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Literacy and the Science Classroom. Technical ReportNo. 51.Bank Street Coll. of Education, New York, NY. Centerfor Children and Technolo2y.Mar 9023p.; Papers presented at a Symposium at the AnnualMeeting of the American Educational ResearchAssociation (San Francisco, CA, May 27-31, 1989).Speeches/Conference Papers (150)

MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.Cognitive Processes; Computer Networks; Computer Usesin Education; Elementary Secondary Education; HearingImpalrments; *Inquiry; Junior High Schools; LanguageProficiency; *Literacy; *Notetaking; ScienceEducation; *Science Instruction; ftSecondary SchoolScience

This document consists of three papers which exploreaspects of language use in science classrooms descriptively andprescriptively, based on naturalistic and experimental observations.The discovery of the importance of the verbal mode of communicationthrough involvement in creating computer-based activities isdiscussed. Papers include: (1) "Words and Science" (Jan Hawkins andLaura M. W. Martin), in which the thematic questions that tie thepapers together are outlined; (2) "Taking Notes and Taking Note ofPhysics" (Babette Moeller, Jan Hawkins, Cornelia Brunnmer, and SolMagzamen), in which words are regarded as a contributing medium toachieving understanding of physics concepts; and (3) "ComputerNetworking and the Connection of Science and Literacy Skills"(Shelley V. Goldman apl. Carol Reich), which reports on a study oflanguage and communication in a classroom of deaf students. (CW)

Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the that can be madefrom the original document.

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Literacy and theScience Classroom

AERA Symposium, March 1989

March 1990

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Words and ScienceJan Hawkins and Laura M. W. Martin

Taking Notes and Taking Note of PhysicsBabette Moeller, Jan Hawkins, Cornelia Brunnmer,

Computer Networking and the Connectionof Science and Literacy Skills

Shelley V. Goldman and Carol Reich

4

his collection of papers was presented at a symposium of thesame name at the annual meeting of the American EducationalReseirch Association in San Francisco, in March 1989. A fourthpaper from that symposium, Discourses on the Seasons by SarahMichaels and Bertram Bruce, is available as a technical report

from the Education:II Development Center.The aim of the panel was to explore aspects of language use in science

classrooms descriptively and prescriptively, based on naturalistic andexperimental observations. Each of the authors has been involved increating computer-based activities for facilitating scientific inquiry inelementary or middle-school classrooms. Each of us discovered that theverbal mode of organizing information was a cen tral issue in our projects.For Hawkins and Martin, and for Moeller et al., words were regarded asa contributing medium to achieving understanding, with their ownconstraints and affordances. In the case of Goldman and Reich, languageand communication was the dependent variable in the classroom of deafstudents in their study. The thematic questions that tie the paperstogether are outlined in Hawkins and Martin. It can be seen that despitecommon questions, the methods and approach of each project to the topicof language and scientific understanding in children were unique.

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Dissatisfaction with "textbook science" hasgrown over the last two decades in favor of"hands-on" and "minds-on" approachesto learning. As part of the redesign effort,science programs and curricula have cor-

rectly placed emphasis on ways to help studentsunderstand and use dense symbol systems such asformulas, graphs, and diagrams as tools of techniCalliteracy. Literacy with verbal systems has receivedless attention as part of the activity-oriented approachto science.

This paper raises questions about the place ofliteracy in supporting the development of children'sunderstanding the physical world. To answer them,we take literacy to be a psychological activity thatoccurs within the system of the classroom. Ratherthan approach it as a matter of text or speech process-ing, we view it in relation to how students and teach-ers communicate, how children respond to canonicalinformation, and how school goals relate to real-world goals.

Science in classrooms is, to an extent, an oralLulture. When children encounter information with-out notation or recordsas in lecturesthe teacher'sspoken version of science interacts with children'sideas in unpredictable ways. A variety of differentand erroneous ideas may be constructed by childrenand never fully articulated or understood by eithercEldren or teachers. Similarly, traditional kinds ofwritten expression may keep children's own ideasand the science material isolated from each other.Reading textbooks, copying data, filling in work-sheets, answering fact-based questions have been saidto be antithetical to goals of inquiry learning becausethey don't allow children to begin with their ownexperiences, and they are ielatively passive ways ofacquiring information.

But the everyday investigative tool with whichchildren and teachers come equipped is language.Through words in science, students work out concep-tualizations and communicate about them. Words are

necessary to form and reform questions, and wordsare a primary way to specify, confront, integrate, andtransform ideas. Communicative skills can deepenchildren's reflection on and discovery of the naturalworld.

What a:e the some of the consequences of thisview for goals and activities in schools? First, theverbal mode can be seen as a bridge between theeveryday experience of phenomena and formal scien-tific understanding. Second, students can learn tointerpret text-based information and to integrate itwith knowledge gained through experimental andobservational activity-based learning. Third, studentscan be helped to learn the literary modes and forms ofscientific inquiry and about the communicative worldof scientists.

Our illustrations of how a focus on literacy worksas part of science learning grow out of two differentresearch projects. In one, Inquire, a set of computer-based cognitive "tools" for supporting inquiry sci-ence with middle-school students was developed andinvestigated. Practically, it helps students accomplishindividual or small-group science project work. Al-though mathematical tools are incorporated, the sys-tem relies hea N. ily on text for representing the parts ofinquiry work to students, and as the medium they useto record and interpret ideas of their own and others.It thus encourages representation and r dinement ofideas in language, and verbal interpreting of materialfrom multiple media (video, simulations, and experi-ments, as well as texts sources).

The other project, Linking Science and Literacy,developed and examined computer-based scienceliteracy activities with upper-elementary school chil-dren. A variety of experiences were organized tomotivate the children to write about science mattersand to conduct other kinds of investigations. Thestudy examined ho w teachers were able to make linksto the students' questions and how children repre-sented their experiences, both spontan..uusly and w ithinstruction.

In brief, we saw that, first, the normal representa-tion of "problems' for students is in I anguagc: expres-sion. These descriptions are recognizably their own,and they support intuition and observation. Makinguse of this verbal mode can draw students' attentionto the articulation of their own ideas and the relation-ship of their understanding to the way teachers andothers understand things.

