Technology and the Learning Assistance Center

Caverly, David C. “Technology and the Learning Assistance Center,” in Mioduski, Sylvia and Gwyn Enright (editors), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 15th and 16th ANNUAL INSTITUTES FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE PROFESSIONALS: 1994 AND 1995. Tucson, AZ: University Learning Center, University of Arizona, 1997. Pp. 1-14.

“It was the best of time; it was the worst of times.” So starts one of the world’s great novels, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. This sentence also reflects one of the dilemmas faced by many developmental educators. The dilemma occurs when your administrator has given you permission to create or upgrade a computer center to supplement your successful Learning Assistance Center. Or, when your administrator has dumped 20 computers in your room and told you to make good use of them. What do you do? How can you use these computers most effectively to assist college students learning reading, writing, math, and/or study skills? Is there other technology in which you should invest time and energy? This paper will answer these and other questions by chronicling how two learning assistance center directors followed four steps to integrating computers and other technology into their learning assistance centers. The term technology will be used in this paper generically to include computers and other devices that might by used in a learning assistance center.

Four Steps
To integrate technology into a learning assistance center, you begin by defining how you believe students learn and what you do to help them learn; that is, you begin by considering your instructional model. Second, you conform the roles of technology to fit that instructional model. Third, you select software that supports those roles and model. Fourth, you select hardware to deliver the software. Following these four steps can be the most effective means of integrating technology into a learning assistance center. How do these four steps translate into practice?

Step 1: Determine Your Instructional Model

How do you believe students learn? What is it you do to assist this learning? Say you want to teach someone how to play tennis. Where do you begin? Do you first become an expert, learn all you can about the strokes, the rules, the equipment, the strategy of the game before you begin working with students? Before you see students, do you determine the sequence in which your students should learn these concepts? For example, do you decide students should first learn the forehand, then the backhand, then the serve? When you teach the forehand, will you start with the three different types of “grips”, when and where each is appropriate, and how to shift to these grips from the “ready position?” Then, will you teach your students how to move from the ready position to bringing the racket back, turning the shoulders until they are perpendicular to the net, proper feet positions as you step into the ball, and how to hit through the ball finishing with a high follow through? Will you make them practice these concepts by hitting forehands with a ball machine over and over again until they reach a level of mastery? When finished, will you then move on to a similar process with the backhand? When all the skills of the forehand, backhand, serve, volley, and lob are mastered, will the students be able to play a game?

On the other hand, do you simply go out with the students and let them begin hitting the ball with you? Do you hit the ball to one side or the other discussing with them and their peers what you are doing as you hit the ball, comparing what they are doing that is the same or different, and what else they might do? Next, do you have them play a game of doubles where they try hitting the ball while at the same time evaluating what they and their other three peers are doing? Do you then return as a large group to discuss what they saw, to decide what worked and what didn’t, and to come to some consensus as to how to hit the various strokes? Finally, do you assign them to play a few games of singles with a peer again evaluating what they and their peer were doing and what they might do to improve?

These are two distinctly different means of teaching a series of skills like tennis. One is not necessarily better or worse than the other; just different. Countless players have learned from either perspective. However, within each scenario there are specific assumptions about the content you are teaching, how students learn, and how you teach that content within each of these perspectives. How you teach reading, writing, math, or studying follow these same assumptions? Before you integrate computer technology into your learning assistance center, you must consider these assumptions, so you can most effectively use the technology.

The first tennis scenario is what is called a skills model of instruction and learning. It follows certain three basic assumptions. First, a skills model assumes that knowledge of a process (like reading, writing, computing with math, or studying) can be broken down into an identified scope of skills that must be learned. This scope of skills evolves from dissecting whatever process we are teaching into separate parts. Thus, a skill like reading is broken down into a scope of vocabulary, comprehension, and rate skills which are in turn dissected into the four word recognition skills of how to use context clues, structural analysis, phonetic analysis, and dictionary skills. These subskills are in turn dissected into sub-subskills, if you will, with structural analysis word recognition subskills separated into Latin and Greek prefixes, roots, and suffixes. Learning occurs when students master enough of these parts to attain the whole.

A second assumption of this skills model is that there is a hierarchical sequence in which these skills are to be learned. To extend our example, instruction following this model would teach word recognition skills before comprehension skills which are in turned learned before rate skills. Thus, students might be taught structural analysis skills before dictionary skills, roots before prefixes, Latin roots before Greek roots. This sequence of skills provides a convenient ruler against which students can be compared. We can then diagnose where they fall along this ruler, measure their progress, and document their growth as they learn and master the scope of skills. Moreover, workbooks (in print or on computer) can be created or identified for each level of this ruler to provide the appropriate skill instruction and practice.

A third assumption of this skills model is that these separate skills are best learned through a instructional sequence consisting of transmission of this scope of skills from the expert teacher who has extensive knowledge to the students who have little or no knowledge. This instructional sequence begins with an assessment of the level of skill mastery. Second, students are told how to perform each separate skill usually through a series of steps transmitted to them. Third, students practice these separate skills in a structured, hierarchically graded, sequence of skill books until mastery is reached. Often, student mastery is assessed after instruction and practice to document growth. If mastery is not reached, reteaching is provided.

Most instruction within existing learning assistance centers follow this skills model. For most directors, it is logical and intuitive that to teach complex skills like reading, writing, math, or studying, one should break these processes down into simpler skills, teach those simpler skills, and then build up to more complex skills. However, for some learning assistance center directors, this instructional model is not only illogical, it is disturbing. These directors question whether the sequence of instruction should be controlled by the teacher. They find the material in a skills model too simplistic and not authentic when compared to the task demands of college. They argue the assessment ruler is arbitrary and usually applied in an isolated context. They conclude from such a skills model that ownership for learning the scope and sequence of skills lies with the teacher, not with the student. As a result, a teacher using a skills model must constantly try to motivate the students to learn what the teacher wants them to learn, not what the students want to learn. The latter tennis scenario above is indicative of these learning assistance center directors. They believe in a more holistic model of instruction and learning. Much like the skills based directors, they follow certain assumptions.

First, there is a similar scope of strategies to be learned for the complex processes of reading, writing, computing, and studying. However, this scope does not follow a specific sequence. More complex techniques can be learned and used before simpler techniques. To extend our example above, students are allowed to read using whatever resources they have available. Then, word recognition techniques are introduced whenever the strategies the students are using are no longer effective.

Second, the tasks and materials used for instruction are authentic. Students learn to read, for example, in college textbooks, not “dumbed down” workbooks. If the material is difficult to understand for the students, supportive scaffolding is provided until the student can develop strategies to take over the scaffolding. Scaffolding consists of predictable material depending upon the techniques being learned, peer and instructor support, and a gradual release of responsibility model of instruction (Caverly, Mandeville, & Nicholson, in press; Pearson & Gallagher, 1983) with the students taking on more responsibility for their learning as they become more proficient.

Third, strategies are collaboratively constructed within a scaffolded, social learning group. Strategies are internally constructed approaches of a series of techniques for processing print in reading and writing, numbers in math, or learning tasks in studying. Techniques are external applications of these internal strategies (i.e., external verbalizations of internal strategic approaches). Learning begins as instructors engage students’ prior knowledge about their strategic approaches to an authentic task thus assessing their performance. Learning continues as the instructor models his/her strategy for approaching the authentic task through thinking outloud how he/she applies certain techniques (their interpretation of their strategic approach) to authentic material prototypical of the techniques being learned (i.e., highly structured text if text structure is being learned). From this series of think-alouds and modeling, students and instructor construct a consensus of specific techniques to apply for the given material.

Next, the students in a guided practice environment apply these techniques within somewhat less than prototypical authentic material (i.e., text not as structured). Here, students experiment with these techniques, collaboratively discussing how the techniques work with peers, concluding a group interpretation of these techniques, and sharing these group interpretations with other groups to compare and contrast.

Third, students apply these group interpreted techniques individually in an independent practice environment within material from their other classes (i.e., sometimes prototypical, often not). Each student constructs his or her own, unique interpretation comparing and contrasting to the group interpreted techniques, thus creating a personal strategic approach to the authentic task.

This holistic based approach to instruction is significantly different from a skills based approach (see Fig. 1). To restate; neither is better than the other, just different. Successful growth on the part of the student within a learning assistance center occurs when you identify a particular instructional model and orient all your instruction around it. Failure occurs when you try to be eclectic and flip flop between the two models trying to use the best of both worlds. The result is students who are confused where sometimes they must wait to be taught while at other times they can learn on their own; where sometimes their prior knowledge is ignored, while at other times it is respected. When students are confused as to their role, instruction cannot be successful. Therefore, Step One to integrating technology into a learning assistance center is affirming your instructional model at the commitment within relativism level of cognitive and ethical development (Perry, 1970).

Step 2: Conform Computer Roles to Instructional Model

Having identified and affirmed an instructional model, the next step is to adjust how you utilize technology within your learning assistance center based on your instructional model. This adjustment falls into one of three roles: using technology as a tool, as a tutor, or as a tutee. Using the technology as a tool is where it helps you teach and your students learn. There are four general tools for your use as a teacher: diagnostic tools, management tools, production tools, and utility tools. Using technology as a tutor is where the computer can be used to teach skills to students. Here, there are three general types of tutorial software: drill and practice, tutorial, and simulation. Using technology as a tutee is where we as instructors or students teach the technology to do our bidding as it helps others construct an understanding (from a skills perspective) or helps us construct an understanding (from a holistic perspective).

Step 3: Select Software

After you have identified your theoretical orientation and understand the roles of technology for supporting that orientation, you should begin to select software. Notice that you should buy software before you buy hardware. Below you see which software would be purchased by a center director from a skills perspective compared to a center director from a holistic perspective.

Step 4: Select Hardware

After you have identified the software that you would use to fit your instructional model, the next step is to select hardware to deliver that software. Choosing hardware last focuses your decisions on the most important component of technology, the software, and also reduces your start-up costs. Too often, hardware is chosen first. The result is you are forced to acquire software that is compatible with the hardware, and you are often forced by the software choices to change your instructional model. Consequently, you are using technology in a way that is inappropriate to your belief system.

A Tale of Two Center Directors

Now that the steps to integrating technology into a learning assistance center have been delineated, let’s consider how two different center directors selected software and hardware. Meet Bill and Dave; no relation. Both are well trained and have been working with developmental college students for over twenty years. However, both have different instructional models as to how they teach and how students learn. The result is their learning assistance centers are distinctly different. Each would argue their success is better, but that’s another story.

Having affirmed their instructional model, they identified specific software. Then they identified hardware to deliver the software.

Technology as Tool: Diagnostic

Bill believes in a skills based instructional model, so he would select specific tools to fit that model. Since diagnosis is an important first step in a skills model, Bill selected diagnostic software tools that help him identify the strengths and weaknesses of the students who come to his center. For example, to screen students, Bill uses Accuplacer. Through a series of questions at the beginning, this software identifies a starting level, in reading for example. Then, as the student gets answers correct or incorrect the software selects easier or harder passages. After about 17 questions, the student’s performance levels off and the software is able to identify reading level. Bill also uses diagnostic software for reading and study skills. He chooses from E-LASSI, Guides, Informal Reading Placement Test, Survey of Reading/Study Efficiency, or the Vocabulary Placement Test. These instruments identify strengths and weakness and often provide an individual printout for each student.

Dave, on the other hand, believes in a holistic instructional model, so diagnostic tools are much less important. Rather, they are needed only to provide a means of documenting current performance and change in that performance over time. Specific grade levels, percentile scores, and pre/post tests are less important than the students’ understanding of their performance now and where it could be. Thus, Dave uses software such as the Grady Profile to set up a portfolio for each student documenting his/her performance. Then, he uses other diagnostic software collaboratively with the student as together the student and instructor decide what they want to know about their current performance.

Technology as Tool: Management

Other software is selected by Bill to manage both his students’ performance and his materials. For example, student attendance is monitored through a spreadsheet using either Excel or Works. Material is classified by skill taught and readability level through a database such as FileMaker Pro, FoxPro, or Works. Materials are graded for readability level by Fry Readability Formula or the grammar checker in Word. Bill uses statistical software such as SPSS or StatView to document change in student performance.

Dave uses most of the same tools to manage his students’ performance in his center. However, since the material comes from authentic materials from the students’ other classes, no material management is needed.

