ClassTrac
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Case Study
“To meet the challenges of the world of 2015, and the years before and after that date, citizens will need a broad-based knowledge of government, economics, and history, coupled with knowledge of technology, scientific advances, and human behavior. This must be combined with decision-making and political participation skills. Finally, citizens in a participatory democracy must have the dispositions and commitment to take up the role of citizen. This means learning about contemporary issues, examining alternatives, considering what is the best choice, discussing these issues, and voicing opinions with others and at the polls.”
In a report sponsored by the Milken Family Foundation, author John Schacter, Ph.D., analyzed five of the largest-scale studies of education technology of that time: more than 700 empirical research studies, a review of the entire state of West Virginia, a national sample of fourth- and eighth-grade students, and an analysis of newer educational technologies. His results show that students demonstrate positive gains in achievement on researcher constructed tests, standardized tests and national tests when they have access to:
For more than 50 years, Gale has been a trusted provider of current, safe, aligned instructional resources. Our print, electronic and Web-enabled K-12 content helps educators teach and students learn in the 21st-century educational environment. Our newest digital resource, ClassTrac, is designed to enhance learning by engaging students with differentiated instruction, saving teachers’ time while extending textbook life. When instructional materials are outdated … “The rush to keep textbooks up-to-date generates sloppiness, detracts from quality, and is expensive. …In some areas of the curriculum, (e.g., science), the current adoption cycle should probably be accelerated because being up-to-date matters.”
What do you do when:
This is the dilemma that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) faced in 2001. A new high-stakes statewide test, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) was to be administered for the first time in the 2002-2003 school year. Among many other assessments, TAKS was to measure achievement in science at Grades 10 and 11; and in social studies at Grades 8, 10 and 11. TEA was concerned that the state’s installed middle school social studies and high school biology textbooks did not provide adequate coverage of rapidly changing areas of the curriculum. How could TEA provide coverage of these areas in a way that would appeal to students, be easy for teachers to implement, and cost-effective? The obvious answer was to replace the textbooks – obvious but not simple, or cheap. Replacing just the biology textbooks used by high schoolers across the state was estimated to cost up to $30 million. In addition, the new textbook adoption process would take two to three years before new textbooks were available to students and teachers.The TEA couldn’t well afford this lengthy timeline since the TAKS test was to be given the following year, in 2002. There is agreement that being up-to-date matters, but is there another more timely, cost-effective way to extend the life of textbooks. “In working with the TEA, we knew that the solution had to be electronic in order to keep the textbooks current and allow teachers to fill in the gaps in the current curriculum,” said Ben Mondloch, Gale executive vice president, K-12. “But the question that remained was how and where to get the content. That’s where Gale came in.”
Gale, one of the world’s leading reference publishers, has a 50-year history of delivering print, electronic and Web-enabled K-12 content that helps teachers and students learn. The company held the contract with the Texas Education Agency to provide electronic resources in a variety of subjects that could be accessed in school libraries throughout the state. Those products included current information in biology and social studies – just the information TEA needed – and it was already paid for by the state of Texas. “Our digital resources not only provided the current events content TEA required,” said Mondloch, “but also addressed one of the challenges TEA faced: when they got the content, how would they make it equitably accessible to all students.” The answer was through the library. Every Texas school library had access to the electronic information Gale provided through the Texas Education Agency. The new challenge became how to build a bridge between these library resources and the state’s installed textbooks. We knew that the solution had to be electronic in order to keep the textbooks current Creating the Electronic Textbook Supplement Cognitive research has shown that learning is most effective when four fundamental characteristics are present: 1. Active engagement 2. Participation in groups 3. Frequent interaction and feedback; and 4. Connections to real-world contexts
Though current event information was located in Gale resources, the solution was not simply to direct students to their school libraries. The online solution had to meet several criteria:
To do this, Gale aligned its current events content to state curriculum and assessment standards, and correlated it to the adopted textbooks. The result was an online textbook update that integrates authoritative and current content into instruction and leverages existing investments for classroom textbooks and online library reference content — an online resource called ClassTrac. Designed as a Web-enabled collection of learning units, exercises and multimedia activities, ClassTrac brings timely and relevant content into the classroom. Its science and social studies modules were designed for both teachers and students and customized to the standards, objectives and assessments of Texas. The goal of the resource was to elevate critical-thinking skills; supplement and update current textbooks; and increase student achievement in targeted content areas. The teacher’s version of ClassTrac offered automatic alignment of learning units and content to state standards, saving teachers the time of researching, developing and correlating separate lesson plans. It offered three ways to search for lessons: by learning unit, by standards or by textbook chapter. During the 2002/2003 school year, Gale, in conjunction with the Texas Education Agency, launched educational technology pilot projects using ClassTrac in high school biology and middle school social studies classes. Approximately 200 teachers from 46 school districts participated in 100 pilot sites. The goals of the pilots were to:
Mary Bonetati, a biology teacher at Klein Oak High School (Spring, Texas) at the time of the pilots, decided to conduct her own research and had one of her 9th grade honors classes participate in the pilot, while the other class didn’t. By having one of her classes be a control group, she was able to further evaluate ClassTrac. “At the end of the pilot, both classes took the same test,” Bonetati said. “And the one that used ClassTrac fared better than the class that didn’t. The lessons were very thorough and covered the text well. I thought it was very useful.”