In the first module of the Inquire software, stu-dents generate questions and lists of their own ideasabout a topic as a way into a problem region, in thisease sports physics. As they worked on these prob-lems, students madc use of a variety of information inmultiple media (video, simulations with graph out-puts, charts and graphs, as well as a variety of text-based sources). Students kept their records and formedinterpretations primarily in language (e.g., hypothe-sis generation and justification). This requirementenabled students to relate the scientific formulation ofideas to their own ideas through revisions in theirquestion-generation work. In formulating and justify-ing their conclusions, students had to review all theirrecords, and summarize and integrate them. Theencouragement to review, revise, re-see previouswork-in-language helped students to construct theirown bridges between articulation of their own ideas,and new information.

Language also served to help children notice theirown learning and to think schematically. In the Liter-acy project, we encouraged children in their use of de-scriptors, which was at first quite limited. As theyplayed games that promoted verbal elaboration andvariation, children's discriminations about what theywere observing heightened.

As they saw and heard the list of ierms they pro-duced, the children noticed their own perceptiveness.When we conducted a lesson designed to have stu-dents discuss their inferences about partially identi-fied objects, a bottom-track fifth-grade class showedtheir cleverness and conceptual sophistication and,best of all, remarked on it themselves.

Second, we saw that children may have troubleholding multiple points of view in mind at once andintegrating information from multiple representations.Working in groups maintains simultaneity of view-points, but common expression or referencing is net-essary. The same student, furthermore, may express

different understandings of the same event depend-ing on the mode of expression.

Many of the Inquire procedures required stu-dentg to record their own ideas and information theyfound from other sources in language. A strikingexample of the value of this was the use of verbalframeworks to interpret the mea,iing of graphs andcharts. Graphs and charts have been shown to beparticularly difficult and dense representations ofinformation for students. As one part of their informa-tion search in a sports physics problem, students wrequired to interpret in writing the meaning of differ-ent parts of physical motion graphs generated by amicrocomputer-based laboratory. These written rec-ords made misconceptions explicitwhich could thenbe worked withand directed students to differentparts of the represen tation than they would normallyattend to (e.g., slope), making the graph informationavailable in a new way for integration with materialfrom other sources.

Third, students need experience with the commu-nicative forms of scientific work. They should be or-ganized as communities of inquirers. Most schoolchildren are not used to collaborating academicallyexcept in discussion. Even then, the use of words isoften not reflective or even particularly instrumental.Many teachers teach vocabulary first in a science unitin order to get the children "into" the subject, but thereare prior lessons about language in science that can bedeveloped. In the literacy project, we organized com-munication games about science content to helpde.nonstrate why scientists use specialized vocabu-lary. In the exercises, others' actions dc ended uponthe player's choice of words so that the power of usingselective language became vivid.

Using others as a source of information, for in-stance through interviewing, is also a useful lesson,although it takes practice. Children have a sense ofpeople as sources already. Organizing questions andcomparing answers is a new skill related to moreabstract ones used in advanced research. We saw thatlearning how to reduce and report on verbal informa-tion as opposed to visual experiences is also a power-ful lesson for children because it gets them to thinkabou t data representation very intuitively. Theyquickly see that they can't replay the interview tapeeach time someone wants to know what they found

4

out. Instead, they begin to devise ways to condenseand communicate the essence of the information.

Activities that focus on literacy aspects of sciencecan be fundamental sources of links between a child'sown worldinner and outer--and a more systematicorganization of experience. While many of the bene-fits of speaking and writing are taken for granted in

school contexts, such activities can be a deliberate instructional tool in the science class. They are powerful botbecause they begin wit; natural forms of expression anbecause they allow us to go beyond referential, practicacommunication to a plane of communication that is inferential, patterned, and imaginative.

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Centerior Childrovatidlecnhology

INTRODUCTION

n important aspect of doing science,whether for scientists or for young stu-dents learning science in school, is to gather,integrate, and interpret new information.For young students, this task is becoming

more complex as science education is moving awayfrom a predominantly "textbook-based approach" tolearning, and as different kinds of technologies andmedia an2 becoming avaihble in schools. The infor-mation students encounter in today's science classescan originate from such diverse sources as hands-onexperimentation, texts, graphs, tables, computer pro-grams, observations, films, videos, lectures, and con-versations with peers and experts. Because of differ-ences in the format and quality of such informationsources, the task of analyzing and synthesizing infor-mation can be very difficult.

The production of written language, or morespecifically written rif tes, can serve as an importantanaly tic tool in this task. Note taking is a specialactivity that not only allows students to keep iecordsof new information, ideas, and thoughts, but has otheradvantages that make it particularly useful for help-ing students to interpret and integrate different kindsof informa tion. First, the transformation of a variety ofexperiences and kinds of information into writtenlanguage allows students to refine the meaning of thisinformation and to reflect on it. Second, through theprocess of note taking, different kinds of informationare translated into on e. unified symbol system (i.e.,written language), which may facilitate the process ofrelating arid integrating information that originatesfrom different Third, by having external writ-ten records of new information, ideas, and thoughts,these pieces of information can be more easily ma-nipulated.

The production of written notes, though, is itselfa difficult activity. As research on note taking has

demonstrated (e.g., Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, &Campione, 1983; Hidi & Klaiman, 1983), young stu-dents, if they take notes at all, often tend to rely onunreflective note-taking strategies, such as verbatimcopying of information. Most of this research, how-ever, has focused on the ways in which studentsderive notes from written text. Little is known howand the extent to which students take notes on infor-mation sources other than text.

This paper reports the results of a study in whichwe asked a group of middle-school students to takenotes on information from multiple sources in thecontext of solving a science problem. This researchallowed us to investigate the ways in whi,:h s:udentsinterpret different types of information in their notes.In addition, we were able to examine the extent towhich note taking contributes to students' under-standing of iiew materials.

THE STUDY

The research on note taking was part of a larger studythat examind the effects of a software program calledInquire on students' learning of science concepts andskills. Inquire is a prototype software system that hasbeen developed at Bank Street College to supportstudents' inquiries in science. The softwaie proN, idesstudents with a set of analytic tools that allow them torefine, analyze, and revise qualitatie and quantita-tive information. A central part of this program is an"information module" that provides structures furstudents to record, identify, query-ind manage infor-mation.

