April 1, 2003

ITTF_AERA03.pdf

Abstract
This paper draws on findings from an evaluation of Intel Teach to the Future (http://www.intel.com/education), a professional development initiative focused on helping K-12 teachers integrate project-based technology use into their everyday curriculum. The initial U.S. implementation of Intel Teach to the Future was designed to be delivered on a very large scale, reaching over 100,000 teachers in three years. The goal of this paper is to outline some lessons learned from this evaluation about how "scalability," often cited as a desirable quality in effective educational interventions, can both advance and inhibit program impact within the individual school districts that participate in such a program. This paper presents information from two years (2000- 2002) of external evaluation of Intel Teach to the Future, conducted by researchers from the Education Development Center's Center for Children and Technology (http://www2.edc.org/cct). This evaluation provided a rare opportunity to closely examine an ambitious, large-scale professional development initiative, and to study a diverse population of teachers and administrators as they experienced and implemented this program.