Reports - 2003 Independent Assessment

AAM 2003 Evaluation - April 2004
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Executive Summary

From July 2003 to March 2004 researchers at Education Development Center’s Center for Children and Technology (CCT) conducted an evaluation of the first four years (Phase I) of the Adventure of the American Mind program (AAM). During Phase I, AAM partner programs trained over 700 K-12 educators in several states to use the Library of Congress’ digitized American Memory collections and other technology tools to enhance their teaching across the curriculum.

CCT’s evaluation of Phase I of the AAM program includes the following major findings:

• AAM delivered a highly valued professional development experience to educators. Many described AAM as among the best professional development experiences of their careers. Educators cited the program’s intensity and duration, its strong instructors, and the ongoing technical support provided as particular strengths of Phase I.
  
• AAM training significantly increased most participants’ repertoire for using technologies, both in and out of the classroom. Over 80% of respondents reported that AAM caused a change in their use of computers with students. The number of teachers for whom computers were “very” or “extremely” important increased about 40 percentage points over the four years of the program, from under 40% four years ago to almost 80% in the current school year.
  
• AAM heightened educators’ awareness of the American Memory collections as teaching materials, and their awareness of the value of primary sources in teaching and learning. Participants reported that the AAM program feature they found most valuable was learning about the American Memory collections or other Library of Congress resources.
  
• AAM had a mixed record of success in fostering change in teaching practices. AAM caused an increase in participants’ reported use of inquiry-based learning with students and beliefs about curriculum priorities. However, lesson and unit plans created by participants reveal varying uses of inquiry-based learning techniques.
  
• Lesson and unit plans created by AAM teachers in Phase I varied in focus and quality, reflecting different emphases in the training by partner programs. When training concentrated on technology skills (as was especially common early in Phase I), teacher-created lessons tended to use Library of Congress materials mostly as illustrations. When training included a strong component on teaching and learning with primary sources (a particular focus in two of the partner programs), lessons were more likely to ask students to do significant thinking, talking or writing around the source materials.
  
• Student impact of AAM appears to vary significantly. Impact is clearest in history, social studies, and language arts classrooms where AAM teachers have used technology to actively engage students with American Memory source materials. Students in several high-implementation AAM classrooms said they had learned more history, and liked history more, because their classrooms were no longer ruled by textbooks and lectures, but offered a wider and more interesting set of materials and assignments. In an online historical thinking task, these students also displayed a surprising degree of skill in interpreting primary documents.
  
• Programmatically, AAM has developed greater coherence and consistency over the four years of Phase I. Partner programs share more similarities than differences, and made use of their flexibility to adapt to local needs and circumstances, but would likely benefit from clearer standards and shared criteria for assessing outcomes.

An Adventure of the American Mind is made available through a Library of Congress grant funded by the U.S. Congress. AAM is administered through the Education and Research Consortium of the Western Carolinas Inc.
For site-related problems, e-mail aam@ercwc.org..