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dissertation entitled

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT TEACHING AND TECHNOLOGY:
A TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT GROUP FOR TEACHER
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

presented by

Andrew G. TOpper

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph . D . degree in Educationgi Psychology

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CONVERSATIONS ABOUT TEACHING AND TECHNOLOGY:
A TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT GROUP FOR TEACHER
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

By

Andrew G. Topper

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology,
and Special Education

May 1998

ABSTRACT

Major political and societal forces are coming together to create an unprecedented
push to infuse technology into K-12 schools. This infusion represents a serious challenge
for teachers and an opportunity for researchers to better understand how technology is
shaped by and shapes beliefs about teaching and learning. This study examines the
relationships between teacher knowledge and beliefs about teaching, learning, and tech-
nology, and their plans and talk about technology within a support group. The conversa-
tions we had as a group became a focal point for my analysis as I examined the content of
these discussions, the social organization of the group, and changes in participation
patterns over time. These patterns reveal changes in group leadership and conversational
norms that allowed the teachers to engage in substantive pedagogical discussions, stimu-
lated by talk about technology, and to negotiate group goals. The content of these conver-
sations also reveals that these teachers' beliefs and knowledge of teaching and learning,
along with their assumptions about student abilities and external pressures they feel,
shape the plans they made for teaching with technology. This study provides evidence
that a conversational forum for technology learning allows teachers opportunities to make
public their taken-for-granted assumptions about teaching and learning, begin to examine
these assumptions in a supportive social context, build confidence with technology, and
ultimately take a more active role in school decision making related to technology adop-

tion.

© Copyright 1998
Andrew G. Topper
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

DEDICATION

This Dissertation is dedicated to my father, James Leo Topper II,
who appreciated the value of a good education.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who directly, or indirectly, helped
me on this project and throughout my doctoral study. First, let me thank the members of
my dissertation committee for their advice, guidance, and encouragement: Ralph Putnam,
my committee director, Susan Florio-Ruane, who helped me analyze my conversational
data, King Beach, who helped me think about developmental aspects of my work, Chris
Clark, who encouraged me to take an active role in my interpretative research, and Yong
Zhao who provided insight and support throughout the project.

My first teacher, my mother, is and always has been an inspiration to me. The
teachers I worked with in this study - Carolyn, Dayna, Katie and Marje - all have my
utmost respect and admiration, along with the other teachers and professionals at BWE.
Without their help and support this project never would have been possible.

I’d also like to thank those people who’s ideas have shaped my own, in no particular
order, including Ann Brown, Carl Bereiter, Joe Campoine, Marline Scardarnalia, Fred
Erickson, Doug Campbell, David Laberee, Penne Peterson, Patrick Dickson, Cheryl
Roasen, Mark Gillingham, Ruth Garner, Joe Byers, Rick Banghart, Valerie Worthington,
Margaret Reil, Denise Murray, Peggy Dunn and Nicole Ellefson.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I have to thank my family and friends who
supported my work over these past four years. To Samantha and Steven, thanks for
allowing your dad to immerse himself in this work and not bother him when he was
writing. To Amy, my soul mate, thank you for all your help, support, and love. To all of
you I owe a big debt of gratitude that I know can never be repaid. 1 can only hope that I
have the chance to support each of you somehow in the future and make the same kind of

sacrifices you all made for me during this time.

PREFACE

These are the stories of four ordinary elementary teachers, told through my eyes,
who have access to technology in their school, whose administrators are encouraging
them to use technology, and who are tying to make sense out of this technology as a tool
for their own learning, their students’ learning, and their teaching practices. These stories
are actually a series of ongoing narratives, in the form of regular group conversations
around technology, where I played an important part as a researcher and story teller. I
provided these teachers with my ideas and expertise in the application of technology
towards teaching and learning and they shared their ideas and expertise in teaching.
Together, we collaborated on the hard work of bringing technology into thevlives of their
students in pedagogically beneficial Aways.” C

These stories are necessarily complex but are bounded by time and space: We met
informally every other week, usually in one of the teachers’ classroom. These conversa-
tions were not always about technology, although that was our shared focus, and these
teachers’ personal and professional lives became resources for all of us through the
stories we shared as a group. I did not have direct access to the experiences these teachers
had during the times when we were not together as a group but external factors often
influenced what we did in the group and provided us with topics for discussions on many

occasions.

According to Denzin (1989), a goal of this kind of narrative research is:

to gain increased understanding of the multitude of meanings that are created by
practitioners and by researchers working together, and to thereby empower all the
participants in the process. This empowerment, in turn, will inevitably bring about
changes in schooling, but the changes cannot be foreseen in advance, and are not in
themselves goals of the narrative process. (p. 21)

vi

Denzin goes on to argue convincingly that:

The lives of ordinary people are, in this sense, just as potentially illuminating as the
lives of those who have attained some form of extemally-defined greatness. What
we might learn from these cases is that the stories are most instructive and revealing
when they are most personal, and often when the owners of the stories are most
vulnerable. (p. 23)

(As technology becomes more and more prevalent in K-12 schools, and as districts
and policy makers raise and allocate money for the purchase of technology, this infusion
represents perhaps the most pressing issue for teachers in the history of education. Never
before have we as a culture been so committed to bringing an educational innovation into
every school and classroom as we are now committed to investing in technology for our
schools.

As a teacher educator, and as a parent, I believe this commitment represents both a
challenge and an opportunity: The challenge will be for teachers who are expected to take
advantage of the growing technology in their schools now and in the future; the opportu-
nity is to examine and define the‘role technology plays in the teaching and learning
created in the context of technology in the classroom.

I also believe that ifteaches are going to be successful integratingtechnology.into
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role injearning about technology and inithe'acquisition and planned use of technology in

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their schools. For technology to be used successfully as a pedagogical tool in the class-

room it must be subject to the same critical examination as any other educational innova-
tion. Teacvh‘evrsrnust construct their own arguments. and justifications for using technology

in meaningful ways based on their knowledge and beliefs about teaching, learning, and
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technology. In many cases, this introduction of technology may lead to changes in teach-

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ing practices if teachers are supported in these efforts in their schools)

 

vii

One powerful way to prepare teachers in this light is to help them develop the skills,
dispositions, attitudes, and knowledge necessary to be thoughtful in their planned uses of
technology and to help them develop criteria for evaluating the benefits of these uses for
their students. These goals are also consistent with current calls for reflective practice in
teaching and could encourage teachers to examine their own assumptions and beliefs
about teaching, learning, and technology as they integrate these tools into the curriculum.

A necessary part of this teacher preparation process is an opportunity to talk, think,
and learn about technology in a supportive social context. This kind of learning environ-
ment must include a long term commitment, be sustainable, and draw upon the classroom
practices, experiences, and problems of the teachers involved.

In this study, I worked collaboratively with elementary teachers to create and study
just such a supportive social context, in this case implemented as a technology support
group for lower-elementary teachers. While the initial focus of this group was to learn
about technology, and we spent lots of time learning and talking about technology, the
group also became a place where these teachers could engage in substantive pedagogical
conversations where they made public their own beliefs and knowledge about teaching
and learning. Being in the group was beneficial for the teachers who participated, both
personally and professionally, and resulted in a growing sense of activism around tech-
nology that spilled over into other areas.

I enjoyed working collaboratively with these teachers, and their excitement and
enthusiasm towards the possibilities technology affords were tempered by their fears and
anxieties as they became learners again. Traditional methods of teacher training - in
service workshops - may help teachers learn functional skills and factual knowledge but
they do not provide them with adequate opportunities to engage in long-term learning and
social interaction which I believe is required to support learning to teach with technology.

These kind of short-term training sessions also do not support the kind of serious thinking

viii

about pedagogical choices that is required if teachers are to construct their own practices
around technology.

I am convinced that working collaboratively with teachers around technology
adoption has benefits for everyone involved: The teachers got a chance to learn about
technology in a safe and nurturing environment; they had opportunities to ask questions,
which they might never ask in a traditional workshop, and that are contextualized in their
own classroom practice; they were encouraged to make their assumptions and beliefs
about teaching and learning public as they considered how technology might be helpful
for their students. For myself, I learned firsthand the practical problems teachers face
everyday trying to use technology in the classroom. As a result, I gained valuable insight
into the issues these teachers must address as they weave technology into their teaching
practices.

The idea for a technology support group grew out of the work of Clark and Florio-
Ruane (1983; Florio-Ruane & Clark, 1993), who have developed a model for sustainable
teacher learning in professional inquiry and development groups. These groups provide
teachers with opportunities to participate regularly in conversational professional devel-
opment where the goals and purposes of the group come for the problems and questions
members raise. A researcher provides facilitation and documentation of the group’s
efforts and participates as an equal member in group activities.

This was my role as I worked with a single teacher for about six months in the
Spring of 1997 when we decided to develop a technology support group so that other
teachers in her school could learn about technology and I could study the process and
experiences of these teachers at the same time. Over the next nine months, we met regu-
larly before and after school to talk and learn about technology. These sessions were
influenced by the teachers’ own interests and our conversations were not limited to

technology issues.

ix

In this study, I report on the first nine months of our work together, even though the
stories are still unfolding. Although this work has been informative, it is unfinished; there
is still much to be done, making these results preliminary at best. Building a supportive
social context for teacher learning is along process, and even though we have made
tremendous progress, I believe some of our best and most challenging work is yet to
come. Keeping a group of professional teachers together over a long period of time has
its own challenges, as there are often personnel changes within schools.

So this work represents a snapshot in time of the work we have done thus far, realiz-
ing that it is only part of the story — the part I chose to tell and in my own words — and

that the story continues.

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF FIGURES
<l(’.}INTRODUCTION

2. THE STUDY

3. THE CASTING CALL

4. THE PLOT
{:91 THE CRITICAL REVIEW

6. SUMMARY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

7. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

BIBLIOGRAPHY

xi

xiii

xiv

14

26

37

84

116

124

133

134

138

TABLE 1

TABLE 2

LIST OF TABLES

xii

39

75

FIGURE 1

FIGURE 2

LIST OF FIGURES

xiii

42

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

Major political and societal forces are coming together to create an unprecedented
push to infuse technology into K-12 classrooms. This infusion represents a serious chal-
lenge and an opportunity for teachers to explore the powerful resources technology
makes available and for researchers to better understand how technology is Shaped by
and Shapes beliefs about teaching and learning.

