This chapter discusses ongoing work on the use of the World Wide Web in combination with dilemma cases in a professional education program for school leaders. Dilemma cases are narratives of school problems involving value conflicts for which no viable consensual solution may exist. The research reported here revealed that discussion and reflection focusing on elaborate, contextualized situations is an effective strategy for examining how educational leaders approach problems in contexts of social diversity. Although the purpose of this work is to help prepare school-based leaders, the technology described here may also be useful in the preparation of other professionals. In this case, the context is communities characterized by social diversity. Societal diversity is broadly defined as the interplay of ideas, values, and perspectives that may be attributed to group membership. In these case, the interplay reveals itself in linguistic, cultural, ideological, or other differences that mediate interactions between and among members of diverse ethno-linguistic groups.

Teaching about the manifestations of diversity in professional work is complex undertaking because much human behavior -- including that of students and instructors -- is mediated by socio-cultural values and norms. Questions and situations involving human diversity frequently are not tractable in an "objective" way because the perspectives of the various players are often emotionally charged. Problems of this type call for reflection about the contextual culture and value system in which the schools and their leaders are embedded. Because many problems of diversity derive from real or imagined differences in group perspective, administrative solutions based on the paradigms of the dominant culture may be unacceptable to members of other groups. The issue is not limited to multicultural contexts; it extends to gender dynamics (Ikpa, Ortiz and Ortiz, Shakeshaft, Sulir Sanford, and Papalewis in Donmoyer, et. al., 1995). This calls for professional development strategies that are less reliant on managerial formulae or the usual and customary tools and rules of management science.

Often cultural values lie hidden beneath the external visage of techno-professional expertise. Strategies are needed to help school leaders and administrators gain insight into social and educational problems that are defined -- at least in part -- by the world view of which they themselves partake. That world view is rooted in the social assumptions, values, and traditions that underlie our hegemonic national culture. To grasp the impact of diversity and the special skills needed to work within it, school leaders must understand the nexus between professional discourse and action and the ways in which hose may be viewed by members of other cultural groups. Leaders and practitioners must learn to objectify two views of problems which may conflict. The first is their view of problems as techno-professional challenges, and the other is the external view in which a broader problémmatique can be seen, one in which the boundaries of a social problem and their solutions are biased by their own hegemonic world view as members of a dominant culture. In short, they must learn to see themselves as part of the matrix of social diversity not as observers viewing a human panorama (of "otherness") which does not include them. A fuller treatment of this relationship is beyond the scope of this paper. Lambert's (1995) discussion of the changes in leadership theories and their parallels in pedagogical theory are useful in understanding the relevance of this in the context of schools.

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The ideas outlined above have been considered and debated in teacher education circles. A base of literature has begun to emerge in that domain, but to date, less attention has been given to ways of adapting them to the professional preparation of school administrators and policy makers [1]. This led me to concentrate on the development of useful tools for the study of diversity that school administrators might find useful in the sociological aspects of school work. The goal was mediated by other preferences which became corollary objectives of my teaching and in the research described here:

1. Show the complexity of social diversity. Students should understand diversity as an integral element of U.S. life. Demographic trends indicate that changes in the composition of U.S. society are widespread and permanent and that most regions of the country will experience these changes.
2. Focus on constructivist adult learning. To incorporate principles of andragogy (adult pedagogy) in recognition that, adult learners have characteristics which set them apart from younger learners even though the theories that explain successful learning are closely parallel for both. In recent years children have been the primary focus of research on teaching and learning. Arguably, younger learners are more malleable with respect to adapting to differing points of view. I wanted to create opportunities for graduate students to recognize that their membership in cultural, religious, and social groups predispose them to particular interpretations of inter-group problems and how to resolve them. Because it stresses the participation of the learner in learning constructivist techniques seemed appropriate for this task and I chose this approach to the over the more traditional reproduction approach to teaching in which solutions and paths to solutions are explained by the teacher. To assure greater ownership of the processes involved I wanted my students to participate in constructing their own understandings of the complexity of these issues. In short, I wanted to show that

...knowledge is not what it used to be. ... knowledge - most certainly knowledge of the social world - is never independent of the knower. What we know always has something to do with who we are, where we have been, who has socialized us, and what we believe.[Donmoyer, 1996] (p.3)