Technology as Tool: Production

Bill uses specific software to produce drill and practice worksheets (Crossword Magic, Word, WordSearch, Works), drill/practice and tutorial software (Drill, Drill Maker, LinxLite, Linx Industriar), and tests (Exam Builder) for his center. He uses production software to produce a center newsletter (Pagemaker) by scanning in documents (OmniPage) or by creating graphics (Canvas). He uses other software to produce slide show and video conference presentations (Director, Impact, MORE, Persuasion, PowerPoint, PrintShop).

Dave uses much of the same software in the same manner for his personal use, though no worksheets, drill/practice, or tutorial courseware are produced. Moreover, he teaches students to work in groups as they use this software to document their understanding of what they are learning by producing presentations to share with other students. The process of producing a presentation cements the concepts for the students.

Technology as Tool: Utilities

To make their technology more efficient, both Dave and Bill use utilities. These range from screen savers (After Dark), to virus checkers (Symantec AntiVirus for Mac, PC-Rx, Virex), to compatibility programs which allow one to use DOS based programs in Macintosh and vice versa (Access PC, Mac-in-DOS, RunPC, SoftPC), to compression programs increasing the size of the RAM and the ROM (AutoDoubler, RamDoubler, Stuffit Delux), to machine controlling software where from one machine you can control another (Timbuktu), to repairing tools which will recover hard disk crashes or deleted files (Crash Barrier, Norton Utilities).

Technology as Tutor: Drill/Practice

A major component of Bill’s skills based center is drill and practice. Thus, much of the software he uses can be classified here. Specific programs Bill uses are programs for practicing vocabulary skills (STUDYMATE-The Grade Booster, Word Attack), reading comprehension skills (High Steps to Comprehension, Intellectual Pursuits, Practical Comprehension, Skills Bank II), writing skills (Practical Gramrnar I, n III speuit Plus), and math skills (Algebra Drill and Practice I, II, I7l Algebra 1-6, Calculus 1-6, Statistics I, II).

Drill and practice is not relevant to Dave’s holistic center, though documentation of guided practice and independent practice is important. Thus, he uses a simple word processor that comes free with Macintosh named TeachText through which students write weekly journals about what they are learning.

Technology as Tutor: Tutorials

Tutorials are also an important part of Bill’s skills based center. As we have said, students are diagnosed for their skill weaknesses, assigned a tutorial from the database of programs available, and then reports are generated by the computer keeping track of their performance. Specific programs Bill uses for reading include: Analogies Advanced, Analogies College Bound, Analogies Tutorial, Comprehension Connection, Figurative Language, How to Study for Tests, Learning Plus, Primary Steps to Comprehension, Reading & Writing Connection, Steps to Comprehension, Reading Realities At-Risk Series, and Urban Reader. Tutorials Bill particularly likes for teaching students how to read and study college level texts are Textbook Marking Strategies, Tips for College Test Taking, Using your Biology Textbook Effectively, and Using your Psychology Textbook Effectively.

A fifth (SEEN) Bill has found particularly useful for teaching critical reading and writing. Bill also likes three programs for teaching writing Essential Grammar, Essential Punctuation, and Nuts and Hyperbolts. Bill has found only one he likes for math: First Year Algebra.

Again, tutorials play little or no role in a holistic center since the students construct their own knowledge of reading, writing, math, and study strategies from using computer tools. Therefore, Dave uses no tutorial software in his center.

Technology as Tutor: Simulations

Computer simulations attempt to emulate real-life reading, writing, math, and study tasks. Since authentic tasks are not a priority in a skills based center until the students are ready, there are only a few that Bill uses in his center. These programs focus on research papers (Research Paper Writer, Writer’s Helper) and writing for learning disabled students (Write this Way/LD). Other software Bill likes for teaching problem solving are the Carmen San Diego series (Where in the World, USA, Time, America’s Past, Space is Carmen San Diego).

Simulations are a large part of a holistic center, so the majority of programs Dave uses are classified here. There are specific programs which model for students how to engage their prior knowledge (Idea Fisher, Idea Liner, Inside Information, Mindlink), how to differentiate between main idea and subordinate ideas and then how to create semantic maps of these ideas (Learning Tool, MORE, Inspiration), the steps involved in creating research papers (EndNote, Research Paper Writer, Writer’s Helper), and how to work collaboratively when completing business writing (Collaborative Writer). Other programs simulate how glossaries can sometimes be beneficial while at other times hinder understanding (Beethoven, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). Finally, Dave uses a reasonably good simulation of the critical reading process when reading essays (Critical Thinking: Reading & Writing Across the Curriculum).

Technology as Tutee: Telecommunications

A third role of technology in a learning assistance center is that of a tutee. That is, where the student teaches the technology to do his/her bidding. Typically this is thought of as programming a computer, but this is an outdated notion. Rather, technology as tutee is utilizing the full power of technology to access people and information in remote sites via telecommunication and then to construct knowledge from that information by documenting what was learned through the creation of multimedia and hypermedia tutorials. As we prepare students for the learning demands of an information society, the reading and study strategies required when using telecommunications as well as the writing and math problem solving skills for producing multimedia and hypermedia will become basic skills. Bill and Dave saw this future coming and adapted their learning centers accordingly.

Bill found telecommunication software that would allow access to the information highway acquiring both public domain (Kermit, Mosaic, and ProComm) as well as commercial software (Mail, Microphone). From a skills model of instruction, however, Bill primarily used the telecommunications to develop his professional knowledge via electronic mail (e-mail) by joining discussion groups like LRNASST (LISTSERV@LISTSERV.Arizona.edu), subscribing to electronic journals like New Horizons (listserv~alpha.acast.nova.edu), accessing information from databases like ERIC Abstracts, or downloading free software from archived collections. He also teaches his students how to extend their library research skills by teaching them how to access remote libraries all over the world via GOPHER (Caverly & Broderick, 1994).

Dave saw extended use of telecommunications for his students. From his holistic perspective, the same software is being used for his professional development by sharing ideas through professional discussion groups, subscribing to electronic journals, or accessing information and software from databases. Moreover, he teaches his students how to access information in remote libraries.

However, from his holistic perspective, Dave saw the potential of telecommunications as providing an opportunity for students to construct knowledge via guided practice in groups made up of peers in their local environment as well as peers around the world. For example, to extend sustained silent reading required of all students attending his center, Dave arranged for an electronic penpal at a college across the country where weekly book talk discussions would center around a common book both were reading. For his English as a Second Language students (ESL), Dave arranged for them to practice their developing reading and writing language skills in an authentic context as they discussed sports, movies, or music with similarly leveled ESL students in Japan and Hong Kong (announce-sl@latrobe.edu.au). Not only are his students learning a skill necessary for success in an information society, they are empowered with skills many of their non- remedial peers have yet to develop.

Technology as Tutee: Hypermedia

A final use of technology in learning assistance centers is the development of multimedia and hypermedia. Bill uses specific software (Authorware Professional, Fourmat, Impact, Lesson Writer, MORE, Persuasion, PowerPoint, and Quest) to develop multimedia tutorials where students are led through print, graphics, sound, and video as they learn skills. He uses the other software (Authorware Professional, HyperCard, HyperStudio, Linkway, PLUS, Textbook Toolbook, and Toolbook) to develop hypermedia tutorials for students to explore on their own the same print, graphics, sound, and video.

Dave, on the other hand, sees the potential of hypermedia as a medium for students (not just instructors) to document their coming understanding of reading, writing, math, and study strategies. Dave has arranged for developmental students to work in small groups as they take a particular strategy and develop a hypermedia presentation or tutorial for other students to use. Through developing hypermedia, students apply developing reading, writing, research, problem solving, math, and time management skills.

Hardware Configurations

After the software has been acquired, step four is to acquire hardware to deliver the software. Specific configurations of hardware can be recommended regardless of platform preference (i.e., PC-DOS or Macintosh). What and how much technology you acquire depends upon your resources and your use of the machines. A useful heuristic would be to think of a minimum, effective, and cutting edge configurations.

Minimum Hardware Configuration

At minimum, you should include a set number of computers varying with your model of instruction. If you follow a skills model of instruction, you would need one computer for every student who you might expect would attend the center at a particular time since each student will be working individually. If you follow a holistic model of instruction, you would need one computer for every three students since the students will be working collaboratively in small groups. Each machine would have a central processing unit (CPU; i.e., the computer itself), a monitor (color preferably), and an extended keyboard (one including a numeric keypad). If you lean toward PC-DOS based computers (i.e., IBMs and clones), then at the time of writing a machine with a 486 based processor with 4mB of RAM and 250mB of ROM would be minimum. If you lean toward Macintosh, then at the time of writing a machine with a minimum 68030 processor with 8mB of RAM and 250mB of ROM would be minimum. Peripherals would include one printer (DeskWriter or DeskJet) for every four machines.

Effective Hardware Configuration

If your resources allow, an effective hardware configuration would be more pragmatic today and would be able to grow in the future. This configuration would include a similar number and type of machine, though these machines would be networked together with one machine designated as a network server. This server computer could deliver software to and store files for each machine on the network as a dedicated server. Or, the server could only store files while the software is located on each machine within a distributed network. A similar number of printers would be included in this configuration. Additional peripherals would be part of this configuration and would be available to the instructor only or both the instructor and the students depending upon your instructional model. These peripherals include a 2400 baud modem for every computer as well as CD-ROM drives for every other computer.

Cutting Edge Hardware Configuration

If your resources allow, you should develop a computer center that is cutting edge now as it will become minimum within five years. Again, this configuration would include a network wired with ethernet or preferably fiber optics and the same number of computers and printers. CPUs would be upgraded to PowerPCs or PowerMacs which are (currently) top of the line processors and allow PC or Mac software to be used in either machine. Each machine would have an internal CD-ROM drive, removable hard disk drive (e.g., PowerUser Syquest Drive), internal 8mB of RAM, 500mB of hard disk, and an internal modem hardwired to your mainframe. In addition, at least 3 machines would be designated hypermedia production machines. These machines would have a removable hard disk drive, internal 16mB of RAM, lgB of hard disk, an internal FAX/modem hardwired to your mainframe, sound and video input/output cards, and a read/write CD- ROM drive. Additional peripherals would include a color scanner (Microtek), video camera, and projection device (Desktop Projector 2800).

Balancing Technology

Technology has a strong promise for improving instruction in a learning assistance center (Caverly, 1994). From a skills based perspective, it can diagnose weaknesses, identify specific remedial regimens, monitor the students’ progress providing easier material when the students are struggling and harder material when they are succeeding, and generate reports for students and instructors documenting growth. From a holistic perspective, it can provide a medium for modeling, guided practice, and independent practice as students use reading, writing, speaking, and listening to develop their skills. However, technology cannot do everything. From a skills perspective, students must be debriefed after working through the software to foster transfer to college learning demands. From a holistic perspective, the instructor must also model for the students and then arrange for guided and independent practice. Simply, the technology cannot teach by itself. The instructor must be part of the instructional equation as technology provides yet another tool in the arsenal of the director of the learning assistance center.



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Fig 1.  Holistic Based vs. Skills Based Instruction in Developmental Education (after Henderson, 1992)

Technology in Developmental Education: Past, Present, Future


David C. Caverly, Ph.D.
Southwest Texas State University
e-mail: DCØ2@academia.SWT.edu
Caverly, D.C. (1995). Technology in learning assistance centers: past, present, and future. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Institute for Learning Assistance Professionals. University Learning Center, University of Arizona: Tucson, AZ. Reprinted with permission.



Introduction
Technology in developmental education has a long and productive history. Beginning with the pen 5000 years ago, the book 500 years ago, and the computer 50 years ago, education has incorporated each new technology into its mission and has generally improved as a result. Before we go much further with this latest paradigm shift (Kuhn, 1970), it is time to consider where we have been with technology in developmental education, where we are now, and where we might go?

To answer these questions, let me begin by defining technology, then review a theoretical continuum for using technology in developmental education, and finally examine the research on technology in developmental education using this continuum to answer each of these three questions.


Definition of Technology
In order to understand technology in developmental education, one must understand the interface between humans and machines. Often novices to a technology are overwhelmed by each new invention that comes along. In an attempt to learn it, they try to analyze each part before they use it. While I agree with Macaulay (1988) that understanding the principles is useful to mastering the technology, they can still use the technology to better their lives while they are coming to understand it. They use high-tech machines in their daily lives when they drive, use kitchen appliances, or even use an automatic teller machine without concern for the underlying principles. So, too, they can come to understand the function of technology in developmental education as they are coming to understand its form.

