Ask More Questions!

As I sit on the plane heading back to WY from Educon (bracing for culture shock) I am reflecting back on what I have really taken away from the conference. In truth, I am more than a little shell shocked.  Being in such a large city (there were probably more people in the hotel I stayed at than live in my town) and surrounded by so many fascinating people with so many interesting ideas (every single person I talked to was doing something truly innovative and inspiring in education) has left me needing some time to decompress.  

Luckily I have notes on all the big ideas, things to look into, and interesting theories that occurred to me during the conference that I will refer back to and process over the coming weeks.  But as I sit here on the plane there is one huge “aha” moment that is at the forefront of my thoughts. That is the need to ask more questions.

This “aha” occurred for me during a David Jakes/Pam Moran/Christian Long session that I attended on design thinking.  The conversation leaders did an amazing job of facilitating meaningful conversations in a way that I had not previously experienced.  Each section of the room was given a scenario (ours was a tech saavy middle school teacher who only had two computers in his room).  Instead of proposing solutions (we were in fact forbidden from problem solving), we were directed to determine directions for further questioning that we would recommend pursuing before ideas for solving the problem were proffered.

This type of conversation required a bit of a mindshift for most folks in the group who were by their own admission, problem solvers.   However, I think it is a mindshift that was worth the effort.  When I reflect back on decision making processes, both personal and those I have collaborated on with others, that have not resulted in ideal outcomes, it occurs to me that more questioning might have led to a different path.  Taking time to generate thoughtful questions and to explore them leads to a more comprehensive understanding of the context and thus a more thoughtful solution.   

This evening I will be a part of a strategic planning session for my district.  I am not sure if people will take time to ask deep questions before making a 3 year plan for the district.  I most likely will not be able to change their approach if they don’t.  However, I will look at the process through a new lens and learn something regardless of what happens.  

Using Limited Resources Strategically, Reflection on a K-12 Grant Program

At the district where I work financial resources for technology purchases and professional development are limited.  Luckily, last year some community members took on fund raising initiatives to bolster our tech coffers.  Even with their help we were far,  far away from being able to set up all district classrooms as “ technology rich 21st century” in the way that we had defined it.  As the district technology committee pondered how best to spend what funds we did have, a proposal to distribute the funds to teachers as grants gained favor; the logic being that teachers who were willing to write a grant proposal to get technology in their classroom were likely to use it effectively and provide model classrooms for teachers less comfortable or motivated to use technology for instruction.  A decision was made to move forward with this plan and to hire 2 district technology coaches (at .25 fte each) to facilitate the program and to provide targeted professional development to support grant recipients as well as other interested teachers.  I am one of those coaches.

Today marks the end of the first semester in which we offered the grants (we will be offering them again next semester).  By our submission deadline we had tremendous response to our request for grant proposals with almost 5 times the amount we had to distribute being requested.  While it was great to see so much enthusiasm, the vetting process was extremely difficult as the committee and coaches clearly would have liked to fund every teacher that took the time out of their already extremely busy schedule to write a proposal.  After a great deal of discussion, negotiating, etc.  I feel we were able to identify grants for funding that would have a strong impact on student learning.  

Next came the determination of what each grant recipient really needed, as well as ordering, configuring and distributing, all of which took somewhat longer than expected leading us to move our submission deadlines back for second semester. In addition, we initiated a rigorous offering of 2 hour, after school, technology courses taught by the tech coaches and other district tech experts throughout the district to support the grant recipients as well as other interested staff.  Attendees were given the option of receiving hourly pay or credit toward lane advancement. These courses were well attended the impact was evident as participants shared with us the many ways they had used tools such as Google Docs, Voicethreads, Wikis, and others tech tools in their classrooms.  

Once they received their equipment the teachers and students were ecstatic.  We funded a diverse group of grants including;a classroom set of iPod touches for home podcast viewing, software that supports instrumental instruction, numerous classroom iPad stations, MacBook stations to support the creation of a year long summative elementary portfolio for 5th graders, a Mac with a large screen for a vision impaired students, and many others.  It has been rewarding to see the teachers try out the new technology and see the curiosity and excitement of students!

With the objective of the program being to use financial resources strategically to place technology in classrooms where it will make the most difference, I would say that initially it has been a success; although it may be too early to tell as most teachers have only had the new hardware in their classrooms for about 5 weeks. We did come up against some challenges, one being that the tech coaches often got bogged down in technical trouble shooting which detracted from the time they could spend supporting teachers in instruction and planning.  Another issue was that our network is not optimaly set up to support iOS devices. This is something we are addressing but it would have been nice to have taken care of it before it caused problems with devices being used by students.  All in all I would say that the program is off to a great start but we will continue to observe and gather data as we evaluate its effectiveness.  It has been great to see so many inspired projects funded and put into action.

If you are interested, here is a link to a website we used for the program with links to our grant proposal form, schedule of courses, and other supporting materials.