T 3 Team, Teaching, and Technology: A Trifecta of Opportunities 1

T^3 = TEAM, TEACHING, AND TECHNOLOGY: A TRIFECTA OF OPPORTUNITIES
T^3 = Team, Teaching, and Technology: A Trifecta of Opportunities
Amanda J. Cestnik Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology Master of Arts in Learning Technologies Advisor Margaret Riel, Ph. D. Discussants: Robert Barner and Paul Sparks, Ph.D. June 26th, 2012
Table of Contents
Introduction of the Problem . Literature Review . .
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
3 4 8 10 11 16 21 24 27
Work Community in Context . Research Design Cycle One Cycle Two Cycle Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Final Reflections References .
Introduction of the Problem Teachers often complain that there is never enough time to accomplish everything on their agenda. However, with a little creativity and determination, solutions can be explored. Over the course of one school year, I have been experimenting with different opportunities to heighten collaboration among grade level teachers. This was done to foster grade wide knowledge building, planning opportunities, and professional development, despite barely having enough time in the day to do so. My primary draw to collaboration stemmed from a curriculum change. This year, teachers were asked to take students to the computer lab as a way to work on the school-wide implementation of technology, giving students the opportunity to enhance their learning as well. At my specific grade level, it was decided that I would teach both computer classes, due to the fact that I have a strong passion for educational technology. Unfortunately, the time I would spend in the computer lab was once my prep time, and the one common prep time I shared with my teaching partner would be eliminated. With this change I faced two problems. First, I knew I would be using the computer lab to enhance lessons in all content areas, including Social Studies and Religion, which are subjects I do not teach to any of the students. Additionally, I would be losing my designated time each week to plan and bounce ideas off my teaching partner. Together these two pieces hindered my overall success in providing our classes with a balanced curriculum in the lab, which I felt was very detrimental to our students. As a teacher, part of my philosophy is giving my students a well rounded education. With this value, I could not just create lessons based on the content areas I teach, so to remedy this I sought out the use of technology as an aid to increase the sense of collaboration and unity throughout our grade. As I first reflected on this technology implementation, I envisioned a core space where our students could began to see how different content areas relate to one another. I also thought about the collaboration possibilities it could bring for us as a teacher team. Perhaps the students would be able to talk about what they were doing in the computer lab while in their academic classes, in order for both teachers to hear what connections they were making. Or perhaps as teachers, we could find additional collaboration opportunities outside of the computer lab. Whatever the case, being a novice teacher, I was ready to take more actions to build a professional foundation for my future. The overall goal of my action research is to start making our grade a community, rather than two isolated rooms. By using technology in along with finding and acting on the strengths and weaknesses of my teaching partner and self, it is my hope that our collaborative efforts will providing our students with the best learning environment and opportunities possible. Using an action research format seems like an appropriate means of seeking out practical solutions for everyday problems as well as discovering the next appropriate dilemmas to solve for future improvement. With a year spent planning and sharing ideas, examining our personal and professional relationship along the way, it is my hope that we will be able to keep building off this initial foundation as we enter into the upcoming school year.
Literature Review Collaboration The process of collaboration is a method of working that has been practiced throughout history. From early civilizations whose workers joined forces to construct elaborate architecture, to modern day committees formed in the work place, people all over the world have banded together to accomplish diverse and varied tasks. Where there is work to be done, there are also countless opportunities for learning to evolve. Roy Pea, a professor of Learning Sciences and Education at Stanford University has been studying the way people (primarily students) come together in order to learn. Pea (2002) has looked at learning as a social activity that cannot be done in isolation, but rather through the participation of collaborative learning conversations and activities. In both schools and workplaces, this type of interaction is frequently happening in order to learn, problem solve, and produce products together. Collaboration is an act that requires more than people just coming together to work on a task at an organization, which is a stigma the word collaboration has previously held. Instead, collaboration requires more deeper levels of interactions in some way throughout the process. For example, lawyers at a law firm may very well be working at the same business, taking on different jobs in order to split a load, and sharing ideas per case, but ultimately they are doing their jobs independently. Collaboration is more than merely consulting. Rather, collaboration is all about more. More translates into anything from people chunking up jobs and pulling everything together in order to meet a time frame, to engaging in collective brainstorming (Perkins, 2003). Instead of just sitting down to briefly talk, colleagues have the opportunity to methodically share human skills, ingenuity, and intelligence with their peers to help bring numerous skills and ideas to the task at hand (Tapscott, 2006:18). Every work places has their own unique formula to make their collaboration efforts most successful. With increasing opportunities to study groups collaborating, researchers are discovering and sharing additional avenues in order to come together in a more cohesive manner, especially with the inclusion of more readily available advances in technology. Collaboration in Education There are certain professions where the adaption of collaboration can come together more naturally than others. In Education for example, teachers are not accustomed to collaboration, as they have a career in which they are traditionally isolated. Perkins lawyer example also describes the work role of teachers. They work in the same establishment, have a similar objectives, delegate classes, and can seek out periodical guidance from administration, specific grade level teachers, or specialists, but most of their work time is spent within the confines of a classroom. Stevenson (2005) describes this situation, During the past twenty years the intensity and scope of American teachers jobs have rapidly increased. Teachers seem not only to have more students to teach, but also have more ancillary responsibilities (135). From isolation to busy schedules, there are numerous factors that are not in favor of teacher collaboration; nonetheless, opportunities to collaborate together are starting to increase. (Hindin, 2007)