Because of the scope of this paper, this discussion will be limited to computers as an exemplar of the current technological innovations that are enhancing developmental education. However, as will be seen later, computers are just the external framework of a much larger information technology including audio, video, CD-ROM, hypermedia, telecommunications, and ubiquitous computing.


Theoretical Continuum for Using Technology
Taylor (1980) in his seminal book provides a useful continuum through which all technological applications can be considered and the research can be organized. This continuum can also serve to explain how technology has been used in the past 50 years, how it is being used presently, and how it can be used productively into the future.

Taylor (1980) defines the use of computers in education as fitting into one of three roles: the computer as tutor, tool, or tutee. While these three roles in developmental education have been introduced elsewhere (Broderick & Caverly, 1988), it is time to explicate these roles further. Taylor defines the computer as tutor where the computer is programmed by experts in a subject area. Here, the computer presents information to be learned, prompts students to respond, evaluates their response, and from this evaluation determines what to present next. Often, the computer also keeps records on students’ performance, has access to a wide range of material to be presented in a pre-specified scope and sequence, and individualizes to accommodate a variety of student differences.

Taylor (1980) defines the second role of the computer as tool where the computer has some useful capability programmed into it, such as processing words, calculation via spreadsheets or statistical analyses, and organization via data bases. These applications save students time and intellectual energy by relegating menial tasks to the computer. Both the computer as tutor or tool requires neither students nor instructors to learn much about the computer, only to use them.

Taylor (1980) defines the third role of the computer as tutee where the students teach the computer. Originally this was programming computers using languages such as BASIC or LOGO. Here, students can acquire some sense of control over the machine. Moreover, there are several other benefits. First, because it is difficult to teach what one doesn’t understand, the student/tutor must learn before or while he/she is teaching the computer. Second, by taking broad ideas and narrowing them down to the logic of the computer, the human tutor is forced to learn how his/her own thinking works. By teaching the computer to be a tutor and a tool, students gain insights into their own learning. Thus, “…the focus of education in the classroom [shifts] from end product to process, from acquiring facts to manipulating and understanding them” (Taylor, 1980, p.4).


Learning Theories and Technology

While this continuum has provided a useful means of integrating computers into education in general, understanding how past and present learning theories fit into this continuum can help us determine a functional, adaptive use of technology in developmental education. Table 1 puts into perspective these learning theories by delimiting their philosophical positions, the psychological interpretations of these positions, the educational applications of these interpretations, and the technological adaptations of Taylor’s (1980) continuum.

Rationalism/Radical Constructivism/Discovery

Historically, a rationalist philosophy held sway as philosophers such as Descartes argued that the world was rational and could be explained through logical, consistent, deductive thought (Fabricius, 1983). New knowledge comes from deductive logic using innate ideas to explain new experiences and to “discover” new knowledge by adding or changing these ideas.

A natural psychological interpretation of this philosophy was radical constructivism whereby learning was explained as occurring when students construct a viable knowledge. Learning is an adaptive function of the structures individuals understand about the world within the range of experiences they have had with the world. Evident of this viability is equilibrium where cognitive schemata are consistent with experience, though also dynamic like the balance of a cyclist or a tightrope walker. Given disequilibrium, where task demands challenge viability of knowledge, schemata change. New, inconsistent experiences cause disequilibration, or perturbation in the existing schemata, which in turn cause accommodation, which in turn cause equilibration after which we can say students have learned new knowledge (von Glasersfeld, 1988).

Educationally, this interpretation has been applied in early childhood education through the Montessori approach and in developmental education through discovery reading approaches (Morrison, 1990 ; Caverly & Broderick, 1991). Here, students read, discuss, and write about narrative books as they come to understand the reading process.

Using the computer as a tool in developmental education is using it through a rationalistic / radical constructivist / discovery approach as students come to discover an understanding of reading, writing, study skills, and math. For example, using word processing with developmental readers and writers improves both their reading and writing abilities as they read and discuss their own texts rather than someone else’s. The use of grammar and spelling checkers will improve only those grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors they typically make, not everyone. They can discover the role and function of the author through reading/writing their and peer’s prose (Broderick & Caverly, 1987, 1992a; Broderick, et al., 1988).



Empiricism/Behaviorism/Transmission

With the emergence of the scientific method in the early 17th century came a new philosophical position known as empiricism. Empiricism argues that knowledge comes from inductive reasoning of experiences or observations. The mind is a tabula rasa; that is, devoid of knowledge before experience. Truth (i.e., knowledge) comes from verification via experiences as knowledge exists in the world (Fabricius, 1983).

The psychological interpretation of an empirical philosophy was that all knowledge lies outside the students’ mind. Through shaping, scheduling, and reinforcement, overt behaviors like reading, writing, study skills, and mathematical computing could be developed. Based upon Pavlov and Skinner’s work with animals, a scientific learning theory emerged in the early part of the twentieth century called behaviorism.

Educationally this psychological theory was applied by theorists like Gagne (1975) who argued knowledge to-be-learned (i.e., reading, writing, math, study skills) should be broken down into discrete, sequential skills ranging from the simplest to the complex. Learning these skills occurred through an external agent, such as the instructor, “transmitting” these skills to students, drilling and practicing these skills until mastery was achieved, and then by providing reinforcement, scheduling, and shaping students were motivated to learn and remember these skills.

Using the computer as a tutor was a natural extension of this educational adaptation. Much of the educational software builds on this position breaking a complex skill like reading into separate tutorial or drill/practice packages with appropriate behavioristic reinforcement where necessary (Broderick & Caverly, 1992b; Caverly & Broderick, 1988; Suppes, 1980). Most of today’s developmental educators were trained in this empiricist / behaviorist / transmission philosophy. Consequently, most of the computer applications in developmental education are from this perspective (cf., Nwankwo, 1992). Students’ skills in reading, writing, math are diagnosed and then appropriate courseware is completed until mastery of the skills are documented by the tests (Broderick & Caverly, 1992b; Caverly & Broderick, 1988).



Phenomenologicalism/Constructivism/Holistic

Still, not everyone was happy with either of these extreme positions whereby the structural elements of knowledge existed in the object (empiricism) or in the subject (rationalism). Kant, in particular, argued that a more reasonable position would be an interaction between the subject and object during experience. The subject must grasp what the object contains; the object must corroborate what the subject knows (Fabricius, 1983). With this argument, Kant opened up a new realm of knowing which he labeled phenomenologicalism. He did this by concentrating on the mental elements of knowledge which allow us to identify structure in objects. For example, if we go to a gravel pit where some stones have already been separated by a 1/4″ screen, we would generate any number of thoughts. Empirically, we might assume since those stones we see are the correct size, all of the stones are indeed 1/4″. Or, we might rationalistically think that there is some logic to the pile of stones. In both cases, however, we did not consider the role of the screen. The screen is the phenomenonlogical realm. The structure within our mind which gives form to this experience. This phenomenon of structure is constructed by the interaction of subject and object giving meaning to this experience. Our knowledge is given an objectivity because of the structure we impose (i.e., construct) onto experiences using temporal (categorization, listing, comparison/contrast) or spatial (cause/effect, sequence) dimensions. Once objects are perceived through space and time they are understood through these mind’s structures, knowledge is gained, and the individual has gained knowledge.

Two psychologists in particular have interpreted this philosophy to explain learning and called it constructivism. Piaget argued constructivism occurs within the individual through inner speech. For Piaget, mental structures must interact internally with sense data for there to be learning. Learning is interactive and constructive through ordering and synthesizing through the senses. Reality is constructed to become the phenomena we experience (Fabricius, 1983). Vygotsky (1962) similarly argued that constructivism takes place, but through social interaction rather than individually. Through collaboration in a meaningful social interaction, an individual constructs a group meaning of a complex idea which is in turn personalized to an individual meaning.

Duffy (1991) helps to specify these learning perspectives by arguing that deconstructivism (or discovery learning ) is accepting all views or constructions as viable. A more useful alternative is testing one’s constructions against those of one’s peers via collaborative activities; what Vygotsky (1962) labeled social negotiation of meaning. What separates individual vs. social constructivism is pre-specification of knowledge. That is, we must decide whether information is provided by the learning context or whether knowledge is provided by the expert instructor? A transmission view would suggest that knowledge is provided by the expert instructor. A radical constructivist or discovery view would argue all knowledge is constructed from information provided by the context. Social constructivism, on the other hand, builds upon the unique sets of experiences brought by the learner with those of the social context and those made relevant by the current educational experiences. For example, transmission learning would give graduate students a readings list and test them over the content of the readings as a qualifying exam. Assessment has nothing to do with student needs or desires, only the committee’s view of the content domain. Note also, it has nothing to do with what students will have to do as a Ph.D. A constructivist strategy would have the graduate student (or undergraduate for that matter) gathering papers over several years of study. It would be up to students to define an issue or focus within specified topic areas. Evaluation would then be on how well students considered and evaluated the various perspectives on that issue. In this latter constructivist experience, there is no pre-specification of knowledge for which students are to learn. The environment is authentic, and the role of the instructor is to guide and model. Learner control is an integral part of the environment.

Educationally, constructivism has emerged as whole language in reading instruction (Bergeron, 1990), process writing in writing instruction (Broderick, et al., 1987), and essence in math (Blais, 1988). Only recently has this educational philosophy emerged into practice in developmental education (Caverly, Mandeville, & Nicholson, 1994; Nist & Meeley, 1991). As will be discussed later in this paper, using the computer as a tutee through hypermedia and telecommunications can help developmental students construct a social understanding of the concepts of reading, writing, and mathematical computing.

Rationalism has faded as an educational philosophy, but empiricism and constructivism still are quite prevalent particularly in developmental education. Table 2 can help the reader distinguish between these two positions.

Which position is better is a moot point. Rather, which position you apply to using technology in developmental education is dependent on your philosophy of education (Caverly & Broderick, 1991).



Research on Technology in Developmental Education
Research and practice on the use of technology in developmental education over the last several decades helps to provide answers to the questions posed above. From my review of the literature, the computer as a tutor is where we have been, the computer as a tool is where we currently are, and the computer as tutee is where we are going.



Where we have been: The computer as tutor

Technology as tutorials are no stranger to developmental education. We acquired reading/writing/math films and tachistoscopes in the 1930s and 1940s, kits, teaching machines, and programmed texts in the 1950s and 1960s, and we still are acquiring the ever-present workbook. As each new technology emerged, our budgets were strained as we sought after the best technology for our learning centers and remedial/developmental classes. Unfortunately, many of these were relegated to our educational closets as each in their own way found disfavor. A major reason for this disfavor was the lack of research evidence that any of the technology was effective (Boylan, 1987).

Now with computer technology having a strong presence in some developmental education programs, while still yet emerging in others, we must question its effectiveness. Much of the published research reviewed how to acquire, use, and evaluate computer technology in developmental education. This literature might be organized into how-to publications for instruction in reading (Alexander, 1984 ; Cowles, 1988; Thompson, 1980; Turner, 1993; Wepner, 1990) writing (Boyd, et. al, 1982; Broderick & Caverly, 1987; Burns, 1984; Douglas, 1993; Durham, 1987; Giles, 1993; Hanson, 1990; Hunter, 1983; Johnson, 1986; McAllister, et. al, 1987; O’Hear, 1991; Pomper, 1986; Posey & Ward, 1991; Schwartz & Bridwell-Bowles, 1988); math (Flower & Craft, 1981; Johnson, 1992; Laffey & Helt, 1981; Nagaratte, 1989; Rotman, 1987); study skills (Hannafin, 1992); or how-to use technology in a learning center environment (A comparison of traditional vocational training with a vocational training model infusing remedial academic skills training, 1986; Barton, 1993; Bowen, 1992; Burnett, 1989; Lengel, 1986; Malinowski & Huard, 1989; Murray, et. al, 1988; Petry & McClain, 1981; Sax, 1972; Smith, et. al, 1981).

