This time last year I was finishing my Masters degree, and was in deeply embroiled in getting my action research paper completed and handed in. As my program was directly tied to an educational technology certification as well, and because I am a tech coach myself, I wanted to make my project to be linked to technology professional development. I had a number of ideas at first for what my research project could focus on, but in the end I decided to once again try to implement an idea that I had about 8 years ago for a technology PD calendar. Basically, I had formulated this idea when I was back at the Western Academy of Beijing and initially tried to implement the calendar there - it failed miserably as it never even got off of the ground. The school was not using a viable calendaring system which could support multiple authors effectively, so I could not build the calendaring system without going down the road of building a relational database myself. When I came to ASW, I again tried to implement this idea but again it failed miserably for a variety of reasons which I will not get into right here. When the action research project came along, I decided to give this another try as the calendaring idea itself fit in well with the project requirements. And it failed again - no third time lucky for me.
The idea that I have fits with a lot of research into technology professional development and teacher efficacy, which is why I keep coming back to it over the years . . . it should work! Basically, my idea is to open teacher's doors, invite others into their classrooms to see how/what/when/why technology is being used/integrated/immersed in their classroom, get teachers who would not normally "present" to their peers to show off what they are doing in their classroom with little additional work or preparation, and to have faculty observe classes from other disciplines, grade levels or school divisions, and take away and apply whatever they have learned in their own area/context/class. All of this through a simple calendar mechanism with very little overhead . . . but it has not worked. Which leaves me with wondering why?
Perhaps it is school culture? Maybe my school is simply not ready for this kind of open and self-guided peer mentorship program? Perhaps teachers do not have the time or energy to devote to such a program, or simply are not interested? Maybe teachers are so insecure with their teaching practices or using technology that they do not want to "put themselves out there" in front of their friends/peers/colleagues? Or perhaps teachers are too wary of any kind of observation being somehow linked to teacher effectiveness and evaluation to get involved in the program. For whatever reasons, my tech PD calendar idea failed again. If any of this sounds interesting to you, then you can get all of the details about the calendaring idea, how I implemented the system (in Google Calendars), what the process was for adding events to the calendar (opening your door), or registering yourself to observe someone's class or lesson, from my action research project paper which is attached below. Please feel free to download a copy if you want to read through the entire thing.
Has anyone else tried implementing something like this? What happened - did it succeed or fail? Whether it worked or not, what were the problems, challenges and things that helped?
The idea that I have fits with a lot of research into technology professional development and teacher efficacy, which is why I keep coming back to it over the years . . . it should work! Basically, my idea is to open teacher's doors, invite others into their classrooms to see how/what/when/why technology is being used/integrated/immersed in their classroom, get teachers who would not normally "present" to their peers to show off what they are doing in their classroom with little additional work or preparation, and to have faculty observe classes from other disciplines, grade levels or school divisions, and take away and apply whatever they have learned in their own area/context/class. All of this through a simple calendar mechanism with very little overhead . . . but it has not worked. Which leaves me with wondering why?
Perhaps it is school culture? Maybe my school is simply not ready for this kind of open and self-guided peer mentorship program? Perhaps teachers do not have the time or energy to devote to such a program, or simply are not interested? Maybe teachers are so insecure with their teaching practices or using technology that they do not want to "put themselves out there" in front of their friends/peers/colleagues? Or perhaps teachers are too wary of any kind of observation being somehow linked to teacher effectiveness and evaluation to get involved in the program. For whatever reasons, my tech PD calendar idea failed again. If any of this sounds interesting to you, then you can get all of the details about the calendaring idea, how I implemented the system (in Google Calendars), what the process was for adding events to the calendar (opening your door), or registering yourself to observe someone's class or lesson, from my action research project paper which is attached below. Please feel free to download a copy if you want to read through the entire thing.
Has anyone else tried implementing something like this? What happened - did it succeed or fail? Whether it worked or not, what were the problems, challenges and things that helped?
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