Independent study, fall 2007

This fall I will begin an independent study/inquiry under the supervision of Dr. Mary Anne Blank in the department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education, University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

The topic of inquiry is how to use 21st century skills and applications to support/enhance/facilitate Knox County Schools' new teacher induction and mentoring program here in East Tennessee. The program, which just completed its first full year of systemwide implementation, has received resounding endorsement from participants as well as suggestions and feedback for growth and improvement in 2007-08.

What follows is a statement of the problem with questions, arranged using the classic K-W-L format.

What is Known or Agreed Upon:

• On mid-year and end-of-year program assessments, some novice teachers in special areas (such as art, music, etc.) indicated that their mentoring experience would have been more meaningful had they been matched with an experienced teacher in that same area. However, some campuses simply do not have building-level staff to support one-on-one mentoring in special areas. When mentors and novices cannot be in close proximity to one another, e-Mentoring may be a possible solution, such as the ENDAPT model used for interns and alumnae of the William and Mary teacher preparation program.
  
• Teachers of color have also indicated an interest in mentoring activities adjusted to meet their needs. Again, this may be a problem addressed through some sort of computer-mediated communication, such as a networked learning community that transcends classroom walls and even campus borders.
  
• Through my own experience as a mentor and mentoring team leader at Fulton High School, I know that our meetings were critical for successful implementation of our building-level action plan. I also recall that our busy schedules did not permit numerous after-school meetings, so we limited ourselves to monthly face-to-face sessions, which were not always sufficient for effective administration of the program on a day-to-day basis. In between meetings, we stayed connected with email. Email, however, does not afford the level of connectivity currently available through networking sites like Classroom 2.0 and TappedIn. In these online communities multiple users form special interest groups that collaborate and problem solve through threaded discussions, forums, and virtual "meeting rooms."

What I Want to Know:

• Clearly, there is much potential for enhancing Knox County Schools' mentoring and induction program with the integration of 21st century tools and applications. Each of the aforementioned groups might benefit from a computer-mediated intervention. Which group would be a good starting point?
• Once a focus group of mentors and/or novices is identified, what tools, applications, resources/best practices will best suit their needs?
  
• What issues, in terms of technical support and buy-in, have to be addressed before a viable prototype can be developed and piloted?
• What issues can be addressed through training? What will the training component look like?
• How will my own virtual professional development activities (TappedIn, Classroom 2.0, EdTechTalk, EdubloggerWorld) inform this inquiry?
  

What I Learned:
This section of the inquiry will become more transparent as I begin my research. Look for more installments in the coming weeks and months!

technorati tags: instructional technology research professional development web2.0 networking mentoring

School tech leadership idea

Scott McLeod designated July 4 as Leadership Day and challenged edubloggers to write about school technology leadership. I missed the "deadline" but am going to share an idea anyway.

I just finished my first-ever virtual learning experience, a summer course titled "Internet: Implications for Teaching and Learning." It was fun. We posted all assignments on the Internet and participated in weekly Moodle forums on a variety of topics. We presented our final projects -- ePortfolios -- in our instructor's "office" at Tapped In. (Hey, this 37-year-old tried online chat for the first time. That's huge!)

One of our assignments involved locating and participating in an online professional development activity. Many of the folks in the class shared discussion boards, forums, and networking sites specific to their content area, and most reported positive outcomes from their investigations, leading one woman to reflect, "I think it would be interesting if principals got their school on board with this global interaction perhaps designating some lesson planning time as 'chat time' and sharing what was learned periodically. It's such a great tool, but one that is not used often enough if at all."

That got me thinking.

I have experienced an awakening of sorts since starting this blog and setting up my aggregator about six months ago. There is a vast store of resources for personal and professional growth out there. Chris Lehmann has referred to them as academic networking tools, and I really like David Warlick's recent phrase, knowing-networks. If these resources are as untapped and underutilized as some of my classmates suggested in our recent Moodle discussion, then there is a huge ed tech leadership opportunity awaiting school officials where I teach in East Tennessee.

Here in Knox County the number of unscheduled inservice hours for teachers is tripling from 6 to 18 hours, beginning this school year (2007-08). The change was adopted to give teachers more control over the kind of professional development activities they choose for themselves. What if principals would agree to let teachers log online participation hours (or perhaps assign a maximum number of hours for certain activities like discussion forums or "webinars")? This might stimulate teachers to try some new stuff.

For instance, it took a summer course requirement for me to get off my duff and finally explore the Classroom 2.0 networking site -- something I've been meaning to do since April when I first bookmarked it on Del.icio.us!

At my former school we surveyed our faculty once annually about their personal expertise in all sorts of areas (not just technology). We took the data and assigned every staff member to "expert teams," and we published the list of expert teams in our faculty handbook. This is especially helpful for new and first-year teachers and interns who need advice with common, everyday challenges like printer troubleshooting or bookkeeping paperwork and so on. It would be interesting to survey the faculty to find out who is currently participating in online teacher networks. They could form an "expert group" and train the rest of the faculty!

Who out there is already modeling this practice? Is there a school or school system that recognizes and rewards teachers' self-directed professional growth via online communities and networks? I'd like to hear about it.

technorati tags: schooltechleadership professionalDevelopment web2.0