Collaboration Research in Action Research that has pointed to an increase in teacher collaboration tends to revolve around additional communication for the sake of professional development. In diverse communities where people are working together, multiple goals and collaborations often take place. Within a study of how teachers best work together and learn about technology in order to share with their students, the use of informal collaboration was heavily discussed. Stevenson (2005) defines informal collaboration as the direct interactions between at least two parities who voluntarily engage in, and have full discretion over, the process of working toward the goal of their choice. (129). Stevens noted that when teachers had more ownership of their own learning, their informal collaboration among peers was considered to be more meaningful than that of organized meetings or classes, because teachers could focus on their needs, whether they were curriculum ideas or how-to information (2005). Rather than planned activities, informal collaboration was found to be a more effective way of learning and professional development (Stevens, 2005). Because teachers often had spontaneous conversations about technology, their questions started to become less separated from other conversations. Conversations about technology became imbedded in daily conversations among teachers who utilized informal collaboration and technology. Instead of having a formal meeting, these casual conversations were increased the time and rate at which teachers were able to get the specific information about technology they needed, which then allowed them to implement their new knowledge into their planning or teaching sooner than later. Stevens (2005) asserts that teachers recognized the people in their workplace who were able to help them with curriculum and how-to information and tended to turn to different people to help them with different problems, pending on their needs. Using Technology for Collaboration Looking at collaboration at a district level, the Amarillo Independent School District in Texas presents a different solution, making use of technology. This district had the challenge of gathering a curriculum committee composed of teachers from each of their fifty-two schools. Having this many representatives all over the district, the need for an alternative mode of collaboration was necessary to be inclusive of all and efficient. When the individuals putting on the meeting discovered that fewer people were in attendance to each meeting after the initial one, the district decided to implement the use of Wikis as a way of communication. This change eliminated the cost and clutter of binders of information. Waters noted that the district found that as an alternative to individuals making edits to all different documents and having to go back edit the master, individuals became literally on the same page. (Walters, 2007:42). For this district the tool of a Wiki was more inclusive to all as well as more convenient, which positively affected the outcome of their current and future projects. Different factors and problems such as time and distance can hinder collaboration, but for every problem there is likely to be a technology tool that facilities efficient collaboration. Brent Wilson (1996) notes that in numerous work environments, computers have demonstrated their top attribute as a way to enhance communication and collaboration among individuals. While pairing this information with the amount of technologies that are increasingly becoming
attainable, the tools required to collaborate as well as create new challenges and opportunities have become readily available to a wide audience (Tapscott, 2006). With so many options in the technology arena, Wenger, White, and. Smith (2009) further elaborate on what is meant by a tool, by defining it as any identifiable piece of technology that supports a discrete activity in a community or bridges different types of activities. (39). If a group is able to pick a need or goal that they want to achieve, is not impossible to find a tool that is going to fit. In the book Digital Habitats, a figure of a tool landscape provides guidance in picking resources based on three levels of criteria. These three areas in this model are: Working as an individual or group, being able to communicate together (synchronous) or at different points in times (asynchronous), and finally having the ability of conversations and activity (participation) or the ability to create a unique platform tool for sharing (reification). Once the unique needs of the collaboration have been established, finding a suitable tool becomes more realistic. (Wenger et al., 2009) Figure 1: Example of a technology tool collection used in Digital Habits to demonstrate how a sampling of technology tools can be plotted among the polarities used for establishing an appropriate resource for your objective. (Wenger et al., 2009: 60)
Conclusion As researchers help us gain a better understanding of the power of collaboration, we can see an underlying message that more can be accomplished when working together instead of working in isolation. From skills to intelligence, bridging more minds together helps social learning that occurs during collaboration. Despite the obstacles of time and distance, many people find technological tools are changing the ability for people to collaborate and work together. With an abundance of technological resources being created, our view of what it means to be together with people locally and globally has been altered. Between these advancements and research gathered on efficient collaboration, a door has been opened to help remedy even more obstacles in the Education world.
Work Community in Context Currently I am a teacher at St. Josephs Catholic School in Vancouver, Washington. It is one of three Catholic Elementary/Middle Schools in the area. Our school has a diverse mix of approximately 380 students ranging from preschool to eighth grade. On a day-to-day basis, our mission as teachers and administration is to promote spiritual, academic, and social growth for every student in partnership with our families and the community at large. When we are not directly working with students, our teachers, administrators and staff members, spend our behind the scenes time planning for the betterment of our school. This past year we have been preparing for our accreditation process through the Archdiocese of Seattle this upcoming school year. To ready ourselves, a handful of my colleagues were sent to different schools in the archdiocese to observe what others are doing as they underwent their schools accreditation process. In doing so, the home school receives feedback while the visitors gain new ideas to take back as they start their own self-studies. Last year, some of our teachers were sent out to different schools and came back with their findings. In short, they reported that technology was our weakest area. From there, the administration decided technology would be our focus study for our accreditation year. On a smaller scale in terms of staff, I am one of two fifth grade teachers. The most unique things about our fifth grade team is the fact that my teaching partner happens to be my mother. In addition to being closely related, she is also my mentor, as this is only my second year of teaching. Fortunately, we have a very close and nurturing personal relationship, and this has assisted our professional relationship mature over the past two years. This year, due to our accreditations technology study, teachers have been asked to take on the role of technology teacher along with our academic classes. Since teachers are in charge of academics, it was our administrators vision that our computer lab would become a place for an extension of the curriculum in the classroom. Building on our strengths, my partner teacher and I decided I would take on the role of technology teacher, and we would begin more openly sharing the responsibilities of the fifth grade classes. As of this year, my partner teacher was responsible for teaching Language Arts to her homeroom, Math to the fast paced group of students in the grade, as well as Social Studies and Religion to the entire grade. I then also cover Language Arts in my homeroom, Math to the average paced group of students in the grade, and both Science and Technology to the all fifth graders. As far as technology goes, currently, our classrooms are pretty sparse. We have a very outdated computer and a television, which have been connected so the students can observe things a bit. The internet has been our best means of incorporating technology in our classroom. Unfortunately, sometimes our computer and internet are unreliable and it takes more effort to utilize this resource than giving a live demonstration or verbal description of the content. Nonetheless, we continue to strive to find ways to bring technology into our classrooms and depend on our visits to the computer for eighty minutes a week. While our technology might be considered outdated, my teaching partner and I have decided to be optimistic and creative as we experiment with this school-wide improvement goal. Personally, my teaching partner is not very comfortable using technology as she has not had any formal training. Despite this obstacle however, she is willing to try to learn with guidance. Because of this, it is our hope to work together as a team to find opportunities for helping our

students have other options for comprehending their academics while becoming more prepared for the world outside of our school community.
