a powerful stimulus for onlinediscussions about teaching strategiesand class organization. Each modulealso will have interactive applicationsfor guided explorations of the keyideas. Teachers will be encouraged touse the online activities with their stu-dents, provided they have adequatetechnology support in their class-rooms. Embedded assessments willallow us to provide ongoing assessmentof student progress in classrooms thatchoose to use the software. Offlineactivities and assessments also will beavailable.

The modular structure of the CloseSupport Algebra content will allow usto craft online professional develop-ment course sections that match theneeds of small groups of teachers. Weare developing 22 modules that coverthe core content of traditional AlgebraI and II courses. A full-year course, thatcarries graduate credit and countstoward accreditation, will be composedof eight to ten of these modules. Wewill group participating teachers intosections of 20 teachers who haveapproximately the same classroomschedule. The appropriate modules

Ready to Teach:A scalable support program for uncertified algebra teachers

By Robert Tinker

8 @concord – Fall 2003 The Concord Consortium www.concord.org

The overall goal of the jointReady to Teach program is todevelop, implement, evaluate,and disseminate anaffordable, scalable supportprogram for uncertifiedalgebra teachers.

Robert Tinker(bob@concord.org) is

President of theConcord Consortium.

then will be fitted to the consensusschedule for each section. Some teach-ers may have to make minor adjust-ments to their schedules so that all participants in a section will be synchronized.

This design will ensure that everyparticipant has a community of about20 peers following the same schedule.They will be able to try out ideas andsoftware together, share what theylearn about their students, and gain adeeper understanding of the mathe-matics and the pedagogy through thesediscussions. Each section will be led bya trained facilitator who will guide theconversation and ensure full, thought-ful involvement of all participants. Are you ready to join?

The Ready to Teach program needshelp from professional developmentprograms, pre-service teaching institu-tions, and schools to meet its tightdevelopment and implementationschedule. Algebra I modules will betested in the spring, beginning inFebruary 2004. Complete courses forboth Algebra I and II will be testedduring the 2004-2005 academic year.After revisions, the materials will bewidely available in the fall of 2005.

We currently are recruiting a varietyof organizations to test materials and

course modules. In order to obtainquantitative results, we will need torandomly assign Algebra I and IIteachers to two different kinds ofteacher professional development. Wealso will need schools that have enoughtechnology to use our software in theiralgebra classrooms, because the assess-ments embedded in the software willbe used to track student progress.Participating schools will need toadminister our standardized test totheir algebra students and teachers atthe beginning and end of the year.Finally, we will need access to recordsof student progress in prior years.(Data will be kept in strict confidence;no one outside the project will be ableto identify specific students, teachers,or schools.)

Teachers in the study will enjoy free,high-quality professional developmentthat will carry graduate credit towardaccreditation. All teachers completingtheir professional development willearn a stipend. A part-time projectcoordinator at the school site also willbe reimbursed.

If you are interested in joining the Ready to Teach program, contactRaymond Rose (ray@concord.org).

www.concord.org @concord – Fall 2003 The Concord Consortium 9

ARTICLE LINKS & NOTESNote: Ingersoll, R. M. (2002). Out-of-Field Teaching, Educational Inequality, and theOrganization of Schools: An Exploratory Analysis. University of Washington Centerfor the Study of Teaching and Policy.Seeing Math Telecommunications Project – http://seeingmath.concord.orgPublic Broadcasting Service – http://www.pbs.orgTeacherline – http://teacherline.pbs.org

Figure 2. Two-by-two square.

Figure 1. One-by-one square.

Toothpick challengeIn this activity, you’re going to build squares using

toothpicks. The challenge is to figure out a rule orrules for determining the number of toothpicks need-ed to build a square of any size.

Ready?OK. Let’s start with the first few squares in a

sequence.The first square has a 1 x 1 dimension. That’s four

toothpicks, one for each side. (Figure 1, above.)The second square has a 2 x 2 dimension. How

many toothpicks do you count? (Figure 2, below.)What will the third square (3 x 3) look like? How

many toothpicks does it take?Continue to build subsequent squares and deter-

mine the number of toothpicks needed in each case.Finally, determine the number of toothpicks neededto build an 8 x 8 square; a 21 x 21 square; and an n xn square where n is any positive integer.

Imagine that you’re a science teacher and someone is try-ing to sell you a new piece of educational software. Afterpointing out how powerful the software is, how flexible theinterface, how compelling the graphics, the salesman adds,“Of course, you won’t be able to tell what your students aredoing with this program, since there are far too many students for you to observe them all carefully. The programdoesn’t record what they’re doing either, so you won’t be able to use it to figure out whether they’ve learned anything.”

Unfortunate as that sounds, that is exactly what we havebeen telling teachers for years: Just put the technology infront of the kids. If you want to know what they’re doing,give them worksheets to fill out; if you want to know whatthey’ve learned, give them a paper and pencil test.

