RES 5040: Teacher as Researcher (spring 09)

Shocker, I changed my whole idea.

Research Question

How can a community of practice specifically devoted to technology integration be fostered in a school? Or How can informal staff development and collaborative planning create enthusiasm for technology integration?

In other words, I want to examine how to start a technology professional learning community in this school. I want to remove the typical learning environment and expectations of staff development from the professional learning process and institute some sort of monthly planning meetings. The initial idea, to be shaped as participants see fit, is to gather in a more casual setting to discuss the participants’ recent successes and mistakes in integration in order to engage in reflection, share resources with others, and plan further learning experiences. Meetings could shape themselves organically into a show-and-tell on occasions when folks are eager to share. Other times, they may evolve into impromptu staff development where the day’s expert teaches the group how to use a new tool. On other occasions we may gather around to do more conventional planning utilizing the strengths of all involved, cracking the texts, the pacing guides and the laptops. In some way, I want to extend the passion for learning to teachers that can permeate to students and is somehow sapped by traditional staff development.

Setting

I will be researching in a lower-middle class elementary school serving PK-5 grades within our district. The school is under relatively new leadership where the principal is entering his third year following a very successful and data-driven principal who was promoted. The assistant principal is also in her third year as an administrator and the second in this school. Teacher turnover has been very low in the last several years, until this school year which brought eight new teachers into the 21 regular education classrooms. Most of the staff are classified as ILT’s in their first three years of teaching or are beyond twenty years of teaching.

In examining the most recent data from the NC Report Cards and from our SMS, this school is slightly smaller than the average school in our district and made expected growth on last year’s EOG tests. This school is somewhat typical of many others in our district scoring just a few percentage points below the district average in reading (51.0% proficient compared to 52.6% proficient district-wide), but did excel in math EOG’s achieving a 6% higher proficiency than other elementary schools in the district.

In most ways, the school is very typical of those throughout the state in achievement on standardized test scores, population, and staff makeup. There are two distinctions sure to bear on this study. Last year, the school benefitted from Title I funding due to its percentage of economically disadvantaged students. However, the requirements were greatly increased such that despite having 69% of students classified as economically disadvantaged for the current school year, it school does not receive Title I status and the additional funding that the designation brings.

The other distinction is that all grade 3-5 classrooms participate in the Technology and Reading Ignites Comprehension and Kindles Success program (T.R.I.C.K.S.). T.R.I.C.K.S. is a district initiative created to use existing software to enhance the language arts curriculum. It consists of lessons where students examine nonfiction selections to complete a technology task and then a range of comprehension questions designed to match the EOG. All of these teachers receive additional training annually and are supported and monitored bi-weekly in order to facilitate this program.

Participants

I have begun talking to the administrators to clear time with teachers who might be interested in this process as well as some teachers likely to be interested in a different manner of a community of practice. I anticipate drawing in a lot of the new teachers whom appear more eager to learn, share and help each other. However, I am also going to draw from several other teachers, one of whom has been a literacy coach before in our state and has studied collaborative planning and others whom I know are floundering having already mastered the idea of the T.R.I.C.K.S. program and are capable of more. I am also tapping into the administration as participants in shaping the community. One administrator has made it part of his own growth plan to increase technology use in the building and is devoting the majority of the school’s funds to acquiring technology such as interactive whiteboards, wireless slates and digital cameras, that the school sorely needs. The other has been a technology advocate in some capacity for some time having even participated in our district’s Pinnacle Leaders’ Network, a program setting out to further train and grow technology leaders. The last key stakeholder will be the computer lab specialist whom is not a certified teacher, but easily accounts for most of the instruction of applications in the curriculum.

Kyle Wood