At the same time, this infusion of technology into K-12 schools presents a press-
ing need for effective professional development for teachers that is sustainable over the
long-term and focused explicitly on teacher learning. If technology is to benefit student
learning, an implicit goal of placing technology into K-12 schools, it will ultimately be up
to individual classroom teachers to make intelligent and informed pedagogical choices
with technology and to incorporate technology into their classroom activities. Otherwise,
technology will at best be used at the periphery of classroom learning, or at worst be
ignored by teachers who are unable to make sense of it as a pedagogical resource.

This study focuses on how expanding knowledge of technology Shapes, and is
shaped by, teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning in a school setting. By participat-
ing in a technology support group, I have described and analyzed the experiences of
elementary teachers who are being asked to incorporate technology into their teaching.
The goal of this work is to better understand the relationships between these teachers’
beliefs about teaching and learning, their knowledge of pedagogy and subject matter,
their experiences learning about technology, and their plans for classroom technology
use. This research lies at the juncture of three disparate lines of study: (a) research on
technology adoption in K-12 schools, (b) inquiry into teacher knowledge and belief in the
face of educational innovation, and (c) developing and studying dialogic forms of profes-
sional development for teachers (see Figure 1).

l

Technology Adoption

Dialoglc ._ Teacher
Professional Knowledge
Development " ‘ & Beliefs

 

Figure l

A Computer in Every Classroom!

AS this country races to provide every school, and eventually every classroom,
with access to the Internet, there is a need to better understand the opportunities and
problems this new technology presents for K-12 classroom teachers. Schools are moving
rapidly to bring technology into classrooms and leading to a general increase in availabil-
ity of computers and the Internet during the 19903 (Becker, 1993). Although much time
and money has been put into providing K-12 schools and classrooms with the necessary
technology and infrastructure, little effort has been expended understanding teachers’ use
of this technology or how its introduction might lead to enhanced student learning. The
benefits students ultimately derive from increased access to technology are dependent on
effective use of these new technological resources by classroom teachers in pedagogically

appropriate ways.

Researchers who study classroom educational technology adoption have found
that, while the number of computers and Internet connections have increased in the past
few years, this increased availability has not filtered down to students. For example, Peck
and Dorricot (1994) found that many teachers are not yet incorporating technology into
their regular curricular activities. An obvious explanation for this finding could be the
general lack of access to computers in K-12 schools.

Access has historically been a factor in the limited use of technology, especially in
the past when computing resources were in short supply, but may represent less of an
obstacle today given the rapid rate of technology acquisition in most school districts. As
technology becomes more accessible in K-12 classrooms, and as more and more schools
connect to the Internet, other factors will likely play a larger role in shaping how these
instructional resources are used. Key to beneficial use of technology in K- 12 student
learning are the ways teachers think, plan, and use those technologies in their teaching
practices. In order to better understand the factors that shape teachers use of technology,

we need to look closely at those Studies of technology adoption in K-12 schools.

Teachers’ Use of Technology

In order to understand how technology has been used in the classroom when it is
made available to teachers, researchers have looked at so-called “early adopters” of
educational technology who are estimated collectively to represent less than ten percent
(10%) of the total population of K-12 teachers (Anderson, 1993). These are teachers who
have embraced educational technology, usually on their own, and who are often cited as
technology-using educators in the literature.

Sheingold and Hadley (1990) found that only about one teacher per school were
integrating technology into their classroom teaching and that development of mastery in
educational uses of technology was a gradual process requiring several years of work.

Honey and Henriquez (1993) surveyed the characteristics of proficient technology teach-

3

ers and found they were “highly motivated to learn and use technology” for their own
reasons and most of them were self-taught. Studies like these have examined individual
characteristics of technology-using teachers in an effort to understand why some teachers
have already adopted technology while others have not. Why have not more teachers
integrated technology into their regular teaching practices? One possible explanation
supported by the literature is a conflict between the perceived pedagogical value of
technology by teachers and their own beliefs about teaching and learning.

Honey and Moeller (1990) suggested that, until teaching practices change, tech-
nology will not be widely integrated into K-12 classrooms because of a mismatch be-
tween teacher beliefs about teaching and learning and the perceived value of educational
technology. Hodas ( 1993) argued that one reason technology often fails to be integrated
into K-12 classrooms is a “mismatch between the values of school organizations and
those values that are embedded within the contested technology itself” (p. 7). Hodas
argued that teachers adopt neutral and value-free technologies that do not require substan-
tive teaching changes, and as a result schools have been largely impervious to substantive
change surrounding technology adoption.

Even those teachers who have had adopted technology seem to be using it in ways
that are consistent with their views of teaching and learning. A study by the Center for
Technology in Education found that “unless teachers are personally ambivalent about
computers or have lacked the opportunity to get involved with computer technology, it
appears that their educational beliefs play an important role in how they choose to appro-
priate and make use of technologies in their classrooms” (Hadley & Sheingold, 1993, p.
10).

The most comprehensive longitudinal study of technology-using teachers under-
taken to date is the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) program. A key aspect of the
ACOT program were the extensive resources, both monetary and personal, provided to
all teachers who participated. One author called the ACOT schools technology-saturated,

4

perhaps because all teachers and students who participated in the program received a
computer at school and at home. This level of support, while perhaps ideal, is impractical
for most schools and districts with already dwindling resources. Principal findings from
the ACOT research are (a) that it takes up to Six years for teachers to use technology in
support of student-centered instruction, (b) that teacher beliefs largely Shape how technol-
ogy is ultimately used, and (c) that a supportive context for technology adoption is re-
quired for successful integration into the K-12 curriculum (Sandholtz, Ringstaff &
Dwyer, 1996).

In one ACOT study, researchers found changes in teachers’ beliefs, management
issues, instructional strategies, and student assessment activities associated with technol-
ogy adoption. For example, Dwyer, Ringstaff, and Sandoltz (1991) found that changes
associated with technology adoption forced many teachers to confront their beliefs about
learning and the efficacy of their instructional activities. The 32 teachers who were part
of ACOT Shifted from curriculum-centered towards student-centered instruction, from
individual towards collaborative tasks, and from passive towards active learning. These
researchers also found that teachers’ struggles to use technology “were compounded by
the inflexibility of the contexts in which they worked” (p. 50).

These studies suggest that teachers who are currently using technology in their
classroom — the early adopters — are using it primarily to support their existing teaching
practices or to provide students with practice and Skills in basic computer literacy, such as
keyboarding, word processing, and database applications (Becker, 1993). So it appears
that when technology is adopted and used by classroom teachers it is used in ways that
are consistent with their knowledge and beliefs about teaching.

Although much focus and effort has been put into providing the hardware neces-

sary for classroom technology use, little energy has been spent understanding how the

introduction of technology might shape individual teacher beliefs or actions and vice
versa. Scant research has focused on the intersection of technology, teacher beliefs, and
teacher knowledge. The literature on teacher beliefs and knowledge might provide a lens
through which to understand the complex influences on teachers as they struggle to

embrace technology as an educational innovation.

Teacher Beliefs and Technology

Researchers have developed a variety of ways for thinking about teacher knowl-
edge and beliefs that shape their classroom practices. Teacher beliefs — encompassing
suppositions, commitments, and ideologies — have been studied in a variety of settings
and contexts. It is generally assumed that beliefs are more often associated with affective
and evaluative cognitive components than teacher knowledge, but that beliefs play an
important role in teaching practices.

Calderhead (1996) identified five categories of teacher beliefs: (a) beliefs about
learners and learning, (b) beliefs about teaching, (c) beliefs about subject areas, (d)
beliefs about learning to teach, and (e) beliefs about self and the role of teachers in
learning. Teacher beliefs about learners and learning often come from assumptions about
student abilities, although beliefs about teaching usually reflect a teacher’s overall beliefs
about teaching and sustaining positive social relationships with their students.

Building on the work of Shulman (1986), Grossman (1990) offered a framework
for thinking about teacher knowledge that includes: (a) general pedagogical knowledge,
(b) subject matter knowledge, (c) pedagogical content knowledge, and ((1) knowledge of
context. General pedagogical knowledge describes a body of general knowledge, beliefs,
and skills related to teaching and learning not specific to any particular content or do-
main. Subject matter knowledge includes not only factual knowledge of the domain, but

also knowledge of the substantive and syntactic structures of the discipline. Pedagogical

content knowledge incorporates beliefs about the purposes of teaching a Specific subject
area, knowledge of students’ understandings of that subject area, curricular knowledge,
and knowledge of instructional strategies and representations. Contextual knowledge
refers to individual teachers’ understandings of the school culture and setting in which
they teach.

Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs play an essential role in their practices and shape
the learning that goes on inside and outside their classroom (Borko & Putnam, 1995).
These beliefs and knowledge Shape teachers’ learning as they work to improve their
teaching, acting as filters through which teachers view educational change. In order for
teachers to adopt new educational innovations, such as technology, they will need to
“think in new ways about students, subject matter, and the teaching-learning process” (p.
38).

While individual teachers can expand their knowledge and learn about technol-
ogy, they need opportunities to develop and sustain professional relationships with their
peers to effect changes in the larger school culture. These professional relationships,
which I consider collegial, provide a supportive context for examination of teacher
beliefs and teaching practices as well as a collective environment for changing aspects of

the school culture necessary for successful technology adoption.

School Culture and Technology Adoption

Technology adoption, like any other educational innovation, is shaped by teacher
beliefs about teaching and learning as well as the context in which adoption takes place.
Teacher knowledge and beliefs shape the sense that teachers make of any educational
innovation, technology included, and play a critical role in how technology is applied for
learning. Likewise, as pointed out above, the school culture or context plays an important
part in supporting or constraining classroom changes that are brought about or required

by the introduction of technology.