The participants in the study were seven sixthgraders between the ages of 11 and 12 years. Thestudents worked individually, in six one-hour ses-sions, on a science problem using the inquire sysiemand content materials in multiple media. The scienceproblem that guided otudents' inquiry was takenfrom the domain of sports science. Students were

6

March 1990 Tech. Rep.,No., 41.

asked to select individuals from a team of runners asentrants in a 100- and a 200-meter race, and wererequired to justify their selections "scientifically." Theproblem required students to understand and recog-nize the value of three different kinds of information:the physical science factors involved; the ways inwhich the two races differed in their performance de-mands; and the critical qualities of the runners. Thecentral concept that organized the problem, and thatstudents had to learn about in their inquiry, was theconcept of "acceleration."

For the inquiry problem work, students weregiven a variety of materials to work with: (1) a 12-minute video episode illustrating and explainingaspects of movement in animals; (2) different kinds oftexts about motion concepts, which included aphysicist's account, a coach's account, and a newspa-per article about motion on the moon; and (3) data inthe form of tables and graphs about runners' charac-teristics and performances (see Figure 1).

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Students were presented with the video and thetexts, as well as the runners' tables and graphs, andwere asked to take notes using the Inquire system.While the students were asked to use all of the mate-rials, it was left to them to decide whether or not totake notes on the different materials. The studentsspent a total of two sessiobs reading, watching, andinteracting with the materials and taking notes onthem.

Another procedural element in our study was apre- and post-test. These tests were included to assesschanges in students' understanding over the course ofthe study. In the pre- and post-test, we examinedstudents' understanding of the concept of accelera-tion in a variety of contexts. First, students were askedto produce a voice-over narration for a video episodefrom the 1936 Olympic sprint of Jesse Owens. In asecond task, the students were asked to draw graphsof the runners' performances and explain graphs byothers. Third, students were given a standard physics

Description Reference

Video 12.minute segment that compares aNmals'(human and non.humen) ways of running

Boswell, J. (producer, writer). 1 S 4 I ) .

Ailmai Olympians. Boston, MA: VJG3H.

1. A physicist's account, examines theconcept of acceieration /n the context ofrunning

2. A coach's account, explains differentrunning techniques and requirements ofdifferent races

2 A newspaper article, explores how runnerswould run on the moon

Brancato, P.J, (1984). Sports Science.New York:Dodd, Mead.

Sullivan, G. (1981), Beller Track forGrls.New York: Simon & Schuster

13ranceslo, P.J. (Sept. 10, 1987). Sportson the Moon. San Francisco Examiner,9/10/87

Tables

Graphs

1. Data on sprinters' abilities (maximumspeed, endurance, reaction time, trainability)for each of 11 runners

2. Data on sprinters acceleration (distancerun and speed reached at eleven one.secondintervals during an 11-second training sprint)

I. Speed.time graph for each of the 11runners

2. Speed.distance graph for each of the 11runners

3. Distance.time graph fof each of the 11runners

Inquire project, Bank Street College ofEducation

Inquire project, Bank Street College ofEducation

Inquire project, Bank Street College ofEducation

Inquire project, Bank Street College ofEducal.on

Inquire project, Bank Street College ofEducaUon

Figure 1

10 7

problem concerning differently sized blocks slidingdown an inclined plane, asked to predict what wouldhappen, and then to explain what they observed. Thepost-test included two adaitional video segments,one showing a cheetah chasing prey, and the other arace car driver who experienced rapid accelerationand deceleration. The students were asked to providescientific explanations of the motions they observedin these events.

RESULTS

Spontaneous Note TakingThe notes produccd by the students using the video,the texts, and the runners' graphs and tables served asthe main data source for our analyses. These noteswere on the average 393 words long (with a range of127 to 556 words).

The first question with which we examined thesenotes concerned the amount of notes students pro-duced for each source. Figure 2 shows the perceatageof notes that were derived from each of the differentsources.

The data indicate that there were dramatic differ-ences in the extent to which students made use ofdifferent sources in their notes. The students derivedthe majority of their notes from the texts, followed bythe video, and then the tables and graphs. On theaverage, 84% of the notes were derived from the texts,9% werederived from the video, and 7% were derivedfrom the tables and graphs. The same ranking of thesources is obtained when we compare the number ofstudents who used the different sources for theirnotes. All seven students produced notes based on theinformation presented in the texts, six students tooknotes on the video, three students derived notes fromthe tables, and only one student took notes on thegraphs.

While these differences in students' utilization ofvarious information sources are interesting, there aremany factors that could have contributed to them.Thesources differed not only in the way information waspresented, but also in the kinds and amounts of infor-mation that were contained in them. We decided toextend our analyses to examine whether there wereany differences in the note-taking strategies studentsemployed with different kinds of sources. For thispurpose, we proceeded to analyze the content ofstudents' notes in terms of how information wassummarized and integrated. We will discuss the re-

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sults for the notes from each of the different sources inturn, beginning with the video notes.

Even though the notes that students deri cd fromthe video are relatively brief, they refkct a surprisingsophistication (see Figure 3a). All six of the Audentswho produced notes from the video included state-ments that either summarized whole episodes of thevideo (21% of the notes) or statements that integratedparticular pieces of information across different epi-sodes of the video (38% of the notes).

The remaining 41% of students' video notcs con-sist of paraphrased statements of details that werederived from the voice-over narration of the video.Interestingly, notes taken on the video focused pre-dominantly on the nalration rather than the visualimages. Only one student made a statement in hisnotes that was clearly derived from the images alone(i.e., "It looks like people push off on the front part oftheir feet").

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The students were selective in terms the idorma-tion they included in their video notes. Rather thanfoliowing the strategy of summarizing the wholevideo sequence, studcnts appeared to selecti% ely rec-ord information they considered relevant to the sci-ence problem they were working on. They organizedat least some parts of thcir notes around informationthat was relevant to the physical science factors in-vol% ed in running, the performance demands of dif-ferent races, and/c.. the qualities of the runners.

The notes that students derived from the textsdiffered in several respects from the video notes (seeFigure 3b). First, students showed a stronger ten-dency to copy their notes verbatim from the texts. Onthe average, 34% of students' notes were copied ver-batim, while 66% of the notes were paraphrased. Inaddition, students were not quite as successful inintegrating information within or across segments ofthe texts as they were in dealing with the video.

