During CP meetings, a large portion of the meeting is often consumed by sarcastic banter or the venting of frustrations. I'm not saying that it's not important or even vital for teachers to have time to vent, especially in a frustrating situation - it definitely is. However, there has to be some way of maximizing our productivity and making these meetings more efficient.
Because our time is so limited, I feel strongly that technology should be considered as one real option for building collegial relationships. However, the teachers in my study have not responded the way I thought they might. Our email list-serve been used more for individual crisis management than for really thoughtful, professional collaboration as a team. When I posed the reflective questions to the group about the student work we had analyzed together, I did not receive a single post to the discussion, in spite of the fact that I had originally listed Friday, February 29th, as the goal for responding.
What do I need to do for my next cycle of research and action? First, I need to figure out how the teachers are comfortable using technology and see if I can teach into that. Based on my data, the teachers did not fully engage in the collaborative process of analyzing student work - they did not respond at all to my prompt for reflection via email in Cycle #1. I have observed during our discussions a certain weak sense of agency among these teachers in that they seem to feel uncertain about their ability to make a difference through instruction. This has been found to be a common issue among urban teachers (Foster, Lewis & Onafowora, 2005). From their lack of response and my observations about their hesitance, I need to see if I can tap into the 'soul' of their teaching (Intrator & Kunzman, 2006) to get them more engaged in this collaborative process. Finally, I need to reintroduce the idea of looking at student work, this time with a sharper focus on how it can impact instruction.
