Autonomy

In Chapter One of Nancy Fichtman Dana’s book, Leading With Passion and Knowledge, she discusses the value of allowing educators to develop and implement an action research project. She discusses how this process engages educators by giving them the autonomy to pursue their own interests and ideas. I find this idea particularly interesting, because I am also in the process of reading Daniel Pink’s book, Drive, which was recommended to me by an instructional leader in my district when I interviewed her for my Lamar Fundamentals of Leadership course. Pink also describes that people will perform better when they have autonomy. I myself have felt the effects of this idea as I have developed and implemented my action research plan. I feel engaged, interested, and motivated when I am working on this project that I designed for myself. I am beginning to develop another wondering based on my own increased motivation – how can we use the action research process to engage our teachers and/or students?

Addition to my plan

I got these two student comments on my Action Research Plan:

“Having good technology support is a must in order for us to keep up with all the technology out there. We have to keep up so we can try different things in our classrooms. Good luck.” ~Araceli Garcia

“Technology professional development is one that is critical to the success of students, staff and teachers in this day and age. Your action plan has good intentions. The perception of professional development regarding technology specialists does seem to be at the bottom of the priority list but the need for effective, quality technology specialists is at the top. I am looking forward to following your research.” ~ Stevan Hartford

These two comments together pointed out a possible weakness in my plan. My plan involves making staff development available to teachers when, how, and where they want it. Maybe the missing piece is making them want it.

Hartford mentions that technology staff development is low on the priority list. Garcia says that technology support is needed to improve instruction. The change I want to make involves both of these elements. If I can convince teachers to make technology staff development a priority by demonstrating what it can do for their students, they will make the effort to attend.

I plan to develop a series of “advertisements” showing teachers the projects and successes that other teachers have had using technology. For each course that is taught, I will develop an ad in the form of a video or infographic to show teachers what they could do with that technology.

Action Research Plan

How can Instructional Technology Specialists deliver staff development to best serve the highest number of teachers? I would like to explore different aspects of ITS course offerings, including time, format, instructor, location, and subject, to discover ways to increase attendance by teachers.

Last year, among budget cuts in the district, half of the Instructional Technology Specialists were cut. The half of us that were left now had double the teachers to serve. We were not able to offer as much staff development to our staff. At the same time, the attendance at our course offerings has declined. Teachers report being too busy with tutoring, personal lives, grading and parent communication to attend staff development sessions.

In the past, ITSs served only our own campuses – each ITS training the teachers at her own campus. If the ITSs instead worked together and pooled our resources, we could offer more staff development to more teachers in more ways. We could offer evening webinars, on-demand online courses, and hands-on courses at different campuses to try to accommodate teacher needs. Every course offering could be offered to the entire district, which would maximize our efforts.