On the a rage, 56% of students' notes consistedof statements that were derived front low-importancedetail information (e.g., particular examples) in thetext The remaining notes consisted of statements thatintegrate information within a paragraph (37%) oracross paragraphs (7%). Tne organization of students'text notes followed the linear sequence in which infor-mation was presented in the texts. Even though thestudents produced notes on the kind cf iaformationthat was relevant to the science problem, such as thephysical science factors involved or the performancedemands of the d Herent races, none of the studentsorganized his or her notes around these issues.

Use of Different Note-Taking Strategies

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Finally, the notes students derived spontaneouslyfrom the runners' tables and graphs reveal yet anotherkind of nota-taking stra tegy. These notes consisted ofstudents' inferenc?.s about the information presentedto them n- ther than summaries of the Information. Alluf the students who produced these notes listed thenames of preferred runners and noted iustthcationsfor their selection, making reference to importantphysical science factors. Hence, when taking thesekinds of notes, students not only summarized butinterpreted the information within the centcAt of thescience problem they were solving. In aduition, inmaking :heir interpretations and ittstifications, theyintegrated the information presented in the graphsand tables with information they had previouslyencountered in the video and the texts.

In summary, we found not only quantitative dif-ferences in the way students derive notes from differ-ent sources, but also qualitative differences in note-taking stra tegies. Text-based materials elicited a greatdeal of note taking from students, but their notesrevealed little evidence of information integration orinterpretation. The reverse was true for the video andthe tables and graphs. While students took relativelyfew notes on thet... materials, they engaged in more in-tegrative and interpretative note taking. It is 11 .;i'est-ing to note that the sources represent different pointson a continuum from the most linguistically based in-formation source to the least linguistically based in-formation source. Our results indicate that the less lin-guistic an information source is, the less likely stu-dents are to take extensive notes on them, but if they

9

jjer.h. Rep. No. 51

du, they tend to employ the more sophisticated note-taking strategies.

Pre-/Post-testIn our final analyses, we examined whether the prog-ress students made in their understanding of theconcept of acceleration and their note-taking strate-gies were related. According to our pre- and post-testmeasures, all of the students made some progress inunderstanding the concept of acceleration in differentcontexts. Some students, however, advanced consid-erably more than others and we were interested inseeing whether differences in note taking could bedetected for those students who made considerableprogress, compared with those students who madeless progress and displayed lower levels of under-standing on the post-test. The students were dividedinto two groupsa high-and a low-progress groupbased on their change scores between pre- and post-test and their mean post-test score. There were threestudents in the high-progress group (one girl and twoboys), and four students in the low-progress group(two girls and two boys).

We found interesting d i fferences between the twogroups of students (see Figure 4). First, the students inthe high- and low-progress groups differed in theoverall amount of notes they produced. The studentsin the high-progress group tended to take fewer notes(on the average, 334 words long) than the students inthe low-progress group (on the average, 437 wordslong). In addition, even though the notes of the high-progress students were shorter, they managed toinclude information from a greater variety of qualita-tively different sources compared to the low-progressstudents. All of the students in the high-progressgroup derived their notes from the video and thetexts, and two of the students in this group alsoproduced notes on the tables and graphs. Only one ofthe low-progress students used the video, the texts,and the tables as sources. The other students in thisgroup used either the video and texts or the texts only.

We also found that students differed in the extentto which they integrated information in their notes.Overall, the notes of the high-progress students re-flected m ore informa tion integratio: within and acrosssegments of the information sources than the notes ofthe low-progress students. On the average, only 43%of thenotes of the high-progress students consisted ofstatements of details, as compared to 51% of the notesof the low-progress students.

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These results suggest that the way in which stu-dents produce notes is indeed related to their under-stinding of the materials they are woiking with. Itappearn that reflective note Acing that utilizes mul-tipie information sources may contribute to the under-standing of new information.

DISCUSSION

In conclusion, we would like to address some of theeducational implications of this research. An impor-tant point to be made at the outset is that the produc-tion of written notes per se does not guarantee betterunderstanding of new information. Our researchsuggests that if students use note taking as a meretranscribing (or copying) exercise, it contributes verylittle to their understanding of zew materials. In orderfor no te taking to be helpful for students, it neeib to beused in a reflective manner.

Why do students often fail to use note taking insuch a way? Our research suggests that students donot altogether lack the ability to use reflective note-taking strategies, but that their note-taking strategiesdepend on the context of the activity and how they

10

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March1990

interpret it. It appears that shAdents predominantlyinterpret note taking as a transcribing exercise ratherthan as a reflective activity that could be helpful tothem. Traditional media such as to:ts and oral laaguage are most easily recognized by young studentsas sour= fr.,r written notes. The linguistic nature ofthese materials makes them most compatible with atranscribing approach to note taking. Nonlinguisticinformation sources, on the other hand, are not aseasily recognized as sources for notes, very likelybecause these materials do not lend themselves totranscription or copying (at least in a written form). Ifstudents utilize these kinds of sources to derive notesfrom them, their note-taking strategies necessarilyhave to be more reflective, since the transcribing strat-egy does not work.

Fur students to use note taking in a more mean-ingful and efficient way, they need to learn to appre-ciate the reflective nature of the activity. There aremultiple ways in which ft is can be accomplished. Animportant element in such efforts should be to deem-phasize the transcribing function of note taking and toemphasize the reflective aspects of the activity. Oneway in which educators could engage students inmore reflective note-taking strategies is by encourag-ing them to take notes on a wide variety of informa-tion sources. This would allow them to pract.ce reflec-tive note-taking strategies in the context of nonlin-guistic sources. In addition, reflective note takingcould be supported by providing students with guid-ing questions for their notes. We carricci out such anintervention in our research.

,Tech. Rep Ni:51,

To help students interpret a series of graphs thatthey produced with an electronic motion detector(TEP.C), we asked them to take notes about the mean-ing of each graph, as well as to compare pairs ofgraphs. The intervention turned out to be quite suc-cessful. All the students actually took notes on each ofthe graphs; and most of their notes contained interpre-tative elements ra ther than just descriptive stateme..ts.

