Cycle 1
OVERALL RESEARCH QUESTION: How will the implementation of an individualized professional development plan affect the level of technology integration in the classroom?
ACTION TAKEN: To gain knowledge of how the current staff at my schools uses technology as well as find out the needs and interests of the staff, I conducted a needs assessment. Initially I sent an email to the teaching staff with the attached link to the Google form explaining the purpose of the needs assessment. After one week I had about ten teachers complete the survey. In attempts to get more teachers to complete my survey, a week later I resent out the same email, this time with the incentive that I would put the name of everyone who completed the survey into a drawing for a Starbucks gift card. In that week, I had twenty more teachers complete the survey.
Once the survey was completed, I looked at a few specific areas: how teachers currently use technology in their classroom, what areas of technology teachers are interested in learning about to enhance their teaching practices, what days most teachers are interested in attending professional development opportunities, and how teachers are most interested in learning about new technology.
CYCLE 1 QUESTION:
How will understanding the technology competencies of the current employees of the school help me develop a professional development technology program that better serves their needs?
PREDICTED OUTCOME: The action of this first cycle was to gain an understanding of what technology teachers wanted to learn about and the ideal way to teach this information to them. Based on the prior knowledge of my staff I figured my staff would be most interested to learn about using the iPad in the classroom and would want staff development offered on Tuesdays, our early dismissal days.
EVIDENCE COLLECTED
The evidence used to evaluate the action taken in this cycle was a needs assessment survey sent out in the form of a Google doc to all teachers at my school. Some of the questions were open-ended while others asked the teachers to select an answer from a list of possibilities.
Initially I sent this email out to the seventy teachers at my school on Monday, October 8th. After the first week, I had only 10 teachers respond. I resent the survey out the following week offering a Starbucks gift card drawing to anyone who completed the survey. After two weeks, I had thirty-four teachers, nearly half the staff, complete the survey.
ANALYSIS
Of the teachers who completed the survey, the majority stated that they use technology for administrative tasks and planning, and their students mostly use technology in the computer lab and for programs already set up by the district such as Success Maker and research. Teachers also reported that they use technology for instruction assistance, using such tools as Powerpoint, YouTube, and document cameras.
OVERALL RESEARCH QUESTION: How will the implementation of an individualized professional development plan affect the level of technology integration in the classroom?
ACTION TAKEN: To gain knowledge of how the current staff at my schools uses technology as well as find out the needs and interests of the staff, I conducted a needs assessment. Initially I sent an email to the teaching staff with the attached link to the Google form explaining the purpose of the needs assessment. After one week I had about ten teachers complete the survey. In attempts to get more teachers to complete my survey, a week later I resent out the same email, this time with the incentive that I would put the name of everyone who completed the survey into a drawing for a Starbucks gift card. In that week, I had twenty more teachers complete the survey.
Once the survey was completed, I looked at a few specific areas: how teachers currently use technology in their classroom, what areas of technology teachers are interested in learning about to enhance their teaching practices, what days most teachers are interested in attending professional development opportunities, and how teachers are most interested in learning about new technology.
CYCLE 1 QUESTION:
How will understanding the technology competencies of the current employees of the school help me develop a professional development technology program that better serves their needs?
PREDICTED OUTCOME: The action of this first cycle was to gain an understanding of what technology teachers wanted to learn about and the ideal way to teach this information to them. Based on the prior knowledge of my staff I figured my staff would be most interested to learn about using the iPad in the classroom and would want staff development offered on Tuesdays, our early dismissal days.
EVIDENCE COLLECTED
The evidence used to evaluate the action taken in this cycle was a needs assessment survey sent out in the form of a Google doc to all teachers at my school. Some of the questions were open-ended while others asked the teachers to select an answer from a list of possibilities.
Initially I sent this email out to the seventy teachers at my school on Monday, October 8th. After the first week, I had only 10 teachers respond. I resent the survey out the following week offering a Starbucks gift card drawing to anyone who completed the survey. After two weeks, I had thirty-four teachers, nearly half the staff, complete the survey.
ANALYSIS
Of the teachers who completed the survey, the majority stated that they use technology for administrative tasks and planning, and their students mostly use technology in the computer lab and for programs already set up by the district such as Success Maker and research. Teachers also reported that they use technology for instruction assistance, using such tools as Powerpoint, YouTube, and document cameras.