10
Research Design With the changes being made at my school as well as my desire to continue growing as a professional, I have sought out action research as a way to explore this issue. Alongside of one of my learning circles, we came up with the following definition for what the action research means to us: Action research is a cyclical process that puts you, the researcher at the center of the action research. Action research involves the key steps of planning, acting, observing, analyzing, and reflecting. Upon reflection of the first cycle, the action researcher can devise a new action plan, which is based on reflection and findings of the first cycle. Action researchers repeat these steps for continual progression and improvement in his/her workplace and/or environment. Based on this definition, I have set out to determine how I could best support the schoolwide initiative to increase collaboration and the effective use of technology in learning. Since action research is a process that works in a cycle instead of something that simply starts and stops, I felt that this would be the best means of exploring my professional life at a deeper level. If I were to just look at increasing the collaboration around the use of educational technology, I would be left with a very broad focus. To remedy this, I have started with the following research question: Will the use of different collaboration tools influence what teachers are doing in their classroom and transmit to what students are doing in the computer lab? From here, I have determine an appropriate starting point and set forth on this exploring. Through reflections and analyzing the data I collect, I will then find the next best steps to take on this journey.

11
Cycle One Report Research Question: If I implement the use of a collaboration tool to increase opportunities to work with my grade level partner, will we be able to effectively plan together using this online tool? Action: In an education setting, collaboration happens in various ways. In the case of my school, the bulk of the collaboration I do on a daily basis occurs between grade level teachers. In the fifth grade at St. Joseph's there are two fifth grade teachers, myself and one other. This year, one of our main challenges regarding collaborating is our schedule change where we no longer have a joint prep planning time. Instead of complaining, we needed to get creative, especially since I will be teaching technology to both classes and need to know what is going on grade wide to best utilize the time we have in the computer lab. When it comes to developing our professional relationship, my teaching partner and I are in a very unique situation. Along with the professional work relationship we maintain, my teaching partner is related to me in a personal way, she is my mother. Because of that extra personal layer, when examining how our collaboration efforts have affected our relationship, I have had to step back and look at this topic from many angles. Because of this, the need for an open conversation has been crucial to get honest feedback. Prior to starting my action research, my teaching partner and I to discussed the ways that we are currently collaborating, the modifications in our schedules, and ideas for the future. As I expressed my visions of expanding on our current ways of collaboration, I was greatly interested in hearing her ideas and opinions on the topic. Agreeing that we needed to find a solution to lack of shared? time this year, we knew something needed to be done. I proposed technology tool as effective approach in finding a suitable solution. Recognizing that technology is not my teaching partners comfort zone, I needed to help her move away from traditional face-to-face meetings to help with time barriers that we both faced. To begin this process, the following actions were taken: Discussions: To help determine and develop my action cycles, I had a few casual discussions and conducted an interview with my teaching partner to gain a better insight of her comfort with technology, ideas for better collaboration, and gage her willingness to try to engage in new technology tools to aid in our collaboration. Technology Search: After my discussions with my teaching partner, we were on the search for a technology tool that would be beneficial for both of us. Originally we were thinking of an online lesson plan book that could be given access too, but we both have different modes of planning which make it difficult to find a common solution. Recently, I had a participated in an informal meeting with teachers who were interested in learning new technology tools. To share what I knew, I created a WikiSpace to organize resources and encouraged other teachers to keep adding resources so we had a growing collection. While my teaching partner was not a part of this group, she did
12
however see the WikiSpace and thought it was interesting and more importantly felt it was manageable for her to learn how to use. Trying out an idea: WikiSpace became our technology tool choice. I put together a very simple structure that could evolve as we both learned how to use and shape it to our specific needs. I showed my teaching partner how to use the WikiSpace, in order for both of us to add our ideas.
Evaluation: While talking with my teaching partner, I noticed that she felt overwhelmed with technology tools, perhaps because she has had limited experience with technology. She stated that she was willing to try something simple, as long as I was there to show her how to use it. We settled on a WikiSpace because she felt it was similar to Word and E-mail platforms which she was somewhat comfortable using and ultimately we felt that we both could use it as a resource. We discussed setting up a page where she could request topics that she would like our students to practice in the computer lab. Additionally, it was requested that I keep a small planner of what I am doing in the lab so we both can see what is happening and when. Although this tool will be utilize throughout the school year, this particular cycle spanned from Mid-October to the end of December 2011. Focusing in on that date range, I went to the Wiki Statistics feature and found the following data for views for the page as well as edits made.
