NECC 08 – Planning for Systemic Change – Part 1
My attendance at NECC in San Antonio was made possible through the HP Technology for Teaching Leadership grant award. Last year a team of five teachers from our school were awarded the Technology for Teaching grant and because of our success with implementing our Pond Partners project we were awarded the additional funding as part of the Leadership grant for year two. We now have 15 teachers on the project with 13 k-5 classrooms participating. Saturday and Sunday at San Antonio were spent in meetings with14 other schools awarded the Leadership grant to discuss and plan for the coming year.
Debra Reed, our district’s K-12 Science Curriculum Supervisor, and I mapped our course for next year. The biggest shift in year two of the grant is moving from project-based planning to an initiative based on systemic change for our elementary building. Here’s our draft from our initial planning sessions.
Focus of Team Initiative
Goal #1: Our most important initiative is to shift instructional practices in our school to become constructivist in nature using inquiry-based methods. Both problem and project-based experiences will be the foundation for long-term student-driven investigations centered on living environment concepts. All teachers and students should be involved in real issues that require creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving to generate possible solutions and share findings and learning experiences with stakeholders.
Goal #2: Our second initiative is to increase the use of technology to facilitate learning for both teachers and students. We believe that technology (goal #2) must serve pedagogy (goal #1). We believe the infusion of technology must enable teachers and students to research, create, communicate, and collaborate. This initiative will create the transformative process we are seeking in technology infusion for our teachers and students.
Initiative Objectives
As a result of our initiative, teachers will:
- Understand constructivist theory
- Implement inquiry-based lessons (5E) and experiences (including PBL)
- Integrate technology into lessons
- Involve students in real-world issues that require creativity and innovation
- Establish their own personal learning network
- Design pre/post and formative/summative assessments tied to NYS/National standards
- Use data to inform instructional practices
- Work in collaborative teams focused on student learning
What will change?
Our current state of practice reveals many teachers using traditional, teacher-centered (didactic) direct instruction, where students are passive receptors of knowledge. The change will be the systemic impact on instructional practices and student learning.
As a result of our initiative, students will:
- Develop and implement their own scientific inquiry investigations
- Collect, organize, display, and analyze data from investigations to make decisions and develop solutions
- Increase content understandings related to the living environment
- Use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively
- Create and share multi-media presentations to reflect information learned through the project
- Exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology
What will change?
The change will be the shift towards a student-centered environment where they take the lead and responsibility for their learning and are supported and guided by classroom teachers.
As a result of our initiative, systems of technology support, leadership and administration will:
- Facilitate and support collaborative technology-enriched learning environments conducive to innovation for improved learning.
- Support hardware/software/networking
Plan for Measuring Impact on Teaching and Learning
Guiding Action Research Questions
- What is the effect of implementing inquiry-based instruction on student learning?
- How does technology support learning?
Multiple Measures of Data
- Student Learning
- How do the post test measures of participating classes compare to the control classes?
- Perceptions
- How do students, parents, and teachers gauge the importance/value of learning through inquiry?
- How do students, parents, and teachers gauge the importance/value of using technology?
- Demographics
- How is student learning affected within various demographic groups? (special ed., gender)
- School Processes
- How does the collaborative nature of this initiative support the shift in instructional practice and school/district goals?
- How does this initiative support collaborative technology-enriched learning environments that are conducive to innovation for improved learning?
Student Measures
- pre/post content assessment
- open ended task (post)
- journals/learning logs
- inquiry investigations
- graphing & analysis of data collection
- multi-media presentations
- surveys
- post reflections
Teacher Measures
- survey on student learning
- reflections
- pre/post HP technology survey
- pre/post Klem South pedagogy & technology use survey
- peer classroom observations
Leadership, Technology Support, & Administration
- survey
- reflections
- classroom observations
What’s important to note about this initiative is that it is TEACHER DRIVEN with administrative support. Planning for this systemic change for our school is incredibly exciting, yet brought about some personal stress and uncertainty. Last year it was a tremendous amount of work to be the Lead Teacher on the grant with just 4 other teachers and three classrooms working on the year-long project. Now that I’ll be working with 14 other teachers and 13 classrooms, how will we not only implement the environmental science year-long project with k-5 students, but also attain the pedagogical changes in instruction? In my next blog post, I’ll share what happened when our team of teachers in San Antonio met to tackle the obstacles and create a workable plan to create cohesion, excitement, and success for all teachers on the grant.
Questions and feedback on our plan are welcomed as well as other examples of systemic changes driven from the classroom.
