Finding Balance
Dec
24
Written by:
12/24/2009 12:33 AM
A while back, I wrote a piece here
that was truly from the hip, and while I don't regret writing it
whatsoever, I do sometimes wonder how it reflects on me as an educator.
You see, at heart I am vehemently pro-kid, almost to a fault, and at
times this finds me in precarious situations when it comes to teachers.
By first thinking of students, my initial reactions lead me to
questions like "how can we get this information in the hands of
students?" or "let's make sure our kids are seeing this;" this is
unsettling to some because it immediately places the honus of doing this
onto the teachers. My intentions are good, but it is not always
communicated that way to the teachers that are directly in charge of our
students.
To be pro-kid does not equate to being anti-teacher.
Jay
Matthews had a great piece in the WaPo this week in which he railed
against teachers who refuse to use the internet in their classrooms as a
means of communicating to parents. On two levels this sounded eerily
familiar. The first is the piece I wrote here a few months back that
called out the teachers who openly claim they hate technology. The
second is that I am blown away by the pushback I have gotten from
teachers lately regarding the posting of homework and grades via the
internet, and you can clearly see this in the comments at the bottom of
the article.
In our district, we ask that our teachers maintain a website, post
weekly lesson plans using our online lesson planner which also pushes
out daily homework assignments automatically, and in a very short time
our gradebook, which is part of our SIS, will be going live to the
parents of our Middle and High School students. In short:
- website (via OnCourse Systems)
- lesson plans that automatically post daily homework (the lesson
planner feature of OnCourse takes anything you place in homework and
publishes it after a certain date and time)
- gradebook online (a product called Genesis
which is fairly specific to New Jersey)
Philosophical debates about whether or not grades or homework should
be posted online aside, this is where I run into problems in relation to
the "pro-kid" mentality I have. The feedback we are getting is that
there is too much redundancy in the system, and that processes that used
to take just part of their Sundays are now taking all of their
Sundays. If we can provide one system that integrate at least two of
these three processes and automate them as much as possible so that
there is minimal double-entry, shouldn't that work? What I am hearing
are comments much like this one from the Matthews' article:
How about a reality check. This issue is simple:
(1) Time. I teach three preps, 6 sections. Each period is a
separate page on the school's gradebook (and communication web site). So
I have to update 6 separate, click happy pages.
(2) Place. I don't have my own classroom with a desk and a
computer. I share an "office" with five people. We have one computer.
(Now ask about the phone - 8 of us share a line. No voice mail.)
(3) Use. Even after doing all this, only
about 1/3 of the parents actually log on. Yes, parents, we can track
this, too.
Posted by: altaego60 | December 21, 2009 9:28 AM
And while this situation (especially the computer situation mentioned
in number 2) is not exactly indicative of where I work, it may be in
many schools around the world. We are pushing the idea of transparency
by opening up some of the "guts" of education to open public view, but
we are in the initial stages of the best ways to do it. For some of the
teachers I work with, the system is fine and they have figured out how
to make it work, but for others, even some of our early adopters, they
find it cumbersome to have to post their lesson plans in one place,
homework in another place, and grades in another portal, in addition to
maintaining a website.
We have rolled this out to the staff in the "rough-ready"stage,
meaning that we knew there would be feedback and that the process would
be an ongoing one to figure out what works best for all stakeholders.
My question as we do this is whether or not the systems we roll out take
into account the teacher feedback on the workflow aspect of it. What I
mean is can we ask teachers what the best system for making all of
these pieces available to parents and students is, and then design our
pieces accordingly. Too often, I think we in the ed tech field are
guilty of imposing our workflows onto the teachers. Sure, it is dead
simple for me to operate the three parts of our requirements without
losing any time that I would have taken before--but I had a huge part in
designing them. What I'd like to see are some other models that people
use around the country and world to open up these parts to their
communities.
If nothing else after reading the comments in the Matthews article,
after being a teacher, and observing all of the mandates placed on
teachers in this day and age, we should not impose anything on teachers
that eats away at their primary responsibility: helping students learn
and grow. If our systems for creating transparency are detracting from
that, we need to rethink how we are doing it.
Cross-posted at Chalkdust101.
9 comment(s) so far...
Finding Balance
TTWWADI?
By Steve on
12/31/2009 9:00 AM
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Finding Balance
I'm wondering if one of the reasons teachers are leery of digging into technology in the way you've described is because it is not transformative. Putting lesson plans, grades, and homework online will have a minimal effect on student learning.
We know what happens to our students when we hold low expectations for them: the students live down to those expectations. The same happens with teachers.
The philosophical debate that I see happening is not whether grades and homework should be online, but whether grades and homework positively impact *student learning.*
Being pro-kid and pro-teacher means using the technology in meaningful ways.
By Russ Goerend on
12/24/2009 2:00 AM
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Finding Balance
In my 25 or so years of experience doing Ed Tech in Elementary School I have noticed that teachers do what makes sense to them. The technologies that support what they already HAVE to do and help them to be more efficient and effective teachers.
In our district we use Eduphoria Aware for our state test scores. There are reports that allow teachers to analyze test scores by state standards directly down to the item that was missed by as student. It has been amazing to me to see how quickly teachers learned how to print and scan the bubble sheets and find the reports that they want to use. It makes sense to them and helps them to do their job better.
By Janice Friesen on
12/28/2009 5:44 AM
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Finding Balance
Russ,
What I am hoping grows out of all this is just that: a conversation around what matters in regards to student learning. What I am seeing now is a whole lot of TTWWADI in regards to giving feedback. Moving beyond that, in my mind, requires a step like this one that brings the practice into the light of day.
Janice,
Teachers doing the things that make sense to them is perfect, and the system you describe is a great example of teachers using the systems in place to be efficient in what is asked of them.
The next question is related to Russ' comment above: is what they are doing having an impact on student learning? I think there are two worlds within schools: that which we do because we are mandated to do, and that which we do because we know it works. I have found that unless the two match, the teachers don't view it as "making sense." Is that your experience?
By Patrick on
12/29/2009 12:51 AM
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Finding Balance
TTWWADI?
By Steve on
12/31/2009 9:01 AM
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Finding Balance
TTWWADI = That's The Way We've Always Done It
By Mike Aquino on
1/4/2010 10:35 AM
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Finding Balance
Thank you very much for the brief explanation.
By sesli sohbet on
4/2/2010 7:19 PM
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Finding Balance
Thank you very much for the brief explanation.
By sesli on
4/2/2010 7:19 PM
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Finding Balance
Well thank you for the article and for sharing your thoughts on the topic.
I think that we should also face the fact that internet is part of the lives of our kids. They use it everyday and this should be taken into consideration.
Why not using it for the purpose of education as it has many advantages?
By josie-marie partenaire on
3/4/2010 3:00 AM
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