Week One
Patricia McNerney
Reflection
Before tackling my reflections on this week’s
reading assignments I must state that I am in the middle of transitioning as a
tech coordinator of a very rural one-school district that has very little to a
two-school district that has quite a bit in the way of technology. I am going reflect from the reading onto the
current rural one-school district.
In reading the “Realizing the Promise of
Technology: The Need for Systemic
Education Reform” by Jane L. David, it is apparent that the school I am
currently at needs some major transformations.
The majority of parents, staff, and board has a laid-back approach to
education and seem to cling to old methods of teaching. Many of the students do not see college as a
goal and know little else besides farming.
The school lacks consistent leadership because of its size, location,
and lack of funds; it is usually a stepping-stone into larger districts and
higher paying jobs. Before my arrival, the school had implemented some
technology, but the technology was not maintained or managed. The person put in charge was given an
impossible task by teaching gifted, LD, and managing technology. Technology soon came to a halt because it
did not work, there were no viable programs to be utilized, and the tech
coordinator had no time to work with the technology, teachers, or
students. Another problem is that the
district goals are not tied to the current world that they are preparing
students for. Only this year, a
curriculum committee was created to (which I am a part of ) evaluate and
rewrite goals and grade-level exit criteria.
The problem is that the committee opted to borrow exit criteria and
goals from neighboring districts and not take the time to research what goals
would be in the best interest of the students.
I came on board and got all technology working,
networked, Internet installed, and training started for teachers and
students. However, while some strides
were made, it was limited in scope and very basic in nature due to the amount
of worked needed to get the infrastructure in place. This school needs to educate teachers on school reform and
support funds to make it happen.
However, many of the teachers are very close to retirement and see no
need for change. Most of the teachers
operate classrooms as teacher centered, teacher as fact teller, student as
listener, and goals developed are based mostly on facts and memorization
contributing to accumulation of a large quantity of facts, which are tested by
multiple-choice, norm-referenced instruments.
Decisions for programs are based on SAT and ISAT test scores only.
I wrote a tech plan this year that was approved for
five years for the district that received many “exceeding” ratings that if the
district would work towards would facilitate school reform. I included many ideas I learned through the
CTER program. However, it will be up to
the board, superintendent, and teachers to buy into it to make it happen. There is little communication across the
staff, which is a detriment so each teacher operates as a separate island. Decisions are either made at the top with
limited knowledge or input from staff or made by the teacher with no
communication with the top officials of the district. The new strategic plan for technology addresses equity, but this
district has little variety in ethnic origins, learning disabilities, or
poverty levels. It also addresses staff
development, student inclusion, and engaged learning issues, but the bottom
line is without support and communication among the district, it won’t happen. I had to write the tech plan all by myself
since there was no assistance. Even the
administration did little to contribute to it.
Some teachers utilized collaborative groups, but that is about it when comparing the five features of reformed classrooms. Students wrote and performed scripts, performed labs, and did research which was put into a presentation in collaborative groups. When reading from the “Learn & Live” book by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, I found myself thinking, “if I could only get the staff at the school to read these and to see a new vision for education”.
I also taught science this year and tried to
incorporate authentic and challenging tasks, tried to work more as coach and
facilitator with integrating technology to demonstrate to teachers how
education could be affected. I also let
students do some of the teaching and linked up with a class in Minnesota all
year where my students taught their students and the reverse. Some of the other teachers started the year
by telling me that junior high students couldn’t learn in this type of
environment, but ended up coming in later on asking how I got students so
involved, parents said their kids couldn’t stop talking about science, and
students moved towards asking and answering their own questions. What little I did got students so interested
in science that they talked about it all the time and never wanted to miss
it. I did a year-end test that mixed
written questions and skill-based together and I had great results. While I struggled during the year acting as
a coach and not the expert all the time, I found I learned from my students and
in the end, we accepted each other as peers and not teacher-student. I think that if teachers are to be
facilitators, then they need more resources to be able to utilized: experts, internet, expert software, distance
learning (which all takes either effort or money to set up). It is a shame that schools are always
struggling to find funds and the time in which to make reform happen.
However, it is still depressing in that reform is
sporadic and often temporary. I don’t
think enough teachers are trained in current teacher education programs to
grasp and implement school reform and if they are, then current administrators
don’t empower them to do so. I worked
with a few first-year teachers this year that got through college and never had
to utilize technology within education classes which amazed me. It seems to me that a lot of work has to be
done in all areas to make a consistent effort in order to make reform
happen: teacher training programs,
district administration, policy makers, and funding.