Why does so much teaching in high schools and universities look the same over time? To be accurate, however, what appears as similarities in teaching has obscured incremental changes. As compared to a half-century ago, professors now ask more questions of students in lectures, organize more small group work, and use more technology–from clickers to laptops–than academics had done decades earlier.

So, too, for school teachers who have, again over time, made small and significant changes in their classroom teaching. There is more guided discussion, more group work, increased academic content in upper grades, more adventurous teaching by larger fractions of teachers, and, yes, more and more teachers using high-tech devices for instruction.

Yet looking back on one’s experiences in university and high school classrooms, teaching in both venues–even accounting for these incremental changes over the decades–-sure looks similar to me.

Here’s the heart of the puzzle: Note that the complexity of the subject matter, freedom of movement, course choices, student ages, and teachers’ deep knowledge of their subject are critical markers that distinguish university instruction from teaching in high schools. Moreover, college students attend voluntarily while high school students must attend school. Yet–and you knew there was a “yet” coming–with all of these essential differences many studies point out the similarities in teaching children and young adults. Including the use of technology for instruction.

Technology Use in Universities

Professors use computers at home and in their offices to write, analyze data, communicate with colleagues, and compose syllabi and handouts for their courses.  Personal accounts and surveys report again and again that most academics are enthusiastic about using computers and other technologies for routine tasks in laboratories, lecture halls, and data analysis. Moreover, many professors blog, podcast, create web-based classes and teach online courses.

Furthermore, adventurous faculty have designed disciplinary projects. Professor Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano of Stanford University’s Spanish and Portuguese Department, for example, worked with technology staff to create “Chicana Art,” a multimedia database of works by various Mexican-American artists. Digitized slides have links to what the artists have said, their biographies, and lists of references.

Yet using computers and other new technologies to improve instruction has had little tangible effect on undergraduate classroom teaching or learning. The lecture has remained central to undergraduate instruction.

Except now lectures are often conveyed through Powerpoint and similar software. According to a 2008 national student survey, 63 percent of professors use PowerPoint software in their undergraduate courses. At some institutions, the percentage runs higher. Except for a small fraction of faculty, abundant high-tech hardware, software, and services have hardly made a difference in how professors teach and students learn in most undergraduate classrooms (for a 2023 survey of faculty teaching, see here).

While the exact same statement cannot be made for high school teaching, there are enough similarities to make even the most ardent technophile wince.

Why?

Unlocking this puzzle of same o,’ same o’ for university and secondary school teaching requires different answers for for each institution. For universities, look at institutional goals and organizational structure. Consider that a primary goal of universities is to produce knowledge (i.e., doing research) and disseminate it (i.e., teach and publish). Structures and incentives to achieve that goal are faculty rewards in tenure and promotion for research productivity rather than effective teaching. To insure that faculty have time to do research and publish, university administrators reduce teaching obligations by creating large lecture classes in the undergraduate courses and small classes in graduate courses. Those goals, incentives, and structures shape how classes are organized and influence how professors teach. Nonetheless, professors teach classes. They lecture, conduct discussions, and test their students.

Technology Use in High Schools

Rather than cite again all of the surveys (10.1.1.90.6742-1), ethnographic studies, and reports (Bebell_04) of direct observation of classrooms over the past thirty years, the evidence seems clear, at least to me, that nearly all high school teachers not only endorse the use of technology for both administrative and instructional tasks but an increasing fraction of teachers integrate those high-tech devices into their daily lessons. A large group of teachers use laptops/desktops/ hand-held devices a few times a week and only a fraction of teachers in most districts, both urban and suburban, refrain from even minimal use–once a week or less.

High school teachers, then, lecture, conduct discussions, and test their students to determine if they have absorbed the content and skills that they have taught. So here are two crucial educational institutions that differ in governance, organization, curriculum, and student attendance yet show strikingly similar patterns in instruction and use of technology.

And these similarities, in my judgment, unravel the puzzle of surprising likenesses in teaching between two different educational institutions.