Another way to promote reflective note taking,especially with text materials, is to encourage stu-dents to produce "notes on notes." By structuringtheir note taking into a two-step recurswe procedura,students may learn to distitG-aiah between note tak-ing as a record-ketping tool and note tc.king as ananalytic tool.

References

Brown, A. L., Bransford,). D., Ferrara, R. A., & Campione,).'1 (1983). Learning, understanding, remembering. In J.H. Flavell & E. M. Markman (Eds.), Cognitive develop-ment, in P.H. Mussen (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology(Vol 3). New York: Wiley.

Hidi, S., & Klaiman, R. (1983). Note taking by experts andnovices: An attempt to identify teachcble strategies.Curriculum Inquiry,13, 377-395.

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Carol Rekhthe LexhigtonCentei

INTRODUCTION

e have been studying the possibility ofenhancing both literacy and scienceskills among deaf students by engag-ing them in purposeful science learn-ing using a local area computer net-

work. We use the term "literacy" to refer, most obvi-ously, to any engagement with print (reading andwriting) and, less obviously but just as relevant, toactivities that lead to engagement with print (e.g., con-versation around print, practice at particular lan-guage skills). We renort on some tentative results ofresearch on the ways literacy work and science workwerepresent and related in computer-networked EarthScience classes at the Lexington School for the Deaf.

There are two points to the paper. First, in actualcbssrooms, literacy and science work were overlap-ping and mutually constitutive of activitiec and les-sons. A tremendous amount of focused classroominteraction went into discussions of new words, theways in which to include them in sentences, and thestruggle to get them written down. Although our datacome from classrooms for the deaf, for whom spokenand written English can be difficult enough, we be-lieve this can be the case in many science lessons.

If we are correct, literacy work is at the core ofclassroom science work and must be made a moreobvious part of the science curriculum. Further, wecan rely more on important subjects such as science toeducate students who are having trouble with literacyskills. There ;s no reason, for example, that deaf stu-dents should be deprived of science lessons becausespoken and written English come slowly to them.

The second point :s that the computer-networkedclassroom organizes interactions that arc education-

ally productive. This is the case, first, because thenetwork highlights the literacy work embedded in thescience lessons. Students must write everything do wnon the network. Not only does this give them muchtime on task in both literacy and science, but our dataindicate that it also encourages teachers and stucialtsto attend to the various reading and writing devicesthey need in order to do the science work. Second, thenetwork is a resource for powerful pedagogy because

allows for so much conversation among the chil-i ren.

We are excited that from our first intuitive over-view of the data, the network seemed to establish thesocial and conversational grounds for both literacyand science to be accomplished. The children were ontask, and the tasks became part of the fabric of theInteractions among all the people in the classroom.

Our data fo identifying these connections comefrom observations of more than 75 science classes,open-ended and structured interviews with teachersand students, videotapes of networked and non-net-worked science classrooms, collected written sciencematerials and products of assignments, and a corpusof more than 2,500 electronic mall messages genera tedon the network. We conducted several preliminaryanalyses of electronic mail usage and function, ananalysis of student writing, and an analysis of pat-terns of interaction in networked and non-networkedscience classrooms (Goldman et al., 1988). The com-plimentary findings from each of these analyses con-tributed to our conclusions.

We discuss our conclusions by taking the follow-ing steps. For the remainder of this introduction, weprovide background information about the problemsdeaf students face Inside classrooms, the evolution ofour researcn collaboration, and the level of our stu-

121 5

dents' hearing impairments. This information helpsto familiarize the reader with our goals and providesa backdrop for the discussions and examples of stu-dent work that follcw. We then present the relation-ship between science and literacy work as we saw itthrough our different analytic lenses. We start withanexample o! how a typical.networked lesson requiredstudents to practice both literacy and science skills.We then look at two ways that the science teachersdeveloped lessons on the network. One teacher usedthe network interactively with students to conductcontent review sessions, while the other teacher usedthe network as a tool for adapting textbook materialsin order to reduce the students' language barriers.Each method for using the network increased stu-dents' participation in lessons and completion of as-signments. Finally, we describe briefly the qualitiesand processes in students' networked writing that in-dicated a rich emergence of literacy around science.Taken together, the three discussions allow us to seehow lesson planning, learning needs of students, andih resource of a technology interacted to define liter-acy.rich science activities. We conclude by discussingth: ways in which networked interactions are worth-while developmental activities.

Background of the ProblemThere is an urgent need to improve science and liter-acy education in America (National Commission onExcellence in Education, 1983; NRC, 1985; NSBC,1983). Evidence from cognitive and educational re-search suggests that to foster an unierstanding ofscience that will develop a science perspective andbody of knowledge, motivate further interest andlearning as well as transfer to situations outside ofschool, science instruction should permit students toparticipate actively in c.cience learning. Childrenshould engage in inquiry activities and ask questionsas they conduct hands-on scientific investigations(Kyle, 1978); work collaboratively with other students(Riban, 1976; Slavin, 1983; Webb, 1982); and makeconnections between their understandings of science,other aspects of their school work, and familiar eventsin the world (Hurd, 1986; Jackson, 1983; NCEE, 1983).

These conditions are rarely established in scienceclassrooms. These problems are exacerbated for deafstudents, since 90% of deaf children are born to hear-ing parents and don't have a language base when theyenter sPhool. Much school time is spent learning lan-guage dS an activity in and of itself. Limited literacy

Te4h.,R01:);.NO.:

contributes to keeping the deaf out of both the main-stream of education and subjects likescience that havespecialized vocabularies, processes, and perspectives.Deaf children who graduate from high school have,on the average, reading skills below the fifth-gradelevel (Allen, 1968).

Taken together, this information suggests that it isnot simply what students learn that must be changed,but that the processes of teaching and learning in sci-ence classrooms must be altered. To improve theliteracy and science learning problems of deaf chil-dren, one would need a learning environment wherescience skills and language skills were not disembod-ied school activities, but situated in the flow of pur-poseful learning. Science learning would involvestudents' communicating with a number of audi-ences, including classmates, teachers, and hearingstudents. We attempted to establish such an environ-ment by using computer-network technology.

