DATA: TEACHERS' RESPONSES TO CYCLE #1 - ACTION
DATA: TEACHERS' EMAILS (FROM CYCLE #2 - RESEARCH & REFLECTION)
DATA: RESULTS OF CYCLE #3 - ACTION (PART I)
In alignment with the research of Buly, Coskie, Robinson & Egawa (2006), I feel that it is my role to ask critical questions that will help teachers analyze the quality and context of student work. In my first cycle, I received no responses to the email I sent to teachers asking them to reflect on their instruction and the student work we'd analyzed together. In my second cycle, I observed that the subject of teacher emails was often a request for immediate assistance with some crisis, rather than using it for collaborative planning or analysis, even though I tried to pose critical, generative questions. This has led me to hypothesize that perhaps teachers would respond more readily if there was some level of accountability involved. Perhaps email is not a productive tool for collaboration; perhaps the overloaded inboxes of many teachers cause them to feel overwhelmed or to ignore messages. If the critical questions are not being addressed, then it is also my responsibility to try a different method of posing the questions.
In contrast with the above failure of a tool, I reflected on the success of my Cycle #3 action with Google Docs. ALL involved teachers were able to access the web-based document both during and after our meeting. This was partially due to the ease of use in the two different electronic environments - some teachers had experienced sign-in problems on the Writing Matters website which they did not experience when using Google applications. In addition, I think it also may have been due to the fact that there was more of a culture of collegial teamwork at K323, COGCA and Q216 than there had been at M321. Often, teachers end up feeling isolated by their classroom walls and individual responsibilities and accountability, but administrators who encourage and support collaboration can help to overcome this by providing structures for team interaction.
For my next action, I decided to try using Google calendar for collaborative planning. Having a common virtual space in which to plan and assess our progress in a unit would hopefully increase accountability among teachers for responding in a timely manner. It would also incorporate the benefits of a web-based tool like Google Docs in that it is free and available to all via any internet-connected computer at school or home. In addition, it would give us an ongoing reference for the progress being made in different classrooms, providing a connection between teachers' current practice and next steps to be learned and taken (Blachowicz, Fogelberg & Obrochta, 2005).