The literature on educational reform and change offers some insight into why
educational technology has not yet been instrumental in changing teaching practices and
been slow to be adopted by most teachers. For example, in their book, Tyack and Cuban
(1995) argue that educational reform efforts have failed because they have not accounted
for the institutional nature of public K-12 schools, they have largely disregarded the
culture of teachers, and they have been ignorant of the localized nature of all reform
efforts. The authors suggest an alternative way of conceptualizing school reform, which
they describe as an “inside-out” process, where the focus is on supporting teachers as
major agents of change within public education.

The main thrust of their argument is that all reform efforts are transformed and
hybridized, if not simply ignored, by teachers. Reforrners must therefore plan for this
process including teachers as active participants in reform. To the extent that educational
innovations are adaptable to local circumstances, the authors argue, is the extent to which
they will be incorporated into teaching practices. Tyack and Cuban suggest instead that
educational innovations be considered as resources for teachers which may or may not be
adapted individually to improve classroom instruction.

Tyack and Cuban make a strong case for why educational change has been hin-
dered in school systems and suggest that “Reforms Should be designed to be hybridized,
adapted by educators working together to take advantage of their knowledge of their own

diverse students and communities and supporting each other in new ways of teaching” (p.

135).
Teacher Collegiality and Professional Development

Little (1993) reported that collegiality is rare in K-12 school settings and that
“cooperative work among teachers is scarce, fruitless, and hard to maintain” (p. 507). She
identified two factors crucial to teacher collaboration: interdependence and opportunity.

Interdependence implies reliance on each other, or reciprocal relationships, that are not

8

imposed by outside forces but rather by circumstance. Opportunity represents a chance to
engage in a trusting but intellectually challenging environment with peers.

All this emphasis on collaboration should not lead us to believe that these types of
relationships are the panacea for teacher development. There is, for example, a danger of
teachers engaging in “contrived collegiality” when collaboratives are imposed on them
by external forces (Hargreaves and Dawe, 1990). This type of collegiality represents
“administratively contrived interactions among teachers where they meet and work to
implement the curricula and instructional strategies developed by others” (p. 227). For
collegiality and collaboration to be beneficial, teachers must voluntarily engage in these
interactions, which must be directed and Shaped by their individual needs and purposes.

To examine the actual benefits of teacher collegiality, a number of questions
should be considered. For example, what does it mean for teachers to be colleagues?
What types of teacher relationships might support the benefits of collegial relations and
interactions? How might technology support these kinds of interactions?

To develop this concept of collegiality further, a concise definition of collegial
relationships or interactions among teachers is needed. Little’s distinction between so-
cially supportive relations and professionally supportive and challenging relations is an
essential one. While social support, via sharing and participating in trusting relationships,
is obviously important in teacher groups, there must be more to these relationships if they
are to be considered valuable for individual teachers’ professional growth and develop-
ment.

I therefore propose the following working definition of collegial teacher relation-
ships: where teachers engage in joint work and conversation with their peers within a
trusting and supportive social setting that challenges their beliefs about teaching and
learning by helping them articulate and examine those beliefs in a public forum.

It seems therefore helpful to consider how individual teachers can gain necessary
experience and knowledge with technology, hopefully in a supportive but challenging

9

social context, while also provide them with opportunities to Shape the nature of their
existing school professional culture. In order to gain insight into the challenges of provid-
ing these kinds of professional opportunities for teachers, we need to examine the litera-
ture on teacher professional development with an eye towards those programs that are

sustainable and contextualized in the classroom.

Teacher Professional Development for Technology Adoption

The potential value of teacher collegiality as a form of professional development
suggested by Little also stands in stark contrast to existing models of teacher professional
development: in-service workshops tend to be cookie-cutter sessions that are short-term
and rarely draw upon teachers classroom experiences.

These forms of teacher training, often provided as Short-term in-service work-
shops, provide skillS-based learning opportunities that are designed to build technical
skill and present prescriptive teaching strategies or curricular materials. This is especially
true for technology training. These types of workshops do not provide teachers with the
time or resources to examine their own knowledge and beliefs about teaching and learn-
ing in the face of the pedagogical choices made available to them with technology.

For professional development programs to be successful, Borko and Putnam
(1995) argue they should embody several key features of teacher learning programs.
These include an explicit focus on teacher learning and knowledge expansion, opportuni-
ties for teachers to examine their beliefs about teaching and learning, programs that
reflect the assumptions about teaching and learning held by the designers, and opportuni-
ties for teachers to construct their own knowledge in an environment that supports and
encourages risk taking and reflection.

A promising idea for helping teachers participate in collegial relationships and for
shaping professional school cultures that comes out of social views of learning and

cognition is creating discourse or learning communities and enculturating teachers into

10

these communities as part of their ongoing development process (Putnam & Borko,
1996). As Putnam and Borko suggest, “teachers need to construct their complex new
roles and ways of thinking about teaching practice within the context of supportive
learning communities” (p. 16). By engaging in conversations about teaching practices,
teachers have opportunities to learn to be critical and reflective of their own teaching and
these communities provide such opportunities for learning. For these conversations to be
a resource for teachers, they must take place within a supportive, but challenging, envi-
ronment for reflection and inquiry.

Clark and Florio-Ruane (Clark and Florio, 1983; Florio—Ruane & Clark, 1993)
have developed a model for teacher discourse communities where explicit focus is placed
on fostering and sustaining these kinds of collegial conversations within a supportive
group setting. The authors are conducting research to understand what these discourse
communities might look like, how they might function, and how they might be of value
to teachers.

Our overarching goal is to learn about how teachers can change local cultures of
teaching so that school faculties become ‘learning organizations.’ If we and the teachers
are successful in coming to a deeper understanding of how conversation-based profes-
sional development works, Professional Development and Inquiry Groups could become
an important element in a new infrastructure for teacher learning, professional develop-
ment, and adaptation to dramatically changing conditions in K-12 education. (Clark,
l996,p.2)

The idea of a comfortably challenging peer relationship, or talking and working
with a “critical friend” (Clark, 1996), is consistent with my definition of collegial rela-
tionships above. For teachers to reflect on their own teaching practices and question their
beliefs, they must be willing to make explicit their assumptions about teaching and

learning in the presence of others so these beliefs can be challenged, probed, and ques-

ll

tioned. These types of conversations require a trusting relationship with peers and a
comfortable social setting. Working toward improving teaching practice begins by open-
ing ones self up to scrutiny by others and pushing one’s beliefs and thinking toward
deeper and broader understandings of practice.

Essential ingredients of these teacher learning communities are voluntary partici-
pation, shared goals and purposes, negotiated topics for conversations, local control and a
long-term commitment to improving practice. These types of learning communities have
been successfully used in a variety of settings and the role researchers can play in creat-
ing and sustaining these communities is well understood (Short, 1992).

The idea that teachers might learn from participating in conversations is not a new
one. Yonemura (1982) described research directed at exploring and supporting outcomes
of one-on-one conversations between teachers around their classroom experiences. The
author found that out of these “reflective, supportive conversations a clearer identification

of the practical principles guiding teachers can be formulated.” (p. 241)

Examining Teacher Beliefs and Knowledge in a Technology Support
Group

Based on prior research, teachers use technology in ways that are consistent with
their existing beliefs about teaching and learning. Teachers who ignore or disdain tech-
nology may be unable to understand how technology might support their notions of good
teaching. In both cases, teacher beliefs and knowledge shape and are Shaped by technol-
ogy in complicated ways that are not well understood. This study examined these rela-
tionships within the context of a technology-rich elementary school. I used access to a
technology support group to investigate the nature of these relationships, through talk
about technology use, and the beliefs and experiences of these teachers as a window

through which to examine these influences.

12

The research described in this dissertation focuses explicitly on teacher learning,
using their knowledge and beliefs as a starting point for understanding the sense they
made of technology as a pedagogical tool, within a supportive and sustainable environ-
ment for professional growth and development. The learning these teachers engaged in
was self-directed and contextualized in their own individual classroom experiences.

A technology support group provides an environment for supporting changing
individual teacher beliefs about teaching and learning while also changing aspects of the
school culture. This type of support group is also a model of professional development
that is consistent with research on teacher learning and one way for teachers to develop
the knowledge and skills necessary to take advantage of technology by supporting long-
terrn, sustainable professional development.

Through the experiences of the teachers who make up this support group, as
reported by me, other teachers may see connections to their own situations and perspec-
tives on teaching, learning and technology and insight from the stories these teachers tell
about learning to use technology. I also hope that educators and administrators will see
the benefit of this kind of professional development opportunity for teachers —— that is,
participation in a dialogic group setting — as an effective alternative to traditional forms

of professional development.

13

CHAPTER 2
THE STUDY

It has been argued that inquiry or research discourse communities can be a forum
for sustainable teacher learning; but what do these communities look like and how are
they supportive of teacher learning? These communities, sometimes called inquiry groups
or teacher networks, support learning that is drawn from the classroom where teachers
bring authentic questions to a group setting and make public their thinking.

Educational technology is a form of educational innovation; a variety of factors
affects technology adoption and use, including access, support, local context, and teacher
knowledge and beliefs. In order for teachers to use educational technology in thoughtful
and pedagogically appropriate ways they must engage in their own learning that will
ultimately benefit their students.

This study examined how teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning shaped
and were shaped by their uses of technology in a school setting. My hunch was that by
engaging in their own learning around and with technology, these teachers would have
opportunities to examine their own assumptions and beliefs about teaching and learning
in a safe and nurturing setting — the support group — where they could begin to make
sense of teaching with technology in their own classroom.

I expected that the initial conversations these teachers had would be focused
primarily on technology, but that the discussions might eventually expand to include
topics more relevant to teaching and learning. I based this hypothesis on work done in a
prior study with one of the teachers in this group, where we met regularly after school
and where the talk originally centered on technology issues but ultimately expanded to

include discussions about learning, teaching, and classroom practice.

14

Talk about technology, I thought, might be connected to talk about teaching and
learning and might facilitate conversations that cover broader topics related to technology
adoption. This kind of talk might also allow participants opportunities to revisit ideas or
issues from different vantage points or with different perspectives. If these teachers could
become comfortable Sharing their stories in this group my hope was that they might also
begin to make explicit their own assumptions and beliefs about teaching and learning,
expand their knowledge through the conversations they have with their peers, and begin
to examine their own teaching in light of the collective sense making that is supported

within the group.

