Digital Tools Blog Post for 7.9.13

Digital Tools Blog Post for 7.9.13

Reflexive Practice 1.1: Think of a research study that you would like to design, or are currently engaged in.  Briefly describe the project, its features, and key points.

 

            For the past 7 years, I have been a District Literacy Coordinator for a local school system.  I have been responsible for facilitating professional development sessions for the elementary special education, classroom, and intervention teachers in the district. Through this work, I have had the opportunity to engage in meaningful professional development opportunities myself – within my own school district, but also in New Zealand, at Ohio State University, at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and at Georgia State University.  My involvement with Reading Recovery, an international reading intervention for first grade students, has been simultaneously the most challenge and most beneficial experience of my educational career.  I feel very fortunate to have been at ‘the right place at the right time’ to take advantage of the amazing opportunities provided to me by school district leaders, and I feel strongly that all teachers should have the opportunity for such professional development - professional development that truly develops professionals, challenges them, and allows them to create powerful learning opportunities for the students they serve.  In my experience, and from the stories of my colleagues in the field, it appears professional development for most teachers falls very short in meeting any of the above described goals.

            There are two research studies that are currently on my mind.  One focuses on professional development for teachers, and the other on the interaction between a Reading Recovery student and her teacher.    The first study would be an in-depth look at a group of Reading Recovery Teacher Leaders as they engage in professional development opportunities.  Reading Recovery Teacher Leaders are district literacy coordinators who train and support Reading Recovery teachers in their school district (and possibly surrounding districts).  Reading Recovery teachers work individually with students in the lowest 20% of their grade level cohort.  These students are identified through a battery of literacy assessments, The Observation Survey for Early Literacy Achievement, and classroom teacher ranking.  The aim of Reading Recovery is to bring these students to average or better levels of literacy achievement by providing them with daily, 30 minute, one to one literacy lessons with expertly trained literacy teachers.  According to the What Works Clearinghouse, Reading Recovery is a highly successful and well researched reading intervention that accelerates literacy learning for first grade students.

            In this study, I would like to look specifically at Reading Recovery Teacher Leaders (RRTLs), as they are the agents of change (Michael Fullan) who are trained at regional university training sites and facilitate training sessions for Reading Recovery teachers in local school teachers.  The professional development for RRTLs is intense and challenging.  It requires individuals to relocate to regional training centers (I lived in Atlanta) for a year-long “apprenticeship”.  In training RRTLs take more than 30 hours of graduate classes in emergent literacy, teach students daily, are coached by University trainers, and participate in the training of Reading Recovery teachers near the university site.   Beyond the initial residential training year, the RRTL receives site visits from University trainers and participates in 2 two day professional development sessions with other RRTLs.  There has been research on Reading Recovery teachers, but not research on Reading Recovery Teacher Leaders.

            Originally, I thought the study could be a case study of a group of Reading Recovery Teacher Leaders as they are engaging in professional development.  As part of my introductory qualitative research class, I conducted a pilot study of sorts.  I visited a Reading Recovery Teacher Leader professional development session in the fall of last year.  I conducted 3 one hour interviews and 3 interviews with teacher leaders about their experiences in professional development.  Some interesting ideas emerged, and I believe they are worthy of further study.  Readers of a research study of this nature might make their own generalizations or transfer the information to their particular setting or site.  A study like this might uncover what aspects of professional development for these teachers seem most meaningful, most useful, and most likely to support the growth not only of teachers, but of the students the teachers serve.   Reading Recovery is a form of a Professional Learning Community that fosters what Hargraves and Fullan term “Professional Capital”.  How might looking at this group of professionals closely help other teachers, coordinators, and district leaders in providing quality professional development that matters?

            Lately, I have been reading a great deal for my Discursive Psychology class and have been wondering about looking at the Reading Recovery Teacher Leader sessions through that lens.   The RRTL training sessions are rich with language about teacher/student interactions.  All of the sessions include viewing and discussing live lessons as they unfold.  A Reading Recovery teacher and student are working with one another on one side of the screen.  A group of Reading Recovery professionals (Teacher Leaders/Trainers or Teacher Leaders/Teachers) are on the other side of the one way screen viewing and discussing.   Through these professional development opportunities, Reading Recovery professionals develop and refine both their theory and practice about emergent literacy.  It would be very interesting to look at the language that is used in these sessions in order to gain an understanding about what is happening.  Because I am not yet very knowledgeable about discursive psychology, I am not as certain about this as a possibility, but in my readings to date, it seems like a very real possibility.  The blog I wrote for Discursive Psychology (below) offers some discussion of the readings and how they related to Reading Recovery and a potential study of Reading Recovery Teacher Leaders.