Why don’t educational computer programs routinelykeep track of what students are doing and produce highlevel, descriptive reports that can guide both student andteacher? In short, it’s difficult!

In order to keep track of what a student has done, thesoftware must first know who the student is, and whileschools do maintain student information on computers, thatinformation is not readily available to instructional applica-tions. Moreover, few schools are set up to store and main-tain large databases of student performance data, much lessexecute sophisticated analyses of that data for assessmentpurposes.

Enter the Concord Consortium Portal. Over the pastcouple of years, mainly under the auspices of our ModelingAcross the Curriculum (MAC) project, we have developedtechnology that will give teachers, students, parents, andadministrators access to a wealth of data related to students’learning. We will use this rich data source to assess deepconceptual understanding of a domain far more effectivelythan previous methods allowed. We currently are workingon ways to analyze all these data in order to deliver infor-mative reports that can give teachers an instant “snapshot”of how a class or a particular student is progressing. As we

collect more and more information from classrooms acrossthe country, our software also will enable educators to compare the performance of students within their ownschool, as well as between schools. (In order to guaranteethe security and confidentiality of the information we gather, we do not use names to identify students; instead,we assign each student a unique identification number, andwe encrypt individual students’ names so that they can beread only by school personnel and the students themselves.)

When students use software in the CC Portal, informa-tion is uploaded to our server in the form of log files, whichare automatically parsed and inserted into a global database.Authorized students, teachers, and administrators canrequest any of a set of pre-defined reports. As we continueour research, our analysis of these data will become moresophisticated. The reports will become more insightful anduseful to students as well as to teachers. Eventually, we envi-sion an interface that will enable users to obtain customizedreports.

The CC Portal grew out of the data collection and anal-ysis requirements of the MAC project, but it will servemany projects and be an important part of the EducationAccelerator (see page 11). Several Concord Consortiumprojects, sponsored by the Department of Education and bythe National Science Foundation, are developing interac-tive curriculum materials in the form of structured activi-ties based on manipulable models. This technology, whichpromises to deliver radical improvements in the teaching ofmath and science, also uses the CC Portal to generatedetailed descriptions of students’ interactions with themodels.

The Internet has made it easy for us to collect detaileddata from students using sophisticated applications in manyclassrooms simultaneously. The Concord ConsortiumPortal makes it easy for schools to participate in educationalresearch of global importance.

The Concord Consortium PortalMaking student performance reports available

By Paul Horwitz

10 @concord – Fall 2003 The Concord Consortium www.concord.org

Paul Horwitz(paul@concord.org)directs the ConcordConsortium Modeling

Center.

ARTICLE LINKS & NOTESModeling Across the Curriculum – http://mac.concord.org

Download software, access the CC Portal to view reportsPoint your browser to http://mac.concord.org. On your first visit, you will need to register as a member. After registering, join

the Concord Consortium Demo School and download the Modeling Across the Curriculum software to try out theactivities. After completing an activity, login to the CC Portal and view student reports. You can freely down-load the software for your use at home or at school.

To use the software effectively with many students and teachers in a school, you should enroll your schoolin the Portal and specify an administrator. The administrator has the authority to register additional teach-ers, classes and students directly or to delegate the responsibility by creating custom Express Registrationcodes.

Whenever your students run an Accelerator activity, the software will track not only their answers to specificquestions, but also the strategies they use to investigate the model: how long they take, which choices they make,whether their investigations appear focused or erratic, the number of times they ask for help, and how they react to that help. You cansee reports based on these data. Please let us know what you think of these reports and how we could improve them.

The Education Accelerator Becomes a Reality

www.concord.org @concord – Fall 2003 The Concord Consortium 11

By Robert Tinker and Paul HorwitzThe Concord Consortium is one of the founders of the

new Technology Enhanced Learning in Science (TELS)Center, a Teaching and Learning Center funded by theNational Science Foundation at $2M per year for five years.By providing major funding for the Education Accelerator(see note), TELS supportsapplied research on the edu-cational impacts on scienceof information and com-puter technologies.

Modeled on the largeresearch institutionsthat do “big science,”the Education Accel-erator will do “bigeducation” – projectsrequiring collaborationand resources beyond the scope of most education-al research. The portal and modeling softwaredescribed in the “The Concord ConsortiumPortal” article (see page 10) is one example of thetechnology that will allow the Accelerator toundertake large studies using students anywhere.Research on the effectiveness of the Ready toTeach program (see page 8) also will be part of theAccelerator effort.

The goal of the Accelerator is to increase thenumber and diversity of teachers whose studentsare learning important concepts through the useof proven, technology-enhanced cur-ricula. The Accelerator focuses on research that will generatethe required proof by under-taking large-scale, collabora-tive applied research based ontechnology-enhanced curricula.The Accelerator’s research pro-jects use powerful software tools andsimulations embedded in online curriculum-based activities.These are designed to teach central topics in math, science,and technology through student inquiry and collaboration.Using sophisticated online assessment strategies, the curricula will be tested in numerous schools serving diversestudent populations. All Accelerator software will be freeand open source, and the supporting curricula and teacherprofessional development materials will be available freeonline for any non-commercial educational use.