For over a decade, developmental educators have been taking advice of their mentors (Akst, 1984; Christ, 1982; and more recently Bill Broderick and myself) and have acquired computer technology in record numbers using it as computer assisted instruction (CAI) to supplement their developmental classes through drill and practice software, or provide primary instruction in learning centers through tutorial or simulation software. How effective such acquisitions have been depends upon where you look. Using achievement, attitudes toward instruction, motivation for learning more about a content area, and learning time as dependent variables, CAI proves to be an effective supplement to regular instruction though there was an inverse relationship with more gain in elementary school than in high school than in college. Using a meta-analysis techniques for college populations, the effect sizes has been low but positive averaging (.31) for achievement and (.22) for attitude. That is, summaries of research suggest that CAI raises the experimental groups performance about 10 percentile points over that of the control group (Broderick, et. al, 1987; Fulton, 1993; Kulik, 1983a; 1983b; 1985; Kulik & Bangert-Drowns, 1983-84; Kulik, Kulik, & Cohen, 1980; Kulik & Kulik, 1985; 1987; 1991; Niemec & Walberg, 1987; Reinking & Bridwell-Bowles, 1992; Waxman, 1992). In general, across educational levels, word processing enhances the quaintly of writing, and the ease of editing, though not necessarily the quality of writing. Computer simulations, educational games, and databases enhance problem solving skills. Computer based laboratories and simulations give students a deeper understanding of math and science concepts. Databases improve students ability to process large amounts of information. Perhaps the greatest successes, however, has been computers providing access for special populations to writing and reading, or for remote populations via distance education. These gains compare favorably to other interventions though some argue individual tutoring is more cost effective (Jamison, Suppes, & Wells, 1974).

When looking at the use of technology in reading in developmental education specific, CAI has had a significant improvement in most of the studies on posttests in terms of achievement as well as on attitude toward computers, but little or no transfer beyond the computer lab to improved reading performance in other classes or improved habits or attitudes (Dixon, 1993; Havlicek & Coulter, 1982; Kester, 1982; Lang, 1992; Mikulecky & Adams, 1988; Walker, 1992; Wepner & Feeley, 1987; Wepner, 1989). Six studies, actually found no improvement or worse performance on posttests measuring achievement (Balajthy, 1988; Balajthy, et. al, 1985; Burke, et. al, 1992; Feeley & Wepner, 1986; Read, 1992; Taylor & Rosecrans,1986).

Similarly, the use of technology in writing significantly improves performance on posttests measuring the grammar, punctuation, and spelling skills, but there is usually only a slight improvement in the quality of writing (Rudisill & Jabs, 1976; Tillett, 1992; Zoller, 1975).

Significant improvement came when using CAI to teach math in developmental education settings when using as dependent variables achievement on posttests, transfer beyond remedial setting, or attitudes (Bengis, et. al, 1991; Cox, 1987; 1990; Crumb & Monroe, 1993; Gucker, 1992; Hajdukiewicz, 1992; Judd, et. al, 1971; Plomp, Reinen, & Pilon, 1990; Reglin & Butler, 1989; Sherman, 1975; Wood, 1992).

Similar gains came when using CAI to teach study skills in developmental education. Several studies documented significant growth in achievement and transfer for teaching library skills (Champion, 1986; Lawson, 1987; Madland & Smith, 1988; Sugranes et. al, 1986), semantic maps (Blanchard, et. al, 1985), note taking (Shell, Horn, & Severs, 1988, cited in Bialo, 1990), and general study skills (Brown & Forristall, 1983; 1986; Gadzella, 1982; 1991). Two studies found no gain when using CAI for study skills (A comparison of traditional vocational training with a vocational training model infusing remedial academic skills training, 1986; Herrmann, 1982).

An interesting phenomenon that occurred in marketing CAI to developmental education in the late 1980s was the development of Integrated Learning Systems (ILS). Here, a technology firm would create a group of CAI into one system typically delivered over a local area network (i.e., a group of computers networked together with the software accessed from a server) with computer managed instruction (i.e., a diagnostic-prescriptive system for identifying the developmental student’s weakness, computer directed remediation of the weakness, monitoring and re-teaching if necessary, and report generation of student performance and attendance). Several systems emerged including PLATO, CCC (Computer Curriculum Consortium), Skills Bank, Academic DeskLab, Jostens, PALS (Principles of Alphabet Literacy System), WASATCH CRS (Computer Resource Systems), and WICAT (World Instruction for Computer-Assisted Teaching) which is more holistic in educational theory (Turner, 1993). While the research on ILSs is rather sparse, it generally mirrors the research on stand-alone CAI. That is, there are some documented successes when looking at achievement and attitude on posttests, but there is little if any transfer beyond the computer lab to success in other classes (Becker, 1992; Freer, 1986; Maddux & Willis, 1992; Peterson & Williams, 1990). However, caution is warranted when considering these systems as most of the research that used post-secondary populations and promotes ILSs was completed by the marketing firm of the ILS and is less than adequate (Braun, 1990; Olson & Krendl, 1990-1991).

It would seem on the surface that using the computer as a tutor seems to be viable strategy for developmental education. However, looking deeper into these research studies, there were some disturbing negative trends that emerged in these CAI tutorial applications suggesting that the computer as a tutor may be limiting. CAI seems to widened the gap between rich and poor, male and female, and Anglo and other ethnic populations (Becker, 1983-1984 cited in Kleifgen, 1989). Moreover, there is a distinct Matthew effect (i.e., documented gains in low level skills, but also results in the academically rich getting richer and the academically poor getting poorer; Waxman, 1992) associated with CAI where traditionally underserved minority populations generally were limited to low level drill and practice rather than the higher thinking skills of problem solving or simulation.

This need not be the case, however, as useful gains can occur when using computers as more than just tutors. Setting up a collaborative learning environment can make it successful. The quality of writing can be improved via both a process writing model and the use of a computer. The computer can encourage social interactions because the screen makes the text visible to others and the ease of revision allows the group to discuss and test alternatives. Group work with writing engenders spoken and written language with both fostering reading and writing of the text. This positive effect is true for both Anglo and ESL populations (Mehan, Moll, & Riel, 1985).

Other research has found that limited English proficient populations (LEP) can improve linguistically and academically when given access to problem solving tasks, word processing, communications software, particularly when using it collaboratively (Diaz, 1984; Mehan, et al., 1985; Sayers, 1989). Female students have increased interest in and access to technology when computers are integrated into language arts with group writing becoming an entry point for computer literacy for females (Hawkins, 1985). Electronic mail (e-mail ) can provide a forum, a real audience, a goal, and a motivation for using all literacy skills as students share with others their knowledge (Levin, Riel, Boruta, & Rowe, 1984).

In conclusion, the computer as tutor can be of some help to developmental education but might be only in a rather limited way. Much of this lack of success may be the result of a limited application of computer technology. Overall, developmental education has been shown to effective when using standardized tests and local evaluation criteria, but only having limited effectiveness when using transfer to other courses, or academic retention (Bonham & Kulik, 1990). This may be the result of developmental education generally following an empiricist perspective. Using the computer as tutor through CAI also builds on an empiricist perspective. It is not surprising, then, that using computer technology in the same manner will demonstrate similar limited gains (Henderson, 1992). A detrimental side-effect of such limited results is computer backlash with decision makers expecting more from the technology than a computer as tutor can give (Maddux, Johnson, & Willis, 1992).

Perhaps, we need to redefine how we are using technology in developmental education. Often it is assumed by the naive that all high-tech is good. Using this assumption has two limitations: (1) it makes the developmental educator dependent on the technologically elite to decide what is valuable; that encourages a dependency of a majority on a few; (2) technology has not necessarily improved personal happiness and contentment in the majority (Puk, 1992). Technology is more than computers. Perhaps, a better definition of technology for developmental education is “knowledge based know how” (Puk, 1992, p.115); that is, a systematic method of achieving a practical purpose. Therefore, using the computer as tutor has limited applications because we have used computers to transmit knowledge rather than using computers to create knowledge. The research findings above suggest that while old ways of using computers are sufficient, it is not good enough.



Where we are now: The computer as tool

Where we are now with computer technology is using it as a tool. That is, using computers and other technologies to discover new knowledge via a rationalist perspective. While computer tool technology (such as word processing, data bases, spreadsheets, desktop publishing, and telecommunications) have existed in developmental education for years (Broderick, et al., 1988; 1992), students have learned about the technology rather than using the technology to learn. When we have taught students how to use the technology to learn, research results has been positive for improving writing (Burns, 1984; Deutsch, 1988; Ludovici, 1992; Perez, 1992). In these studies, word processing was used along with CAI and developmental students discovered how to write.

Still, only a few examples of computer as tool in developmental education at the college level have emerged in the literature. Here, computer tool technology was used to teach students about ordination and relationships (Caverly & Broderick, 1993, April; Caverly & Nicholson, 1993, October; Caverly, Sundin, Nicholson, & Oelke, 1990, October), to teach in studying textbooks (Hannafin, 1992), and to improve reading and writing (Caverly, McKool, & Peterson, 1994, March; Kleifgen, 1989; O’Hear, 1991). Similar results for math and study skills have not yet evolved in the literature.

Given the potential of computers as tool technology, more research should be done. On the other hand, perhaps our research efforts should go into exploring the computer as a device for communicating. That is, using the computer as a tutee.



Where we are going: The computer as tutee

Where we are going with technology will be the third role of Taylor (1980), that of the computer as tutee. Hypermedia and telecommunications are changing the classroom and the workplace for which we are preparing developmental students (Kearsley, 1990; Malone & Rockart, 1991; Strudler, 1992). Technology is becoming what one author calls a “cognition enhancer” for the worker (Dede, 1989, p.23). Technology creates an empowering environment as the workplace is adjusted with the machine doing many of the routine, mundane tasks and the human doing higher level thinking. Technology has even entered the workplace of previously low-skilled jobs such as the auto mechanic or the shoe salesperson. Hypermedia allows the auto mechanic to diagnose a problem in an ever increasing complexity of the automobile. It will allow a shoe salesperson to measure your feet with a laser, display shoe styles and colors via a compact disk, and produce a custom-made shoe via computer aided manufacturing (Dede, 1989).

In the longer run, our environments will change to where ubiquitous computing will be common; that is, where the computer of the 21st century will consist of “tabs, pads, and boards” (Weiser, 1991, p. 98). Much like the environment dramatized on Star Trek: The Next Generation ™, computers will be almost invisible. Networked together and changing in each new environment we will have a post-it note size “tab” like Picard’s badge. Activated through voice command, this badge will allow us to communicate with any number of 100 or so microcomputers per room while at the same time monitoring our location for others to communicate with us. We will have legal size “pads”, like Data’s tricorder, that will allow us to document our individual thoughts through a keypad as we make sense of environment. Information added to our pad will be automatically “uploaded” to a main computer available to everyone, if desired. We will have bulletin-board size “boards”, much like the main view screen, where information can be presented to a group with each member contributing their unique perspectives, as does Riker, Troi, and Geordi. Together they come to a communal understanding. This community of learners will be extended to every aspect of our environment as “away teams” will collaboratively seek and understand new information. Virtual reality, the hot new technology of today, will be relegated to entertainment as in the holideck. Thus, rather than a machine to be mastered, computers will be ubiquitous and omnipresent in our homes, workplaces, and schools. All the parts of such a ubiquitous system are present today in research labs such as the described by Weiser (1991). By the turn of the century, they we be as commonplace as the telephone.

What will this mean for developmental students at the turn of the century. Let’s take a typical student called Cori. As she wakes up in the morning, she unplugs her “pad” that her parents purchased when she matriculated into college. Reading her e-mail messages about writing home, she replies by requesting money. Pressing a function key she reviews her schedule for the day realizing she has a paper for English Literature due later in the week. An hour later she is sitting in her Chemistry class taking notes using a stylus onto her “pad” as it converts her scribbles into Helvetica typed font. Her professor solves an equation on the “board” and it is automatically downloaded into her notes for the day. Having a free period, she sits under a large oak tree to begin her Chemistry lab experiment in the simulation provided on her pad. She presses another function key, confused as to whether to add a base or an acid, and reviews the videotape of the morning lecture automatically archived in the library. Because the experiment takes longer that she expected, she is ten minutes late for her Japanese class. Rather than entering class late, she presses another function key and attends the class through the interactive video placed discretely placed at the top of her pad. She is able to catch up with the class in five minutes reviewing the videotape in fast forward with the “dead air” of pauses automatically deleted. Because she was catching up with the class, she was unable to participate. Now that she is in real-time, however, she views the professor through one window, her classmates through another window, the board through yet another window, and joins in the pronunciation of past tense verbs.