            In either research perspective (case study or discursive psychology), digital tools would be invaluable.   I could use Atlas ti. to conduct a literature review.  I could load and code my articles and my notes on the articles.  If I did a case study and conducted interviews, my transcribed interviews and the coding from the interviews could be included in ATLAS ti. as well.  Observation notes could be handled the same way.  I could also upload artifacts from the site – agendas, charts created, email communications etc.   All of my coding and writing could be done in ATLAS ti.    Studying with discursive psychology would require me (or the participants) to do a great deal of audio and video taping.  I would need to secure tools that are very easy to use and could capture the language interactions.  I would not do interviews or observations, but instead would focus on analyzing these language interactions.  I am not sure if Atlas ti would be the most appropriate tool for analyzing the data.  I am attending Ann’s Advanced Qualitative workshop later today, so perhaps that question will be answered.   

            The second research study I am considering is one that looks closely at interactions between a Reading Recovery teacher and student as they participate in daily, one-to-one literacy lessons.  I could do a case study – that would involve observations of the lessons, interviews with the teacher and student, and possibly the parents and classroom teacher).  I could think about what is happening in the interactions.  The case study would describe the interactions, the “what is happening” within the lessons, and might allow readers to take away ideas about how to interact with low achieving students.   Or, I could examine the language of the interactions and be open to what themes and ideas and questions come up as I am thinking through the interactions and what is being said.  I am wondering about identity – how the student takes on a new identity as a result of the experience.   I am wondering about the nature of the language the teacher uses etc.  Again, I am so new to the ideas of discursive psychology, that I cannot say if there is a “match”, but I do believe it is a possibility. Again, digital tools would be useful regardless of the lens – Atlas ti and video and audio equipment especially.  In much the same way as I described above.  Hopefully through the course of this class (and the discursive psychology class) I can become clearer about which approach and which project to conduct!

 

Understanding Technology Adoption: Theory and Future Directions for Informal Learning – Evan T. Straub

            I realize that this article was talking about technology adoption, but as I read it, I thought about how adoption of any new initiative (technological, literacy related, math related) goes through a similar process.  My experiences as a literacy coordinator and a reading coach came to mind often. Perhaps technological initiatives are more anxiety provoking for teachers because they are more “new” and change pretty quickly after being learned. 

            At the bottom of page 625, the author asks “Why does one individual choose to adopt a technology while another resists?  What is the influence of social context on the decision to adopt?”  For me, it has been all about usefulness.  I learned to type papers (first on a type writer/word processor and later on a computer) instead of hand write because it was quicker, I hated white out and correction tape and I liked the way it looked better when I finished writing.  I used email because it was fun, allowed me to stay connected more easily with people who lived far away, and it was again, quick.  I could put words out and get words back with little delay (as long as the other person was into email too!).  So, again, it was about efficiency and usefulness.   I just recently upgraded to an android cell phone.  I really loved my razor flip phone and didn’t see the need for anything more.  I still don’t really – other than needing to get to my email sometimes or use my gps.  I didn’t have a real need to change my cell phone, so I wasn’t an “early adopter” of the latest and greatest in cell phones.  I would like an iPhone now…I love my ipad and want all my music from both my iPod and ipad available through my phone – I also want to be able to face time with my partner and step son and having that phone would allow me to.  I guess the ‘fun’ factor is at play here, as is the ‘social context’ of my decision.  People who mean the most to me use those tools, so I want to also in order to stay connected.

            The section on adoption and diffusion theories (p. 626), made me think of Reading Recovery teacher leader training.  Some TLs take on the “innovation” by adopting  – a new way, for them, of thinking about interacting with low achieving students (pushing them for action and initiation etc.) and teachers (challenging them, questioning them etc.).  Then, the TLs go back to their sites and “diffuse” the information.  They train teachers, interact with students, and communicate with other educational professionals about the “innovation”.    This discussion of adoption and diffusion made me think of Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point. He talks about how change happens and ideas spread.  