Site Selection

The subjects in this study were selected because of ease of access and prior entry
into the school culture by me. All the participants were first or second grade teachers at
an elementary school where I began working with one of these teachers in the spring of
1997. This led to our plan to expand our work to include the other teachers in her grade
level and some of her peers. The teachers were all volunteers who wanted to learn about
and use technology in their classrooms. All the teachers had been through district pro-
vided in-service workshops and had Internet — accessable computers in their classrooms
as well as access to a computer lab in the school.

Since I had been working with this teacher, *Susan, for several months I expected
her to take a leadership role in the formation of the group. She and I had established a
collaborative relationship that helped her gain knowledge and skill with technology.
Susan originally approached me during an in-service workshop and shared her anxiety

and fear about technology which ultimately led to our working together.

* Note: All names used in this text are pseudonyms

15

AS a result of our prior work together, Susan decided to explore using technology
in her classroom, as well as to work with a student intern around classroom technology
use. This teacher was also instrumental in getting her peers, especially the other first and
second grade teachers in this school, to participate in this Study. The collaborative work
we did in the past represents a model that we hoped would be successful in a small group
setting with the other first and second grade teachers.

The K-5 elementary school itself is new, built in 1993, and resides in a wealthy
suburban school district near a Midwestern capital city. The school principal believes the
school should be a model for other schools in the district and has been effective in imple-
menting new programs, including an alternative school calendar. The school has exten-
sive technology in place, including fully networked classrooms, a 25—workstation com-
puter lab, multimedia cart, digital video network, voice mail and phones in every class-
room. The school district haS also spent lavishly on technology in the past few years and

the high school has been recognized as a model technology school around the state.

Setting and Participants

The teachers involved in this study all work in a school context where the princi-
pal has an aggressive stance towards technology use and strongly encourages teachers to
develop their curricula around technology. The school has provided every teacher with
their own classroom computer, connected to the Internet, and the school district has
offered in-service workshops on a variety of technical topics. These teachers volunteered
to work together around technology to learn and try using it in their classrooms and
allowed me to study this process.

These teachers do not represent early adopters of technology typically described
in the literature, but rather represent the larger percentage of ordinary teachers who are

more ambivalent and less knowledgeable about technology than those often described in

16

the literature. I believe these teachers would not have been as successful using technology
in transformative or innovative ways if they were only exposed to traditional forms of
professional development around technology. I hoped that through participation in this
support group each of these teachers might realize their own professional growth and
development — perhaps leading to transformation of teaching practices — around and

through technology and be successful incorporating technology into their teaching.

Researcher Role

I view my role in this research as a guide or advisor (Apelman, 1986) to these
teachers in their efforts to learn and develop new practices of teaching with technology.
This research represents a chance for me to Study K-5 teachers who are learning to use
technology in a school setting within a supportive social context. Within this group, the
learning and use of technology was self directed and grounded in these teachers’ specific
classroom settings. I acted as a resource person, a guide, an advisor, and a facilitator for
these teachers as they worked to incorporate technology into their teaching. I tried to
facilitate the conversations and structure the group sessions to be supportive but challeng-
ing for the participants. I also offered to help these teachers as they used technology in
their classrooms and in the computer lab.

Participating in this group hopefully offered these teachers a chance to engage in
authentic conversations about technology in the classroom and to construct their own
meanings for technology in their teaching. Together, we explored how technology might
be used in their classrooms, located any resources they need, addressed any problems
they have, answered any questions, and I described their experiences as they learned
about and used technology. I hoped that we could collectively construct a meaningful

sense of the possibilities technology holds for the students in these teachers’ classrooms.

l7

I believe this kind of supportive social context is necessary for meaningful and
sustained learning to take place around and through technology in the classroom. Teach-
ers construct their own sense of what technology is, its benefits, and how they plan to use
it within the culture and context of their school by discussing it with their peers. My own
assumption about educational technology is that it is another form of innovation, and as
such Should be critically examined by individual teachers. I hoped to help the teachers
who participated in this study become knowledgeable consumers of educational technol-
ogy so they could make their own choices about how to incorporate technology into their
teaching. My own view of effective professional development for teachers occurs when
they are treated as professionals who make decisions every day about the pedagogical
benefits of various teaching methods and curricular materials and the goal of the profes-
sional development effort should be to help teachers make informed decisions and con-
sider the consequences of their actions in the classroom.

The support group sessions were modeled after the work I had already done at this
school which involved bi-weekly sessions which lasted about 90-minutes and took place
in a teachers’ classroom after school around the computer. During these sessions, we

explored and learned about whatever the teachers were interested in learning.

Research Questions

I developed a set of guiding research questions which, in the conventions of
qualitative research, were modified as the study unfolded and I built grounded theory
based on the constant comparison of data (Glaser & Strauss, 1967):

1. What do these teachers believe and know about teaching, learning, and technol-
ogy?

2. How do these teachers’ beliefs and knowledge about teaching and learning
influence the sense they make of educational technology and their learning experiences

around technology?

18

3. How do issues of teaching practice, pedagogy, and beliefs about teaching and

learning surface in the conversations these teachers have around technology adoption?

Data Collection Strategies

I used a variety of data collection methods for this study, including one-on-one
interviews, group learning sessions around technology, field journal notes, and classroom
observations. I audio taped the interviews and learning sessions and kept field notes of
my observations. As I collected data, I analyzed it looking for patterns of communication
and behavior that were connected to my research questions above. AS I observed or
interpreted patterns in these data sources that were interesting, especially related to my
original research questions, I used triangulation to examine these patterns across the data

corpus.

Methods of Analysis

I used an interpretive method of inquiry in this study, where I describe the experi-
ences of the participating teachers and identified patterns of change and growth over
time. While the principal lens for this analysis were the patterns of participation these
teachers had in the discourse, this data was triangulated with my field notes, classroom
observations, and participant interpretations.

Using transcripts of the group conversations, and analysis of interviews and field
notes, I examined changes in the teacher talk over time focusing on topics introduced and
patterns of participation. I examined how the discourse these teachers engaged in
changed to see if these kinds of conversations could move beyond simple technical
discussions and towards substantive collegial interactions and collaborations that can be a
more viable form of professional development for the teachers involved. The conversa-

tions these teachers had around technology were a direct reflection of their thinking about

19

technology in relation to teaching and learning so how these topics come up in their
conversations shed some light on the ways these teachers were thinking about using
technology in their own classrooms.

Specifically, I examined how discussion topics were introduced — who intro-
duced them, who picked up on them (uptake), who challenged a stated position, and how
topics were changed — as well as access to the conversational floor. This allowed me to
examine the nature of the talk from the perspective of the form and function of the dis-
course. Part of my role was to facilitate talk, model patterns of participation in the dis-
course for other group members, and draw them into the conversation using a variety of
conversational strategies such as requesting alternative perspectives on issues, summariz-
ing positions, and coordinating access to the conversational floor (Saunders, Goldenberg,
& Hamann, 1992; Michaels & O’Connor, 1993).

Conversations represent one way for teachers to communicate about issues of
importance and to be exposed to critical ways of thinking through discourse. Conversa-
tions, triangulated with other data, also represent a tool for analyzing participation in
discourse that has a directionality and academic purpose: To provide opportunities for
these teachers to identify their assumptions, consider the limitations of their beliefs,
incorporate multiple perspectives into their conversations, and be clear about their rea-
soning and thinking.

These conversations also provided me as a researcher with access to how these
teachers think about technology, teaching, and learning. The conversations, however, did
not take place in a vacuum, but instead were influenced by a variety of factors, inside and
outside the group itself. In order to understand how these conversations were viewed by
the participants, I shared my observations with the participants and relied on Susan as an

informant.

20

The process I used during analysis was cyclical, where I started by identifying
patterns in the data that I reported to my dissertation committee members. I regularly
wrote analytic memos Sharing my observations with my committee members at various
points during the data collection period. My normal analysis process was as follows: I
kept a reflective journal with notes and observations about our group sessions; as I
listened to the audio tapes of each meeting, I developed a timeline of each meeting
selectively transcribing portions of the conversations I thought were interesting and
connected to my analysis. As this process continued, I focused on different aspects of the
conversations including power, authority, leadership, and strategies for managing access
to the conversational floor.

From this initial analysis, I saw patterns emerge across group meetings that
reflected the nature of the group discourse and individual patterns of participation in the
conversations. I also observed changes in patterns of participation in the conversations
over time as things changed inside and outside the group. The influences of the school
culture, the district, and the community all played an important part in Shaping the experi-
ences of these teachers and I tried to understand how each teacher construed the Situation
they found themselves in during our meetings. My conclusions were drawn from my own
interpretations of the data as a member of the support group.

From this second level of analysis, I developed some assertions which I later used
to reexamine my data and recoded it to reflect evidence to support or refute these asser-
tions. AS I listened again to the audio tapes, I noted statements or comments made during
our meetings that were connected to these assertions. I soon found that three of the
assertions related to the individual teachers in the group while the other three were
connected to the discourse and changing patterns of participation in the discourse over
time. These assertions later helped me Shape the sense I made of the group, focusing on

the individual teachers as well as on the context for their talk, and helped me understand

21

the complex social interactions that these teachers engaged in inside and outside the
support group.

While group members’ participation varied across the sessions, and no single
teacher attended all the meetings, I did get a sense for the ways these teachers thought
about technology and the connections they made with their own ideas about teaching and
learning through their participation in these conversations. I realize, however, that my
own interpretations of these conversations are biased by my own assumptions and inter-
ests, and the ways these teachers participated were in turn shaped by our individual and

collective sense of the situations that occurred within and around the support group.

