Entry #1 - Sept. 7, 1998

''We're constantly trying to refine our practice to increase student achievement.''

As I think about the start of this school year I'm reminded of the programs I've attended this summer and the commitments I've made. At first glance, my plans for the year may seem disjointed, but they all merge together for me, and I hope they will for my students.

My goals grow out of my own professional experiences this summer. In late June, I traveled to Wellesley College in Massachusetts for a conference on "Gender Issues in Teaching Science". As a science teacher, I am concerned when all of my students, especially my girls, see scientists as "mostly male, mostly white" and almost exclusively as nerds. One of my goals every year is to break down my students' perception of science as something that's not for them.

I'm also clear that quite a few of my female, immigrant students are being told at home that they don't need science -- and they don't really need school. Some of my kids are betrothed as toddlers and each year more and more are pregnant before they leave middle school. In response to this crisis, I feel a need to figure out why my girls when presented with other choices, still aren't using the technology as much as the boys and why they stop taking science classes as soon as possible in high school.

At Wellesley, I co-designed a project to try and begin to deal with some of these concerns. The project is called, "Ask the Girls", and we aim to do just that. We plan to initiate a conversation with girls about the obstacles to their success in middle school. We are deliberately going beyond science class alone, because we know that there are broader factors affecting girls' lack of progress. "Ask the Girls" will be initiated in the three middle schools in our Cluster. ( A cluster is a group of elementary and middle schools that all feed into the same comprehensive high school.) We hope to build trust and gather data this year. We would like the girls to develop a videotape about their experiences, which we could then use with the full staff at our three schools.

I have sponsored an after-school group called "Girl Talk" for the past four years. About 15 girls join "Girl Talk" each year. They offer each other support and sponsor Women's History Activities and celebrations. While I have thoroughly enjoyed my work with these girls, I have been painfully aware of its limited effect in a school of 1100 and a Cluster of thousands.

Through "Ask the Girls," we hope to involve as many as 45 young women in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. We'll spend September and part of October laying the groundwork for "Ask the Girls" in each school. In the meantime, I'll be trying to deepen my own understanding of this thorny problem through my readings and discussions with other teachers.

As soon as I returned from Wellesley, it was time to start the Technology-Assisted Problem Solving Program (TAPS) at my school. TAPS is a three-week ungraded, enrichment program for students in grades 6-8. IBM sponsored the program as part of its "Reinventing Education" grant in our Cluster. The TAPS program was designed by myself and two other members of my Critical Friends Group (CFG). Forgive the alphabet soup, but I should explain the grant and its relationship to our group of critical friends and an ongoing professional development model called CPI (Continuous Practice Improvement).

"Reinventing Education" is part of a 10-city initiative by IBM, which infuses technology into regular classroom instruction. As one of the recipients, our school received a large donation of computer hardware, software and training from the company. In particular, the initial "grant" teachers received five PC's in their classrooms. I was one of those teachers.

An integral part of the grant initiative was the development of a model for ongoing professional development. The Continuous Practice Improvement Model (CPI) is made up of resident teachers, of which I am one, who collaborate with visiting teachers as we learn to use the technology and standards-based teaching practices in our classrooms. CPI visits are organized in cycles of 5 days' length. The grant pays for a replacement teacher, who continues instruction in the classroom of either the resident or visiting teacher in their absence.

My decision to train as a Critical Friends coach in '96 grew out of my involvement in the IBM grant and the development of the CPI model. While attending an IBM meeting, I learned that the Annenberg Institute was provifing training that would support teachers who wanted to work in groups as "critical friends" -- examining lessons together, observing each other's teaching, and thinking more deeply about how to improve instruction.

CFG coaches are trained as team builders. I learned a repertoire of skills and activities designed to help teachers get to the hard questions at the center of our work. I also learned how to look at my own leadership style...an ongoing process. After my training, a CFG was established for those "grant" teachers interested in pursuing ongoing collaboration about our technology use in particular and student achievement in general.

After two years as CFG members and after a year of CPI visits, some of us felt ready to experiment with an enrichment program. With IBM's support, TAPS was born!