Slightly over half of the teachers (51%) reported that they used technology in their classrooms everyday, and just over a quarter (26%) used technology in their classrooms 2-3 times a week. Of the remaining teachers, 11% use technology once a week, and 9% said their students only use the computer lab for technology once a week. Only 20 out of the 34 teachers who took the survey have a classroom iPad, which means only about 20 out of the 70 teachers at the school have a classroom iPad. Forty-three percent of the teachers who completed the survey are willing to take one hour a week to spend on developing a technology program in their classroom where as another 43% said they were willing to spend 2-3 hours a week, while 14% said they would spend as much time as it takes.
The number one area of interest for professional development was iPads followed by web-based projects, Edmodo, and Prezi/Google docs.
The number one area of interest for professional development was iPads followed by web-based projects, Edmodo, and Prezi/Google docs.
Sixty-three percent of the teachers said they would prefer to learn professional development as a grade level, 3% said as a whole elementary school, 9% said as a K-8 school, and 26% had no preference.
Tuesday was the preferred day for professional develop selected by 43% of the staff . Wednesday, Monday and Thursday were ranked in that order with 23%,17%, and 14% selecting these days, respectively. Only 3% selected Friday.
The final questioned posed was whether teachers would be interested in creating a small group to help me offer individualized PD to help support and follow up with the other teachers. More than half of the teachers (54%) responded that they would be interested in this form of involvement. Just over a third (37%) did not want to be help in this way and the rest did not respond to this question.
REFLECTION: Upon reflection I am happy with the results I gained from the needs assessment because they were consistent with my predicted outcome. I am however, disappointed with how few teachers completed the assessment. It was interesting to me that once I offered a Starbucks gift card the number of teachers who completed the survey almost tripled. I do not know if this is due to the incentive of Starbucks card or simply the continued reminder; perhaps it is a combination of the two. I am going to try to make the majority of the professional development classes offered on Tuesdays, since this was the day that most teachers selected. I will also offer the most popular sessions first. I wonder how helpful this data will be moving forward.
Half of the staff did not respond to the survey and it is hard to know exactly how to read this, as they may or may not be interested in professional development with technology or may have simply chosen not to respond to the survey. Looking back, it may have been more beneficial if this survey had come from administration as I think people may have taken it more seriously. The staff at my school saw the professional development classes as something I needed to do for my masters, not something being implemented to ultimately benefit them. I think if the needs assessment had come from the administration, they may have viewed it as possible change being created due to our new principal and therefore been more willing to comply and please the new principal. I have often reflected throughout the entire action research process and thought that the possible lack of attendance and excitement may be due to the fact that teachers saw this as “my masters program” and not something they were a part of.
The needs assessment gave me to the tools to move forward for my next cycles. The first thing I am going to do is create a Technology Committee to review this data and decide on a plan of action moving forward. I contacted all 19 teachers who expressed interest in forming a committee and after further investigation I have 10 who are truly interested.
REFLECTION: Upon reflection I am happy with the results I gained from the needs assessment because they were consistent with my predicted outcome. I am however, disappointed with how few teachers completed the assessment. It was interesting to me that once I offered a Starbucks gift card the number of teachers who completed the survey almost tripled. I do not know if this is due to the incentive of Starbucks card or simply the continued reminder; perhaps it is a combination of the two. I am going to try to make the majority of the professional development classes offered on Tuesdays, since this was the day that most teachers selected. I will also offer the most popular sessions first. I wonder how helpful this data will be moving forward.
Half of the staff did not respond to the survey and it is hard to know exactly how to read this, as they may or may not be interested in professional development with technology or may have simply chosen not to respond to the survey. Looking back, it may have been more beneficial if this survey had come from administration as I think people may have taken it more seriously. The staff at my school saw the professional development classes as something I needed to do for my masters, not something being implemented to ultimately benefit them. I think if the needs assessment had come from the administration, they may have viewed it as possible change being created due to our new principal and therefore been more willing to comply and please the new principal. I have often reflected throughout the entire action research process and thought that the possible lack of attendance and excitement may be due to the fact that teachers saw this as “my masters program” and not something they were a part of.
The needs assessment gave me to the tools to move forward for my next cycles. The first thing I am going to do is create a Technology Committee to review this data and decide on a plan of action moving forward. I contacted all 19 teachers who expressed interest in forming a committee and after further investigation I have 10 who are truly interested.