History of CollaborationAware of the need for new kinds of learning environ-ments, the Lexington School for the Deaf began toemphasize students' use of language and communi-cation as a means of accomplishing purposeful schoolactivities and real-life tasks. Bank Street College andLexington Center began to collaborate in findi ng waysto enlist new technologies for creating improvedcommunication environments inside school wherereading and writing could become natu: al conversa-tional forms of communication for intellectual andsocial purposes. Literacy Network was founded aspart of that larger effort because there was evidencethat computer networks could support this kind ofenvironment. Networks link computers so that aperson at one machint, can communicate and shareinformation with a pen= at any other machine oit thenetwork. Our hope was that by using a local areanetwork technology, students' reading and writingwork would not be disembodied activity, but wouldbecome an essential part of purposeful learning ac-tivities in other curriculum areas. Additionally, wehoped that students would develop a 5ense for com-municating with different audiences, including class-mates, teachers, and students in other schools.

A network called Earth Lab, which was devel-oped at Bank Street College and show,..i promise as acommunication tool, was introduced in two earthscience classes at the Lexington School in February1988.' Students in high school earth science classes

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Rftp. No: .5 1 March1990

participated in the network project. All of them had aprofound hearing loss in excess of 80+ dB. Basically,the students could not hear closing doors, footsteps,or sounds in the normal speech range. Tha t meant thatmany events, including those in classrooms, shad tocome into awareness through the visual channel.Teachers and students used sign language, lip read-ing, and a variety of visual aides in order to commu-nicate during lessons. The local area network technol-ogy infused the classroom communication scene witha reading and writing channel, allowing for new waysto receive, process, and hold on to information.

SCIENCE AND SITUATED LITERACY

Literacy Situated in Science LessonsWhen we analyzed observational data, we were struckby how much literacy sldlls were attended to in theprocess of accomplishing science work. There weretwo main findings in this area of the evaluation. Thefirst was that literacy work and science work wereoverlapping and mutually constitutive of networkedlessons. This is important because while we recognizethat literacy is always important, we often ignore itspresence as a foundation of the work in the curricularareas. The communication needs of deaf childrenmake the need for recognizing the literacy underpin-nings of science work all the more obvious. Thismakes a strong statement that we might need toconcentrate on how we orchestrate literacy in ourscience lessons and, correspondingly, expect that ourstudents might learn more science as well.

The second finding is that networked interactionsare worthwhile developmental literacy activities. Thenetwork helped students work on literacy and scienceas mutually constituted problems and provided asocial context within which both could be accom-plished.

In what ways did the networked science class-room provided a rich environment for literacy learn-ing? When students went "on line" for sc. !rice they,by necessity, had to read and write a great deal inorder to communicate about their ideas and the pro-cedures they were following. Completion of the sci-ence lessons demanded constant attending to read-ing, writing, and spelling. The students became sub-merged in a print environment from the time theylogged on, received a greeting from the teacher, andwere given directions for the day's activities to thetime they sent work back to the teacher for feedback

and printed a copyof the assignment to take home. Anexample of a typical networked lesson helps to illus-trate this mutual construction of activities.

The students were working in a unit on rocksand minerals. After studying minerals, studentswere asked to identify minerals by their specificcharacteristics. They used teacher-created data-base on the network for the exerdse. Each studentwas given a sheet of paper with "clues" to helpthem in the search for minerals. A clue might read."My color is black and my hardness is 5." Each cluegave the students a combinat:on of informationabout a mineral that distinguished it from all of theothers. If students picked out the pertinent infor-mation and then used it to search the database, theywould retrieve one mineral data card from thecorpus. Done correctly, they would identify themineral with certainty. If students chose the wrongor irrelevant information from the clue or if theyconstructed an unacceptable sentence for search-ing the databasr they would not be able to isolatethe mineral they needed to ideatify. In that case,they might retrieve several alinerals all miner-

als with a hardness of 5). If that happened, thestudents would have to browse through each of therecords that were ?tilled from the database, andthen skim several records in order to match theinformation in tilt :lue with the information oneach mineral record (i.e., is this mineral black?). The

"browse" method was chosen by many of the stu-dents, although it was the less efficient wtty tocomplete the task. When the teacher noticed thatthe students were browsing, she stopped the activ-ity and announced that she was requiring th. stu-dents to identify the two or three pieces of relevantinformation in th c. clue and construct a search thatwould turn up only the correct mineral record.This activity was literacy intensive. The stated

science-related goal of the activity was to help stu-dents become more familiar with the characterisfics ofminerals and to learn how thwe characteristics areused to identify minerals. Although unstated by theteacher as a set of goals, the students' activities wereliteracy-skill intensive. Students had to read for themost important information, identify the categoriza-tion system and the names of the categories, andconstruct full and often complex sentences. This sen-tence construction task required the employment ofcategorization schemes and the use of skills that deafstudents needed practice with, such as using articles

14 1 7

and cons inctions. Even the browsers did a greatamount of literacy work. They were, in fact, practicingthe skill of skimming for the relevant information.These particular literacy skills were evident in each ofthe database activities conducted during the study.The irony in this is that the science teachers statedoften that they needed to concentrate on science learn-ing and had little time to spend on language skillremediation. They did feel that students' languageneeds hampered the progress made on science learn-ing, but felt those problems should be handled byother teachers. Their view was perfectly consistentwith the way the school was organized, given that thestudents spent a high percentage of their elementaryscHol years learning language skills.

We highlight this set of activities because they arerepresentative of a basic problem in education and acorresponding solution in the network. Literacy wasthewarp around wh e science activity was woven.This was mostly ign. even when the very literacyskills being demandea were the skills that the stu-dents were lacking. We were delighted to see that ournetworked lessons made the practice of literacy partof purposeful learning activities.

Teacher Use of Electronic MailThe decision to pursue a network was based in part onthe hunch that it would increase students' participa-tion in written English, and in part to provide a newenvironment for science learning. The science teach-ers received training to familiarize them with thenetwork and the kinds of activities it might support.They eventually used the network to organizea rangeof assignments and activities. Electronic mail becamethe application of choice. Electronic mail was used togive instructions and directions;carry on class discus-sions; complete assignments, tests, and science writ-ing tasks; and give feedback and evaluations. Each ofthe teachers developed ways to use the network thatmatched their classroom goals and personal prefer-ences and styles. Each used the network in a way thatbrenght literacy work to the fore eront of science learn-ing activities.

