Approaches to dissemination of experimental programs

The (K-12) education system which the American community has developed over the last century is in some ways the victim of its own success, as is the American system of manufactures. It seems to suffer from similar ambiguities between quantity and quality; in spite of our insistence on local control, we do not offer a sufficient set of high quality alternatives to communities or youngsters with different prospects and learning styles. The industrial mold which stresses the economic efficiency associated with mass production is reinforced, sometimes perversely, by our concern with equality of opportunity for all youngsters; the result is a system which combines features of straight-jacket uniformity with the unwieldiness of local decision-making in some 15,000 separate districts. This paper is concerned with the need to re-educate and re-motivate the present teaching faculties in our K-12 schools if any long term reform is to stick. It describes a particular approach which uses technology in societal context as a focus and teachers´ teamwork and willingness to act as learners as essential processes. It takes personal interaction with the TILT staff for teachers to begin the required attitude change, and therefore TILT´s impact is slow. We discuss several ways in which the dissemination of TILT´s professional development model can be improved