TAPS was our baby -- our only requirement was that we include CPI visits in the program. Students volunteered to participate based on their interest in a smaller class which promised to be computer-intensive. The student body was inclusion based. We had regular ed and special ed, we had native speakers of English and ESOL students, and we had all three grades mixed in the three classrooms.

Over the course of the three-week program, approximately 33 students learned about " food safety", our theme. We wanted to teach basic skills, critical thinking and technology under this umbrella. Nine visiting teachers, one per resident per week, observed and interacted with the residents and the students.

The program was a tremendous success. The feedback from the students and visiting teachers was overwhelmingly positive. We organized a culminating activity, a Food Safety Fair, that was well attended. The Fair was designed and staffed by our students. They taught the lessons they had learned about food safety to their audience, using a wide variety of computer skills. Their exhibits ranged from a poster gallery to a "Microbe Metro" newspaper to a hyperstudio slide show.

My/our goal in relation to TAPS is still in the form of a question at this point. How do we build on the experience of the summer program in ways that help the participating students grow and spread the lessons throughout our school? Why was TAPS so successful? Was it the small class size? Was it the element of student choice? Was it the combination of both? Our heads are spinning with questions and I suspect there aren't any easy answers. We've already decided to hold ongoing sessions with the student participants and we've talked about introducing them as TAPS tutors or student tech leaders at our school. We're still in the process of summing up the whole experience and I expect to return to this topic often throughout the year.

TAPS ended on July 24th and after a few days to clean up the classrooms, two of us, along with another CFG member, left for an Annenberg seminar on Collaborative Inquiry. The seminar took place in Dedham, MA and was intense. We studied the action research of others, we discussed the questions or areas we felt passionate about and we developed our focus questions.

Since all three of us are "grant" teachers it wasn't a big surprise that our focus was on technology. We've invested lots of time and energy into trying to integrate technology into our instruction. Our school is in the process of buying at least one computer for every classroom. All those new teachers will be encouraged to visit us as part of CPI. They will also be invited to join the existing CFG. You might say we're surrounded by technology.

Given this investment in technology, we decided to focus on its impact. We wondered if using computers increases students' grasp of basic skills and if it stimulates their critical thinking abilities. We're all excited about having computers, and we know the kids seem a lot more motivated, but we don't yet know what the pay-off is. In our CFG, in CPI, we're constantly trying to refine our practice to increase student achievement. We think our action research grows directly from this work.

During the next few weeks, we'll be presenting our action research idea to the CFG and the staff as a whole. The group that comes together to conduct the inquiry will refine the question and begin the project. For my part, I intend to ask students if they see a difference. I will also ask them for evidence to support their ideas. I can already hear them groaning, but I know they'll get into it. I always introduce the idea of "thinking about thinking" or metacognition in my classes and this inquiry will push me even further.

After Dedham, I came home and packed up for a week's vacation in Maine. It was great and it was just the break I needed. All the summer's experiences had a chance to settle and ferment a bit. I spent a lot of time reading and even more time thinking about the tasks I've taken on.

I feel anxious to begin, but I don't feel overwhelmed, at least not during my waking hours. My annual back-to-school nightmares are in full force! All of my "projects" are related to my work as a teacher and a coach. In our Critical Friends Group, we're committed to advancing student achievement, to equity, and to a collective examination of our practice. I think my projects put meat on the bones of those goals.

We also have a goal of making our work public and I will be presenting my professional portfolio in January to a panel of CFG members in NY. Finally, I see my commitment to this diary as another way to reflect on my practice and make it public.

Read next week's entry >>>


Post a comment about this week's diary entry

Read this week's comments

Find out more about Deborah

Back to Middle School Diaries index

Comments About This Entry

From: KKear49247@aol.com
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 15:18:55 EDT

I am presenting technology innovations for Middle Schools to a group of
teachers who have grant money for technolgy but are unsure how to design their
plan. I came across your diary and will share the site with them. I am most
impressed by the amount of work you did during the summer and most especially
the focus..on technology. I wish you luck in your new school year and will
check in on you thru your diary. The technology integration in your classroom
has already had a big boost....you!