One teacher used electronic mail interactivelywith students as a review device for test preparation.Students received a set of review questions over themail system and set out to answer them. During classtime, the teacher sat at a terminal to collect her mailand respond personally to the students' answers. Thisallowed the students to work independently and at

Tech. Rep. No. 5

their own pace, while making timely responses fromthe teacher possible. All students participated fully inthe networked review exercise, which was unlike thepatterns for face-to-face classroom discussionb whereit was usual for only a couple of students to participateactively in responding to a question (Goldman et al.,1988). in addition, students could print out a record ofthe entire question-answer-clarification interactionand use that information to study for their test. Theability to print out was welcomed by students whohad the problem of missing entire segments of thesigned discussions while they were looking at theirnotebooks and writing notes.

The other teacher used electronic mail to presentmodifications of the state-mandated science texts tothe students. She modified the language level of thetexts to make them more readable and consistent withthe language level and presentation style used in herwritten materials and classroom lectures. With thetext and assignments on the network, she felt she wasable to better assess the students' understanding ofscience information and concepts. This turned out tobe significant because, with this method, studentswere not hampered by their restricted accessibility tolanguage and completed three assignments in thesame time they previously completed only one. Theresults were impressive. The print environment in-creased the students' productivity by minimizinglanguage discrepancies and allowing them to spendmore time interacting with science concepts.

Analysis of Electronic Mail WritingLessons on the network also encouraged students towrite a great deal. They completed many kinds ofwriting in response to assignments and social re-quests. They wrote daily science journals, completedworksheets and assignments, reviewed for tests, typedhomework, and had written social and academicexchanges with their fellow students. Many of theactivities featured dialogic interactions between stu-dents and teachers, such as responding to the teach-ers' questi oning, recounting even ts, and crea ti ng even tcasts and stories. In these interactions, students usedwriting to make requests; negotiate behaviors; inves-tigate; communicate inform-tion; express opinions;evaluate themselves, their writing, and their class-room activities; accomplish social goals; and createfantasies. These kinds of interactions are present inthe language development of hearing children (Heath& Branscombe, 1984) and are encouraged in many

8 15

writing development programs (Graves, 1980).The messages from electronic mail were analyzed

to describe the development of the students' writingand to see if the network provided a forum for socialinteraction and science experiences. We looked spe-cifically at how the different patterns of interactionsand tasks around writing influenced students' writ-ing.

We examined all of the writing that students senton the network. Multiple samples of each student'swriting were read to delineate features, find develop-mental pattern., and determine students' fluency.Eventually, we concentrated on studying features ofwriting that were part of communications with teach-ers or other adults, or writing that underwent revisionprocesses. We found that the network provided op-portunities for rich interactions around science tooccur. The network also served as a channel for stu-dents to have conversations in written English. In gen-eral, the students showed an ability to control theirideas and content in their written work. They hadproblems at the !eN. el of the sentence with word orderand the use of unstressed words.2 At the level of theparagraph, students had difficulty in using literarycohesive devices (e.g., although, then, afterwards,while) and elaborating on ideas. The encouragingresult is that students did organize their thoughts andused inventive ways to circumvent their lack of con-ventional English skills.

Our most promising developmental find was thatthe students used a variety of writing conventions andp Jcesses in these communications and often incor-porated features of more experienced writers. Most ofthe networked conversations had a quality of "speechwritten down." Even so, students referred generallyto initiating messages and wrote responses in fullsentences. We saw frequent use of the vocabulary andstructure of initiating messages in responses. One boyused the vocabulary of the questiohWhat are twoways that clastic rocks form?in the topic sentence,and then used numbers to organize his response:3

There are two ways that clastic rocks form are(1) from the pressure in the ocean or lakes. (2) the ce-

mentwhen the minerals in ocean water staybehind while the water evaporates. The mineralsglue the rock pieces together.

Students tended to organize their responses byparagraphing, making lists, or utilizing "signal words"such as "first," or "next" to orient the reader. Forexample, one boy organized his response to "List the

ar"

three classes of sedimentary rocks and the sedimentsthat the rocks in each class is made of" by using threeparagraphs to correspond to the three classes:

Clastic rocks formed inside ocean beds andany water bodies that from fragments rocks be-came cement make two fragments of rocks to-gether.

Organic rocks formed on or inside crust thatthousands years of fossils when dead plants andanimals remain to broke into pieces of plants oranimals. Also, inside water that sea animals diedmany years ago, their shells broke into pieces orremain on limestone's surface.

Chemical rocks formed near bay or coast thattwo minerals mixed into rock when in water, it floatto shore, and rock was evapocation action.One girl responded to "Describe the two ways

that clastic rock can form" by using "2 ways" toorganize her thoughts:

1 way underwater pressure the rock together 2way there 3 different kind of rock like calicat, halite

and quartz stay in water when evaporate theybecame glue togetherThis indicated that the students benefited from

the interactive nature of these written lessons. Theyould elaborate on current skills and model new skills

they encountered in the writing of others. For ex-ample, one boy responded to the Trivia Question,"Why do you think some baseball players put black,lines under their cyes when they're playing ball?"

the reason why the baseball player want theblack stuff to put the eyes and it help the player tosee the ball when it fly and it help to see better and

it block the sunWe found that the network provided opportuni-

ties fo: students to communicate about science throughieading and writing. The networked interactions alsoprovided opportunities for students to work collabo-ratively with others in trying out new language skills.

The Relationship of Writingand Social InteractionWe looked spccifically at how the different patterns ofinteractions and tasks around writing influencedstudents' writing outcomes. We concentrated onwriting that was embedded in communications withteachers or other adults, and writing that underwentrevision processes. Results of the analysis indicatedsome trends and generated some recommendations

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March 1990 \

about how to capitalize on the interactive nature ofclassroom science activities to encourage the practiceof writing and writing skills. Improvement in thequality of student writing could not be evaluatedproperly. Current evaluation methods are unable tolocate growth in writing development in the shortperiod of time that constitutes a school year. In addi-tion, the naturally occurring tasks of the networkedactivities defied standardization of writing evalu-ation tools. We were, however, able to identify emer-gent patterns: students' writing was better when theywrote to outside audiences, responded to teachers'questions and requests, and engaged in writing proc-ess work and revision processes. This meant thatwriting practice, and most likely writing develop-ment, was intrinsically tied to the kinds of learningactivities that the students got to experience.