I thought the discussion (on page 630) of the stages of adoption were spot on both in terms of technology adoption and adoption of any innovation (again, I am thinking of literacy) – Awareness, Persuasion, Decision, Implementation, and Confirmation.  In school systems, the “persuasion” phase seems particularly important.  If there is pressure from the outside – to use a particular student management system, to get nuts and bolts information about the school in the principal’s daily email, to incorporate technology into a lesson plan (TEAM mandate) then that will lead to a teacher “deciding” to implement.  That kind of pressure often leads to superficial embracing of whatever the ‘thing’ may be, with teachers passively involved.  I have seen Central Office mandates come down time and time again with little explanation, no rationale, and no support for implementation.  Teachers resent this sort of thing and will passively “do”, but not in any authentic way.

There is much connection between social learning theory and this work in Reading Recovery.   The observational learning processes and the four sub functions – attentional processes, retention processes, production processes, and motivational processes – are all at play in Reading Recovery whether the focus is on teacher leaders, teachers, or students.  

The author talks about Bandura’s (1997) ideas about self-efficacy and how it is developed through mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and psychological and affective states.  For RRTLs in trainings, all of these experiences are at play.  Every day, RRTLs teach kids.  They master the procedures of Reading Recovery and practice prompting and interacting with students who are at various stages in their literacy learning.   The “Behind the Glass” experiences allow them vicarious experiences by viewing other teachers teaching and having the chance to reflect on their teaching decisions – Did that call for independent action on the part of the child?  Was the prompting clear?  Was the teaching efficient?  Might there be another way? The University trainers coach the teaching of the RRTL (of both students as teachers) as they work with students and as they lead training sessions with teachers.  This “verbal persuasion” happens through questioning and being required to think through teaching decisions and their effect on the learner.   Often this training is highly emotional … accomplished teachers are selected for the training, the training is intense, and the teachers are questioned repeatedly about their decisions.  Some teachers find this type of intensity threatening and anxiety provoking, but I think all changing and all learning involve a certain amount of discomfort and anxiety.  We have to be uncomfortable to change – too tight pants might make someone cut back a bit, a speeding ticket might make someone slow down, a beeping fire alarm makes one change the battery. 

 

On page 630, the author is talking about Roger’s 5 attributes of an innovation that influence its adoption – relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trailability, and observability.   I would agree that if an innovation is seen as similar to something known, than adoption would be greater.  When I went to an NVIVO workshop Ann went too, it was easy for me to understand how I might use it because of my prior experience with Atlas, and it also looked a great deal like Windows and Outlook.   My background understanding helped me be okay with the new innovation.  Initially, Atlas seemed incredibly complex to me.  Had I not been in a class and had the professor and Ann’s support to observe and try it out, I would have been resistant to adopt.  As I was reading this section, I was thinking about the current culture of fear and “got ya” in education – why would someone take a risk in learning something new?  It takes a lot of energy to learn something new.  If teachers devote their energy to a new technology they might not have enough to prepare for evaluations, get their kids ready for the PARCC assessment etc.  There has to be a certain amount of permission to take risks and perhaps fail for a teacher to take on something new.

 

I thought the characteristics of early adopters were interesting (p. 631) – higher SES, access to communication methods, higher upward mobility, literate, more intelligent, and higher capacity for uncertainty/change.   Sounds a lot to me like access – how can you be considered a late adopter if early adoption was realistically an option?   I am also wondering how these characteristics were determined – was it a school setting?, high school?, elementary?, what was the innovation being adopted?  How was intelligence measured? 

The idea of the ‘rationalized myth’ fits with my experience – “certain organizational practices are continued because of tradition and a shared organizational value rather than empirically verified value” (p. 633).   In the school district where I used to work, a model of literacy called “balanced literacy” was introduced and flopped in large part because of this ‘rationalized myth’.  Teachers didn’t take to the role of ‘teacher as facilitator’ instead of teacher as deliverer of knowledge (via lecture).    Prompting kids and asking questions and allowing them the floor was in contrast to the teacher’s idea of herself as the expert who had to impart knowledge. Principals didn’t know what to make of the students scattered all over the room reading and talking.  They valued the kids in rows and desks and all on the same page on the same day.   Research didn’t matter – their ideas of what teaching “is” is what mattered.