Significance of the Study

I believe this study is significant for a number of reasons. First, it represents an
examination of the experiences of ordinary teachers who are struggling to make technol-
ogy part of their teaching practices. These teachers have been provided with access to
technology, in the form of classroom computers and a lab in the school, and have also
been given district-provided training and technical support. The teachers in this study,
while interested in learning more about computers, are not early adopters of educational
technology. For example, three of the four teachers in this study described themselves as
“technology novices” when this study began, with the fourth having used technology the
year before. I believe that these teachers represent a large percentage of K-12 teachers —
teachers who are interested in technology but unable to learn how to incorporate it into
their teaching, but a population which is largely under represented in the literature.

The experiences of ordinary teachers are worth sharing for a variety of reasons,
not the least of which is that the literature suggests that these teachers may not use tech—
nology or may use it in ways that are consistent with their beliefs about teaching and
learning. In addition, the experiences of these teachers, all of whom are lower-elementary

teachers, are not found in the existing literature on technology adoption. The literature

22

has mostly focused on upper-elementary, middle school, and high school teachers, largely
ignoring the predominantly female classroom teachers who make up this study.

While the teachers in this study have access to technology, and their school might
in fact be considered technology-rich, the resources available to these teachers are, or
soon will be made, available to most teachers. These teachers stories, more than any
others represented in the literature, I believe reflect the future of K-12 schools in so far as
they give us a glimpse into what is possible for ordinary teachers to accomplish when
technology is introduced into their room.

The teachers who make up this support group are, or were, anxious, frightened,
and in many cases may have remained silent about their experiences if they had not been
part of this research. It is essential that these teachers’ stories be told so that other teach-
ers can realize that their fears of admitting they don’t know how to use technology, their
concerns for being judged as incompetent when they do admit this, and their inability to
articulate their own plans for technology are common and not a Sign of weakness. As the
teachers in this study help remind us, it is only by admitting that we do not know some-
thing, in this case how to use technology in teaching, that we can begin to learn it. Hope-
fully, those teachers who have so far been unable or unwilling to admit they do not know
how to use technology, and are in fact afraid to try, will find in the stories of these teach-
ers a Shared perspective and a common point of view.

The form this research takes is another Significant aspect of it that is rarely found
in prior work in the area of technology adoption. Most of the previous studies of technol-
ogy adoption in K-12 schools have used quantitative analyses to examine and explain the
experiences of teachers who have been successful incorporating technology into their
classrooms. We rarely hear about those teachers who are unsuccessful, for whom the
experience of bringing technology into their classrooms is traumatic and threatening, or
those who see the use of technology as an external imposition that they have little control
over. Because these stories are often excluded from the literature, we take for granted the

23

complexity and difficulty ordinary teachers face when a computer is placed in their
classroom or they are asked to use computers in a lab.

The use of narrative, ethnographic methods in this study were another important
part of this work. I felt that understandings of the complex relationships between teachers
and technology would be more accessible and understandable to more teachers if they
took the form of narratives. I also thought that teacher stories are themselves a powerful
means for sharing knowledge and experience that many teachers can understand and find
interesting. Through the descriptions of the experiences of the teachers in this support
group, I hope that the salient aspects of the complex relationship between teaching and
technology can be made clearer for others who are interested in seeing technology be-
come a part of K-12 schools.

This study also had a very personal agenda because I wanted to help the members
of this support group learn about, talk about, think about, and plan for technology in their
teaching. I was allowed to be part of this group, to have a glimpse of the professional
lives of these teachers, and I took seriously their interest in learn about technology. It is,
therefore, imperative that the work we did collaboratively is influential for them and for
me, and that we all have learned something as a result of this work.

I think perhaps the most important reason for this study is the general lack of prior
studies that have investigated in any depth the relationship between teacher beliefs and
technology. When I originally did a literature review in preparation for this work, I Was
surprised to find that there were in fact few prior studies looking into the nature of this
relationship. Given the literature on the influence of teacher beliefs in preservice and
inservice teacher education, and the Studies which suggest that teachers actions are
directed by their knowledge and beliefs about teaching and learning, this struck me as
especially problematic. I hope this work will provide a starting point for those who
follow this line of research and that the experiences of the teachers who participated in
this study will help illuminate these relationships in multiple ways.

24

Lastly, this work represents an alternative model of professional development and
growth for technology from those often described in the literature. Whereas most of the
prior work directed at staff development for technology use has not considered the key
role of the teacher, and their agency in the process, as part of preparation or training, I
started with the assumption that the teachers involved in the group would take responsi-
bility for their own learning. Traditional inservice workshops, while inexpensive and easy
to offer, also do not provide the kind of ongoing and sustainable learning that I believe
technology adoption requires. I believe that helping teachers take ownership over their
learning is an important part of viewing teachers as professional adults.

This work Sheds light on the way teachers think and talk about technology, and
the opportunities its introduction into the classroom affords them to examine their own

knowledge and beliefs about teaching and learning.

25

CHAPTER 3
THE CASTING CALL

Background

I was giving an overview of a research project to teachers at Pennington High School
in December, 1996, when Susan came up to me and we talked for a few minutes. Susan had
been my son’s first grade teacher, so we knew each other beforehand, and I had always
admired her ability to embrace and make comfortable all the students in her class. She
asked me about my Ph.D. work, how my courses were going, and what my plans were for a
dissertation.

Susan and I began to talk about technology in the classroom, especially at Oaktree
Elementary where she worked, and I recall how animated she became as She described her
fear and frustration to me:

I just don’t know how I’m going to learn to use all this technology when I’m

already so busy with my students and the other things I do at school. Besides, I

drive 45 minutes to school and another 45 minutes home every night. What I
really need is a personal technology tutor.

I could tell that Susan was deeply concerned about how she was going to be suc-
cessful using technology, given her existing commitments. The conversation ended when
the session restarted after a 10-minute break.

After Christmas, I happened to be in a technology committee meeting at Oaktree
Elementary school when I saw Susan at the meeting. The group discussed a range of
issues — from what hardware to purchase with the money they had collected to how best
to prepare teachers to use the Internet. Towards the end of the meeting I began to notice
how ill-at-ease Susan became, especially when the elementary school technology
coordinator told a story about how a presentation she gave fell apart at the last minute and

almost did not work. AS the coordinator described her frantic efforts to make her

26

computer presentation work, and in gory detail how difficult it had been to use the
computer, I began to see how the story She was telling was a nightmare one might tell to
dampen the spirits of lesser mortals or scare away the timid or meek. It struck me at that
moment how out-of-place Susan must have felt Sitting in that meeting listening to
technology proficient people share their own personal stories of catastrophes they had
with technology. I realized how uncomfortable Susan must have felt in this group of
technology experts and how the conversations they were having left little room for her to
participate, given her fears about technology.

I began to formulate in my mind a way that I might be able to help Susan and gather
an interesting story about her experiences in the process. In the hallway a few days later I
called Susan over and offered to help her one-on-one at her convenience. She was grateful
and I explained how I wanted to tell her story, especially her experiences learning to use
technology in her classroom, for a paper I planned to write. She agreed to work together on
the condition that she remain anonymous so that no one in the school would realize what a
difficult time she was having learning to use technology. We scheduled our first working
session for the following week at a time that was convenient to her and agreed to meet after
school in her classroom.

We began by meeting every week and, while our working sessions did not follow
a strict pattern, they usually involved some conversation about technology in general, so
that I could gather some background on her experiences. This was usually followed by a
session at her computer where she would ask questions or we would work together on
how to use e-mail, the Internet, or a software program. In these working sessions, I let her
direct what she learned and took the time to explain concepts she may not have been
familiar with and connected what we were doing with her classroom.

For example, one day we spent about 20 minutes discussing the physical features
of her computer, including what all the buttons were for, how she could open the CD/
ROM, and even play music CD’S on her computer. She admitted that the person who

27

 

setup her computer had run through a litany of things when they had delivered it but she
could not recall any of the details.

At each of our sessions, I explained to Susan that we were working together to
help her learn about technology so she could use it in her classroom. I also reiterated my
own plans to study her experiences and a paper that I hoped she could have a part in
writing. While she declined my offer to co-write the paper, she agreed to help me
understand the process she was going through and our partnership was formed. I audio-
taped our conversations, and sometimes our working sessions at the computer, and later
transcribed them. I also kept a journal of my field notes as time went on and I began to
understand her experiences and perspective and to see how informative these experiences
might be for other teachers.

I believe Susan has a common, but rarely heard, perspective on technology
adoption in the classroom: While she recognizes the potential of computers and an
Internet connection to help her students learn in important ways, she faces a dilemma
regarding how to incorporate technology into her teaching practices. Lower-elementary
school teachers’ experiences are not often included in the literature on technology
adoption. The principal constraint is the time required to learn about technology, which
could easily result in her ignoring technology because of inadequate support and
encouragement.

While there are certainly teachers in Susan’s school who have given up their own
time and energy to learn about technology, many other teachers are struggling to
understand how technology can help them in their teaching and are unable to find the
time and support they need in order to be successful with technology. The processes
Susan is going through are likely common, or at least will be common in the next few
years, given the focus our society and policy makers have on bringing new technology

into K-12 classrooms.

28

As Susan and I continued to work together during the Spring of 1997, we talked
about expanding our work to include more teachers. Susan told me that some of her peers
were interested in being part of the collaborative learning we were engaged in and we
talked about starting a support group for first and second grade teachers in the Fall. I
encouraged Susan to think about how the work we were doing might change when we
brought in more people, especially since Susan and I had established a comfortable and
productive working relationship. I stressed my own opinion that the group would need a
leader and that I would be uncomfortable taking that role given my outsider status in the
school and my role as researcher. I asked Susan to consider how she might be a leader of
the group, the nature of the relationships she already had with her peers, and how these
relationships might be effected by the group.

We talked at that time about how the goals for the group and the tasks that might
be beneficial to the other teachers might differ from ours and we agreed that we would try
to include or foster the key aspects of our own work in the support group: (a) the trust we
shared, (b) the focus on learning what teachers want to learn, (c) scheduling meetings at
times that are convenient to everyone involved, and ((1) my goal of not telling teachers
what they should do but allowing them to construct their own sense of the value of
technology in their teaching.

When I met with Susan in August she shared with me the invitations She had ex-
tended to all the teachers in first and second grade to be part of the support group. I sched-
uled interviews with each of them and asked them to Sign consent forms before we began
working together in September.