3. Peer authorship of learning tools. Given this preference for constructivist learning, I wanted to use and collect the work of successive cohorts of students and to build a repository of authentic problems that could be indexed and used by subsequent cohorts to examine and compare with their own lived experiences.
4. Transposing theory and example. In traditional teaching, theory is often presented first and examples are used to illustrate and explain the theory. Given the importance of real-life experiences for practitioners, I wanted students to create their own theories about the dynamics of diversity and to base their learning on case study materials written by them and their classmates. This approach inverts the traditional presentation of theory/example and allows the students to "construct" theory, thus increasing the level of ownership of the understandings they reach.
5. Distinguish between pathology and diversity. In the casual discourse of schools, "diversity" is sometimes used as a code word for social dysfunction, an excuse for low motivation to learn, or as a rubric for the difficulty of integrating immigrant students into the life of schools. I wanted issues of diversity to be positioned more neutrally allowing students to determine the root of diversity problems for themselves, and to recognize that it is possible for social pathology to be in the eye of the beholder, i.e., in the predisposition of those who hold power to define deviance and normative behavior in ways that are comfortable for them.

Many school people prefer to take part in continuing education formats that make practical and realistic connections to their work lives. The challenge is to create learning experiences that include real -- or at least plausible -- situations while maintaining a strong grounding in an interdisciplinary base of scholarship. I wanted students and practitioners to uncover issues of diversity in their own work and to use the broad knowledge base of the social sciences to understand and resolve them. I also wanted to avoid formulaic, "politically correct" answers to conflict which trivialize the worthiness of multiple perspectives on school related issues.

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Andragogy and constructivism are related concepts which are important for the study of learning, instruction, and cognition. As proposed by Knowles (1983) andragogy is the professional knowledge base concerning adult learners. The concept is related to pedagogy, a term whose etymology suggests the study of teaching and learning in children.[2] Universities have been slow to respond to the challenge of creating learning environments that are suitable for adult learners and to regard college students as learners who can be expected to guide much of their own learning. The research on adult education stresses that adult learners have characteristics which influence their behavior as students, chiefly that:

• Adulthood brings with it more responsibility and an greater self-directedness in making learning choices. To become older means that we become more discerning, and judicious about the time and effort we invest in formal learning.

• In general, adult levels of accumulated experience are filters through which we mediate new learning. Adults expect new knowledge and information to make sense in relation to what they already know and find useful and comfortable. New information is considered in the context of prior knowledge and must be congruent with prior experience before it can be internalized.

• Adults are often pragmatic learners; we seek to use new skills and knowledge to fill lacunae in our personal or professional lives. Often, adults want assurance the new learning will be practical and useful.

• Professionals have a strong desire to act competently and to avoid mistakes. They want new knowledge to increase their ability to be effective and efficient. because we want to be more competent and confident, the learning we undergo as adults must be practical, realistic, and targeted.

The principles of constructivist education are closely related to those of andragogy. Constructivists assert that knowledge and insight are embraced or owned by the student in direct relation to the degree that s/he participates in constructing his/her own knowledge or insight. Constructivists reject the transmission theory of education, the view that knowledge is collected by an elite class of scholars and specialists who dispense it to others.[3]

In constructivism, the role of teachers and professors is less oriented toward transferring information and knowledge. Constructivists regard themselves as collaborative coaches who bring students in contact with materials for constructing learning. They help students organize their learning resources, encourage reflection, and help them distinguish between transcendent questions and less important issues. A corollary to this change in role is a different view of the correct answer. For constructivists the correct answer is less important than the process followed to arrive at it.

Traditionalists tend to view learning as an individualistic endeavor; constructivists regard it as a social and interactive activity, as phenomena that occur in a social context. In this approach, instruction may be better defined as the creation of learning environments or social laboratories for learning. Wilson (1996) describes the optimum learning environment for constructivist work as:

... a place where learners may work together and support each other as they use a variety of tools and information resources in their guided pursuit of learning goals and problem-solving activities. (p. 5)

Finally, constructivists stress that learning is not unidirectional. In an ideal learning community teachers, too, have opportunities to learn and gain deeper insights into the subject of study.

The need to apply new ways of teaching adults becomes clear and more powerful when the characteristics of adult learners are considered in tandem with the principles of constructivist teaching. The aggregate concept is especially useful in the context of the multiple perspectives and values associated with diverse group membership. The need is for alternatives to traditional conceptions of teaching in which:

• teaching is regarded principally as the transference of knowledge or information from a person who has it to one who does not and the identification and adoption of learning objectives is carried out by teachers, professors and institutions; not by students;
• the work of teachers and professors is defined in opposition to that of students; the former teach by talking while the latter learn by listening;
• teachers and professors are regarded as repositories of advanced knowledge and their function is to convey it to students;
• teachers and professors are expected to talk while students more expected to listen; and
• learning is done by individual learners even when all members of a group are focusing on the same topic; this may be because collaborative work blurs the individual's responsibility for learning, making it difficult to evaluate student work.