After lunch, she returns to her room to continue working on her paper for English Lit. Accessing the library through another function key, she searches through electronic databases and reads electronic versions of books and journals on her topic about southern gentlemen in Faulkner’s novels. She found one text in the Cambridge University library suggesting Rhett Butler, from the movie Gone with the Wind , was the prototypical southern gentleman. So, she accesses the movie from an archive in Kyoto, Japan and searches through finding short video clips to adds to her hypermedia paper. Logging out of the library, her pad automatically updates her bibliographic data base using MLA style for all the sources she found. Happy with her progress, she sends an e-mail copy of her outline to the other four members of her learning group producing this hypermedia paper.

Her friend, Jake, comes to her door requesting help with his paper. She sees that he has a reasonable draft, so she teaches him about grammar and spelling checkers. She suggests that he visit the campus learning center to learn more about using electronic databases. Turning Jake down for a date for dinner, she decides to attend an aerobic exercise class with the members of the Star Trek crew in the virtual reality gym. Finished with her exercise, she returns back to her dorm room, but realizes she left her pad in the locker room. She doesn’t worry about theft, however, because of the “tab” inside her pad is monitored by the campus police. She leaves an e-mail message on her roommates’ pad reminding herself to pick it up after Tectonics class. Exhausted after a full-day, she falls asleep wondering what tomorrow will bring.

Learning in higher education and on the job will thus shift from acquiring information to discussing and synthesizing knowledge. This knowledge will be constructed collaboratively in learning groups and gathered from hypermedia data bases through telecommunication. The learning strategies needed by students of tomorrow will include extracting and tailoring knowledge through creativity, flexibility, problem solving, decision making (often with incomplete data), complex pattern recognition, information evaluation and synthesis, holistic thinking, and even stressful ethical choices (Dede, 1989; Kay, 1991).

Students, like Cori, who will be successful in school and the workplace will be those able to dynamically explore and represent information, be able to experiment and problem solve, be socially awareness and exude self-confidence, have effective communication skills, have a positive orientation to the future, be a comfortable computer user, be an independent seeker of knowledge, yet still be able to work in collaboration with others, (Apple Classroom of Tomorrow, 1991; Braun, 1990; Dede, 1989; Held, Newson, & Peiffer, 1991; Hornbeck, 1990; Lee, 1990; Lieberman & Linn, 1991; Office of Technology Assessment, 1988; Olson, 1990; Spiro, et. al, 1988; Tierney, Kieffer, Stowell, Desai, Whalin, & Moss, 1992). Given this kind of education, the result will be a student educated in ways current standardized instruments may not be sensitive enough to measure (Kozma, 1991; 1992; Mitrani & Swan, 1990).

To prepare developmental students, like Jake, for this world, our instructional models will need to be adapted. We will need to use the computer and other technologies as a social constructive tutee (Brooks, 1990). That is, we will need to teach developmental students how to use the technology as a prosthetic device or extension of their minds to explore ideas beyond their immediate location in space and time. This definition extends Leuhermann’s (1980) definition of the computer as tutee and using the technology as a fabricator of ideas. Here, we are moving away from the transmission model and the discovery model to a social construction model of learning through technology (Duttweiler, 1992).

Such an educational environment can be created where learning can take place (Duffy, 1991). This environment would be characterized by rich contexts, authentic tasks, collaboration, evaluation via a variety of perspectives, abundance of tools for communicating, access to real-world problems, emphasis on reflective thinking, modeling of problem solving by experts, and apprenticeship/mentoring to guide learning. To better understand this future, let’s explore hypermedia and telecommunications and the current research using it for the construction of knowledge.



Hypermedia

Hypermedia might be defined as an information landscape consisting of a computer as an access point to text and graphics through data bases, audio and video through CD-ROM (compact disk read only memory), and other forms of data through telecommunication (Caverly & Broderick, 1993; 1989). In many ways, hypermedia emulates how we think using multiple nodes of information allowing for multiple paths for divergent thinking (Dede, 1989). Ideally, this paper would be in a hypermedia format where the reader could peruse it in his/her own way, reading the same articles as did the author, searching through additional articles using electronic data bases as did the author, even conversing with the author via electronic mail (see my e-mail address at the beginning).

Research is beginning to document the effectiveness of hypermedia for constructing an understanding of complex concepts such as literature analysis (Lang, 1992), answering imbedded questions while reading (Gillingham, 1992; Reinking, 1993), and the teaching of developmental learners (Hull & Rose, 1989; Hull & Rose, 1990; Hull, Rose, Fraser, & Castellano, 1990; Hull, Rose, Greenleaf, & Reilly, 1991; Reilly, Hull, & Greenleaf, 1992).

Developmental educators should extend this research by teaching developmental students how to construct hypermedia stacks (in Macintosh terms) or books (in IBM terms) about reading, writing, math, and study skills. As they work with their peers and the developmental educator constructing these hypermedia documents, both the developmental educators and students would become expert in these literacy skills.



Telecommunications

Another technology of the future will be telecommunications. The workplace of the 21st century will require workers who are information brokers; that is, workers who can search, access, evaluate, organize, and share ideas and perspectives on a variety of topics across cultural, economic, scientific, environmental, and political boundaries (Cummins & Sayers, 1990).

Developmental students can develop these abilities by exploring their world via telecommunications (Caverly & Broderick, 1993, in press; Caverly, McKool, & Peterson, 1984). While no examples of research on college developmental students exploring telecommunications could be found, several research studies were found using elementary and secondary students. Here, younger developmental students use telecommunications to communicate with peers around the corner and around the world. Using word processing, data bases, modems, and Internet (a world-wide telecommunication network), students explored, organized, and shared joint projects ranging from newspapers, to environmental position papers, to comparisons of living standards (Diaz, 1984; Jensen, 1992; Mehan, et al., 1985; Ross, Smith, Morrison, Ericson, & Kitabchi, 1989; Sayers, 1989; Zoni, 1992). The research results suggest that developmental students improved both linguistically and academically, particularly ESL students. A prominent component of these examples was the integration of technology and collaborative group work. Through social constructivism and technology, developmental students were better able to understand their world.

Perhaps the most obvious use of telecommunications today is distance education. The new majority of undergraduates are part-time, older, as well as varied in mobility, child care, job requirements, age, experience, economic, and ethnic characteristics. Some colleges are already using information technologies to offer academic programs to them via four ways: (a) direct instruction using textbooks, lectures, videotapes; (b) real-time conversations conversing with faculty, peers, and/or experts; (c) time-delayed conversations where these same players can exchange ideas over time and distance; (d) learning by doing working on realistic problems by acting and reflecting (Enrmann, 1990).

Distance instruction has been used for years via correspondence courses (Engler, 1978). Video now is enhancing distance education giving students the opportunity to pause, rewind, and view at comfortable times and places. For example, the National Technological University is one of the ten largest engineering graduate programs in the country though it has no buildings. Rather, it is a collaboration between 29 universities around the country using ITV (Instructional Television) classrooms to teach classes broadcast live to 275 industrial sites around country via satellite dishes. Real-time conferencing provides opportunity for students in various locations to work together to solve problems, debate with one another and the instructor. Recently, audiographing conferencing has emerged where students equipped with phone lines, audio equipment, computers, and modems can see and hear simultaneous images of all participants. Time-delayed conversations have been made available via fax or voice mail (and now Internet) to participate in a course at their own rate. Working on realistic problems allow students to act and reflect fostering deeper thinking. A modem based course is taught where each week a new problem is presented for students to learn enough to solve the problem, try out solutions, and communicate with the instructor as well as other students on potential answers (Ehrmann, 1990; Office of Technology Assessment, 1989). In the future we will have to prepare developmental students for the social and literary strategies that will be necessary for these technological innovations.



Conclusion
Education has gone through several evolutions. Writing as a tool emerged 5000 years ago and it transformed education from an oral transmission mode to freeing it over time and distance, but has required everyone to learn to write. The inventing of the printing press roughly 500 years ago made print widely available, but requires everyone to learn to read. Now, almost 50 years ago, the invention of the computer and its related technologies has had a similar profound impact on education. Everyone who will be successful as we move through the information age will have to learn how to learn through technology.

Some have estimated a learning curve for effectively integrating technology in the classroom is from 4 to 6 years (Anandam, et. al, 1991; Ely, 1990; Fulton, 1993; Sandholtz, Ringstaff, & Dwyer, 1990). Therefore, we must begin today learning to use the computer as tutee as we prepare developmental students for the future. Only then, as we help each other, will technology be truly integrated into developmental education.



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The Learning Assistance Center As I Lived It
Christ, Frank L.. “The Learning Assistance Center As I Lived It,” in Mioduski, Sylvia and Gwyn Enright (editors), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 15th and 16th ANNUAL INSTITUTES FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE PROFESSIONALS: 1994 AND 1995. Tucson, AZ: University Learning Center, University of Arizona, 1997. Pp. 1-14.

The Learning Assistance Center As I Lived It

Frank L. Christ, Emeritus CSU Long Beach Visiting Scholar, University of Arizona

In preparation for this presentation, I spent some time reflecting on my 25 years of involvement with the learning assistance movement. It seemed to me that I could best talk about this involvement by focusing on my experiences at CSU Long Beach where I founded and coordinated an all- university program Learning Assistance Support System (LASS). You can read about these early years in an article that the JOURNALOF DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION conunissioned when LASS was given the 1983 John Champaign Memorial Award for Outstanding Developmental Programs, an award sponsored by the National Association for Developmental Education (NADE). (1).

Before I discuss some of the attitudes and activities that I lived and that I see as critical to a successful learning assistance support program, a brief description of the CSULB Learning Assistance Support System as I lived it might be appropriate.

LASS began as an outreach program of the University Counseling Center, a department in the Student Services Division of the university. From its very beginning, LASS followed a systems approach that I had proposed earlier in an article in which the phrases “learning assistance” and learning assistance center” first appeared in the literature. In that article, a learning assistance center was defined as “…any place where learners, learner data, and learning facilitators are interwoven into a sequential, cybernetic, individualized, people-oriented system to service all students (learners) and faculty (learning facilitators) of any institution for whom LEARNING is important (2:39). ” That definition became the rationale for LASS.

In addition, the Learning Assistance Support System at CSULB differed significantly from previous academic support services by incorporating concepts and strategies from human development, the psychology of learning, educational technology, and corporate management into an operational rationale specific to higher education; by functioning as a campus-wide support system in a centralized operational facility; by vigorously opposing any stigma that it was ” remedial” and only for inadequately prepared, provisionally admitted, or probationary students; and by emphasizing “management by objectives” and a cybernetic subsystem of ongoing evaluation to elicit and use feedback from users for constant program modification. (2). A statement of LASS’s original mission, goals, and objectives can be found in an article written by the author for the first volume in a Jossey-Bass series entitled NEW DIRECTIONS FOR COLLEGE LEARNING ASSISTANCE (3).

As a comprehensive learning assistance support system, LASS designed and implemented individualized self-paced learning programs for class assignments, course enrichment, academic skills improvement, and standardized test preparation. LASS also designed and presented in-class workshops in time management, study-reading, [35]

listening/notemaking, and examination strategies upon invitation of interested faculty. In addition, LASS presented each semester a seven week series of learning skill workshops open to all students as well as personal efficiency skills workshops for senior administrators, university managers, faculty, and clerical staff. LASS also coordinated university-wide tutorials, a Math Lab, a Writing Center, and a Foreign Student Conversation Lab. LASS was also actively involved in the university required orientation classes where incoming students were introduced to its programs and where students participated in a computerized diagnostic/prescriptive study skills survey to sensitize them to their learning strengths and potential problems.

With this background in mind, let’s look at ten attitudes and activities that LASS management and staff lived to achieve not only a successful program at CSU Long Beach, but a program that has had many of its innovations and practices adapted by other postsecondary institutions.

1. THINK COMPREHENSIVE SERVICES. It is my belief that everyone on campus can benefit from a learning assistance center. It is my belief that every student, not just students who are regarded as skills deficient, but every student, regardless of class standing, grade point average or educational background, can benefit from a learning assistance center. It is my belief that every faculty member, every administrator, every staff member, and every alumnus can benefit from the programs and services of a learning assistance center.

2. GET AND MAINTAIN ADMINISTRATION AND FACULTY SUPPORT. Stephen Horn, President of CSU Long Beach during my years there, was a strong advocate of the LAC. At one faculty fall covocation, he exhorted the faculty to use the center not only for their students but for their own personal and professional improvement. In addition, regular, scheduled briefings to the School Deans and presentations at academic department meetings helped give other university components a sense of LASS ownership. LASS also maintained a close liaison with the University Faculty Development Office, the Learning Resources Center, the University Testing Office, the Computer Center, the Staff Personnel Office, Office of Minority Affairs, and the Academic Senate.