As I met and interviewed each of the teachers who Susan had invited to join the
group, I explained that we were modeling it after the collaborative work Susan and I had
been doing in the Spring. I also explained that I would be a resource for these teachers,
especially to help them learn about technology, and that I would also be studying their
experiences as part of my own dissertation research. Susan had also talked with each of

29

 

the teachers and Shared her own impressions of the kind of work we had been doing

together prior to my initial interviews with each teacher.

The School and District

The environment where Susan and her peers work is in some ways unique, but also
has similarities with many other schools. Oaktree Elementary School was built in 1993 in
an upper-middle-class suburb of a Midwestern capital city. Pennington is an affluent suburb
that has six elementary schools, two middle schools and a new high school built in 1995.
Ninty-two percent of Pennington High School graduates go on to college and students typi-
cally score highest in the region on the state high school proficiency test.

Pennington Public Schools has also been a leader in the use of technology
throughout the grade levels and has been implementing a series of 5-year technology
adoption plans since the late 1980s. All Pennington schools are networked together with
fiber-optic cable, all the schools have had their own network file server, and all had
Internet access Since January 1997. Pennington leads the area in its aggressive adoption
of technology and has an extensive support and training system in place for teachers. The
district has a department of media and technology, composed of several staff, and has
established a computer club, made up of students in the district, whose members train and
support staff in technology.

Oaktree Elementary is also a leader in technology adoption. The school was built
with voice and data lines in every classroom. A separate computer lab houses over 25
IBM Eduquest computers and all teachers and administrative staff have Internet access.
Oaktree Elementary has a mission, vision and goals for technology adoption that were
developed by the school technology committee in November, 1996. The school offers
teachers regular once-a-month workshops for professional development that cover a
variety of topics, including multimedia presentations, Internet, math with manipulatives,

CtC .

30

 

Oaktree Elementary has a technology adoption committee composed of teachers
that has been meeting for several years and focuses on technology purchase decisions,
coordinating training efforts (which are offered through the school district technology
department), and supporting integration into classroom activities. The principal of
Oaktree Elementary has taken an aggressive stance towards technology adoption and all
the teachers have attended the Internet in-service training offered by the district.

Within Oaktree Elementary, a small group of teachers have used their own time
and money to incorporate technology into their teaching practices. These teachers form
the core of the technology adoption committee, which meets every month, and members
have developed expertise in a variety of computer applications. There is an informal
support system in Oaktree Elementary where these technology-using teachers Showcase
their work and train/support other teachers in the school.

While the members of the school technology committee are drawn from the
population of teachers, those who are ambivalent or fearful of technology are not
included in this group with the exception of Susan. I estimate that about half of the

teachers at Oaktree Elementary are not overly enthusiastic about technology.

Getting Started

While I was interviewing one of the teachers who was joining our support group,
I learned that Susan had been diagnosed with breast cancer and would be out of work for
a few months. It was at this point that nature stepped in and wrestled from my grasp
control over what I had hoped would be a study of emerging leadership Skills and
expertise in a teacher I had been working with Since the Spring. But this is also a good
example of how life often intrudes on our plans and we are forced to recognize what is
really important. Here is an excerpt from my regular field journal during this period of

time:

31

Thursday, August 27, I997\

Today I interviewed Margie, one of the first grade teachers at Oaktree. I also
found out that Susan’s father died on Tuesday and that doctors may have found
cancer in her breast. I haven’t talked with Susan so I don’t know the details, and

I’m sure she will be upbeat about it, but hearing bad news like this is very
difficult.

[Later that same night]

1 called Susan tonight and She told me her doctor thinks the lump in her breast is
cancerous but the test results from the biopsy will not be back till Monday. Sober
news that makes me question how important the research I’m planning to do this
year, and the dissertation I will eventually write, is in comparison to the life and
death issues Susan is going to be dealing with this weekend and perhaps in the
future. As I told Susan, I only wish there were something I could do to help. I
guess being her friend and wishing her the best will have to do.

Needless to say the news of Susan’s health problems were a blow to me and the
other teachers, but we agreed to move ahead with the group anyway and I invited Susan
to return whenever she was ready. This, added to the fact that another second grade
teacher had dropped out of the group at the last minute, made me anxious about how this
group might actually develop and what my role would be given Susan’s absence. This
resulted in my own trepidation about who might assume a leadership role within the
group given Susan’s inability to attend the sessions.

The first scheduled meeting of the technology support group was a disaster,
because of scheduling problems and missed e-mail messages; one of the teachers had
scheduled a doctor’s appointment for that date and time and another had to leave early.
We decided to use the little time we had together on that first day to schedule our first
real meeting. The news of Susan’s illness darkened our mood as we planned to meet a

week later before school.

32

Cast of Characters

After I interviewed each of the participants in our technology support group, I
developed brief portraits or descriptions of these teachers that guided my analysis in the
study. I was especially interested in their initial beliefs about teaching, learning, and
technology, as these were important parts of my original research questions.

Susan is a first grade teacher in her fifties who has been teaching for over 15
years, the last 5 years at Oaktree Elementary, and she prides herself on building and
sustaining a warm, nurturing, loving environment for her students. She focuses on the
affective aspects of her students needs and has a relational view of her teaching. Susan
works to build a recriprocol loving and caring relationship with all her students and has
an intern in her classroom this year. She collaborates regularly with Jessie, another first
grade teacher, on a variety of projects and tasks ofien sharing materials and experiences.
Susan enjoys being a teacher and has no plans to retire or change jobs in the near future.

Susan has a Windows/95 computer in her room connected to the school network
and at the beginning of the school year she did not own a home computer. She describes
herself as an inexperienced or novice technology user and her plans for technology use
this year were focused on helping her students gain confidence and comfort with
technology, which were consistent with her own plans for learning to use the computer.
She described wanting to use the computer for student typing, thinking, writing stories,
and exchanging e-mail with their key pals.

Susan sees herself and her students relating to technology much as she views her
own personal relationships — as being friendly or comfortable with technology. She talks
about wanting her students to be friends with the computer, the same way she has talked
about herself and computers. There have been times when Susan has talked about the
computer as a motivator for students, as well as times She has agreed with Jessie about

the value of technology as tutor for building Skills through remedial programs. She has

33

 

also talked about the power of technology to change her students lives and she believes
that technology is, and will continue to be, an important part of their lives.

Jessie is a first grade teacher in her fifiies who has taught for over 12 years, the
last five at Oaktree Elementary. She describes herself as caring but disciplined and views
good teaching as knowledge of subject, having an organized room, providing students
with structure, and being disciplined. She is protective of her classroom, rarely asking for
parental help, and does not have an intern in her classroom this year. Jessie is very
concerned with what the principal expects and has a strong personal and professional
relationship with Susan. While Jessie does not have a computer at home, she lives close
enough to the school that she can use her Windows/95 classroom computer whenever the
need arises.

Jessie describes herself as an inexperienced or novice technology user who
planned on having her students use technology to gather information and become
comfortable and confident this year. She has talked about using technology to keep her
disruptive students occupied while She can teach the rest of her class and has also talked
about using the computer with remedial software for drill and practice.

Margie is a first grade teacher in her thirties who has taught first grade for two
years, after teaching fourth grade for Six years. She tries to make learning fun, but is
disciplined and ensures that her students see the consequences of their own actions.
Margie works hard to cover the curriculum and likes to get parents involved in her
classroom. She is a caring teacher who has an intern in the classroom this year. Margie
has strong opinions about the school, the administration, and her peers, and is not afraid
to share them with anyone, including the school principal. She works hard to satisfy the
expectations of her parents and has used technology for two years, giving her a reputation
for classroom innovation with technology.

This year, Margie’s stated goal was to transfer what she knows about technology
to help her students learn. She feels somewhat isolated and independent in the school,

34

having offered to support her peers use of technology, and has aspirations to become a
principal in the near future. In fact, Margie applied for a principalship in another school
district last year but was not offered that job. She has an Apple IIgs and an Apple He in
her classroom, along with a Windows/95 computer but She does not have access to a
computer at home.

Margie has talked about using technology, particularly e-mail, as a way to model
for her students the writing process, and has also talked about wanting to move beyond
use of technology for games and basic exploration. She has talked about wanting to move
towards her students’ use of technology for meaningful activities. Margie wanted more
information on how to incorporate technology into the curriculum and I think she wants
to work with her peers on a grade-level approach to using technology so all students who
enter the second grade can be prepared for technology use at that level.

Martha is a second grade teacher in her fifties who has been teaching for over 20
years. She sees her job as taking the school curriculum and adjusting it to fit the
individual needs of her students. She works to make the classroom environment exciting
and motivating for her students. Martha has been aggressive incorporating technology
into her teaching, showing a willingness to allow her own students to teach her specific
computer programs. She is also concerned with what the principal expects of her and sees
lots of exciting possibilities for technology in her classroom. She has a Windows/95
computer in her classroom and an Apple IIe with associated software. Martha has access
to a Windows/95 computer at home and receives support from her husband who is an
engineer.

Martha has at times talked about using technology as a reward for good student
behavior, as well as using technology for writing and finding resources on the Internet.

Martha describes herself as an inexperienced or novice technology user and described her

35

plans for technology use this year as getting her students on the computers, having them
use the Internet, and felt the group would help provide her with direction she needs in this
area.

Over the next nine months, these teachers and I met regularly — about every
other week — before and after school to discuss technology, the school, the curriculum,
and related issues that these teachers felt were important to their understandings of
technology. The initial group was composed of myself, two first grade teachers (Jessie
and Margie) and a second grade teacher (Martha). Later on in the fall, Susan joined us
after returning to work from surgery. The story continues in the next chapter with our first

session together as a group.

36

CHAPTER 4
THE PLOT

AS I participated in the support group, and as I collected and analyzed the data, I
began to see changes in the ways the group members participated in the conversations.
These conversations became a focal point for my analysis, but as I thought and wrote
about these conversations, I confronted a dilemma: How could I describe the
conversations we engaged in without ignoring the importance of the context in which
these conversations took place?

