Cycle 1 Evaluation and Reflection
Evidence: Each artifact demonstrates the need for a facilitator within a community of practice.
- Artifact 1 - Invitation to the Tech Meetup - Important as participants need a reminder
- Artifact 2 - Meeting Minutes - Since the Tech Munch is held during lunch, it is difficult for teachers to eat and take notes. Each meeting was recorded and notes were generated to share with the group afterwards.
- Artifact 3 - Tech Meetup web page and Google Drive shared folder - an organized group needs to be able to share and find resources. A centralized location was created and explored by members of the Tech Munch group.
- Artifact 4 - Observations of technology use in classrooms.
Tech munch occurs over a 40 minute lunch period. Teachers are seated in a circle and share what they are doing with technology in their classroom. As teachers are sharing, other teachers ask questions and add to what is being discussed based on interest and experience. The analysis shows that teachers are engaged, asking, and responding to questions, thus building knowledge needed for their future technology driven classroom activities.
Cycle 1 Reflection
What happened? In this cycle I introduced the idea to teachers of a group of like minded teachers interested in talking tech with other tech minded teachers at our school site. Invited teachers were receptive to the concept of meeting to discuss technology use in the classroom. When asked if they enjoyed meeting with other "tech minded" teachers, most teachers agreed that they did enjoy discussing technology with others who are actively using technology in their classrooms. Concerns were raised over whether including others at a different level of technology competence might hamper productive discussions. I invited specific teachers that I knew were using technology in their classrooms on a more regular basis. This type of selective invitation actually bothered me and may have bothered those who did not receive a personal invitation. On the invitation I distributed, I specifically wrote that anyone interested in tech was invited, I just wanted to insure that tech was the focus of the discussion and if the level of technology use was high in the group I wanted the teachers to connect on the same level of technology usage. This was easier to do for the first lunch group of teachers than second lunch.
During the lunch meetups - These discussions were quick and filled with distracting moments whether it is sharing of food or members arriving late. Discussions would branch off and two separate discussions would occasionally occur. This made it difficult for everyone to hear and focus on one person's sharing thus often causing questions to be repeated because not everyone heard the first time.
Successes? I was very happy to hear the discussion among teachers when they found an app or tool that was intriguing. Hearing the teachers ask each other questions after one had shared was exactly what I had hoped would happen. Giving the teachers the opportunity to see an example implementation of tech in the classroom and then discuss the "nitty gritty" or details on how to get it done is what inspired me to work on this line of research in the first place. Coming from the same position these teachers are in just last year, I know how difficult it can be to find time to learn about new technologies that can be used in the classroom. A teacher not only has to learn about the technology but also how to implement it successfully in classroom lessons that are productive.
Frustrations? Due to time constraints of conducting these meetings over lunch, the meetings felt rushed and there really wasn't time to get to in depth planning or collaboration on projects. There wasn't enough time to practice with the tools being discussed. There were a mall number of occasional side conversations that distracted from the main discussion but the meeting was still rich with content. It was unfortunate that the 2nd lunch group dwindled and disappeared by the March Tech Munch. The first lunch teachers were excited to meet and discuss tech in the classroom. It seems to me that the second group, having less access to technology tools, were frustrated and/or were too busy to find this discussion valuable. As a teacher during previous school years, I was frustrated by the infrastructure problems we suffer at our site, but was still able to find tools and time to use tech with my students. The teachers who attended the second lunch shared less, had been using tech less due to issues with wi-fi and limited access to computer labs.
Were my efforts effective? A lot of front loading was necessary to make this group and its support infrastructure come together. Our district's commitment to and my familiarity with Google Sites and Google Drive helped make these tools easily available for the participants. Did teachers share and have good discussions? Yes. Could it have been better? I always strive to improve. As a meeting facilitator, I feel I need to better design a lunch meeting structure. My goal was to have the group make it's own rules (How many times have we heard in classroom management PD that students have more buy in when they design their own classroom rules?). I approached these meetings with the hope that the teachers would share and together they would work together to form a structure for the meetings. I feel as though they expected me to set the rules and to interrupt anyone who disrupted the flow. . I need to develop a method to enable group self management. Perhaps discussing meeting guidelines before each meeting. Overall, discussions were full of content and interactions between teachers mostly enhanced the tech conversation. I was hoping teachers would find a way to learn about new technology and how it is being used in the classroom. I would like to see more small communities of practice on campus with specific technologies as their focus because the larger the group the less time is available for in depth analysis, discussion, and collaboration. Did the teachers learn something? I would say most teachers were interested and involved in discussions thus knowledge building was taking place.
Next Steps: For Cycle 2, changes to the Tech Meetup web page to provide a better interface where teachers can post and share technology at times convenient to them. In addition to sharing files, participating teachers need a way to comment and discuss what is being shared. Teachers were asked if they like using the My Big Campus group discussion forum provided by the district and many were not fond of the system and were looking for a change. I will try to find a different system that has comment and discussion functionality that can work with the Tech Meetup web page and Gmail system our district uses.
In addition to creating the online discussion space for asynchronous collaboration among Tech Munch teachers, it will be helpful to survey the participants and determine their opinions about Tech Munch and how it can better serve their needs as learners.