The effectiveness of the modular technology lab in the Mosinee Middle School

Abstract

Technology Education has taken on many faces over the last twenty years. Making a transition from the Manual Arts to Industrial Arts took nearly fifty years. However, the transition to education about technology evolved in as little as ten years. Brought about by the launch of Sputnik, American educators felt a need for students in the middle and secondary grades to not only learn how to work with their hands, but to understand the entire scope of technology from its need to its impact on societies and the environment. In short: to help create students who are technologists. The School District of Mosinee, in the spring of 1994, developed a document whose purpose was to drive both curriculum decisions as well as educational purchases. Based on Cook’s philosophy of strategic planning, the district set about ensuring that their new middle school Technology Education program met the litmus test of their strategic plan. That is, that the program be standards-based and student centered. In 1997, Mosinee purchased a modular technology lab with the goal of meeting their Strategic Plan. After five years of operation, the modular technology lab has reached a point where evaluation needs to occur. The goal of this thesis is to evaluate six modules in the Mosinee Middle School modular technology lab to determine if they meet the following criteria: alignment of the Wisconsin Model Academic Standards in Technology Education for grade eight, are student-centered according to the Mosinee School District Strategic Plan, and, determine student-centeredness based on student’s attitudes of the modules they experienced. Since the School District of Mosinee uses as its framework in all important decisions their Strategic Plan, the wisdom of strategic planning needs to be looked at. This thesis will determine the effectiveness of the modular technology lab by talking about the theory behind standards-based education. Student-centered learning is discussed to help the reader understand why Mosinee School District used this as a benchmark for educational excellence. Since the School District of Mosinee purchased a modular technology education program, it is essential that looking at modular systems from their history to the education fields attitude of modules be explored. Two mechanisms were developed to evaluate the modules. They represent mechanisms, which will give a simple percentage from the evaluation. The first mechanism is a matrix that measured the competencies of lesson within each module to the Wisconsin academic standards for technology education in grade eight. The author of the research paper designed this matrix. It was a simple crosscheck matrix to provide a visual comparison to alignment of curriculum for the modules to the state academic standards. The second mechanism was a survey that was distributed to eighth grade students during the beginning of the 2001/2002 school year. These students experienced the modular technology lab while seventh graders the previous school year. This survey solicited the feelings of these students of how they felt about the module being evaluated. From this data, the evaluator determined whether the modules for evaluation met the criteria set forth in the introduction portion of the research. It was assumed that more than one of the modules for evaluation will be found not to measure up to Wisconsin academic standards for grade eight and match the district’s strategic plan of being a student-centered learning lab. The data gathered would be from the interpretation of the Wisconsin Model Academic Standards for grade eight by the author. In addition, the student-centeredness of the modules to be studied again will be in interpretation of the questioner data by the author.