9720383 Gomez This project is being funded through the Learning and Intelligent Systems (LIS) Initiative. The Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools will help urban school communities integrate advanced technologies for teaching and learning with their education reform plans. The goal of the Center is to help these technologies become pervasive in science curricula and routine components of the learning experience. The Center is a partnership among the Chicago and Detroit Public Schools, and education and technology researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. The Center's premise is that urban schools represent a challenging and important setting for shaping and assessing new organizational and teaching practices supported by technology, and the technologies that optimize such support. Schools in Chicago and Detroit are currently developing and implementing new curriculum frameworks, new standards and practices for professional development, and new community-based structures that support teaching and learning in classrooms. The Center will capitalize on these efforts and on research at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan to develop models of science learning based on science practice, modeling and simulation, scientific visualization, and tools for computer-supported collaboration that can enrich urban schools. The Center will encourage schools to create challenging implementations for learning technologies, and support the schools in such endeavors.. Teams of teachers and researchers will work to understand how to make new technologies work in urban and non-urban communities across the nation. The result of the Center's efforts will be new technologies, and improved school organizations that are better structured to facilitate the adoption of new technology and rigorous, new science curricula.
