Scott R. Laleman
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Action Research Plan
| Purpose | The purpose of my action research is to expose more teachers to technology by giving them better training, more input into what they learned and continuous opportunities for training in technology and support for what they learned. |
| Situation | Technology staff development happened at the beginning of the school year and during various staff development days thoughout the year. Sessions were decided on by the administration, so teachers had very little input as to what they learned. Technology sessions were often attended by as many as thirty people over five grade levels. These type of sessions did not allow for many in depth questions, and often times did not apply to many of the teachers attending. |
| Research Question | My main research question was: Does offering "just in time" training (the topics teachers want, when they want it) for technology increase the use of technology in the classroom? |
| Community of Practice | My position in the community of practice that I am working in can be described in the following way: I am the Technology Coordinator for a single-school district in the near western suburbs of Chicago. I am responsible for overseeing the technology curriculum, training teachers, and fixing the equipment when it fails. I am basically the resident expert. Whenever anything goes wrong with technology, I'm the one they call. |
Timeline Items completed
are in green. |
September 2002 Begin Tech Camp for staff development training. Evaluate effectiveness by number of requests for topics, number of people attending. Tech Camp was held Tuesday 7:30-8:30 AM, 3:30-4:30 PM, and Wednesday, 3:30-4:30 PM October 2002 Continue with Tech Camp. Look at other options for individual or small group staff development. Read other people's observations, contact other tech coordinators/trainers to find out what has worked and not worked for them. November 2002 Re-evaluate Tech Camp. At this point requests were dropping off. Staff will take a survey at ncrel.org to help the administration and me understand where our teachers think we are as far as technology use. Survey also evaluated teacher and administrator proficiency, tech support, and options staff would like for staff development. December 2002 Review results of survey with administration. Results were encouraging. Staff appeared to fall mostly into the early adoption range as expected. Responses in the tech support section were positive, and needs for staff development showed that teachers wanted a more individual approach, such as the one Tech Camp provided. Make a plan to team teach with 2-3 technologically proficient teachers at integrating technology. While the plan did not materialize, I did spend time planning and teaching with a third grade teacher and a seventh grade teacher for about a week each. Continue with Tech Camp. Introduce other options, such as a tech talk session once a month, where teachers can come in and have some 'unstructured' time talking about and working with technology. This was introduced at a January faculty meeting. January 2003 Review survey results with staff. Continue team teaching in the classroom, show other less proficient teachers what they are doing to get them excited about technology. This ended up happening in March. Hold a tech fair to get parents and community members involved--show off some of the students' work. There were actually two of these. The one in January was very poorly attended. The one in April was very well attended. Differences - January was held during the day, during parent conferences. April was held at night in conjunction with a 'Math Night' at the school. Begin Tech Talk. Make Tech Camp available every day. This was a change from the set days, set times. Teachers could now request Tech Camp sessions at any time during the day, any day of the week. February 2003 Continue with Tech Talk and Tech Camp. Begin mentoring less proficient teachers by helping them with a lesson they feel needs some sprucing up. May also include the other teachers I have been working with. This part of the plan was scrapped because of technology support issues that were going on at the time. March 2003 Re-evaluate Tech Talk and Tech Camp. Make any changes necessary to provide a better and more open learning environment for the teachers. Take another look at the sessions that have been offered to see if there is any opportunity for more advanced courses. April 2003 Additional revisions to Tech Talk and Tech Camp. Begin proposal for laptop program. Conduct survey of teachers to see where they are in comparison to the beginning of the school year. This was very encouraging. See the results. May 2003 Present laptop program proposal to school board. This did not happen until June. Begin planning summer technology sessions. Begin initial release time planning with teachers (if approved by admin). June 2003 Begin summer technology sessions, initial phases of laptops for teachers program (if approved). Still waiting for Board approval, recommendations from new administration. |
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This page last updated on Sunday, July 6, 2003