The way to resolve this dilemma became clearer as I realized that there are in fact
two different, but inseparable, lines of substance or interest that emerged from my
analysis: (a) the nature of the social interactions of group members, especially how they
participated in the conversations, and (b) the window their talk provided me with into
what these teachers believe and know about teaching, learning, and technology. These
lines of substance cannot be looked at separately, but must be held up together under the
light of analysis to get a clear sense of how these teachers thought about, talked about,
and planned to use technology. While these lines are in tension, because they constrain
and focus my attention on different aspects of the data I collected, they also provide a
vehicle for describing the complexity of the situation I encountered in the field.

This is not a new or unique dilemma, as many other researchers have struggled
with disentangling the form of discourse and its content. I spent much of my time
examining what these teachers talked about as well as how they talked about it and how
their talk was shaped by the context in which they work. This also points out the inherent
complexity and interconnectedness of my work with these teachers as constituted in the

social culture of their school.

37

 

In this chapter, I focus on the social dynamics of the group, especially the
different ways group members participated in the conversations and how patterns of
participation changed over time. This focus on the social organization, roles, and
responsibilities within the group is essential to understanding the experiences of the
teachers involved, including the influences of external factors on the groups’ activities. I
provide a chronological analysis of the group activities when we met regularly,
approximately every other week, from September 1997 through March 1998, and I
examine changes in the conversations that influenced the group members. This analysis
includes my assertions, which I drew from the data, and evidence to support these
assertions, as well as possible counter evidence or alternative interpretations.

In the next chapter I will examine the content of the conversations we had,
drawing on the interviews and my own observations to develop another set of assertions
that focus more explicitly on my original research questions: What do these teachers
believe and know about teaching, learning, and technology, and how do these beliefs and
knowledge shape their planned uses of technology? While these two lines of substance
cannot be understood in isolation, I have organized my discussion of them into two
separate chapters for practical reasons of space and readability.

In order to understand how patterns of participation in our group sessions changed
over time, I began by examining each of our meetings and the ways these meetings
changed based on who was in attendance. Table 1 below describes the meetings and lists

the group members who were in attendance during each session. Note: I attended each of

38

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Date Teachers in attendance
09/16/97 Jessie, Margie & Martha
09/24/97 Jessie, Margie & Martha
10/09/97 Jessie, Margie & Martha
10/23/97 Jessie & Martha

11/06/97 Jessie, Margie, Martha & Susan
11/13/97 Jessie & Susan

11/20/97 Jessie, Margie, Martha & Susan
12/04/97 Jessie & Susan

01/15/98 Martha & Susan

02/05/98 Jessie, Martha & Susan

02/ 18/98 Jessie, Martha & Susan
03/05/98 Jessie, Margie, Martha & Susan

 

 

 

these sessions.

Table 1

Phase I - Becoming a Group

We gathered for the first time on September 16, 1997, when we met in Martha’s
room before school. I talked in this initial meeting about my dissertation plans and shared
some of the history of the collaborative work Susan and I had done during the prior
spring. I made it clear during this first meeting that the group was not something I would

take control over:

This is not my group. This is your group. And so you all can think about having
somebody else involved. It’s totally up to you. And if you do, that’s fine. When
we meet, where we meet, and what we do are all going to be decided by you. I’ve
got a lot of ideas and a lot of experience with machines but I’m going to wait
basically for you three to tell me what you want to do and then we’ll try to do it
and I’ll try to help you do it and then I’ll try to understand it, that’s my role is to
try to understand and write about it. And when I’m done you’ll get a copy of the
final report and get a chance to say what you think about what we did or what we
didn’t do, and hopefully help me understand it.

39

An interesting aspect of that first meeting was how Martha and Margie interacted.
Upon review of the audiotape of the meeting, I noticed that on two occasions, Martha
deferred to Margie or made remarks that indicated She was positioning Margie as an
authority in the group. In the short segment below, Martha defers to Margie on the first

issue of importance for the group: when will we meet?

Andy All right, first issue: when are we going to meet again? [Laughter]

Jessie Well, I’m completely flexible.

Andy Ok.

Jessie I’m pretty open to some of these Monday staff meetings after school.

Andy Ok.

Margie I didn’t bring my calendar. It’s very, very dependent on my husband.

Andy Ok. Well we had talked about every other time having it early? Is that
reasonable?

Martha Every other time, not every time?

Andy Right. So that way we get a session where we’re all waking up and then

we get a session after school, but that’s totally up to you.

Margie & Jessie Fine.

Martha Are you sure Margie? I think that’s up to you. Can you meet at this time?
Because it was hectic even for me, and [laughter] I could imagine I
thought of you all morning.

Margie It’s probably more convenient for my husband in a way because I’m out
of the house before they’ve even woke up.

Martha Right. [Laughter] Yeah.

Margie But once a month.

Andy Right, so I was thinking maybe in two weeks we’d meet in the afternoon.
Whatever.

Notice that Martha defers to Margie for this decision about when to have the
meetings. The issue of scheduling regular meetings was problematic for the group,
especially given the difficulty we had scheduling the first meeting, and represents perhaps
the first issue the group had to resolve. As such, it may be a reflection of negotiating
power and authority in the group, and positioning for decision making within the group.

Another instance of this positioning by Martha of Margie as an authority in the

group occurred later in the same meeting when the subject of a Web page design in-

40

service workshop came up and the teachers were talking about whether they would
attend. In the segment below, Blaine, a fifth-grade teacher, walks into the room and asks

the teachers if they plan to attend this workshop which I was going to teach:

Blaine Can you guys Sign up for the in-service next Tuesday if you need subs?
If you’re all together?

Jessie We have to Sign up for our own subs?

Blaine If you could Sign up for your own.

Jessie Absolutely.

Martha For the 23rd?

Blaine For the 23rd.

Martha Ok. I did that.

Blaine For Andy.

Jessie Ok, I will.

Andy [To Margie] And if you want to come,

Margie For the afternoon? [Unintelligible] all day tomorrow [unintelligible].

Martha [To Andy] She doesn’t need it.

Note that Martha feels obligated to offer her opinion about why Margie is not
planning to attend the workshop. It seems that Margie has knowledge and expertise that
Martha and Jessie do not have, especially in the area of technology, and perhaps this was
said by Martha in jest; but it may also be reflective on a positioning for power within the
group where Martha will defer to Margie in the future for decision making.

I learned later by talking with Susan that Martha and Margie had in fact been
involved in a prior disagreement that had become a rift between them professionally. This
early deference on the part of Martha towards Margie might have helped to repair this
prior professional rift and allowed them to work together in the group in later meetings.
The deference I saw in this meeting functioned in part to help Margie feel she was a part
of the group, because Susan, Jessie, and Margie had all mentioned in their initial
interviews that Margie felt and acted in isolation from the other teachers.

Following this example of how deference was used in the conversation, I also

noticed talk about pedagogy. The teachers engaged in a conversation about Math Blaster,

41

a mathematics software program that supports student learning of basic math skills in a
game-like atmosphere. During this conversation, Margie was explaining to Jessie how
students must move numbers up and down in the window to conserve them for later

equations (see figure 2 below).

 

 

 

 

 

 

++++++++
GIN—ihObNOI

4
2
1
4
2
4
5
0

 

 

 

Figure 2

Margie talked about her use of Math Blaster and Jessie asked her how to move

between different levels of the program:

Margie And then there’s a, there are more levels after that if you keep going.
Jessie So the trick is to just move the little guy to the different columns
Margie Right! And you just want to move it -

Jessie - and just .. -

Margie - you may, you may see a number way up here

that you can move to make this part of the equation right? But you could
just move one over in the second column to make it right and therefore
you save all those numbers up above.

Jessie So they have to learn those strategies?

42

Margie

Jessie
Margie
Jessie
Margie

Jessie
Margie

Jessie
Margie

Andy
Margie

[unintelligible]

Martha
Margie

Martha
Margie

So they’re kind of learning to look at all options, I can move my answer, I
can move my addend, I could ..
But often I’ll look at it and they’ll be nothing!
Well, then, see that’s usually because they’ve moved down too far.
Oh.
If you do it right from the beginning, usually by the time they need help is
when they’ve already pushed the thing down too much and there aren’t
solutions
So it wouldn’t make any difference which column you put the little guy in,
nothings going to -

- Right.

- make sense.
And then what you have to do is get rid of one row, they’ll take away, I
noticed one time that it didn’t take away all the red stuff, they just took
away a little of the red stuff and then they make you start over.
Hmm.
But one time I did I said, “I wonder what will happen,” and I pushed the
button and all the red stuff was gone [Laughter]

They love that, they love Math Blaster! Yeah.

And you can save it too, from week to week. When it asks you if you want
to save your mission, if you say “Yes,” it just saves it on the network. I
said “Well try it” and they tried it and the next time they put their name in
and it came back right where they left off.

So you should move your man rather than the numbers. Not always.

Well, you want to try and move it so you’re using, you want to move the
one that is the closest, so you’re not eliminating so many numbers. That’s
a hard skill for some [first graders]. But it’s a good skill, because they
really have to examine that equation. And not go for the easiest one but go
with the one that will help you with future problems.

Notice in her description of how best to solve the problems presented by Math

Blaster that Margie indicates her belief that the skill it requires, although difficult for

some first graders, is a necessary and worthwhile skill for them to learn. Although I did

not explore this issue in more detail at this meeting, or ask the others about their own

beliefs about this kind of math skill, this conversation represents an instance of how

thinking about technology is connected with thinking about the curriculum and teaching.

It seems clear from this talk that Margie believes that using Math Blaster helps her

43

students develop worthwhile skills and therefore is an appropriate tool for teaching
mathematics in her classroom. It also seems clear that Margie believes this skill is
developmentally appropriate for first-grade students.

The next support group meeting took place on September 24 after school in
Margie’s classroom. The batteries in the audiotape machine I was using during this
session went dead after only a few minutes so I was unable to transcribe the discussion so
I relied on my field notes for my analysis. This meeting had similarities with the prior
meeting, except that I did not detect deference on the part of Martha towards Margie
during this meeting. I did note, however, that sometimes when Martha or Jessie talked to
Margie, they physically turned in their chairs to face Margie, which I took to be a sign of
Margie’s authority in the group.