3. BE LEARNER-CENTERED. Everyone involved in LASS knew that the reason for its existence was service to its learners — not the management of a center, nor the center’s equipment and materials, nor any awards that it might receive. All its programs and services, its resources, and its personnel existed to assist learners to become academically and personally more efficient and effective.

4. USE A MANAGEMENT SYSTEM..As described earlier, LASS used Management By Objectives, adapted for higher education by Deegan and Fritz, as its xchief management philosophy. [4] Other systems such as Total Quality Management could be used to achieve similar results. Key words in this type of management are planned programs, user feedback, accountability, and cost-effectiveness. [36]

5. KEEP RECORDS FOR PROGRAM ACCOUNTABILITY, ANALYSIS, FEEDBACK, AND CHANGE. In the first two years of my service at CSULB, I kept a detailed ledger of all LASS activities and campus interactions. I reviewed this ledger every week, every month, and at the end of each semester to be aware of what I was doing and what results my actions had on the program, its users and other university components. My chief assistant, then a student assistant (later a nationally recognized learning assistance expert and a dynamic president of WCRLA), and I devised a data collection system to count LASS attendance by class standing, school affiliation, gender, program status, and ethnicity. These evaluation procedures, as described in 1973 can still be read as an adaptable model for learning assistance evaluation (5). A large MBO board, constructed and displayed in the Conference and Training Room, served as a weekly reminder of management expectations and and as a status report on stated annual objectives . LASS weekly staff meetings were held in the shadow of its stated mission, goals, and objectives. For LASS staff, a philosophy prevailed that LASS files, student logs, weekly program statistics, and annual reports were not worth keeping if they were not examined and used to increase program and learner efficiency and effectiveness .

6. MAINTAIN PROGRAM VISIBILITY ON CAMPUS. This was not a sometime activity. It was a planned campaign to have the learning assistance program recognized by the institution. Of the many ways that LASS used to publicize its programs in print: brochures, bookmarks, and three-hole punched program flyers; our experience tells us that the least expensive and most useful were its bookmarks. Bookmarks are generally not tossed away and can be placed in targeted textbooks with the cooperation of the campus bookstore. They can be handed out at presentations and inserted in orientation packets.

Another strategy for program visibility was making presentations on learning assistance and its programs and services to faculty at departmental meetings, to students at association, club, fraternity and sororiety meetings, and to incoming students at orientation sessions. Other strategies that LASS used included eye-catching signage and program displays, self-guided audio tours of the LAC (6) program descriptions not only in the major campus catalog but also in all semester course catalogues, as well as in faculty and staff handbooks, through spot campus radio announcements, and sponsorship of a campus/conimunity computer club with meetings held monthly in the LAC.

A final strategy that speaks to all of the above and delivers authenticity to a program’s attempt at campus visibility was a LASS Publicity Scrapbook. This 14 ” x 21 inch scrapbook became a permanent record week-by-week and semester-by-semester, of actual publicity in its hundreds of pages that contained clippings of all printed news releases, brochures, flyers, bookmarks — any printed matter that mentioned LASS, its programs, its staff. For senior administrators and VIP’s visiting the center, this scrapbook itself was publicity.

7. EXPLOIT TECHNOLOGY FOR INCREASED STUDENT LEARNING AND FOR A MORE EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE PROGRAM. From its beginning, LASS espoused a philosophy that placed technology at the service of the learner. This meant [37]

giving the learner media options, previewing material with the learner, pairing learners if possible, having a media and a content/skill specialist available when the learner has a question or problem, and requiring feedback or a post-test after the learner completes a module.

8. THINK RESOURCES RATHER THAN MONEY. LASS was no different than other learning assistance programs. There was no line-item budget and no recognized staffing. To overcome this fiscal challenge, LASS adopted a philosophy that involved rethinking resources. Program materials were acquired through library funds, reassignment of all library progrannned texts and learning skills materials to LASS, faculty and staff donations of course-related learning aids, and through cooperative grant writing with other departments. Increased staffing of 50 or more adjunct faculty annually was made possible through the use of volunteers from the local conununity, faculty spouses, graduate education students, and interns. High level management consultants were bartered for out-of-pocket expenses and exchange agreements to conduct program and management evaluations.

9. BE A PROFESSIONAL. One of the attitudes that prevails among postsecondary administrators and faculty is the attitude that learning assistance and developmental education people are not as professional as “real” faculty and administrators. And sadly, at times it is true; we are not as professional. We would be, however, if we joined and actively participated in our professional associations. Everyone of us is capable of becoming an officer in our association if we get involved with it. Like our peers at our institutions, we should consider presentations, publications, community involvement, and consultancies as part of our professional responsibilities. The LASS staff at CSULB was actively involved in all these activities making regular presentations at regional and national association conferences, publishing articles and reviews in professional journals, and consulting with postsecondary institutions on learning assistance and with business and industry on personal efficiency and managerial skills. If I were still active as a learning assistance administrator today, I would include involvement with listserves and World Wide Web sites as significant professional responsibilities.

10. PERSIST, PERSIST, PERSIST. Credibility and acceptance do not come innnediately to a new program, especially a program that is not considered a traditional academic program. Institutional change to a learning assistance perspective must be planned carefully. One of the sources that I found useful as I attempted to institutionalize LASS, came from an article in a business publication. Entitled, “Company Planning Must be Planned, ” this article helped me to avoid much of the administrative, faculty, and student conflict that ordinarily would have occurred as LASS introduced its programs and services. I have used its suggestions to help me understand when and how change was acceptable to my institution and to introduce LASS programs and services that were academically non-traditional (1).

New administrators of learning assistance programs may want to consider how they can begin to implement one or more of the exhortations above. Experienced [38] administrators might review their programs as to student, faculty and administrative support, its learner-centeredness, system of management, collection and use of program data, program visibility, use of technology, staff professionality, and finally, persistence in achieving the best possible program for their institution.

As I lived these 25 years in the learning assistance movement, I have enjoyed the institutional challenges and the management crises that seem inevitable in higher education. I am grateful to have worked with so many dedicated students, faculty, administrators, campus staff, and alumni. When I finally and reluctantly achieved Emeritus status, I promised myself that I would try to stay alive in learning assistance.

References

Besse, R.M. “Company Planning Must Be Planned,” DUN’S REVIEW, April, 1957.

Christ, Frank L. “An Audio Tour of a University Learning Assistance Center,” T.H.E. JOURNAL, Volume 6, Number 1 (January, 1979), pp. 50-51.

Christ, Frank L. “Learning Assistance at California State University, Long Beach, 1972-84, ” JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL EUCATION, Volume 8, Number 2, 1984, pp. 2-5.

Christ, Frank L. “Learning Assistance at a State University: A Cybernetic Model” in Kurt Lauridsen (Ed.), NEW DIRECTIONS FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE: EXAMINING THE SCOPE OF LEARNING CENTERS, No. 1. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980, pp. 45-56.

Christ, Frank L. “Systems for Learning Assistance: Leamers, I-&arning Facilitators, and Learning Centers,” PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOURTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE WESTERN COLLEGE READING ASSOCIATION, 1971, Volume 4, pp. 32-41.

Deegan, Arthur and R.J. Fritz, MBO GOES TO COLLEGE. Boulder, COLO: University of Colorado, 1975. [change to new edition bib]

Devirian, Margaret. “Data Collection: A Cybernetic Aspect of a Learning Assistance Center PROCEEDINGS OF THE SIXTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE WESTERN COLLEGE READING ASSOCIATION, 1973, Volume 8, pp. 1-92. [39]

LAC, LRC, and Developmental Education: An Orientation for the Beginning Learning Center Professional


Enright, Gwyn . “LAC, LRC, and Developmental Education: An Orientation for the Beginning Learning Center Professional,” in Mioduski, Sylvia and Gwyn Enright (editors), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 15th and 16th ANNUAL INSTITUTES FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE PROFESSIONALS: 1994 AND 1995. Tucson, AZ: University Learning Center, University of Arizona, 1997. Pp. 40-47.


M. Scott Momaday spoke at San Diego City College to commemorate a year long series of events sponsored by the Fund for the Humanities. Momaday, a Kiowa Indian, has written many Indian folk tales and has won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection, House Made of Dawn. He is also an artist and his art work was exhibited last year at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. When I took his literature seminar at UCSB, we read The Way to Rainy Mountain, which documents his pilgrimage reenacting the Kiowa’s migration from Montana and Wyoming to the Southwest. In it, he describes with great power, the land and the American Indian’s special relationship to the land. So, it wasn’t surprising when Momaday spoke in San Diego on the topic, “A Sense of Place. ” When he began his talk, he shared a personal anecdote. To honor him, for his accomplishments as an under represented person in the Hall of Accomplishments, a well meaning organization had just awarded him “The Ellis Island” award. The irony of such an award – and the accompanying offer to use the organization’s computing network and data retrieval service to determine when his ancestors first arrived on the continental United States – was not lost in Momaday. It was from this strong sense of place, of belonging here, that this American Indian spoke.

After about 25 years of reading, writing, and thinking about learning centers, I believe it is a sense of place that’s key to the definition of Learning Assistance Centers. When Frank Christ defined Learning Assistance Centers, he began his definition by saying first that the LAC was “a place. ” (Christ, 197 1). When I borrowed Christ’s definition in order to have a yardstick for tracing the origins of the Learning Assistance Center in 1975, 1 wrote that the LAC was “a place concerned with learning within and without, functioning primarily to enable students to learn more in less time with greater ease and confidence; offering tutorial help, study aids in the content areas and referrals to other helping agencies; serving as a testing ground for innovative machines, materials, and programs (Christ, p. 35) and acting as campus ombudsman. (Kersteins, p. 39.)” Thus, I think the territory or real estate itself is central to the Learning Assistance Center concept. It is the place and its ecology that distinguishes the Learning Assistance Center from the isolated reading improvement class, the study skills seminar, the sununer orientation, and the tutorial session.

Much has been written about the learning center client, the non traditional student. Troyka (1982) called the 1980s the decade of the Nontraditional Student and described the nontraditional student as one who is older, a first generation college attendee, single or married with children, a returning woman, foreign born, and/or a full time employee: “They work on construction crews, in restaurants, as practical nurses, on the police force; some are on welfare. Many nontraditional students barely finished high school and thus [40] were graduated without strong literacy skills. Some never finished high school and have been admitted to college on waivers. Others dropped out of high school but later decided to earn an equivalency diploma, a credential more difficult to acquire than a regular diploma” (p. 253). She continues, “Nontraditional students come to academe with resources not usually used or even recognized in college. ” A decade earlier, in Beyond the Open Door, Pat Cross (1971) described the nontraditional student’s background as both financially and educationally ilinpoverished. Nontraditional students have been described by Cross, Maxwell, Roueche and Snow, Mink, Rotter and others as having external locus of control and being field dependent – characteristics associated with poor academic performance. The nontraditional student is accustomed to academic failure. In Error and Expectations (1977), Mina Shaughnessy sunnnarized the predicament of the student caught in the catch 22 of a typical composition assignment. The student must explain something to someone who already knows it, so the student can find out what he or she said wrong: “…academic writing is a trap, not a way of saying something to someone. The spoken language, looping back and forth between speakers, offering chances for groping and backing up and even hiding, leaving room for the language of hands and face, of pitch and pauses, is generous and inviting. Next to this rich orchestration, writing is but a line that moves haltingly across the page, exposing as it goes all that the writer doesn’t know, than passing into the hands of a stranger who reads it with a lawyer’s eyes, searching for flaws” (Shaughnessy, p. 7). Mike Rose, in his autobiographical book, Lives on the Boundary (1989), may have described the nontraditional student most poignantly; the student is not at home in the academy. Without learning skills, knowledge of academic discourse, or academic etiquette, he or she feels on alien ground; the college or university is not his or her place and many faculty would agree that this student does not belong in their classes or on their campus.

Where can this student go? Obviously, he can leave, having given the college experience a try. Astin and his associates have established through their research and Rose demonstrates through his anecdotes that students might stay in college if they can affiliate with a campus organization or club, a campus job, or a professor. In a 1992 article in Research in Developmental Education, Suelia McCrimmon cites Vincent Tinto (1987, p. 184), “persistence arises from the social and intellectual rewards accruing to competent membership in the communities of the college and from the impact that membership has upon individual goals and commitments. ” This connection to the institution bolsters retention. The learning center is the nontraditional students place. Here, he or she finds scholastic and affective support, a chair or sofa, and sometimes a cup of coffee.

