Sharing Best Practices

Watching and listening to the educators who were sharing this week on action research it struck me that a good ideas is a good idea.  Thoughout my profession life both in education and in other endeavors I have always sought the best ideas from others.  It really struck home with me that this is a valid practice and just as our students learn well from other students we can be the students to other teachers and administrators. 

Reflecting on each of these scholars I identified a common them, that it is important to look outside your organization to begin finding solutions to the challenges your environment is facing.  I think this is a message that is valid whether you are speaking of individual teachers, departments, schools or districts.  It is valuable to search out ideas for a solution before you try and come up with one on your own.  I find that when I discuss challenges with other teachers we almost always collectively find a solution to the problem. 

Action Research

Action research is a systemic cyclical system for comptemplating opportunities for school improvement.     Reflective practice is the cornerstone of action research, the practitioner, the administrator, wonders about an issue in their particular school.  The cycle continues with the administrator developing a question based on the wondering and then develops a plan to research the question.  At every stage of the process the practitioner reflects on the information they have collected and decides what additional action to take.  Action research can be an independent activity the administrator completes on their own, or it can involve many stakeholders in the school.  I can think of many ways to use action research can be used to improve my current school.  My focus is on how technology can be used to improve teaching and more importantly learning.  I wonder how the use of technology can improve the learning of math and science students.  Establishing a link between computer access and improvement on standardized test in my school could have a positive impact on the amount of funds we could acquire for implementing the latest technology in our school.  Most of the research I have done so far has been informal; I am looking forward to establishing a more formal qualitative research protocol.

Administrator use of Blogs

Administrators might use weblogs to share their thinking and reflections.  Blogs serve as an online diary and can allow administrators to share their thinking on anything that is happening in or affecting the school.  Administrators can use the blogs as an interactive tool to communicate with stakeholders, while allowing the stakeholders to give them feedback.   The blogs can be part of the reflective practice of the administrator, and part of the cyclical nature of action research.

Reflection Question Five - Self Reflection

The first thing that I realized is that although I consider myself basically technologically savvy, I had missed great many innovations on the web.  I have added a few new tools into my tool box, which is great, and I hope to share these with other teachers.  Although, I do not have a great deal of leadership experience in the school system, my career before this was in the restaurant business as a regional trainer and manager, so my interpersonal skills and leadership skills are basically strong.  I had purposely chosen not to go into administration, but taking this class has made me re-think my views on that, it is hard to change things from the outside, so if I want to have a far reaching impact administration would give me that opportunity. 

Reflection Question Four - Course Assignments

I believe I was relatively successful in carrying out the course assignments, however, I don’t think anything I did was as good as I would like it to be.   When thinking about this question I think what discouraged me the most was my own need for getting it exactly right.  Before I became a teacher I was not a student who sought to create the perfect assignment.  I don’t ever remember be overly concerned about what the instructor wanted other than the concern for my grade.  Now that I am a teacher I am much more concerned about meeting the expectations of the instructor.  I remind myself of the pre-AP students I teach, who know that I have an exact perfect product in my head and they want me to tell them what it is so they can match it.  I always tell them, truthfully, that I have a general idea of what I am looking for and as long as their product meets the rubric they will receive that grade.  Now I know why they don’t seem to believe me, I am pretty sure there is a perfect product. 

Reflection Question Three - Outcomes not obtained

I did not learn as much as I had hoped, the class went by so quickly and even though I tried to read all of the articles and add some additional research in, I found myself running out of time every week.  My hope over the week off is that I will be to catch up on the information I do not feel that I have a grasp on.  I am not comfortable with some of the new technology applications I have learned and I am looking forward to utilize these new tools in the future to be fluent in using them.  Time was the largest factor that kept me from fully realizing my goals in the class, I am concerned with the future courses and if I will be able to meet all my goals in those courses.

Reflection Question Two - Outcomes in relation to current assignment

My district bills itself as a “Technology Rich” district, and to some extent it is, all the classrooms are hardwired for overhead projectors, and we have a many different types of technology.  The challenge I face is not the availability of the materials, but the support to help me apply the technology.  What I learned through this course is that there are many technology resources through the web that I was not utilizing to the fullest extent.  My hope over the next 18 months is that I can use the knowledge that I gain to help other teachers to implement the best technology possible in their classrooms to help prepare these 21^st Century learners for the world they are going to enter.  I am sure that if I learn as much in the course that are ahead as I did in this class, I should be prepared to lead the technological revolution at my school and hopefully have a far reaching impact on the district.

Reflection Question One - Course Outcomes

Coming into this course I was not exactly sure of what to expect.  I was hoping that I would learn a great deal, which I did, so in that respect I certainly achieved that outcome.   I was expecting to understand the program more, which I believe I achieved; the weekly video conferences were very helpful with this.  I thought that the course would be more about application of technology ideas, and not as much about the challenges facing our school systems in regards to teaching and the implications of technology.   One thing this course did was create a great deal of questions for me.   The current state of our education system in regards to technology is clearly out of step with the world and jobs our students will encounter.   I always enjoy something that challenges me to problem solve, especially a topic as important as educational reform.  I am alternately exhilarated and disillusioned when I think of the tasks ahead.