Gale and all the pilot participants were pleased and enthused about the positive results coming from the ClassTrac pilot. The next version of ClassTrac had to incorporate enhancements and suggestions made by teachers and students who participated in the pilots, specifically: Adding lessons to extend the resource’s use and effectiveness
At the end of the school year, an evaluation measured the impact of ClassTrac on participating teachers and students. According to a survey of pilot teachers:
Source: 2004 Progress Report on the Long Range Plan for Technology presented to the 79th Texas Legislature by the Texas Education Agency Enhance Learning in Your District “Students are better learners when education is relevant, engaging and meaningful to their lives — they understand subjects better and retain more information. Studying the implications of the SARS epidemic, for example, makes biology come to life.”
The next generation of ClassTrac, which is available to all schools and districts nationwide, has evolved to include new functionality and features designed to foster inquiry-based education. Textbooks impart important foundational information. However, to become literate in a subject requires that students move beyond the basics. To this end, ClassTrac features lesson-unit activities that encourage students to organize their thoughts, solve problems and dig deeper into subject matter put into context for them through current events examples. ClassTrac’s differentiated learning levels support this concept. Addressing individual learning styles is a concept that is seen as critical to improving American education. Susan Patrick, director of the Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education, writes: “Technology-based assessments, online resources and tutoring enable personalization and differentiation of instruction for each student’s individual needs, learning styles, levels and abilities. Technology also allows faster and better communication, as well as increased access to resources, highly qualified teachers, and outside experts. Technology should be valued not for what it is, but for what it does.”
Differentiated learning levels set up students to achieve, not fail. “When students are allowed to learn at their own pace,” Gale’s Mondloch said. “then true learning and engagement is achieved. We all know stories about students who lose interest because they are either ahead of the pack on a subject or behind. Either way, the student loses.” ClassTrac lesson plans are geared to the skill level of the student. “Below,” “at,” and “above” designations help the teacher tailor a learning program to specific needs while ensuring that the relevant information is appropriately delivered. Saving Time for Teachers At the end of the 1999-2000 school year, about 16% of the K-12 teacher workforce “turned over” — transferred away from their current school or left teaching altogether. When surveyed about the sources of dissatisfaction leading to their decision, an overwhelming majority of leavers cited:
Teacher Mary Bonetati found ClassTrac engaging to students: “The students really enjoyed using ClassTrac,” she said. “It was visually compelling for them and the lessons were engaging and enjoyable. According to Gale’s Ben Mondloch, ClassTrac’s time-savings features greatly appeal to teachers:
ClassTrac is anchored by Gale content resource centers. Unlike the open Internet, Gale digital collections contain easily searchable and authoritative information, updated daily and screened for student use. Take, for example, a student assigned to research “the Amazon”:
It takes about half the time to conduct a search on a resource collection than it does to use a search engine. With Gale digital collections, students don’t have to weed through random and often inaccurate results to find the quality information they need. Saving Money for School Districts In the age of No Child Left Behind, superintendents have found themselves in the unenviable position of ensuring their districts are performing amid budget cuts and increased costs. The solution provided by ClassTrac means that changing standards and a dynamic world don’t have to result in textbook obsolescence How much money would your district save by extending the reach and life of your current textbooks? “ClassTrac is an academically efficient and cost-effective way for districts to leverage their current investments in instructional material,” Mondloch said. “It is truly a product that resonates with the various stakeholders involved with the learning process,” he said. “Teachers save time because they can access relevant, correlated lessons plans that address curriculum gaps without changing the way they teach. Superintendents get a cost-effective solution that uses existing library resources and is proven to improve district high-stakes testing scores. And, no matter what learning level they are at, the students achieve, which is the most important result of all.”
“21st Century Context.” Partnership for 21st Century Skills. 16 June 2005 “2004 Progress Report on the Long Range Plan for Technology, presented to the 79th Texas Legislature by Texas Education Agency.“ Overview. 16 June 2005 “Electronic Transfer: Moving technology dollars in new directions.” Education Week News. 16 June 2005 www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/05/05. “The Impact of Education Technology on Student Achievement: What the Most Current Research Has to Say by John Schacter.” Overview dated February 1999. Milken Family Foundation. 16 June 2005 http://mff.org/publications/publications.taf?page=161. “The Mad, Mad World of Textbook Adoption by Chester E. Finn, Jr., and Diane Ravitch.” Overview dated September 29, 2004. Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. 16 June 2005 Patrick, Susan. “Feedback on National Education Plan: A Message from Susan Patrick, Director of the Office of Educational Technology.” United States. Dept. of Education. 16 June 2005 Risinger, C. Frederick. “Two different worlds: the dilemma facing social studies teachers.” Social Education 66.4 (May-June 2002): 231(3). Roschelle, Jeremy, Roy D. Pea, Christopher M. Hoadley, Douglas N. Gordin, and Barbara M. Means. “Changing How and What Children Learn in School with Computer-Based Technologies,” Children and Computer Technology, 10.2 (Fall/Winter 2000): 79. 16 June 2005. United States Dept. of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. “State Education Data Profiles: Elementary and Secondary Education Characteristics.” 16 June 2005 United States Dept. of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. “The Condition of Education, 2005.” 30 May 2005 http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.sap?pubid=2005094. Teach Them As You Always Have….Reach Them in a Whole New Way ClassTrac includes 250 units of study aligned to state standards for high school science. Each unit includes a student self-assessment, re-teaching for students who don’t perform well, leveled activities for current events and research, and lesson assessments. ClassTrac extends the investment made in textbooks by aligning the units of study to chapter-level content — saving valuable time for teachers in planning for supplemental instruction. Remote access allows students and teachers to use ClassTrac from school, home or any other Internet-enabled location. The password-protected teacher’s edition provides links to assessment results, which helps teachers track student and class progress. ClassTrac facilitates learning success with:
For more information or to view an online demonstration, contact your Curriculum Sales Representative at 1-800-877-GALE (4253). |
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