Are all centers the same? Depending on the local origin of the Center, the campus politics and the tastes of the Center director, Centers will have a wide range of names. The number of these amusing titles have been documented elsewhere. But the two fundamentally distinct centers are the Learning Assistance Center and the Learning Resources Center. In a 1980 article included in the Jossey-Bass New Directions for College Learning Assistance, Enright and Kerstiens summarize the philosophical distinction. They write that the LAC is directed to helping students become successful learners while assuming modes of instruction will remain relatively constant. On the other hand, the LRC is dedicated to provided innovative instructional delivery systems in order to better accommodate nontraditional students. These two directions for trying to effect a better match between the nontraditional student and the established curriculum of the institution results in other differences. While the learning Assistance Center Director is more likely to report to a Dean of Counseling or Student Services, the Learning Resources Center Director probably reports to the Dean of Library Services. While one is housed in the student services, the other is located in the library. One is more likely to emphasize hardware, while the other is more likely to emphasize human ware. Workshops on time management can be found in or sponsored by the LAC; newly developed courseware offering students practice on needed math competencies can be found in the Learning Resource Center. Roughly – and perhaps unfairly – a LRC professional talks about things and an LAC professional talks about services. Typically neither offers credit classes or has departmental status. One characteristic both centers share (theoretically) is both are frequented by learners of all skill levels.

In 1975, two colleagues and I conducted a survey of all higher educational institutions in the United States (Devirian, Enright and Smith). We were interested in where and what we called “program-centers” were administratively and how extensively they had taken root. We found Learning Assistance Centers, located organizationally under student services and established on four year campuses. We found, at that time, four year campuses had fewer program/centers than two year institutions and that the program/centers on two year campuses were likely to have originated not in counseling centers like the LAC or in libraries like the LRC, but in Academic Departments. The Center was often called something like the Study Skills Center and it may have originated in the Psychology, Reading or English Department. The program/center might have been updated from the Reading Laboratory or the Writing Center. For example, on my campus, we now have a Writing, Critical Thinking, and English as A Second Language Center under the auspices of the English Department. These program/centers found in nearly all two year colleges tended to offer classes, often for credit. Since our survey, support services for nontraditional students have been found to be more equally distributed across two and four year institutions and, of course, the program/center names have undergone cross fertilization. But, the constant remains that the center is a place where nontraditional students are welcome. The extent to which the students feel they belong in the Center depends usually on factors like the personality and the philosophy of the director, the involvement of peer tutors and counselors, the procedures and the layout of the center itself.

Learning Assistance Centers and Learning Resource Centers differ from Developmental Education programs because Developmental Education programs often lack location. Most philosophically compatible to Learning Assistance Centers, the developmental education movement is rooted in developmental theory and its concomitant belief in personal and intellectual growth. McCrinnnon in “A Foundation for Developmental Education: Three Approaches,” (1992) maintains developmental education is based on the humanism of Carl Rogers (1969) and Abraham Maslow (1967); the developmental theory of Erickson (1963), Chichering (1969) and Perry (1981); and the behaviorism of Skinner (1954) and Mager (1967). Hunter Boylan has pointed out that a comprehensive developmental education program includes classes plus support adjuncts for those classes. Thus tutoring or a lab might be part of the developmental program, but the thrust of the program will be classes the student takes to become more self actualized and a more competent learner. In books like Overcoming Learning Problems and A Modest Proposal: Students Can Learn, John Roueche and his colleagues outline principles compatible with developmental education: nontraditional students should not be thrown into the regular baccalaureate level college program without adequate preparation and should not take a full course load while they are struggling to improve their skills and to adapt to the college or university culture. Consequently, developmental education programs, despite their theoretical basis, often look like a series of interrelated skills classes comprising a separate department or unit administratively or curricularly isolated from the main educational enterprise. If LRC people talk in terms of things, and LAC people talk in terms of services, then developmental educators talk in terms of classes.

The multiplicity of names and structures of Learning Assistance Centers, Learning Resource Centers, and Developmental Education programs can be confusing, especially for someone new to the field of college reading and learning. For example, as a component of the overall administrative umbrella, Learning Resource Centers might offer short term classes in orientation to the library or in computer literacy while as a subordinate feature of the overall developmental education program, the department might include a learning skills center. In fact, Gary Peterson in his book, The Learning Center: A Sphere for Nontraditional Approaches to Education, conceptualizes the Learning Assistance Center as one necessary component of the Learning Resources Center – the component offering human help. Yet, elements found in most centers or desired by most centers are pretty consistent. Brinda Van (1992), listed features gleaned from successful college Learning Assistance Programs. The most important, according to Van, was systematic planning and clear goals compatible with the institutional needs (p. 29). She also included the following variables: written policies, procedures and goal statements indicating the institution’s commitment to nontraditional students; administrative support; divisional or departmental status; a director and staff who have volunteered to work with nontraditional students; different instructional methodologies so students can work at their own pace; support services aimed to help students develop affective characteristics associated with student success; assessment to place students in the correct course level and finally evaluation which is both formative and summative. Marsha Odom in a 1992 presentation to the Fifth Annual Midwest Regional Reading and Study Skills Conference, described elements of a learning center. Her presentation was titled, “Incorporating New Technologies into an Academic Assistance Center.” She included a mission statement, needs assessment, and literature review in formulating her plan. Features already in place included tutoring, courses, walk-in and referral services. Features on Odom’s wish list for the future center included short term basic skills classes using interactive software; more uses for innovative technology; improved referral systems designed with the counseling center; supplementary activities to support courses like American History, Economics and Accounting; faculty and staff development; stronger campus relations and communications; improved data management systems and beefed up evaluation reports. For her doctoral dissertation, Elaine Bums did an extensive analysis of components and their characteristics in two year college learning assistance centers. From her analysis, she proposed a model Learning Assistance Center, which will be included in the 1992-93 Proceedings of the Annual Winter Institute for Learning Assistance. The components of the Learning Assistance Center model are testing, staff training, developmental laboratories, such as the math lab, reading lab, and writing lab; developmental courses; counseling; advisement; study skills; computer assisted instruction; multimedia delivery systems for learning; tutoring; on-going publicity and public relations; printed instructional programs and materials. Bums also includes supplemental instruction in the model along with study skills appointments and workshops and tutoring by appointment and/or drop in. When fleshed out the Public Relations component includes orientations, brochures, flyers, bookmarks, presentations, meetings, and campus publications. In addition to describing the components an idealized LAC should have, Bums also listed the attributes those components should exemplify; she called these “characteristics.” They included individualized and self paced learning, learner centered envirorunent, centralized resources, diagnostic testing, perspective recommendations, administratively and faculty supported, readily accessible to learners, visible to the campus community, effective interrelationships with other programs, departments, services on campus, cybernetic, and open to all students. Of these thirteen characteristics, nine focus on the nature of the Learning Assistance Center as a place for students – especially the characteristic of ” learner-centered environment.”

In 1978, Sullivan published the results of a national survey of learning centers in A Guide, to Higher Education Learning Centers in the United States and Canada. Components he included in his definition were instructional resources, instructional media, learning skill development, tutoring and instructional development, (p. 104). In the first edition of Improving Student Learning Skills (1979), Martha Maxwell explains the learning center: “learning centers assist students in basic skills and learning beyond the assistance that faculty members have time for during their class sessions and office hours. ” She goes on to explain, “Many learning centers offer students such multiple services as individual and group skills programs, tutoring, preparation for graduate and professional exams, media and materials for self paced instruction. Some concentrate their programs on special groups such as student athletes, the disadvantaged, or international students; others serve all students. Some offer credit for reading and other skill courses; others do not. Whatever the local title, learning centers are found in public and private colleges, two and four year institutions, universities, and graduate and professional schools” (p. 105). In her guidebook, Maxwell also lists components of effective learning centers. First is institutional commitment, which means adequate resources, program acceptance by the campus community, institutionalization so services are available to all students and a central location in a spacious and attractive facility. She also lists systematic data collection and evaluation; flexible scheduling and delivery systems; attention to staff/client compatibility and case load; and clear entrance and exit criteria. Staff should be trained, evaluated and resemble the ethnic proportions of the Center’s clients. Materials should reflect student needs and faculty expectations. Finally, faculty acceptance and close working relations with faculty are crucial to the program’s success. Thus, there are many components of learning centers; they offer students diagnostic and mastery testing as well [44] as test preparation. They offer content area and learning skills tutoring by appointment and by drop in, one on one and in small groups. They offer single concept and basic skills classes, workshops, presentations and handouts. They provide academic, career and sometimes personal counseling. They offer information and self instruction in a variety of multi-media and computer fonnats. Through a variety of delivery systems, learning centers offer adjunct and supplemental instruction to augment in-class learning. In addition, learning centers also include opportunities for staff and faculty development, for innovative programs, material, and equipment, for systematic management and communication systems and on going evaluation. But primarily, they offer the nontraditional student a sense of place. The importance of territory is illustrated when veteran Learning Center directors, such as Martha Maxwell, discuss where the learning center is housed; “Given the choice, I would select the facilities that are most conveniently located for students over a fancy suite of offices on the fifth floor of an office building on the periphery of the campus” (p. 133).

These LAC attributes were written about the programs of the 1970s and 1980s. What about the Learning Assistance Center and the Learning Resource Center of the 1990s? Programmed instruction has given way to collaborative groups. Individualized drill has bowed out to testing in which answers can be negotiated. Audio visual equipment has been replaced by microcomputers. The need for flexible space remains the same. In a quick review of articles in ERIC RIDE, JCRL, and the Journal of Developmental Education, I found several descriptions of and prescriptions for successful programs. Most assumed the availability of a flexible centrally located space. In her review of the professional literature, Brinda Van (1992) cities, “Ample facilities in a centralized location… communication with other departments… individualized instruction… and a highly visible facility for innovation and change” as ingredients for success. Kathleen McDermott Hannafin (1991) writes at risk students need to learn how to learn, how to adapt to the university, and they also need support in their content classes. She recommends using technology to implement self study courses in laboratory setting. “Electronic media offers portability, modularity, access, nonrecurring costs, logistical superiority, instructional quality control, automated management and optimization of facilities. ” She goes on to describe computer based math and learning skills, mini lessons available to students at Florida State University . In RIDE, Hunter Boylan and his colleagues published “A Research Agenda for Developmental Education,” which was based on a round table forum at the first National Conference on Research in Developmental Education. In his discussion of retention, Boylan cites the research of Boylan and Bonham (1992) which establishes the positive relationship between centralized programs and resources and both student retention and GPA. A flexible facility allows for centralization of programs and resources. Monica Wyatt (1992) traced the history of reading programs, concluding college reading programs were needed in the future to assist large numbers of minorities or non Anglos succeed in college. Wyatt mentions the failure of early developmental courses to retain open admissions students and notes as one exception the Higher Educational Opportunity Program (HEOP) in New York, which assists students through diagnostic testing, critical thinking and communications classes and learning centers (p. 18). In January the 1994 issue of the Journal of Reading, Jim Reynolds and Stuart Wemer propose more emphasis on individual learner styles in college reading and study skills courses. Justified by the diversity of students, this individually tailored approach to the learning process as opposed to the “one size fits all approach” can be best carried out in the learr-ung center. Several authors reconnnend interdisciplinary and integrated instruction for underprepared students; application and transfer is crucial to the student’s goals. Again, I think it makes sense that these instructional elements come together in a place. One current model calls for team teaching augmented with small seminars for both students and participating faculty. Obviously, this cooperative learning model needs to happen in a learning center, not outside the English Department office or in the halls of the Biology or History Departments.

In Flippo and Caverly’s monograph, Teaching Reading and Study Strategies at the College Level (1991), they share their struggle with the lack of uniformity in program titles: “These programs have a variety of labels, including college reading and study skills,college reading improvement, learning strategies, special studies, developmental or remedial instruction, basic skills instruction, and compensatory education” (p. viii). They decided to let their contributors use whatever program titles they wanted. Frank Christ put together several learning center definitions on Lindex; they all begin with establishing territory:

“Learning Assistance Center is any place where learners, learner data and learning facilitators are interwoven into a sequential, cybernetic, individualized, people oriented system to service all students (learners) and faculty (learning facilitators) of any institution for whom learning by its students is important” (Christ, 1971).