Table 1.1: Summary of views on collaboration WikiSpace September to December
13
Table 1.2: Summary of edits made on Collaboration WikiSpace September to December
Looking at this data, I instantly thought of something that was said during a brief interview. My teaching partner stated Id be lying if I did not admit that I still find technology very overwhelming. I suppose like everything else, it takes practice. I am willing to learn new things, but I need someone to explain them to me. Matching that statement with the data, you can see the more time we spent exploring and using the technology tool, the more activity happened within our WikiSpace. As far as knowledge of what is going on with grade level collaboration, we have two points of view. From my perspective, I feel like spending time with the other fifth grade class in the computer lab has helped me get a better feeling of what is happening across the grade level. From a teacher-to-teacher standpoint, I feel we started a collaborative process as the months progressed. For example, in the request section in November, my teaching partner was able to share an idea for math and start to think of ways to use technology to help explore what we are both discussing in the classroom. In a check in interview, my teaching partner added I might not have a lot to add [to our WikiSpace], but I still go check it periodically to see what is being covered and where we have time gaps that could be filled. If anything, having this form of organization or calendar helps me to see what you are doing with the students and determine if one of my content areas needs some sort of activity in the lab. It also gives me a talking point with the students. I agree that this form of knowledge exchange has helped our teaching. I might not be the one teaching the fast paced Math class, but by getting hints of what the students are learning in the computer lab I get to see what all of our students are learning even through I am teaching only a few of their classes. Reflection:
One of the biggest complaints you hear from teachers is the fact that there is never enough time in the day. In my case, a common prep planning period was the time factor missing between my teaching partner and myself. Fortunately, we both had the drive and determination to find a solution to our dilemma. Knowing that technology is not my teaching partner's strength, I was encouraged by her willingness to use a technology tool to aid in our collaborating.
14
Looking at the use of a collaboration technology tool, I have found that my students were a tremendous resource in aiding in the overall understanding and uses of this resource. While my teaching partner was open to learning about the WikiSpace in the first place, seeing an example in action seemed to be more beneficial to her understanding. When our students return to us from another teacher, we tend to check in with them to see what they are learning. We had started using a WikiSpace to use as teaching partners, but when I made one with the students, I think she saw more connections and possibilities when she saw theirs being used in full force with collaboration. She also saw their excitement in using a WikiSpace, which was an added bonus. I feel like that this project helped encouraged her to become more involved with the technology. After reflecting, I am now wondering how I could better introduce my teaching partner to different technology tools in the future through modeling and observations. Albert Banduras Social Learning Theory comes to my mind when he reminds us that as people, we learn by observing what others model. In our case, if I were to introduce a technology tool, rather than keeping her in the process of constructing the foundations of this tool, it might be more beneficial for me to create it and then provide a handful of examples so she has more opportunities to see the resource in action instead of having to visualize what could be. Based on personal observations, I have come to see our WikiSpace as two fold. First of all, it has helped us make sure we are using the computer lab to its fullest potential, because it has required us to inquire about more content being covered grade wide. Outside of the classroom and WikiSpace however, I have also noticed that the limited time we do share during lunch or recess has been focused more on specific questions that have surfaced from something we saw on the WikiSpace. This differs greatly from last year, when our conversations took on a different and more casual nature. Being a newer teacher, it is very important for me to actively collaborate. I am fully aware that I do not have all the answers or ideas, and while I recognize that no one does, teacher collaboration allows for more knowledge to be shared among all parties involved. Compared to last year, I feel like fifth grade now extends outside of the walls of my classroom, which is encouraging. Having a place to openly share and plan has held me more accountable for sharing what I am doing. In return, this has helped me seek help and support as well as share my ideas. The more I feel this way, the more I question how we can continue to share ideas and resources. Perhaps additional technology tools would be helpful for our needs, or maybe there is another approach. My visions for our growth stem from the assistance of technology, but I wonder if it be beneficial to also find a way to pool our physical hard copy resources in order to compensate our individual collaborative preferences. I appreciate that my teaching partner is willing to try new things, but I also strive to find ideas that fit her needs just as much as mine. Looking at my cycle from a constructivist learning theory standpoint, I know that learning is a social and interactive process, and therefore I feel like in my upcoming cycle I need to work on finding more communication opportunities so I can continue learning different ways to help our team grow. Professionally, I feel like we have made better use of our time together because of the WikiSpace, which in turn has allowed us to personally open up and share more. I recognize this cycle was but a small snapshot of the year and it will be continued to be utilized. I foresee many areas for growth and ideas in the future, but I also appreciate the gains we have made thus far.
15
As we make these changes, I ponder how our efforts will affect our personal and professional relationships as I start to think of our next leg of the journey.
16
Cycle Two Report Research Question: If I coordinate what students do in the computer lab with what teachers are doing with curriculum in their classroom, how will this effort of this partnership affect my professional and personal relationship with my teaching partner? Actions: My second cycle takes place in the same context as the first cycle with my teaching partner as we continue to work with the same students and the implementation of our WikiSpace is an ongoing journey. In this cycle I am interested in exploring how our collaboration efforts affect our relationship as teaching partners, which in return plays in the way we teach. In addition to everyday observations, here are the following actions I took: In-depth discussions: While doing my check in interview from cycle one, I learned how the collaboration was going, what is going well and what could be modified for future success. As this cycle progressed I asked some more direct questions to inquire how my teaching partner felt about our relationship as we continue to develop as teachers. Finding additional uses for our collaboration tool: As the school year progressed, so did our use for our WikiSpace. To coordinate what students were doing in the computer lab, with the lessons that were happening in our classrooms, we continued to use our calendar planning page to find a balance of content and cross curricular ideas. In addition to this, we explored the additional features on the Wiki and started using the discussion section to help us coordinate our ideas and expand more on our thinking and sharing. Blogging: Throughout the school year I documented my action research process by making reflective posts in my personal blog. My blog posts include sharing knowledge from literature we have read, reflections on my action research , and ideas to improve my own teaching. By looking back at these posts, I was given a change to see what was on my mind at one point in time and how that effected my overall thinking of collaboration. Before I could look at the effectiveness of coordinating what fifth grade students are doing in the computer lab with what teachers are doing in their classroom, I had to step back and look at the teachers involved. As I have previously mentioned, my teaching partner happens to be my mother. Because of that, our relationship takes on numerous complex layers. In addition to being mother and daughter, she is also an experienced teacher while I am a novice teacher, yet in our workplace we are seen as equals in the role of fifth grade teachers. Our relationship is unique as it is both professional and personal; nonetheless, I felt it interesting to explore ways to better understand our collaborative efforts and growth.
