Some thoughts on working with the "reluctant tech teacher"

I was just reading an open question on a forum which asked about how to reach/teach the teacher who is reluctant to use/integrate/try technology in their classroom.  It had quite a lively (and long) discussion going which drew me in to reading through all of the postings.  And then I found myself thinking and writing a response myself . . . but I ran out of room in the comment posting!  So here is my entire response as I wrote it . . . before having to cut out some bits to make it fit onto the forum:


Educational technology acts a lens focused on a classroom, a lesson, an activity . . . and the teaching and learning that is going on there.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the lens magnifies everything . . . . the good, the bad, the ugly, and the awesome.  This discussion began with questions about the reluctant or techno-phobic teachers and how to encourage them to use more technology.  Someone earlier on mentioned that teachers need to "let go of the reigns", which I think is a huge component that sometimes gets missed in this discussion.  Teachers know that technology is a lens on their pedagogy and teaching practice, and many are reluctant to let go of control in their classroom as it could/might/will reflect poorly on them if/when things go wrong.  Some of these teachers frequently experience problems with technology just in their day-to-day work which they cannot solve - why would they want to put themselves on display in front of a class of students if there is a chance of public failure?

Time frequently comes up as a major reason/excuse why a teacher is not using technology in their classroom.  They don't have time in their course to do something different, or the time in their day to look at something new.  They don't have time to learn a new tool.  If they used a new tech tool with their class and it failed, they don't have the time to fix it, time to plan an alternative lesson, or any way of making up for the lost time.  Then there is always the argument where they want to see absolute proof that this tech tool will save them time and will positively affect teaching and learning in their classroom . . . otherwise they cannot see investing the time to learn and implement the new tool.

So I think these two threads are intertwined and connected to one another.  As a tech coach, I frequently hear the "time" argument in all of its different flavours from faculty.  But what I think is really happening is that the time argument is thrown at you as it is hard to argue against or refute - not only is it amorphous and ever-changing, but it is also very personal to each teacher.  The time argument is masking the real underlying reason, which is fear - the fear of letting go, of trying something which might fail, and of stepping aside from being the "sage on the stage" or the expert in the room. As a computer science teacher, I have long been accustomed to not being the absolute expert on everything . . . all of my students typically had a very singular and narrow field of CS that they were intensely interested in and they typically knew more about that one particular topic than anyone within 100 km.  So not being the expert is something that I have long been comfortable with.  However, many teachers are not, and prefer to stick with their tried and true methods to get through their curriculum rather than facing the fear of change.

Change is a powerful and frightening thing.  It can be hugely motivating, yet completely paralyzing as well.  So how do we address this fear?  I once read somewhere that a person will only undergo a process of change if it is easier for them to make the change, rather than to keep with the status quo.  The need to change has to come from within, has to be self-realized and internalized, or else there will be resistance and push-back.  So how do you do that?  Well, there's lots of pieces to the puzzle that when combined, seem to have worked for me which include:
   * Just in Time Learning - providing training individually or in small groups which is directly focused on a tool which will be employed immediately
   * Exposure - showing off a variety of tools to show faculty what's out there and to give them ideas of how they might be used in the classroom (think Speed-Geeking here)
   * Connecting with Others - seeing and connecting with other teachers who are using a particular tool in the same discipline/class/course/grade level as they work in, provides teachers with the evidence they need to move forward
   * Tech Coaches and Peer Coaches - having access to people in-house who are available and accessible is huge; not all schools can afford to have tech coaches, but you can leverage the abilities and talents of those who are already in the building
   * Admin Support - having a built-in underlying support (which could mean connecting tech integration with evaluation) can really help to get things moving . . . some people need this kind of nudge before moving forward.

A Short Jaunt to Learning 2.013 Singapore

Getting to Singapore for the Learning 2.013 conference involved a very long flight, but well worth the effort. After working in Asia for 8 years and attending the Learning2 conference in its infancy, I know that it continues to evolve and simply gets better and better every year. There's certainly nothing like it in Europe, where I am now. And organizing a conference around cohorts who share similar roles, issues, concerns and successes just makes too much sense - how come other conferences do not do this? These are the reasons that I still tell people when they ask me why I have come so far for a conference. Plus the learning - my learning.

I used to say that being an AP Computer Science examiner and going to the exam reading every year was the best professional development that I ever did. I still look back fondly at those week-long trips to South Carolina to sit in a heavily air conditioned room for hours on end, learning a rubric, teaching it to others, and grading a single question hundreds of times over, day after day. Add in the regular feeding times every two hours, and you have a landlocked cruise ship experience where the only activity is grading exams. So why was it so good? Why did I do it year after year until the College Board retired me as an international examiner? Because of the people who were there and the learning that took place. The best of the best CS teachers were all there - trading ideas, talking shop and best practice specific to CS education, and looking behind at the trends and ahead to where we are all collectively going. It was really hard, exhausting and mentally challenging work, but the growth and learning that you came away with in a week was phenomenal. But I don't grade AP exams any more - I no longer teach the course and they cut-back on bringing in international teachers due to costs.

But this is how I see the Learning2 conference now - hard work and a long ways to go, but filled with learning and growth. Last year's conference was special as I was able to take the entire coaching team to my old school in China (Western Academy of Beijing) and show them around the city. This year was the first time Learning2 has moved out of China and I was also able to have reunions with both BISS and WAB folks that I used to work with. Funny that, as I am writing this while on vacation in Istanbul where we are having a week-long reunion with old friends and colleagues at Robert College.