Accelerator technology is aimed at fostering close contactbetween the researcher/developer community and thenation’s K-12 schools. A useful metaphor to describe theAccelerator is a tree, where the leaves are the schools, theroots are the researchers, and the trunk is a growing collec-tion of educational software. Here’s how the Acceleratorwill nurture all three parts of the tree.

The leaves. The Accelerator will maintain a websitewhere any school can go to obtain educational software andcurriculum material, as well as detailed and timely reportson the academic progress of its students.

The trunk. The Accelerator will continually add to alibrary of inter-operable models and software compo-

nents that researchers and curriculum developerscan incorporate into their scripts.

The roots. The Accelerator willprovide researchers with sophis-ticated tools that will simplify

the implementation of scripts.It will link the researcherswith testbed schools,enabling them to conductprojects on a nationalscale.

TELS is a highly collaborative effort led by MarciaLinn at Berkeley and includes Arizona State University,Berkeley Public Schools, Boston University, CambridgePublic Schools, Maynard Public Schools, Mills College,Mount Diablo Public Schools, Norfolk State University,North Carolina Central University, Pennsylvania StateUniversity, the Technion Institute of Technology, andthe Tempe Public Schools. Other partners will be addedas the project matures.

TELS will conduct internships that will preparegraduate students to become educational professionalsand will support graduate faculty involved in teacherpreparation and in-service delivery. Partners will

incorporate the TELS materials intoleadership programs, workshops forin-service teachers, and teacher professional development programs.Teachers will critique materials, customize curricula, test materials inteaching assignments, and shape

design of new materials. TELS will provide graduate training for 20 Ph.D. students

and 100 Certificate students. It also will provide teacherprofessional development for 1,000 pre-service studentsand for 500 teachers who will be engaged in Center work-shops and online courses.

If you are interested in joining TELS as a student, post-doc, a research partner, or as a school, please contact TELS@concord.org.

ARTICLE LINKS & NOTESTechnology Enhanced Learning in Science – http://www.telscenter.orgNational Science Foundation – http://www.nsf.govNote: In the spring 2003 issue of @Concord, we dreamed out loud about theAccelerator. See http://www.concord.org/newsletter/2003-spring/perspective.htmlBerkeley – http://www.berkeley.edu

Robert Tinker(bob@concord.org) is President of theConcord Consortium.

Paul Horwitz(paul@concord.org)directs the ConcordConsortium Modeling

Center.

1. A Tale of Two RevolutionsBiotechnology and nanotechnology require that students understand molecules and their interactions.

Molecular Workbench simulation software can help.

2. Perspective:Technology to the RescueWith information and computer technologies, more students can learn impor-

tant concepts.

6. Monday’s Lesson:Teachable Moments withTeachable AppletsUse these applets to learn about revolution, and mean, median, andmode.

8. Ready to Teach:A scalable support program foruncertified algebra teachers

The Concord Consortium’s Seeing Math Project and the PBS TeacherlineProject join together to develop a support program for uncertified algebra

teachers.

10.The Concord Consortium Portal: Making studentperformance reports available

Technology gives teachers, students, parents, and administrators access to a wealth ofdata related to students’ learning.

11.The Education Accelerator Becomes a RealityA new grant from the National Science Foundation funds the Technology Enhanced Learning in Science Center.

Technology in Peru – The Education Development Center andthe Concord Consortium will collaborate in Peru with the government’s Huascaran Project to integrate technology-basedcomponents with local learning environments.We will workwith three teacher-training centers and twelve rural elementaryschools to improve educational practices with the support ofinformation and communication technologies.The goal is toincrease the capacity of participating schools to use technologyto strengthen student-centered, intercultural, inquiry-based andcollaborative learning environments. USAID’s AlternativeDevelopment Program and the government of Peru fund theDOT-EDU initiative. Alvaro Galvis is the project leader from theConcord Consortium.

Students as Scientists – We have long advocated engagingbeginning science students in research, and one of our favoritetopics has been measurement of air quality.The strength of sunlight at different wavelengths is an easy way to monitoratmospheric haze and UV. Scientists need haze data and thereare many experiments that require accurate measurements ofsunlight. For instance, there may be a correlation betweendecreased UV and increased mosquito-born disease. Now the critical instrument for studies of this sort is available inexpensively from Radio Shack. Designed by Forrest Mims, acollaborator on many of our projects, the $29.99 Sun and SkyMonitoring Stations and its accompanying 64-page manual is anexcellent way to get started.

Inside for Fall 2003

10 Concord Crossing, Suite 300Concord, MA 01742

NONPROFITORGANIZATIONU.S. POSTAGE

PAIDHUDSON, MA 01749

PERMIT #6

Concord Consortium News

Realizing the educational

promise of technology