17
Evaluation: To gain a sense of the levels of our relationship, I first started by looking at my personal reflection blog. This blog contains my ideas and reflections with posts about the inspiration I have found from resources, my process in doing action research, rough drafts of posts I will share with the cadres, and my reflections. Because of this, not everything in my blog focuses just on my teaching partner and I, so I have manually selected twenty-six blog posts from fall and spring semester which correlated with our school year together. While reviewing my blogs, I did two rounds of codings. After doing an initial coding to separate entries that did not pertain to this cycle, I did a second coding with the remaining twenty posts that had to do with either planning our instruction, an action we were currently doing, partner insight, and/or collaboration. I noticed the use of the word I quite frequently, which is not surprising as that it is my blog and I am telling my side of our story. Due to this realization, I coded the identified the context in each post to determine if I was finding occurrences that were strictly personal or if what was being mentioned had to do with something for my benefit or something that regarded to the two of us. The first thing I coded was a personal response. This code looked for my opinions, actions, and/or ideas that were intentionally meant for collaborative purposes. Then, I looked for codes that pertained to both my teaching partner and myself. This code included what my teaching partner or self was planning to share, currently doing, or something we had accomplished. Table 2: Occurrences of personal and collaborative examples found in personal blog posts over the course of two semesters.
During the posts from the beginning of our work school year (fall semester) I found 147 occurrences of our collaborative efforts mentioned in my blog. Out of these occurrences, 51.70% were personal, meaning strictly my opinions, actions, and/or ideas. The other 48.30% involved actions, ideas, and plans that were brought on by both my teaching partner or self. By winter term, my blog had 293 occurrences of our collaborative efforts. This time, 32.08% were
18
personal and 67.92% involved both of us. The difference between the percentages during winter term shows that as the year progressed, the influence of our collaborative efforts is evident in my thinking and actions. Since this evidence is drawn from my personal blog, this data only represents my perspective . To continue looking at our relationship, I also looked at conversations and actions on our WikiSpace as well as interviews. My second cycle took place during the winter term and during this time, we started to explore alternative options with our fifth grade WikiSpace. Instead of just keeping track of what was happening in the computer lab, we used the chat option to exchange ideas. Between our WikiSpace and everyday conversations, I began to notice that because of the computer lab, our students are doing more similar things. Last year it was my class did this... was a common phrase being used on both our parts. When we collaborated, it was after the fact like we were suggesting a lesson that the other could do if they were behind. Now, we are starting to plan ahead and use both of our content area expertise to help plan more rounded lessons. This opportunity has created a reciprocal exchange leading to mutual professional growth. I have learned from the teaching experience and expertise of my partner, my partner has benefited from my technology knowledge which as helped us coordinate our roles as fifth grade teachers. In addition to this change in planning and knowledge of what is happening grade wide, our overall language and attitude has changed. Instead of my class or I, we are now being more inclusive and saying things like our students as well as we as we talk. Although this is a simple shift of a pronoun, overall we now are working more as a team and looking at fifth grade as a whole. Instead of looking at and analyzing our interactions from a single perspective, in this cycle I wanted to include the perspective of my teaching partner. To do this, I asked my teaching partner a set of question regarding our relationship as teachers both professionally as family members. I wanted to understand the extent to which our working professional relationship was shaped by our additional family tie. I asked my teaching partner if she was relating to me as a teacher or as a daughter. She responded: Well, you are my daughter and family comes first in my book so I suppose I have to answer, daughter. That being said, I think you are a different teacher than you were your first year, and as I have watch you grow as a professional, I have noticed that we related more at a teacher level in addition to our existing personal life. Hearing this made me want to inquire, if I were not her daughter, would she feel like she could give me more feedback to enhance my growth as a new teacher. Upon asking this, she appeared to be little thrown off, but eventually gave an honest and up front response. Maybe, maybe not. As a mother and daughter, we are fortunate enough to have a very open relationship and I think that works to our advantage as colleagues. Fortunately, you are open to my life feedback, so work is just another element for us. When we started working together we established that I would be happy to give you ideas and suggestions and would not be offended if you did not want to use them. I think laying that ground helped us. Obviously we have our own teaching styles, strengths, and weaknesses, but I believe that is what makes us work. If you were
19
just my teaching partner instead of my daughter and teaching partner, I think I would offer feedback to you, but it just might be approached in a different way since we lacked that prior personal background. After a few more questions, we both took some time to debrief on the most important thing we have changed about our teaching this year. The implementation of technology was central in each of our responses. My point of view included the use of technology to enhance student learning which in return, has given me the opportunity to teach lessons that are more cross curricular, giving me a better sense of what all of our students are learning throughout the year. She saw the use of technology as both a communication tool as well as way to revamp projects to incorporate the use of the skills students have acquired from their time in the computer lab this year. We agreed that as as a result of our collaborations, our students have had more learning opportunities. Reflection: When I was thinking about my second cycle question, I kept returning to the issue of relationships and reasons that make this an important topic to focus on. Prior to this cycle, I had the mindset that no matter if a relationship was professional or personal, people somehow form a bond together. The more I thought about it however, I started to see in the case of my work, although I am directly focusing on the relationship between teachers, indirectly, what we do affects our students. The health of the relationship between teachers, is likely to have an affect on how integrated the learning experience is for their students. I fell it was beneficial for my teaching partner and I to explore our stance on our personal and professional relationships together as it helped us become more cognizant of how we work together. This small action and reflection emphasized how learning is a social act, and a newer teacher who seeks the advice from others, I learned that I too have skills that can be offered to help strengthen our team dynamic. In addition to our conversations, reflecting on my blog helped me to see the effects of our collaboration. From a mother-daughter perspective, I know we are always growing emotionally with every life event, but its not often that I get to look at our life from the professional aspect. When I was writing my personal reflections in my blog, I thought the implementation of technology and planning was the main focus of my thinking. I see now that I was not conscious of my actions at the time, but I now see that as the year progressed I started to shift my thinking towards what was the best game plan for our needs as a team instead of just what seemed right to me at that moment in time. I started by wanting to use technology as a problem solving tool, but ended up learning how to contribution to our professional development as teaching partners. Together, we are intentionally building a new collaborative norm as we work to create meaningful lessons and opportunities for our students together. Ultimately the implementation of a Wiki has been helpful for planning for our computer lab time and opening up the opportunity for more collaborative opportunities. However, the WikiSpace alone was not a perfect match for our needs. As the end of the school year nears, we are not going to have as much need for planning for the school year as must as we need alternative modes of collaboration. I predict that our WikiSpace usage will decline in the final
20
months of school as we as starting to wrap up with our current group of students and think of the upcoming year. Knowing this, for my third cycle, I am will propose another collaborative technology tool to facilitate or discussions on the end of this year and, more importantly, help us think ahead to next years adventures.
