Studies of team teaching in the open-space school

Three studies conducted by the Environment for Teaching Program of the Stanford Center for Research and Development in Teaching, concerning the effects on teachers and learners of factors in the organization of schools, are reported. Teacher influence, autonomy, interaction, and job satisfaction were perceived differently by teachers in open-space team-teaching schools, compared with teachers in self-contained-classroom schools. Observed patterns of decision-making interaction in teaching teams were related to teachers' perceptions of their own influence and autonomy. Observed activity levels of children in open-space team-teaching schools were greater than in schools with self-contained classrooms.

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Résumé Cet article présente un rapport sur trois études consacrées par Environment for Teaching Program du Centre de recherche et de développement de l'enseignement de Stanford, aux effets que produisent sur les professeurs et les élèves les facteurs de l'organisation scolaire. En comparaison des professeurs exerçant dans les salles de classe autonomes, les professeurs exerçant par équipe dans les écoles de grand air manifestent une conception différente sur l'influence, l'autonomie, l'interaction et le plaisir d'exercer le métier d'enseignant. Les auteurs ont rapproché les tendances observées dans l'interaction exercée par les professeurs groupés en équipe dans la formulation des décisions aux conceptions qu'entretiennent ces mêmes professeurs sur leur influence et leur autonomie propres. Ils ont également observé que les niveaux de l'activité exercée par les enfants fréquentant les écoles de grand air et éduqués par des professeurs travaillant en équipe étaient supérieurs aux niveaux de l'activité exercée par les enfants fréquentant les salles de classe autonomes.

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This research is supported by funds from the U.S. Office of Education, Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare (Contract No. OEC-6-10-078, Project No. 5-0252-0307). The opinions expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the position, policy, or endorsement of the Office of Education. The authors, listed in alphabetical order, are equal coauthors.     

GTravels towards Problem Based Learning in Medical Education (VPBL)

This paper reports the results and insights ofan exploratory investigation of theeffectiveness of a prototypic virtualproblem-based learning (VPBL) exercisedelivered via the WWW, that uses HypermediaAssisted Instructional Technologies (HAIT). The study targeted all first year medicalstudents at a south-central University Schoolof Medicine who were enrolled in the humanphysiology course during the Spring 2000 (n =150). A quasi-experimental, post-test onlyresearch design compared the VPBL and atext-based version of the same PBL exercise onstudents' achievement, as measured by a set ofselected physiology examination items, andtheir perceptions of the learning environment,as measured by the Teaching and LearningEnvironment Questionnaire (TLEQ) (Chauvin &Bowdish, 1998). Findings suggest that the VPBLis equally as effective as the text-basedversion for enhancing students' learning andtheir learning environment in small group, PBLsessions. In this paper, we examine theevidence supporting the VPBL innovation andexplore what constitutes necessary andsufficient evidence that an educationalinnovation should be incorporated appropriatelyinto the medical educational practice of aschool. We examine instructional design issuessuch as learner control, instructional control,and teacher and learner roles as related toinstructional development for the WWW, bycomparing and contrasting our observations ofthe VPBL design experiment with theprofessional literature.