It can be argued that, in traditional conceptions of education, teaching in this way is regarded as efficient. Knowledge, skill, and insight are constructed or discovered once (through reading, research, or superior insight), then conveyed to others. The implicit objective of this transmission is to reproduce, in the minds of students, the knowledge that resides in the minds of their teachers. There is little room in this model of teaching for divergent conclusions reached after an analysis by students, that is independent of the teacher's own views. The model is especially weak in cases where the existence of multiple and valid perceptions prevents the identification of a correct solution that is acceptable to all or most of the stakeholders.

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To make learning participatory, constructivist, and collaborative and to give students a role in defining learning objectives, I created a process based on dilemma cases. Small work groups are formed to write and present cases based on personal experience, newspaper accounts, or their own imagination. The cases are presented to the class in draft form for technical review. After refinement, they are again presented to the class for in-depth analysis and reflection about the implications for leadership which they suggest.

Dilemma cases consist of short narrative stories at the core of which there is a professional quandary for school leaders or policy makers. Cases include an introduction that explains the social, cultural, and political context. This is followed by a description of a specific problem or dilemma in which school personnel are required to make a difficult decision or take an action which may be resisted by one or more groups in the school community. The actions of the protagonist -- a school principal, superintendent, school board member, or other leader(s) -- will impact on students, teachers, parents, or some segment of the community at large no matter which option is selected. The options for resolving the case are such that no single option will satisfy all parties. They are made complex by creating opposition factions who hold divergent moral, ethical, or religious positions. To assist in making a selection or otherwise changing the situation to a more favorable one, the text provides information about key players in the case and the values, convictions, or beliefs which shape their positions on issues.

These are more than mere differences of opinion and the situations described are not amenable to a rational, positivist solution, to managerial acumen, or decisive unilateral action. While the responsible party is generally a school official or policy agent, the issues presented often go beyond the school and outside the normal range of situations for which the generic tools of management and administration will suffice. Dilemma cases often accentuate differences between formal administrative practices and other powerful means used by communities to resolve problems. They may include situations that require extramural solutions or which highlight sensitivities born of religious differences, historical animosities, or differences in cultural values. In many cases a common theme is the complexity of the human experience cast against the narrow rules of quasi-governmental bodies such as school boards.[4]

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Dilemma cases have proven to be useful tools in the education of education leaders who equate the high level of professionalism of their craft with a command-and-control interpretation of leadership. Dilemmas are a powerful reminder that education occurs in a complex matrix of social, religious, and familial activity. In these broader settings, the cultural and affective side of being human may be very different from the socio-cultural orientation of the schools since the latter are bound up in the dominant culture.

Students learn that as diversity increases, many school problems can no longer be resolved inside the walls of the school or without considering effects of diversity in shaping the perspectives of stakeholders. They also realize that there is not a single correct solution to many problems. This insight is critically important for those who believe that the practice of administration embodies a set of rules for making correct choices and decisions or that the exercise of leadership is knowing what to do in all situations however complex. Through the study of dilemmas, leaders confront the need to make judgments in tandem with managerial decisions. They learn that a reflective, culturally sensitive approach to judgment making is a valuable tool of effective school administration.

Students were given only these broad guidelines for preparing draft cases for review:

1. Whenever possible, use facts and personal experiences as the basis of the case and build on those. Factual adherence to historical events may not strengthen a case presentation and it is often necessary to embellish a case to achieve the level of complexity that will make it useful as a learning tool. Often, it is advisable to forego fidelity to a real life event or situation in the interest of creating a situation that could have happened, i.e., that is plausible.
2. Do not be concerned with how the situation was resolved in real life. This information is generally not germane. If there is, or was, an obvious correct solution the case will not generate rich discussion or reflection. Further, there is no guarantee that the real-life solution was the best one; that there is one best solution; or that the same solution will be appropriate at a different time or place.
3. If the solution for one case can be found in published administrative procedures, institutional regulations, or in a collective bargaining contract, the dilemma is not as forceful. The case may be an interesting administrative problem but there is no genuine dilemma when a prescribed remedy exists. In many dilemmas, there are negative consequences for the protagonists no matter what solution they choose. Conversely, the rewards for making a good choice are more likely to be intrinsic.
4. In terms of information content, cases must stand alone. There will not be any further information provided beyond that presented in the written cases.