21
Cycle Three Report Research Question: If I model and promote the use of additional technology tools, will my teaching partner and I be able to create and sustain an online venue to help our collaborative efforts extend outside of the computer lab and into daily fifth grade lessons? Action: My first and second cycles were dedicated to finding a way to collaborate with my teaching partner in order to use the computer lab for all content areas and how this effort would affect our professional relationship. I found by taking these actions, this venue opened up the opportunity for more collaboration outside of just the computer lab. To build on this reflection, I decided that my third cycle would be an opportunity to expand on our progressive teamwork, especially as the year school is ending and we are thinking ahead to the next year. To begin this process, the following actions were taken: Discussions: To help determine our next steps for improving our collaborative efforts, my teaching partner and I had numerous casual discussions on our possibilities. It was the general consensus that organizing our digital resources would be a helpful way to see what we actually have when we pool everything together. Technology Search: We narrowed down the idea of finding bookmarking and drop-box type resources to fit the needs of our vision. Because there are so many resources online to chose from, I weighed the pros and cons of different tools. After searching I proposed the use of Box for a drop-box and Delicious for bookmarking. To help my teaching partner best see the potential of each site, I uploaded a few starting examples of each which included the use of adding tags on each file or link for easy searching down the road. Building on the Existing Platform: WikiSpace was our original collaborative tool of choice. We are not replacing this resource by any means, instead we are adding on to what we are already doing. To help stream everything in one place and give us visual reminders to use the resources, I attached links to the Box and Delicious on our home WikiSpace page. Evaluation: While at the end of my work school year and final semester in our masters program, I am still in the middle of this particular action cycle. As a teacher, my main focus at the end of the year is helping my students wrap up and share what they have been learning throughout the year. Because of that, instead of researching new lesson ideas, I am writing things like notes home for presentations and rubrics for projects. Once my students are gone for the summer however, I use
22
that time to start sorting through my years worth of activities to see what did and did not go well, as well as what resources could be altered. While doing this, it gives me a perfect opportunity to organize all of my resources digital and hard copies of tasks. Being the end of the school year, I have yet to have time to organize everything quite yet, and therefore my cycle is still in action. Nonetheless, if I evaluate what been accomplished to this point, I may be able to make some predictions of what might occur across the summer months. Examining our digital drop box storage account (Box), I see that at the end of the school year we had shared 78 documents. Out of those documents 34 were uploaded my teaching partner and 44 by myself. If you look at those files in regards to content, 62 of the 78 files (or just about 80%) pertain to both classes we teach, which opens the door to many new lessons and ideas for both of us. Table 3: Documents uploaded by fifth grade teachers and their ability to be shared.