“Learning Assistance Center is a place concerned with learning environment within and without, functioning primarily to enable students to learn more in less time with greater ease and confidence; offering tutorial help, study aids in the content areas and referrals to other helping agencies; serving as a testing ground for innovative machines, materials, and acting as campus ombudsman…” (Enright, 1975)

“A center (learning skills center) as we use the term, is a special location where students can come, or be sent, for special instruction not usually included in ‘regular’ college classes. Centers can exist within traditional departments – often though not always English departments – or they can be entities unconnected to other divisions of the college. They can offer individualized instruction, special classes, tutoring, or something in between” (McPherson, 1976).

And Christ includes a minimal definition:

“A Learning Assistance Center, as defined minimalistically, is a space, 10′ x 10′, located on a college campus with visibility and accessibility to all students and teachers, that contains one desk or table, two chairs, a file cabinet, a telephone, a trained professional, a referral system, and information database of all available campus and community programs, services, personnel, and materials that can assist students and teachers to improve learning efficiency and effectiveness. ” (Christ, 1988).

I predict that when non traditional students find that minimal piece of real estate and call it their own, that 10′ x 10′, space is going to get pretty crowded.

A Taxonomy of Learning Support Services
Kerstiens, Gene. “Taxonomy of Learning Support Services,” in Mioduski, Sylvia and Gwyn Enright (editors), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 15th and 16th ANNUAL INSTITUTES FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE PROFESSIONALS: 1994 AND 1995. Tucson, AZ: University Learning Center, University of Arizona, 1997. Pp. 48-51.

Taxonomy of Leaming Support Services by Gene Kerstiens, Andragogy Associates

During the past quarter-century, we have seen a considerable number of publications dealing with learning support services. But yet to appear are the results based on an authentic survey classifying these various programs according to what they do — the learning theory they espouse, the populations they propose to assess and serve, or the methods and staff they employ to obtain intended outcomes.

Nor is the writing at hand the result of a survey claiming objectivity or consensual validation. Rather, it emerges from personal experience during the same 25-year period: attending regional and national conferences, reading the professional literature, visiting and studying more than 200 program sites, interacting with colleagues, surfing the Internet, and, perhaps more pertinent to the present topical focus, regularly noting the employment requirements and preferences listed in position announcements and job descriptions. Awaiting a more detached study, this inevitably biased attempt at classification renders ftve types. These categories are presented neither as models nor as paradigms. But the nature and proportion of policies and practices perceived as specific to each type do rather clearly distinguish each from the others.

Developmental Programs

Developmental programs, sometimes referenced as developmental studies or developmental departments, regard students’ readiness to experience the rigors of college-level classes to be a chief consideration. Perceiving reading, writing, and mathematics to be areas of insufficiency that frequently cause learning problems, those working in developmental programs tend to rely on assessment instruments that measure these basic skills in order to place students in preparatory classes or programs. Developmental programs do not, however, always confine their learning support services exclusively to classrooms or courses. Nevertheless, their principal bill of offerings are likely to center on mandatory assignment of underprepared students to developmental courses In order to advance them in the curriculum. Confidence that assessing students’ proficiencies early-on and improving specific skills in corridor interventions before their exposure to what is considered a rigorous curriculum serves as rationale for developmental programs.

Accordingly, it is not uncommon to encounter directors and other staff serving developmental programs enlisted from the ranks of the instructional component of the institution. In contrast to some other learning support directors and practitioners, they are more likely to be housed as faculty in their own department and/or as a separate instructional unit. And as faculty are accustomed to functioning in classes measured in semester/quarter time frames, developmental services incline toward a course/curricular avenue to enrollment in courses with prerequisites.

Leaning Assistance Centers

Learning assistance or learning centers also regard basic skills proficiencies — reading, writing, math, listening, note-taking, test-taking skills– as strong contributors to student success. But even though their facilities resemble developmental services types in this and other ways, several features distinguish them from each other. Disposed to view basic skills assessment instruments with somewhat less confidence, learning assistance staff favor discretionary or voluntary referral to mandatory placement. Therefore, they place emphasis on offerings designed to help students who encounter difficulty at any time in their academic careers. Noticing that even those students whose measured skills levels that are healthy are liable to encounter serious learning difficulties in higher level courses, they offer more open-ended, open-exit services. This flexibility of scheduling is designed to offer support as unanticipated learning problems present themselves while courses causing difficulty are in progress. Consequently more varied measures such as handouts, workshops, mini-courses, mediated programs, content tutoring, and more diverse strategies customarily are available in a central location where students with various problems and levels of skill attainment work side by side. It is felt that the variety of learning resources and democratic client mix synergistically promotes motivation and minimizes stigma sometimes attached to segregated, corridor classes.

Learning center directors and their staff also are inclined to be transfers from the instructional side of the academy. However, they may comprise a more independent group of practitioners who, being interdisciplinary by nature, do not seek a home as a separate departmental entity but typically remain, like librarians, providers in a generic service facility.

Learning Resource Centers

From a learning theory perspective, learning resources contrast sharply with the first two types discussed. So does the service they provide. They effect to deliver alternative instruction to intelligent, well motivated students who, because their learning styles are special or because of diagnosed learning disabilities, will not or cannot improve their basic skills. These students seek other ways of learning that are more effective. To accommodate these distinct learning styles, learning resource staff house, circulate, and otherwise make available a host of supplemental materials serving students who learn differently but who are enrolled in content courses whose traditional, lecture-classroom-textbook delivery is unintelligible to or awkward for them. Additionally, learning resource centers also may provide mediated content courses rendered via audio cassette, radio, video (including telecourses), CAI, multimedia, distance learning, teleconferencing, and, more recently, modem based courses and instruction available on the Internet. Enrollment is voluntary, and courses completed through mediated delivery are awarded credit with the same weight as courses offered traditionally.

Not surprisingly, staff choosing or chosen to provide these services are trained to procure, catalogue, secure, distribute, and otherwise manage such materials — librarians or those prepared specifically to administer learning resources. And regularly these services are available in a learning resource center sometimes considered a subsidiary of the library.

Student Development Services

Aware that student success and retention are often related to factors in the affective domain, those working in student development programs direct their energies to emotional matters that can interfere with or enhance academic performance and student life. Their inclination is to view student readiness for higher education as acculturating to the academic world’s traditions, policies, ethics, protocol, and opportunities for negotiation and acceptance. They see their mission as helping students accommodate to academic life, feeling comfortable and effective in an envirorment that otherwise might prove unfamiliar or threatening. Accordingly, under their management we find voluntary, ongoing programs involving individual and group counseling, re-entry services, drug and alcohol abuse seminars, first-year experience programs, accommodative services for student athletes, high school to college articulation services, and opportunities for building relationships and community in cooperative learning programs.

Those appointed as student development faculty and staff are customarily enlisted from student affairs, counseling and guidance, or student personnel services. Given their focus on student retention, lately we find their mission related to that of the director of enrollment management, dean of students, and director of student life.

Compensatory Programs

Compensatory programs are designed to successfully sustain minority students in the life of the institution by providing, financial, personal, and academic support. Students qualify for these programs on the basis of minority racial or ethnic status, economic need, educational disadvantagement, or classification as being first generation to attend college. The result of affirmative action legislation, these programs are identified acronimically such as TRIO, EOP, and VEA Disadvantaged. While promoting an environment of multicultural pluralism, they provide intensive help through basic skills instruction, tutoring, counseling, and culturally enriching activities such as field trips to galleries and museums as well as visits to theatrical and musical performances. Purposefully assigned to assist these populations. directors and staff coordinate retention strategies in conjunction with the factulty and non-teaching professional staff.

Perhaps appropriately, directors, faculty and staff appointed to serve students in compensatory programs are those with the capacity to understand and deal with the distinct problems of minority students. It is not unusual, therefore, that directors of these are chosen from representatives of a population who have experienced and successfully coped with the special academic problems their clients encounter.

An Integrated Model Proposal

Of course, the foregoing descriptions are brief and therefore understandably incomplete. Readers will ask about other auxiliary student support services and how these are organized within or without the five types listed above. Writing centers, math labs, computer labs, tutoring services, and supplemental instruction figure in the student support mix, some of these as integral segments of a type, some of them as independent academic entities serving the student body at large. Again, there are probably in existence no distinctly ‘pure’ examples of learning support types as described here. Given a campus’s architectural ironies, the political climate, turf rivalry, or the inevitably changing chairs of institutional power, in many cases, the services offered by one type are subsumed by another so that the mix of services that a programatic type delivers can lack reasonable direction or sometimes logic itself.

However, that the complete array of services and strategies are needed on most campuses and that ideally services should be integrated to provide the most efficient and effective support for students is apparent. Therefore the following diagram exhibiting such an integrated model is reproduced for readers’ consideration.

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Twelve Key Questions to Answer and One Critical Issue in Designing and Implementing a Collegiate Learning Center

Smith, Karen G. “Twelve Key Questions to Answer and One Critical Issue in Designing and Implementing a Collegiate Learning Center,” in Mioduski, Sylvia and Gwyn Enright (editors), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 15th and 16th ANNUAL INSTITUTES FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE PROFESSIONALS: 1994 AND 1995. Tucson, AZ: University Learning Center, University of Arizona, 1997. Pp. 54-55.

Twelve Key Questions to Answer and One Critical Issue

in Designing and Implementing a Collegiate Learning Center

Karen G. Smith, Rutgers University



In order to plan and implement an academic support program in higher education, the answers to several important questions are needed. However, the first and most important step is the identification of these questions which need to be answered. This listing is intended as a guide to formulating the twelve key questions.

1 . What are the motivating factors behind the decision to implement a learning center? Increased retention? Recruitment? Increased G.P.A.’s? Assistance for targeted groups only? Etc., etc., etc. Can I clearly define each factor to be addressed by the learning center?

2. What are the expectations (demands) of the administration? Can I identify the expectations of the supervising agency (dean, vice-president, president, director) as well as all other administrative offices which had input to the decision to implement?

3. How can I balance the conflicting expectations which will arise in the development of the program(s)? Can I respond to the expectations of different divisions within the institution (faculty, athletics, dean, etc.) without compromising the program’s credibility with and for the students it will serve?

4. Where is the actual power? Financial power? Curricular within divisions, departments, colleges? Where are my friends? Which have power?

5. How will I (must I) assess actual need for academic support? Use research already completed? Campus research? Campus interviews with faculty? With administrators? With students?

6. How will the learning center respond to the various needs? Will I be limited to one or two services? What kind of service(s) will respond best to each need? How do I know? Do I have evidence from the literature, from research? Can I defend my decisions?

7. What will be the parameters of each of the learning center’s services? Must I define any limits to the qualifications of student users? Will each service be available on an unlimited basis to all students? Some students? Limited basis? Why? [54]

8. How should the learning center be staffed? full-time personnel? Professional staff? Support staff? Faculty? Student staff? Only graduate assistants? Only work-study? Volunteers? Each service staffed separately? Or will all be involved in all services?

9. What are the qualifications expected (desired, needed) for each of the staffing positions I have identified? Degree? Experience? Skills? Can I defend my expectations?

10. Where will the learning center be located organizationally? Will the learning center be organizationally attached to students services, and if so, how will I network with the academic side? Or, will the program report to a college or a department? If so, is it important to build communication bridges to other colleges and/or departments? Where will the learning center be located physically? Will the facility be reconfigured to meet the needs of the services of the learning center or must the programs fit into “second-hand” space? How can the space be made to serve the program and the students using the programs?

11. How will evaluation/assessment be conducted? What role and what shape will program evaluation take? Are specific results expected (i.e., “3% increase in first year student retention each year”)? How will data be collected? Used? For whom? And, for what purpose?

12. How will the learning center be managed? What does the organizational chart look like? Are responsibilities and expectation clearly defined? Do I know (understand) my management style? Will all staff be involved in program development? Decisions? Planning? Assessment? If not, who will and who won’t? How will staff be trained? What communication methods will be used between and among staff to keep all involved and committed?

One Critical Issue

Develop an identity for the learning center and a comprehensive public relations plan. Determine the image that will project the learning center’s identify — to the students, to the faculty and administration, to the public at large. Then devise a plan to bring about instant recognition of the image. Identify a logo (if the school allows) and use brochures (for different purposes), flyers, posters, bookmarks, calendars, letters to faculty, ads in the student newspaper, radio spots on the college station, pencil giveaways, popcorn at registration. Design a comprehensive calendar for public relations events and activities. [55]

See 1996-97 Proceedings

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