Dilemma cases may vary in focus from one semester to another. One class chose to address issues of access and equity while another focused on the integration of immigrant students. As might be expected, the quality of case writing varies widely. But, while the literary quality varies, the total effect of reading and discussing a number of cases is consistently powerful. Student reaction, elicited through anonymous written evaluations, has been overwhelmingly positive about the degree to which cases help them focus on the non-prescriptive aspects of administration and the leadership skills needed to work effectively in complex settings. To improve the structure and format of their cases, students are offered the opportunity to present them to classmates in draft form and to seek suggestions in class and via e-mail on ways to improve them in both form and substance. When the author teams are satisfied with the quality of their work, the cases are turned in on diskette for posting to the Internet as well as on paper for comments by the professor.

In presenting the cases for group or e-mail discussion, student teams are encouraged to pursue several lines of discussion and to pose higher order questions which guide discussions beyond the particulars of the case in question, e.g.,:

• What is the apparent basis or cause of the dilemma?
• Is there an alternative explanation regarding the basis or cause?
• What are the available options for proceeding?
• What are the probable consequences of each option?
• In selecting a best option, whose interests (from among the stakeholders involved) are served best? How?
• What values -- cultural, political, or social -- are inherent in the option selected as most appropriate?

Author teams are asked to refrain from suggesting a solution to their classmates; rather,they are encouraged to identify all feasible options. They are also responsible for collecting and summarizing the substantive interactions generated by their case. The material is presented as part of the semester's work along with their observations about the degree to which their case accomplished the desired objective of creative, participatory learning with applicability to the world of administration. Online discussions are captured on diskettes and submitted in that medium as a means of documenting the success of the case in stimulating a rich and thick discussion.

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Internet gophers or gopher sites were one of the earliest and most successful components of the Internet. Gophers facilitate the posting of text documents which can be accessed via a user-friendly text menu. While not as sophisticated as World Wide Web sites, gophers have two important advantages. They are inexpensive and easy to create and maintain. The Pluribus Unum Gopher, the gopher site used in this work, was installed on a personal computer. The gopher software is a non-commercial package developed at the University of Michigan and made available free of charge to educational institutions (González, 1995).

Initially, the gopher site was used as the repository and source of dilemma cases along with other resources dealing with diversity and leadership. Students were encouraged to retrieve practice cases from the gopher and to review other materials in the gopher site that were related to the subject matter or theme of the cases selected for review. Cases created by previous classes were posted to the gopher site to serve as models for structuring cases. By contributing to the body of literature in the field, students have a sense of participating actively in the construction of the knowledge base of this field.

With the widespread availability of the World Wide Web came new and more powerful ways to prepare course materials and to make these easily available. By using World Wide Web browsers, it is possible to offer resources that go far beyond plain text. The Web provides new and better opportunities for interactivity and deeper levels of involvement in the study of dilemmas, because related resources can be embedded as links into the text itself. By extension, the web creates better opportunities to create personal and insightful knowledge related to social diversity. Finally, the format of the World Wide Web allows for a more attractive presentation of documents on the computer screen.

Through careful planning and judicious linking, the case designers can simulate cinematic flashbacks capable of bringing the reader into the case in a dramatic way than may have been possible through other means. For this reason, the Pluribus Unum Gopher was soon converted into the Pluribus Unum Home Page. This change gives dilemma cases new power as tools for professional growth.

An early example of this is the Case of the Mid American Samurai. This case relates a school principal's dilemma in handling an incident where three students of Japanese heritage are accused of desecrating a monument honoring American soldiers involved in the Bataan Death March in World War II. In the gopher version of the document, the story is limited to text.In the World Wide Web version, URL links were introduced into the text which call up web resources external to those that are resident in the Pluribus Unum archives. The case takes on depth and complexity by incorporating "emotional data" derived from archival photographs of the Death March and of Japanese Internment Camps, the issue raised by the students in their protest. There is instructional power inherent in being able to revisit emotional historical scenes. When the reader reaches the point in the text where the Death March is discussed, s/he can click on the relevant link and be able to better understand the meaning of those events remembrances on the protagonists. Later, there is another link which brings up a third person account of the same topic that provides additional insight.

In similar fashion, including a number of links to resources about the Japanese Internment Camps elucidates the readers' understanding of the deep emotions that may have driven the unorthodox behavior of the Japanese American students in the story. As a counterpoint to Bataan, the story of the camps is an effective aide in understanding the motions of "the other side," the Japanese students who defaced the monument. This additional information drawn from an outside source would have been difficult to incorporate into a paper-based version of the case, makes eminent sense in an online document where it can be easily "attached" to the text through an electronic link. The photographic data are simply placed within the reach of the reader to interpret for himself or herself, and the reader has the option of activating the link or not. If he or she opens the link, the opportunity to experience the attendant feelings of an historical event complete with the comments and biases of those who created the exhibit in much the same way that most people must interpret history with unvarnished biases often present. By comparison gopher technology is primitive in its inability to link related documents -- graphics, video, or audio files -- in the same way.