! In contrast we have twelve websites bookmarked on Delicious, and all of those have been posted by me. Realistically, toward the end of the school year we are producing more than researching, so limited bookmarks at this point it does not seem unnatural or discouraging at this point in the cycle. It is my hope that as the cycle progresses, my teaching partner and I will utilize this tool as we start to organize our computers and plan for the upcoming year. Reflection: After reflecting on my second cycle, I was left with numerous directions for a third cycle. I had to weigh my options as I wrote a question for this cycle,. After thinking, I narrowed my options down to looking at student success and expanding on collaborative opportunities through technology. While I thought looking at student success would be fascinating, because my research was rooted in technology tools, I thought it would be helpful to our collaborative efforts to add another resource. I came to this decision after reflecting on the question, why do I think it was necessary to have a place to share documents? I mentioned in my introduction to my
23
research that having enough time to complete things is always an issue for teachers. Instead of dwelling on this problem however, I wanted to seek out a solution. While thinking about dividing work up among teachers, we were currently working on a piece of writing grade wide. In the midst of preparing the materials, I recognized that my teaching partner is stronger at writing details descriptions and directions for projects. I on the other hand feel more comfortable finding ways to assess learning. By addressing our abilities, we both shared responsibilities for the lesson planning and gave each other an example to learn from. I see now how sharing documents can be beneficial to my growth as a teacher. Instead of just copying what my teaching partner is doing, I am given an alternative venue to explore different teaching styles, challenge myself to think of my own students and what may need to be adapted to fit their needs, and gaining creative lesson ideas. With our writing paper, that started as a project when my teaching partner started teaching fifth grade five years ago. This was my first time doing this, and together we developed her idea and changed it to fit two different classes. As I started this cycle I predicted that we would be able to update and share resource that coincided with the content we were teaching during by the end of the school year. Both my teaching partner and self, are constantly on the go during the school year. We are creating and finding resources as needed, which means accessing old files as well as creating completely new ones. Being able to depend on time given in the summer, I believe we will be reflecting on what went well and where improvement is needed, as well as organize ourselves and materials. With that said, cleaning off our school and personal computers is part of that process and it is my hope these tools will come to serve our needs as the summer progresses. I am optimistic of additional resources being added to both of these, and this ideas has acquired an increase in my teaching participation versus what we did with WikiSpace. I personally like the drop box more because of this participation. Perhaps this is a better fit for both of us. Although this cycle is still in progress, I can look towards the future, sharing resources with other teachers. I constantly find resources for primary and middle school teachers because my grade is in the middle of the spectrum. I would be happy to share those resources as I found them in order to help other teachers who may be on the search for specific resources. Through a conversation, I was able to form my first cycle and make a lot of helpful progress this year with my teaching partner. If I had a similar conversation with teachers at my school, I wonder if I would see a similar pattern. For my next steps, I am going to share our Delicious account with teachers at my school. I have a feeling I will not be able to instantly appeal to everyone, but I could at least extend an invitation to see what opportunities would arrive from other staff members.
24
Final Reflections Past A year ago I completed my first year of teaching. Through personal reflections along with various meetings throughout the school year with my administrators, I knew that many things went well, but not surprisingly there were also many areas I wanted to improve on, in terms of my personal growth. The first thing I wanted to work on was communication; not only with my parents, but also with my fifth grade teaching partner. Over the year my teaching partner was supportive and was always there for me along the way. Fortunately, she also allowed me the leeway to do my own thing, which was quite helpful as I explored my developing teaching style along with my strengths and weaknesses. After having this beneficial opportunity, I wanted to spend my second year collaborating more with my teaching partner, in order to concentrate on gaining ideas and pooling our resources. Ultimately, I saw this as a chance to creating stronger learning opportunities for both my students and myself. An increase in the use of technology was my next goal. Outside of school, technology is something I truly value. Personally, I learn and can organize myself and think more efficiently with the aid of technology. It is therefore not surprising that technology was a topic I wanted to share with my students. Knowing that my school had limited resources in the technology realm, I knew I had to get creative in order for my students to utilize technology in their learning. During the first year I made a website which housed resources and activities to enhance the learning and discuss what was happening in the class. Both students and parents used this website at home, but I still hoped to find something I could use at school as well. While I had numerous other goals, my final choice was to increase my leadership around our school community. When I first began teaching, others looked at me as a first year teacher who was willing to make changes and try her best. Toward the end of the year some veteran teachers commented that I seemed pretty composed for my first year of teaching, and they shared positive feedback they had received from many of my students parents. While I appreciated their generous support, I also wanted to move past observations and word of mouth, and actually engage and work alongside my fellow teachers, rather than just being thought of as the new fifth grade teacher in Room 15. As I entered this masters program last summer, I was coming in with an open mind and guidance, in order to assist me in acting on my goals of enhanced collaboration, technology usage, and leadership. Professional development was an area of great value, and I was ready to seek out new opportunities that would help me morph into the teacher I aspired to become. Present It did not take me long to discover that this professional development journey I envisioned was not just between myself and my professors who were guiding me along. Ultimately, I discovered that learning is social. As I began to better understand the constructivist theory, I understood that in addition to the social aspect of learning, it would also take shape in a processed form that would be constructed off of new ideas and concepts discovered along the way. As with my learning in our masters program, my learning in the workplace mimicked
25