The network did provide a tool for writing toemerge in the course of doing science activities, andthat makes the choice of selection and organization ofactivities all the more important. The science teacherswill inadvertently be structuring literacy skill workfor their networked students. Now there must beways to design classroom activities that attain sciencegoals and capitalize on activities and techniques forimpro ving students' written literacy skills. We deline-ated some patterns in students' writing that werecontingent on the pedagogical interactions with whichthe students were involved.

Writing that was part of a string of interactionsrather than a result of a single assignment producedlonger, more cohesive texts related to classroom con-tent. When teachers responded in a timely manner tostudents' science journals or written requests, stu-dents produced more text and, often, more cohesivetext.

Messages that asked questions of students gener-ated the longest responses and often resulted in stu-dents clarifying ideas they had presented in an earliercorrespondence. This worked similarly to revisiontechniques practiced in many writing processprograms, which have demonstrated positive results.In general, students were quite responsive to the indi-vidual attention they received from their teachersover the network, and reciprocated accordingly byproducing more text communication.

New kinds of communications opened up be-tweert students and teachers. Students wrote abouttheir feelings to the teachers. They wrote about whythey didn't like the way science class was going, and

TedoeP.No.

how they felt about the teacher's mood in class.Rarelydo students have the opportunity for this kind of com-munication in the classroom. The science journal wasthe vehicle for this personalized writing. Often thesejournals were written by students using the networkduring their lunch or study periods. The quality andlength of the journal writing varied and actuallyseemed to go up and down at different times duringthe school year. Journal writing improved in overallquality when teachers and students used the journalsfor conducting conversations with each other. 5tu-dents did not initiate many questions inside theirjournal writing. But when teachers asked questions,they answered. In the instances when the journalbecame a vehicle for ongoing dialogues betweenteacher and student, it resulted in more eventful writ-ing experiences.

Science teachers could capitalize on these trendsby structuring journal requirements in ways thatencouraged particular styles, lengths of texts, andtopics to write about. In addition, the data point to theneed for the teachers to converse electronically withthe students on a regular basis. The journai has thepotential to be a powerful tool for both science andliteracy learning if it is attended to by teachers in aconscious way.

We found that more cohesive accounts werewritten when students communicated with outsiders.In several cases, this had to do with the fact thatwritten work underwent lengthy revision processes;in other instances, the communications were withstudents and adults outside of the immediate scienceclassroom. Science writing to expanded audiencesshowed more correctness and fluency. This suggeststhat students should be required to respond to eachothers' work, produce assignments collaboratively,and correspond with other adults and more expertwriters.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Our analyses revealed characteristics of a new kind ofcommunication environment that Literacy Networkenabled in the science classrooms that make ita prom-ising developriental environment for literacy skills inthe long term. There was a great amount of literacysituated in science learning, and teachers were able tohave more reliable information about where languagebarriers existed that impeded science learning orcommunicating about science informa4on or con-

17

20

cepts. The interactions inside the science lessons hadall of the features necessary for literacy develop-mentcommunication and interactions betweenteachers and stulents based on developing higherorder skills such as problem solving, categorization,and the expression of ideas.

Our preliminary analyses of electronic mail indi-cated that students have complex thoughts aboutscience, although they communicate them in manyforms ^f writing in many emergent stages. The follow-ing example illustrates that while this student is notyet a fluent user of written English, she can monitorher progress and ask questions about her complexideas:

HI AND I STILL LEARNING THE MINER-ALS BUT ITS HARDLY TO UNDERSTAND HOW

CAN U EXPLAINING ABOUT HHOWW SCIEN-

TISTS WERE AWARING ABOUT ROCKS FORM

AND ALSO HOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN ABOUTHOW SCIENTISTS DISCOVERED THE MINER-

ALS AND HOW THEY RESEARCHING THEM.

This st-.1dent is thinking, expressing her ideas, andwriting questionsall in the area of cience. Herquestions to her teacher moved beyond tne bounda-ries of the curriculum. She questioned the work ofscientists and the process of science.

We believe the network made possible an eff ac-tive literacy and science environment for deaf enil-dren where reading and writing became a naturalconversation-like form of communication. Still, thereis a great need for support if a variety of networkedactivities are to be developed and implemented inclassrooms. Many of the science writing experiencesthat were possible demanded large amounts of timeaaid people resources in the science classroom. Thispresents problems for science teachers, who aremandated to cover a certain scope of science contentduring the year and have minimal expertise as lan-guage teachers. There would be much to gain if sci-ence teachers and writing teachers could work to-gether to plan for, implement, and assess science goalsand literacy goals. New kinds of curriculum struc-tures and ways af thinking about the disciplines needto be created, implemented, and studied in order forthe connectedness of literacy and science work to berealized.

March 199

NotesAn earlier version of this paper was presented at the annualmeeting of the American Educational Research Associationin April 1989. We thank Alison Matthews, Deborah Brienne,and Dr.T. J. Matthews for their research contributions to theproject. We are grateful to Grace Ann Ashley, Anita Lang,Elizabeth Precourt, and their students, who made all of theirclasses and work available to us. We appreciate the com-ments that Jan Hawkins, Ray McDermott, and Mary BuddRowe made on our AERA presentation.

1. The Earth Lab project capital:zed on the communicationfeatures of local area network technologies to create an en-vironment for science learning that would model the col-laborative work of real scientists. On a local area net work, allcomputers are wired together making it possible for a per-son at one machine to communicate and share data with aperson at any other machine.

2. A measure of student's syntactical ability was determinedby systematically calculating the number of correctionsnecessary to transform a message into acceptable standardEnglish. As such, the measure confirms the effort that ateacher must make in order to fully understand a studentand can be used to assess his/her progress.

3. All cxamples are in the form originally composed bystudents and teachers.

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20 2

Appendix 16

END

U.S. Dept. of Education

Office of EducationResearch and

Improvement (OERI)

ERIC

Date Filmed

March 21,1991