World Wide Web technology has the capacity to proffer tiered information either through "layers" of additional text or through graphics, sound, or even video clips. Online hypertext links to multimedia resources offer an easy and inexpensive way to bring new resources to bear to the core instructional material, the dilemma case. In these materials it is possible to see the visual cues contained in gestures, facial expressions, and other manifestations of body language. All of these are "daa" for the student of intercultural conflict. Hypertext links make it possible to introduce supplementary materials that might be regarded as optional in considering the case document itself. For example, in addition to contextual material to clarify the dynamics of the case, hypertext links could also be included which help to amplify the meaning -- from several perspectives -- of social policy associated with a particular dilemma. Thus, the reader gains additional insights by means of somewhat tangential information (from an immediate perspective) that may actually turn out to be more central from another perspective.

Because hypertext links are transparent to the reader in that they do not interupt the flow of the narrative, students have ready access to additional resources only if and when they choose to see them. Happily, there is no need for anyone other than the student to be present to guide the student through the case and its resources. The links are clear but unobtrusive. This is important to busy practitioner and students who may not know where to to find resources independently or who may not be motivated to search for them because s/he regards the case as an administrative rather than a social problem. In this way, the context in which the text is situated is enlarged and this broader context provides a richer professional envoronment for making difficult judgments and decisions which is the intended purpose of the cases.

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Reibel (1994) identified four requirements to effect deep educational change to the point that the change becomes fully accepted as mainstream practice. The requirements are:

• proof of concept, to show that a significant alternative to existing practice is possible;
• a driving force, to provide the historical energy to carry innovations through to full implementation;
• a moving social vision, to legitimate the costs incurred with change and to inspire the efforts needed to effect it;
• a tangible institutional leverage, to enable new practices to provide a framework for the mobilization of disparate elements, transforming them from].

In the past, the admonition that "a picture is worth a thousand words," has not been heeded in academic communications. Academics have been content with the starkness of black ink on white paper. The more visual orientation of the World Wide Web has yet to prove itself as a tool for publishing instructional materials. While the web offers capabilities that were not easy to accomplish in print -- displaying emotions, illustrating information more vividly -- it is too early to determine its level of acceptance as a teaching tool. More experimentation is needed. In the work reported here the web proved to be a viable tool for integrating information from diverse sources to assist students in constructing meaning and understanding from the raw materials of dilemmas. I found that through hypertext and URL links, it is possible to tap cultural and emotional undercurrents and to give "voice" to those groups and have those voices heard in the discussion of their dilemmas. In this way, case study becomes more authentic. In sum, this work has demonstrated the viability of using dilemma narratives in conjunction with gophers, e-mail, and the World Wide Web as instructional tools for graduate and professional education. The learning environment that is created meets the first of the requirements noted above, proof that the concept is a viable alternative to traditional methods.

[1] See Donmoyer, et. al., 1995.

[2] This distinction is tentative and is not used uniformly in the literature. Pedagogy is widely used without regard to the age difference of students. Many scholars and researchers in this field have not adopted the term andragogy in their own writings.

[3] The conception of traditional education as banking is often attributed to Paolo Freire, a Brazilian who is also credited with leading the discourse on critical pedagogy. See Freire (1979).

[4] To review a sampling of dilemma cases described here use a World Wide Web browser such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer to access the Pluribus Unum Casebook. The uniform resource locator or URL is http://newlinks.tc.columbia.edu/pluribus/cases.htm.

References

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Donmoyer, R., Imber, M. & Scheurich, J. J. (1995). The Knowledge Base in Educational Administration: Multiple Perspectives. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Return to point of citation.

Freire, P. (1979). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury Press. Return to point of citation.

González, J.M. (1995). "An Internet `Gopher' to Support Graduate Education and Professional Development for School Administrators " Journal of Technology and Teacher Education. 3 (4) 323-342. Return to point of citation.

Knowles, M. (1983). The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy (revised and expanded). Adult Education. Return to point of citation.

Reibel, J. H. (1994). The Institute for Learning Technologies: Pedagogy for the 21st Century. [Online]: http://www.ilt.tc.columbia.edu/. Return to point of citation.

Wilson, B.G. (ed) (1996). Constructivist Learning Environments: Case Studies in Instructional Design. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Return to point of citation.

© 1997 Josué M. González