As I reflect on past projects and program' implementations, I think of a curriculum improvement project that I attempted to implement. About four years ago I served my current school district as Specialist for Academic Improvement Programs. In this position, I was assigned to work with a building principal and the staff of a comprehensive high school to improve the curricula outcomes for both students and staff. The plan that I had in mind needed to be developed and implemented from a position of school improvement. This particular staff had both veteran and new educators. Some of them had traditional teacher education backgrounds and others did not. Some had experiences in other school systems and some had only worked in the current district.
What I interfaced was in my improvement implementation was the following:
- Resistance to new and innovative educational practices.
- Limited to no experiences with technology integration to include threaded discussions.
The implementation went well for a while but due to limited technology backgrounds of some, my approach towards incorporating threaded discussions as a means to share information was not well received. The artifacts that were in need of corrective action were: lesson plan development to include more differentiation amount activities, classroom procedures to include more time management, and the use of alternative assessments that could have been used to evaluate student success.
What I also discovered was that some of these concepts were in place but they were not well documented which limited the fidelity and an administrators' view of what needed corrective action and/or assistance and ultimately change. In the one-year implementation we were able to improve the process of classroom procedures. The other two areas needed more time to improve.
From my antidotal findings, I discovered that there was a greater need to work with some of the educators individually. This would improve interpersonal relations and it would allow me to support the need to enhance the views towards technology incorporation which was where I saw the bigger drawback. From all of this, I have determined that as a PM (Program Manager) you must be willing to identify per-determined limitations during the planning process. You must also be open to un-determined findings as this will assist the outcomes tremendously. Lastly, you must be willing to allow trial and error outcomes to guide your next plan of action. Success is not often achieved at the first implementation. In my continued leadership practices, I have taken from these experiences, and I have placed some of the favorable outcomes into my current plan of action (project). This project is to improve and increase the credentialing outcomes of high school students using online and distance education resources.
Resources:
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Posted by:
Melvin Alonza Lowe, III, EdD
Educational Director -
Career & Technical Education /
Workforce Development
lowema@maconk12.org
Post-Doctoral Student
Walden University
Instructional Technology & Design (M.S. Program)
Melvin, the first line of your post had me smiling " I attempted to implement". One thing that is clear is that a PM must be able to anticipate limitations and possible roadblocks in a project.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteDr. Melvin A. Lowe, III, EdD
Hi Melvin, in reading your post, it got me to thinking of something that I am working through at my current school. I can empathize with you having to work with teachers who have a variety of backgrounds and levels of training but who may or may not be open to new and proven teaching pedagogies. Your line about how some aspects of a project can take more or less time to show results struck me as being true as I am thinking that my personal/professional quest may take more time than I thought. Scaling back my expectations and therefore timelines now seems to be an appropriate course of action for me. Thank you for the perspective.
ReplyDeleteAndrew.
Hello Melvin,
ReplyDeleteThe use of technology in education has come full circle over the past 10-15 years. In the past the use of technology in schools were via a video used in a vcr/dvd player, photo copiers, fax machines or the school news that played on a television in your classroom. Since the introduction of the internet in schools all stakeholders in all schools used technology daily. Yet even in the 21st century there are still people who need help using this new technology because it is changing so rapidly.
Over the past several years we used Oncourse as a lesson planning tool and Pinnacle as our grade book. This year we are still using Oncourse as our lesson planning tool, yet our school district introduce a new grade book program called Focus and a video library system called Safari Montage the has a collaboration module.
With these new programs in place some teachers who are not technology savvy are having a difficult time maneuvering around the programs. Our district has an in house professional development department were you can take courses to learn and improve your technology skills.
It is great that your school understood that there was a greater need to work with some of the educators individually. This would allow for a personal development plan to increase their technology skills. I remember the switch from the Whiteboard to the Smartboard in our schools; it was huge in our district.
Asia