by group MGTB
Melissa Creech, George Gerrietts (absent), Tammy Barcalow, Bryan Weinert, and Mike Marassa

TOPIC:  Systemic change requires continuous professional development and support, in addition to the acquisition of hardware. It requires sustained leadership and patience and a new approach to policy making.   Is all the time and expense worth the change? Why, or why not?

METHOD: Chat session on July 21, 2000 from 3:00 - 4:00 p.m.

PROBLEMS: None

    We started our conversation by agreeing that time and expense is worth the change.  Mike said, "any type of change that long term is in the best interest of our society is good."   Melissa pointed out the the changes must be positive and not negative.  Tammy agreed and pointed out that sometimes we don't know that it is a negative change until it is tried, but that is okay too.  The point is we tried.
    A big part of our discussion was about stake holders and was started by Bryan.  He stated that "systematic change needs to be well planned out and agreed upon by the stake holders in the community."  This comment tied into our reading from week two.  We agreed that if the stake holders were involved from the beginning, then they would want to stay involved.  One way to do this is to show the tax payers that their money is being used for good changes is through examples and not just talk.  Bryan also reminded us that the reading last week told us to take advantage of the people critiquing programs.  He said, "we (the communities we teach and live in) should be working together to decide what is truly best for our kids and that it's okay if each community has some different ideas, as long as they stick together and devise a plan to achieve their goals... therefore, the time, money, hardware."
    We agreed that we rely on more than just what we learned in high school.  If students now learned what we learned in high school they would not be prepared for today's world.  They need to learn a new set of skills for the workplace, technology being a big part of this new way of thinking and acting.  Other skills that have a bigger emphasis now were also brought up such as problem solving and teamwork.  Melissa pointed out, "our students will probably have several different careers- we're not just preparing them for one situation anymore."
    The training that is being done in schools now is very different.  Instead of shop and woodworking, students are able to get good paying jobs for Cisco training and A+ certification (hardware maintenance certification).  Mike pointed out that they all need to be prepared for the work of technology that we live in, and the more prepared they are, the more likely they are to succeed.  We agreed that our goal as teachers is to help our students to be better off than we are now... if we keep doing things the same way, it won't happen.
    Mike and Tammy also pointed out that change doesn't come easily and that many people tend to resist change.  Bryan suggested that "if everyone can work together and agree upon full scale changes together, we can do a better job of improving ALL of our students' educations."
    Melissa didn't want want to discredit what we are already doing either.  She said we should "look at what we are doing right before we change everything."  Everything is not always wrong in education.  Mike said, "we just need to look at how we can best meet the needs of our society and the traditional model of teacher requires too much from us."
    Melissa also brought up the fact that "we can never change everything all at once- first we have to do the things that are important that we CAN change and move from there."  Bryan countered with "although we can't change everything at once, we can devise an overall plan that spans a number of years... if we just continue to change one thing to see if it works and then go on to another, those changes will often times remain too separated, they need to fit into an overall plan with a measurable goal."  Tammy was concerned that a long term plan not be neglected, which brought our discussion back to stake holders.  They should start the plans for change and they should be accountable.  Since teachers would be in the group of stake holders, we too are accountable.