Changing Environments
As I read chapter 9 several questions kept recurring.
Is there anything about the physical environment of our school that might be changed in order to better allow some of the changes we have discussed? In thinking about the answer to this I have gone and ahead and decided to treat the school schedule as a part of the physical environment since it determines how teachers and students are placed throughout the day. I work in an elementary school where I see students for technology class in 30 minute blocks of time, once per week. Teachers have planning while I teach, thus we cannot plan together unless it is outside of the school day which many teachers (more and more each year) are less willing to do. This relatively short amount of teaching time restricts the types of projects I can do with the students on their computers. Ideally I would have longer blocks of time that would allow for both instruction and then application/creation on the student’s part. I have tried to shift some of the instruction to outside the school day by using online avenues (Blackboard). Unfortunately for the age students I work with school is still a physical building that closes at 4 pm. The only traffic I get from students hitting my course sites are those that are truly enamored by technology. Ideally I would be able to meld what I do to support the curriculum of the classroom teachers but they feel some of the some physical restrictions in that they must share technology resources (computers).
Affordable 1-1 technology will be a huge boon to the way schools do business with their students. Unfortunately even when the technology does become affordable our schools will not be ready for the sweeping change. I wonder if classroom teachers feel the same limitation of the schedule and the way we chop up the subjects into predetermined times. Ie All math learning will occur between 10-11 am. All science learning will occur between 11-11:45 am. Although there are so many tie-ins between the two subjects (as there are between reading and social studies) we continue to physical separate the subjects. Do teachers see this or is it something we have been doing for so long that we fail to notice it?
The authors continue to discuss the importance of reinforcing vital behaviors in chapter 9. While I’m not sure our school has agree to what the most vital behaviors are (we really should) these behaviors need to be reinforced in order to change the existing concept map of our teachers. My goal is to get teachers to try new, more engaging ways of teaching and to give children more opportunities to CREATE in the classroom as opposed to REGURGITATE. If our school/district leadership decides this is a vital behavior we must find ways to reinforce it. One such way suggested by the authors to change the concept map (try something new or different) is to surround teachers with a focused data stream that reminds them of the importance of these behaviors. With the proximity (or lack of) teachers have from each other (close the door and teach) how do we create such a stream and what information becomes part of that stream. I enjoyed the HP story but don’t see a school stopping business to do that. After all, we have 500 students to supervise. Contractually we can only require teachers to be together a certain number of minutes beyond the school day.
Interpersonal relationships are important to collaborative efforts, but in our building over the past few years less and less teachers even make their way to the staff room to eat lunch and visit. This subtle change over the years has lessened the cohesiveness of our staff.
I’ll be curious to read other takes on chapter 9.
