Identifying the change I am looking for is somewhat of a challenge. I have several in mind but realize I need to keep the idea focused. I’ve pick the change that is embedded most with my job and that is for teachers to make better use of technology in their classroom to engage learners and to use technology to raise achievement.
Each summer I offer for credit courses in which teachers can learn how to use the tools we have available in our school and district. I guess the focus of these classes could be to lead the teachers to answer question #2 (Can I do it?) with an answer of “yes, I can use these tools.” However, we know that there is a gap between a teacher knowing how to use a tool and using it effectively with students in a way that enhances learning.
There are other behaviors that teachers need to adapt to besides just knowing how to use the technology (actually some of my best integrators aren’t real high end users). A more important behavior and/or believe is the attitude to trust students to use the tools effectively. It comes down to control for some classroom teachers….can the students learn more from using the technology than from hearing them speak about the objectives at hand? Unfortunately I think most teachers would opt towards the speaking or verbal presentation of the content at hand….even though we know this a turn off to many students. With the emphasis of our state achievement tests and NCLB teachers are spending even more time on the rote tasks and lessons.
Question #1 (is it worth it?) is a much more difficult question to answer. Will students be more engaged and enjoy coming to school more when they are able to use engaging technologies. Yes, I believe they will and I don’t think teachers would dispute this either. However, raising achievement on our state tests is what really matters to the district’s administrators and I certainly understand that. So the question becomes will a teacher take a chance with tools they know engage students and use them to try to raise achievement rather than rely on the traditional methods of lecture and practice activities? Sadly it is a risk that is too great for most teachers to take. Ideally we could test our ideas to see if they work and we can raise achievement….but once again, there are no control groups of students and no one is going to volunteer their kids as a test group because any results that were less than stellar would reflect negatively on the teacher and actually impact the schools goal of AYP and Value Added measures.
It is at this point that stories become important. I need to find teachers that will take smaller risks in the form of projects that wrap into them multiple curricular objectives as opposed to the often isolated ways the objectives are taught. Through these smaller technology enhanced projects I can begin to build convincing stories of success. Although each project may not be a success it can still serve the purpose of showing teachers what doesn’t work as well as that it is okay to learn from our mistakes.
Sharing the stories as well as the message that we grow with successes and failures will have to be a part of the principal’s role in our building. The principal as evaluator will need to assure teachers that growth and change takes time and hard work and that their risks and extra efforts will be rewarded not penalized. Over time we can add to our collection of stories as our experience grows.
Still “Is It Worth It” for teachers? Doing something in a different way than they’ve done it in the past will require more effort and teachers will be going into somewhat unchartered territory which will make it even more uncomfortable for them. Does teacher evaluation become a tool at some point to require change (even if at a somewhat slow rate)? Does it become the principal’s job at some point to say based on the stories we know this works and we know that the students are more engaged SO you as teacher need to be teaching this way as well. Does the principal need to find a way to make it NOT worth it to do it the old way? At some point I believe admin does need to use teacher evaluation as a tool for behavior change.