On page 635, I was really surprised to see that consequences for students (when thinking of adopting an innovation) was pretty far down the list! Teachers were concerned more with how they were going to manage the innovation and how it would affect them than they were about the students?  That doesn’t fit with my experience.  In fact, I have seen many teachers get “on board” with a new initiative when it had benefits for the kids – they would let go of personal inconvenience or a hitch in their schedule if it meant a boost for the kids.   I am wondering if there has been more recent research on this idea.

Interesting that Lippert and Forman (2005) found that prior experience was negatively correlated with technology use.  Not sure what I think about that yet, really…

The Implications for Educators and Administrators (on page 644) made me consider sending this article to Director of Technology for my former school district.   I do think the ‘cognitive aspects’ of the implementation have been stressed when new technology is rolled out – and communicating about how the teachers will be supported has been somewhat neglected.    The comment about the “peripheral systems” and how those changes impact teachers was important.  A new email system is nothing to the technology department, and to many computer savvy teachers, but for many teachers who are reluctant and not very skilled users of email; this “small change” can be very disruptive – especially if this “peripheral system” change occurs simultaneously with a larger change in technology.

 

Why Digital Tools (Chapter 1) – PLD

 

            I thought this chapter gave a great overview on how digital tools can help the qualitative researcher.  I believe I received a pretty good grounding in that last semester in my advanced qual class, but obviously this class and this text will take that learning much further. I have never really thought about the affordances and constraints (pros and cons) of digital tools.  Although, in our reading last semester we did talk quite a bit about some of the criticisms of digital tools (takes the researcher away from the data etc.).   I am looking forward to thinking and writing more about those ideas in light of the technologies I am engaging with.

            I am most certainly a digital immigrant when it comes to new technologies.  I was in high school when the first “computers” invaded schools and I remember taking a computer programming class and writing a program that allowed a string of letters to run from right to left and top to bottom of a computer screen.  I took typing in high school (one of the MOST valuable classes every – even though I got my only C in it!) and it was only in college that I began to use a computer (really a word processor) consistently.   My childhood was filled with tree climbing, ball playing, and bike riding – not interacting with technology.   I think about this often when I look out at the faces in my 430 Reading class – they all grew up with computers in the home, cell phones, and the internet.   We have very different relationships with technology.

            Lately, I have been involved in conversations with Reading Recovery professionals across the country about how we might use technology to enhance particular aspects of our training.  For example, the behind the glass sessions could happen remotely…teacher and child could be at their home school having a lesson while other teachers either come to a space together to have a discussion of the teaching.  This would keep systems from having to build expensive two way mirror set ups complete with audio systems and teachers and children from having to travel to an unfamiliar setting to have a lesson.  This is a real possibility, but I think there is a payoff.  In my opinion, live lessons are much more powerful than lessons on a screen.  Even if the lesson is happening in real time it is one dimensional and a certain kind of passivity settles into the teachers who are watching the lesson.  It is like being at the movies.  The level of engagement is just not the same.   I suppose this could be the affordances/constraints of using live video over the internet. 

 

Qualitative Research and Technology: In the Midst of a Revolution – Davidson and di Gregorio

            This article was useful in that it provided an overview of the history of technology use in qualitative research.  I appreciated the chart on page 629 and chuckled at the idea of carbon paper being an “innovation” of sorts.   I thought the description of the use of the notecards and needles to conduct a Boolean search was interesting.  I have never really thought of that!

            Before reading this article, I had no idea about the concerns regarding epistemology and methodology and the use of software.  In our class last semester, I thought you were very clear to talk about how tools like Atlas can be used for a wide variety of projects, topics, and viewpoints.   

            I agree with the authors on p. 634 when they write, “some of the difficulty with adopting QDAS seems to be related to the complexity of the comprehensive software packages”.  Without this class and Ann’s support through OIT last semester and this semester, I am sure that I would not have been so open to Atlas.  Interesting that she is the only qual research assistant when there are so many quan assistants – “on many campuses, support for QDAS lags far behind support for basic quantitative technologies” (p. 635).

            On page 636, the authors talk briefly about how what people do on Facebook (and other technologies) is similar to what qualitative researchers do – searching, tagging, indexing, writing memos etc.  The authors talk about ordinary people as indigenous qualitative researchers.  Interesting way to think about this!