similar patterns. I began by reflecting on my own personal values. From there, I was able to look more closely at the people who would be joining me on this journey. In my case, in addition to my learning circle and professors, the primary person involved in my research would be my teaching partner. Talking to her and having numerous open conversations led to me discovering her values, but it also allowed me to share mine, and discover my personal strengths and weaknesses. As I look back now on my blogs that were written over the course of our school year, I found at the beginning of the year most of my thoughts and ideas were very personal or were information that I thought was valuable for my research. As the year progressed however, I began to see a shift in blog content. Instead of my take, I started to also see the ideas that were blended between both me and my partner. Rather than being isolated in an individual isolated classroom, idea by idea brought the two of us educationally closer together. Technology played an important role in making this happen. However, instead of seeing technology as an instant solution to a problem, I saw it as a tool to best fit the needs of a problem. At the beginning of the school year last August, I had the unexpected opportunity of becoming the technology teacher for my grade level. With this gift literally handed to me, I felt a goal surfacing. As a teacher I knew I would have no shortage of finding things for my students to do in the computer lab. What became my main challenge was making sure I covered content that pertained to all of their courses, not just the ones I taught. Coincidently this problem also became a huge learning opportunity. Through the creation of a fifth-grade teacher WikiSpace, conversations emerged and collaboration between my teaching partner and me naturally began growing. One comment led to another and our ideas became more cohesive. Resources followed resources, and soon we were planning lessons together that were not solely for the computer lab. Little did we realize what was happening in fifth grade would be soon be shared around the school. Thankfully for me teachers talk, and now that two teachers were using technology, others were being informed of possibilities for their own students. As more ideas were shared, more teachers consulted me for help and eagerly shared their ideas. They began referring to me as a technology resource at our school. While I appreciated the title, I much more excited that technology, (my passion,) was opening the door for leadership opportunities for me. Now at the end of the school year, I am walking away with a year full of cross curricular learning opportunities for the computer lab. To my delight, many new and re-purposed lessons have been emerging for my classroom too. I also have had a chance to reflect on my unique relationship with my teaching partner. One of the major areas I have changed in my way of thinking is that we are equals, and we all have many things to offer one another. My teaching partner is an experienced teacher, while I am in more of a novice. Last year I looked up to her for anything and everything and did not offer many suggestions in return, because I thought that I had little to offer. Now I see our strengths and weaknesses and how those can be applied in our practice as an exchange. I am able to share things such as my technology knowledge and in return, she continues to help me build my confidence in areas such as classroom management. Instead of two classrooms, we are working to become two teachers working together to benefit our children. This similar notion has spread outside the confines of my grade. With other colleagues, the addition of dialogue of what I am doing has opened the door to many possibilities. Instead of word of mouth or observations, we are actually moving towards sharing what is happening in our
26
classrooms and bouncing ideas off one another. I now have teachers consulting different technology options with me, and I look forward to actually applying some of these practices alongside them. Ultimately, throughout the year I ended up learning more s than I possibly could have imagined. As this occurred, I have noticed my personal values are beginning to become practices instead of just ideologies. I no longer see myself as the timid new teacher. Instead, I see myself as a digital steward. More importantly, I see myself as part of a team. Future Now that I have come to the end of the road of our program, one of the primary things I am taking away is that action research does not need to stop. In fact, with my new mindset it is hard to actually imagine concluding what I have been working on. Because this type of research is a cyclical process, I am walking away excited to continue my reflections in order to keep the process going. In one brief year, I have made personal and professional growth that I am proud of and I look forward to what the future will actually bring. I would like to extend my research out of my grade level. Being in a unique teaching situation having my mother as my teaching partner, I would be interested in trying this process again with another teacher in a grade level close to mine in order to see if my findings were similar. I know I will not always be working with my mom, and it would be helpful to have a cross grade collaborative experience, both for the sake of working closer with a different teacher, along as a way to see what is happening in different grade levels. Working at a private school, we have the luxury of examining our state standards and then teaching the content how we chose. Unfortunately, that leads to some content topics overlapping year by year and some potentially never being covered. If there were to be some sort of platform to share what we are teaching, it might help all grade levels better plan a diverse curriculum in order to make certain we were making the most out of our teaching and student learning. At this point, I am thinking of our Washington State Standards. For the most part they are fifth grade, but Science is divided by fourth and fifth grades. With this realization, I am looking at discussing this option with one of our fourth grade teachers who teaches Science and Technology like myself. As far as my own teaching partner, we are still continuing my third cycle into the summer months. In addition to sharing documents online, we have also started to put together binders of loose papers we use in order to share and physically see what the other one is teaching. So far it has been helpful and I wonder if something like the online binders might be helpful to display the information like we are doing with our non-virtual binders. As we wrap up our time in this masters program, I am leaving a different person. A year ago, I would have preferred to be working by myself and doing whatever I needed to survive. Now I realize that I am a person who wants to reinvent the wheel to keep myself and students engaged. I know that I cannot accomplish this on my own. Learning is social, and the need for collaboration is essential for me to feel successful both personally and professionally. While I have learned a great deal this year, I know I have a lot to learn in life. I hope to open up my world to those who wish to join me.
27
References Hindin, A., Morocco, C. C., Mott, E. A., & Aguilar, C. M. (August 01, 2007). More than just a group: teacher collaboration and learning in the workplace. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 13, 4, 349-376. Kramer, B., Walker, A., & Brill, J. (January 01, 2007). The underutilization of information and communication technology-assisted collaborative project-based learning among international educators: a Delphi study. Educational Technology Research and Development, 55, 5, 527-543. Lockhorst, D., Pilot, A., & Admiraal, W. (March 01, 2010). CSCL in teacher training: what learning tasks lead to collaboration?. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 19, 1, 63-78. Pea, R. D. (May 01, 1993). The collaborative visualization project. Communications of the Acm, 36, 5, 60-63. Pea R. D. (2002). Learning Science through Collaborative Visualization over the Internet. Perez-Katz, A. (May 01, 2007). Teacher support systems: a collaboration model. Principal Leadership, 7, 9, 38-41. Perkins, D. N. (2003). King Arthur's round table: How collaborative conversations create smart organizations. New York: Wiley. Ryymin, E., Palonen, T., & Hakkarainen, K. (November 01, 2008). Networking relations of using ICT within a teacher community. Computers & Education, 51, 3, 1264-1282. Stevenson, H. J. (March 08, 2005). Teachers' informal collaboration regarding technology. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 37, 2, 129-144. Strehle, E. L., Whatley, A., Kurz, K. A., & Hausfather, S. J. (January 01, 2002). Narratives of collaboration: inquiring into technology integration in teacher education. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 10, 1, 27-47. Tapscott, D., & Williams, A. D. (2006). Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything. New York: Portfolio. Waters, J. K. (March 01, 2007). Online collaboration: curriculum unbound!. T.h.e. Journal, 34, 3, 40-48. Wenger, E., White, N. & Smith, J. (2009) Digital habitats: Stewarding technology for communities. Portland, OR, USA: CPsquare
28
Wilson, B. G. (1996). Constructivist learning environments: Case studies in instructional design. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Educational Technology Publications.

T 3 Team, Teaching, and Technology: A Trifecta of Opportunities 1

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

T 3 Team, Teaching, and Technology: A Trifecta of Opportunities 1

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

T^3 = TEAM, TEACHING, AND TECHNOLOGY: A TRIFECTA OF OPPORTUNITIES