I am going to make 2 daring assumptions based on my interpretation of blogging from my "life-world." 1) It is going to afford my the right to write a little, smidgen, bit more casually than I normally would and 2) that hopefully illustrating this assumption somehow counts as referencing Stringer's book and his points. I would guess that I am correct on #1 and incorrect on #2 though.
Anyway, reading this put some of my fears of research at ease and gave me a couple of ideas for topics. The core of my ideas involve staff development. Those of you in my cohort have heard of my intense hatred of all things paper (handouts) and that is a tempting topic, but probably too specific. I was thinking of examining the results of staff development and, more specifically to what we have been studying, why after staff development on a technology tool or practice and its integration, people still fail to follow through in utilizing the concepts they learn.
At first it sounds like a fairly accusational idea, but that is not where I am coming from in this case. My job as technology facilitator seems to require me to really figure out the environment of each of my schools and determine what a given staff may be willing and capable of really using. It appears as though action research would allow me to pose those questions to the staff and administrators in a non-confrontational way. I like what Stringer points to as a quality in action research whereby instead of acting as some sort expert observer of a world, you try to immerse yourself into the participants point of view. Currently, I survey all of schools formally using a little online tool and conduct the topics with the highest aggregate scores. Using the action research method Stringer is proposing, I could better determine the views of staff development as it is conducted. I suspect that I would learn more if I conducted some structured, but less formal interviews with the people on staff at some of my schools and then discussed with them the factors inhibiting their utilizing what they requested. In some way I could develop with them a line of questioning and better understand what they want from staff development.
It kind of sounds like a no-brainer, but admittedly is not something I have really taken the time to do before because either I did not devote the time to do it or was fearful that the conversations would not be productive. I would suspect that the lack of access and resources would come up, but in actually asking the questions to at least a sampling of my feeder area, I might find that all some of them want is a little more face-to-face contact or that technology simply is not of interest despite its measured success. At any rate, this could afford me the chance to really sit down with folks and ask them where they are as teachers and what about staff development as we now conduct it does or does not appeal to them.
I like the cyclical nature of this type of research as well whereby something comes of the research gathered and leads to new conclusions or issues. Perhaps as a next step, I could truly confront how they would consider it being more effective and once it is effective in teaching its content, how we can better utilize what we have learned. In other words, the true measure of successful staff development is not whether or not the participants get the content, but whether it is engaging and powerful enough for them to utilize it. All in all, it could really change how I conduct staff development and hopefully a given staff's response to it.
Is this a "Kyle, that idea is way too abstract for you to pull off, but good luck?" idea or is it doable?
-Kyle Wood
Comments (6)
Kyle-
I totally think this idea is doable. As a matter of fact, I wish it would be done in our county. I get tired of going to staff development sessions taught by people who have not been in the classroom for a while, and I feel they have no clue how a real class works today. I would definitely focus on the face-to-face follow up! I don’t think you will have much trouble with them not being interested in technology, but the question from the teachers may be “How can I use this in the classroom?” “Will someone please come and model it with my class?” I think while doing this research, you will become a hero if you spend the face to face time you are talking about :o) Good luck!
Jill Mann
Posted by Jill Mann | January 16, 2009 10:51 PM
Posted on January 16, 2009 22:51
Kyle-
I'd come to one of your staff developments! Seriously though, do the different groups of teachers you are responsible need specific training that isn't given in a basic staff development setting? For instance, Google Earth is probably used way differently in high school than in the elementary. Have you considered tailoring each session to the needs of the different groups you see? I know from personal experience that when I am at a staff developement session, I can immediately tell if a person is related to the elementary setting, or if what they are talking about doesn't really relate to what I'm doing in my classroom. Would there be a way to gauge the relevance of staff development to the individual teacher when you interview them? I think this topic will be a fascinating challenge!
Posted by Matt Maurer | January 17, 2009 7:13 PM
Posted on January 17, 2009 19:13
Kyle,
If your schools are anything like ours, the reason you're not seeing the results you would like is that we are having so much staff development, PLC's, RTI, PBS thrown at us we don't have time to mentally process what is absolutely required. I'm interested to see how it turns out.
Posted by Barbara Cloninger | January 18, 2009 9:11 PM
Posted on January 18, 2009 21:11
Kyle, at my school there is not nearly enough staff development in my opinion. That is probably because our tech facilitator is so busy trying to train/retrain the faculty on NCWISE that he has no time for any thing else. I would love to see more staff development actually in class, like you mentioned. Model it for me...tell me and then show me. I can imagine that the problem with this is that you are one person in a sea of faculty. But I would bet that at first not everyone would be on board to try something like this. So, you would have time to try it at least with a few teachers. But, our tech facilitator uses me and another colleague as his "assistants". He teaches us, and then we go and help other teachers who don´t have as much tech knowledge or need a demonstration. Perhaps that could help you in your endeavors. Keep up the good work, Kyle.
Posted by Tina Mallén | January 18, 2009 9:34 PM
Posted on January 18, 2009 21:34
Thank you for your input thus far. I would agree with just about everything I have read thus far.
Jill, you are definitely correct. Much of what we try to do is get the topic out there and light a fire in staff development and then go into people's classrooms and help them utilize. Part of what I hope to discover, is why with the open offer, people still do not "cash-in." I tend to think that it still sounds like a lot of work to participants. Asking another person to teach with you can give some proud teachers a sense of failure that they did not achieve the same on their own. However, Tina is correct; it often only takes a couple of people at a given school to begin to utilize help from us to see that it is not any more difficult (It makes life easier.) and that again, collaboration, is the key to finding all of the expertise we need in the new classrooms.
Matt, that is definitely a fair assessment of a lot of staff development. I do try to tailor staff development to the people, personally, but I can honestly say that is a challenge I hope to learn more about. Just this year, I did podcasting in a PK-1 school and admittedly did a poor job of, as Jason has said, "selling" the idea I truly think it would be easy to podcast with young children because I do it with my own, but before teaching the participants how to do so, I did not paint a reasonable picture for pulling it off in their rooms.
Barbara, you are correct as well. We do have a lot of initiatives going on in our district and I suspect that will be something brought up for sure. I will tell you that I am certain that it impacts what staff development is offered in schools. With all we have to do, the technology staff development that each school is offered (and believe it or not, the actual amount of time- 30min. - 1 hour) is greatly impacted. I suspect to hear a lot of folks tell me that they are not getting the topics that they truly want, for this very reason.
Thanks so much for your input. I have strong feelings about a number of results I expect to see, but I honestly hope we are all suprised.
Posted by Kyle Wood | January 19, 2009 8:55 AM
Posted on January 19, 2009 08:55
Yep, doable. You write:
"I suspect that I would learn more if I conducted some structured, but less formal interviews with the people on staff at some of my schools and then discussed with them the factors inhibiting their utilizing what they requested. In some way I could develop with them a line of questioning and better understand what they want from staff development."
You will definitely learn more and you will probably hear things that frustrate you. But out of that frustration you can design truly responsive and relevant staff development. Actually talking with teachers -- rather than a quick survey -- will yield rich data that will assist you in evaluating what you do and how you do it.
Posted by Alecia Jackson | January 21, 2009 2:48 PM
Posted on January 21, 2009 14:48