My main takeaways from this year's conference revolved around: finding balance and practising mindfulness with students when it comes to technology use; creating a basic photography mini-course at my school which will help students become better creators and producers; gathering some new ideas and tweaking some old ones for updating how we deliver technology PD; employing cognitive coaching techniques when working with faculty in my role as a tech coach; and giving back to the wider community through two workshops that I presented which were well attended and received. Perhaps the most exciting development from the conference is that Learning 2.014 Africa is now in the works for next year, which I hope to get involved in at the organizing committee level - again, a lot of hard work but with big rewards in the end.  

See you in Addis Ababa and Bangkok next year!

Morphing from a Tech Coach into an Instructional Coach . . . is it worth it?

As the Technology Coach for the HS, everything that "plugs in or goes bing" (as my former principal used to say) falls into my domain.  But sometimes, the boundaries seem to get stretched, blurred, bent and twisted out of shape so that other non-tech things seem to end up on my plate, for better or for worse.  Case in point . . . over a year ago I was asked to lead a committee for examining how our school could move towards Standards-based assessment and reporting, and to eliminate some of the toxic grading practices of the traditional gradebook.  The committee that I was asked to lead was focussed on separating a student's Approaches to Learning (AtL) grade from their Achievement grade, and how to assess the AtLs by creating a rubric that the whole school could use and adapt.  I was chosen to lead this committee because I have a lot of experience in the classroom working in a Standards-based system, and I was already well-versed in separating the AtL behaviours from a student's Achievement.  The committee did its job and fulfilled these two huge goals successfully, but I think that this was the starting point for my transition from being a Tech Coach, into an Instructional Coach . . . it all started here.

Last year, the school started down the road of transitioning to a Standards-based system for assessment and reporting with the hope that we would get there in a year's time.  Ambitious for sure, and very challenging for the school community (teachers, students and parents alike) as predominantly, they were not familiar with this kind of system.  But even the best of plans sometimes fail or take unexpected turns, and this school goal did just that.  Our year-long implementation was forcefully changed into a 2 month implementation (but that is another story for another venue), which in turn forced the school to immediately implement a new online electronic gradebook which could handle Standards-based assessment and reporting.  So you can see where I come into the picture . . .

So I am put in charge of implementing and testing this new system (Easy Grade Pro Web), training the faculty to use the new electronic gradebook, and distribute the new system to the end consumers . . . our students and their parents.  All of this in the short span of a few weeks.  It was a monumental task, which I jumped on along with Tech Services who had to install the new system.  After getting the system up and running, I focussed on testing the system and nailing down how we were going to rollout, launch and train EGPWeb with the entire HS faculty.  

In conducting the gradebook set up and training with the faculty in small departmental groups and through individual workshops, most of my time was absorbed by discussions revolving around Standards-based assessment and reporting rather than "things that go bing".  We talked at length about the separation of the AtL Standards vs Achievement Standards, what the Achievement standards would be for each department or subject area, how these standards could be modelled in the gradebook, and the primary differences between a traditional gradebook and a Standards-based one.  Everyone's need to have their gradebook online and fully functional was driving the training with EGPWeb.  This in turn was forcing faculty to come to terms with Standards-based assessment, and I could not conduct the gradebook setup workshops unless departments knew what they wanted for their Standards of assessment.  And so the story goes . . . I was in charge of getting everyone up and running with their gradebooks, which quickly morphed into me being the main go-to person for anything and everything related to Standards-based assessment.

For me, the change was rapid and in many ways natural . . . I worked with the faculty to get to where we all needed to be, in a very short amount of time.  Looking back on that period of time, it was completely frenetic, full of energy (some positive and lots of negative) and brimming over with spite at times.  There was a lot of pressure - internally to get this done right, and externally to move the faculty forward when they did not want to move anywhere.  It was stressful - some teachers were simply not on board with the school-wide goal of moving to Standards-based assessment, so they resisted the training that I was trying to deliver.  My principal was very supportive with getting these individuals to step-on-board, as the ship was sailing and pulling away from the dock (so to speak).  We were all following directives that were coming from senior administration and the board, but some staff saw me as the frontman for everything Standards-based assessment, and took out their frustrations, anger and fear on me . . . not fun!

This is the part that I have been thinking about since last year . . . as the Tech Coach for the HS I have to work alongside and with all of my faculty.  Due to the volatile and contentious nature of this whole project, my changing role came as an unwelcome surprise to me, and in some ways, undermines the relationships that I have built with the faculty as a whole.  Many staff are now on-board with Standards-based assessment, but some others are still stuck in their familiar, traditional practices.  Some of these folks relate me to this whole change (which they fear and loath), rather than to educational technology.  This is where I lose.  This is where we all lose.  Something that has only loose connections with technology has negatively impacted my computing karma in the school.  As a Tech Coach, the relationships that you build with your faculty are equally as important as your NOWledge, skills and experience put together.  So is it really worth it?  I don't really know at this point.  Some faculty seem to be able to separate in their minds my role with tech and what I did for the school in terms of helping to bring in Standards-based assessment.  But others cannot.  And I am now being thrust into a similar role as the "guru" in the HS, as the MS follows our lead.  I have coined a phrase to describe this somewhat helpless feeling of being stuck in situations like this . . . "guilty by competence".  Which raises the question in my mind, do I really want to go through this again?

Have you ever been put into a role which has really changed how you work with faculty and how they perceive you?  How do you handle the negativity surrounding "the job" when it really has nothing to do with you and what you are doing?  How do keep your role compartmentalised and within the boundaries set out by your job description . . . and not be sucked into the vortex of work?