I also realized that my role as researcher, and my background with technology, did
not make me an authority in the eyes of these teachers’ since I had never taught
elementary school myself. While I brought significant technical knowledge and expertise
to the group, and was often asked questions about technology, I did not have practical K-
12 teaching experience. I thought about my role on occasions when I would talk about
technology and group members would remind me that I did not know about how first
graders think or what they are capable of learning or doing.

Following this meeting, I decided to take a more active role in stimulating
conversations around pedagogical issues and try to help the members articulate their own
assumptions in the talk. Below is an excerpt from my field journal:

Sunday, September 28, I 997

After transcribing the audio tape from our meeting this week I’ve decided to take
a more active role in facilitating these teachers’ discussions about technology and
pedagogy. I’ve observed examples in the transcript where issues of technology
have led to discussions of pedagogy and I’m interested in whether I can move the
topic of discussion in these kinds of conversations towards examining underlying
beliefs about teaching and learning instead of just letting them die.

44

I’ll probably do this in a slow, and subtle manner, not forcing the issue, because I
think some members of the group are still getting comfortable with me but I also
believe this kind of social norm for discussion will ultimately benefit these
teachers. The issue of a writing sofiware program for first graders that came up in
our meeting this week is a good example: I think if these teachers had exposure to
a writing product - I’ll try to find some this week on the Web - they might be
inclined to discuss and examine their own assumptions about teaching reading &
writing in the classroom. I also want to draw upon their own practical experiences
in the classroom to make the group more contextualized.

At our next group meeting, held on October 9, the conversation again turned to
pedagogical uses of technology and brought out some of the assumptions these teachers

have about their students’ abilities and what they are capable of doing on a computer. In

the transcript below, Margie talked about her plans for using a key pals project in her

classroom:

Margie I’d like to start out between when we come back in January, where the
class works on a letter. The teacher types it in. But then to the kids I can
show how I go about it. You know. I type in my e-mail. I get my e-mail.
Oh, here’s a letter from them. You know so they can see it on the screen.
And I click on this and it opens it up and here’s the letter they wrote. And
we can read it together.

Martha So maybe more class letters?

Margie Yeah, and then we can work on writing a letter. And then one day at lunch
I could type it all in, and let them see it, and show them how I’m sending
it now.

Jessie So it could be a classroom letter?

Martha That’s what I’m thinking about doing.

Jessie That would be better than individual!

Andy Right.

Jessie Whoa, that would be a lot better!

Margie And even as a highlight near the end, when you get near the end of the

year, where if you could get your teacher to agree to it, they each took like
a key pal. So instead of writing a whole class letter, Jimmy was matched
up with Bobby in my room, and you wrote it all by hand, you know,
everything was written, you proofread it together, you kind of analyzed it
together, and then if you could get parents to come in, you know, you
could send two or three kids down to the lab room, because the letters
aren’t going to be that long, -

45

Martha Um hm, that’s what I was thinking.
Margie - or, buddy up with your third grade your third
grade or fourth grade buddies.

You can see in this segment that Margie has clearly thought about how she will
incorporate the key pals project into her classroom activities, and has accounted in her
plans for the capabilities of first graders related to their limited reading and writing skills
early in the year. It seems that Margie’s experience with what first grade students are
capable of doing, in terms of writing a letter, is consistent with the other teachers in the
group and Martha and Jessie both liked the idea of using e-mail in a whole-class setting
instead of as an individual student activity. Margie believes that in the first half of the
year, her students will be unable to type e-mail messages on their own and will need help.

This segment also shows how Martha and Jessie view Margie as a valuable
resource in the group, and as an authority, because she helps them see how they can make
the key pals project work by using a whole-class letter instead of having each student
send and receive individual letters. Also notice in the segment above how Jessie and
Martha accept Margie’s ideas without question or criticism, calling her idea “better” than
the alternative without asking her to share her pedagogical decision making around this
issue. In the conversation above, Martha and Jessie were passive listeners, not willing or
able to take a critical stance towards the ideas Margie was putting forth. As such, they
accepted these ideas without question, along with Margie’s implicit reasoning for why
this approach is better than the alternative — individual students sending and receiving
their own messages. This was another case of deference to Margie’s authority, but not one
that served to repair prior relational problems, but was in fact reflecting Jessie and
Martha’s respect for Margie’s having used technology in her first grade classroom.

Evidence in support of this interpretation of Margie as leader is also found in my

field journal:

46

Thursday, October 9, I 997

We had our third support group meeting today and it went very well. Susan could
not make the meeting but Jessie, Martha & Margie were there. I think Margie is
seen as the defacto leader of the group — Martha often defers to her judgment
and experience and even Jessie seems to turn towards her in the conversation
when it comes to questions about how to proceed; both seem to ask her for advice
and play off what she says. I wonder if both respect her for her knowledge and
disposition towards technology and the school culture — Margie seems to be the
rebel in the group but also the leader in terms of what she’s done with technology.
She mentioned today that parents of some students in her class have expectations
of her related to technology because they heard she was the “technology teacher.”

This issue of what first graders are capable of doing, and how this influences what
these teachers might imagine in terms of benefits using technology, comes up throughout
the early meetings and reflects the expertise these teachers bring to the conversations.
These assumptions about what their students could accomplish also helped me
understand how my own assumptions about technology use were inconsistent with the
experiences of these teachers. There were other factors that these teachers were thinking
about, but not talking about, related to this issue of students writing e-mail messages to
key pals that came up in our next meeting which represented a change in the group that I
will describe in more detail in the section below.

To summarize my observations and interpretations to this point, in the early
conversations we had, which did not include Susan, there is evidence of deference on the
part of Martha towards Margie which served to repair prior relational issues that occurred
before the group was formed. The nature of the conversations in these early sessions also
reflects a certain amount of confrontation and challenge by Margie to positions taken by
Jessie and Martha. During this time, Margie emerged as a central figure in managing
these conversations, eventually being responsible for most of the topics introduced into
the talk and most of the speaking turns. She was also seen as an authority figure within
the group based on her prior experiences with technology and her outspoken attitudes

towards the school administration.
47

By the third group meeting, held on October 9, Margie had established her
expertise within the group and Martha and Jessie on several occasions directed their
questions about what the group should do to her. Margie had experience with technology,
and had probably thought more about how to use it in her teaching, than Martha or Jessie
and they placed her in a position of authority during these meetings. For example, Margie
shared her plans to use a key pals project to expose her students to the writing process,
but she described her idea of writing the initial messages herself as a whole-class activity
and then moving towards students sending individual messages later on in the year.
Martha and Jessie both liked this idea, as shown in the transcript above, perhaps because
it resolved some of their concerns about how their students would be able to type e-mail
messages themselves and the group used the discussion to talk about their own sense of
the limitations of their students when it comes to reading and writing.

Margie managed these early conversations in ways that allowed her to keep on the
floor topics that she was interested in — including her sense that these teachers did not
have enough time to conduct their technology projects, that the administration did not
appreciate how hard they work, and whether the teachers should make a stand against
doing the technology projects. These are all topics that surface again in later meetings and
Margie uses her conversational skills to encourage the other group members to take
action as she builds support for her positions. This conversational management style is
consistent with Margie’s personality — she tends to be honest and open with her beliefs
and to challenge ideas from others if she disagrees — and may have resulted in an
acceptability of open challenges as part of the norms of participation in the early group
conversations.

There is also evidence in these early meetings of Margie’s building up to a
confrontation with the school principal over whether teachers have time to do their

technology projects and how technology decisions are made without input from the

48

lower-elementary teachers. Margie actually talked about this issue during her interview
and in earlier meetings. For example, in her interview, Margie complained about the
decision making process at the school being closed to those outside the committees. “If
you are not on those committees,” Margie said, “you don’t have a say in the decision
making.” She mentioned two committees, the school improvement and the technology
committee, as examples that excluded her views. Margie also talked in the interview
about her belief that the teachers did not have time to work on the planned technology
projects, an issue that she brought up in the early group meetings.

Margie also expressed her frustration in the first group meeting and claimed the
principal had time to play and learn about technology while the teachers did not. She
believed the principal’s intentions were great but “we need prep time for computers.”
When I suggested the group ask the principal about specific time during the week to work
on computers, Margie thought this was a good idea. This pattern continued in the meeting
on October 9, when Margie again expressed her frustration with the computer lab, the
difficulty of using a single computer in her classroom, and her feeling that the school was
not being well led in the area of technology.

Finally, during this early phase, when Margie described her plans for technology,
the other teachers in the group — Martha and Jessie — did not challenge or question her
ideas, nor did they ask her to share her pedagogical reasoning or rationale for the choices
she makes. I consider their participation in these early meetings to be a form of passive
listening, where they were not thinking critically about the ideas Margie put forth or

questioning her decision making processes.

Phase II - Negotiating Group Roles and Purpose

Following this early phase of development the group moved into a transition

period which culminated in changes in participation, changes in norms for participation,

49

 

and the emergence of Susan as the group leader. Margie did not attend any of the
subsequent group meetings until March 1998, despite our efforts to schedule these
sessions at times she would be available. This transition period also coincides with the
addition of Susan to the group following her time off and recovery from surgery and with
a renewed focus during group meetings on the practical issue of how these teachers
would use technology in their classrooms.

I met with two of the teachers -— Jessie and Martha — on October 23, after
school in Martha’s classroom. Martha set the agenda for the meeting, and was not
challenged by Jessie when she did, and we spent much of the session with Martha
exploring the Internet looking for soil and volcano resources for her students. Another
topic that surfaced during this session was the question of how these teachers might have
their students engage in e-mail exchanges with key pals elsewhere in the world.

I encouraged Jessie and Martha to think and talk about how they might use e-mail
in the classroom. While I recognized that Margie had helped both of them when she
described her own plans for e-mail use in the classroom, I also wanted to learn what
Jessie and Martha thought about the pedagogical implications of e-mail in their
classrooms. Much of the meeting was spent talking about logistical issues related to how
students might type their e-mail messages, in the classroom or in the lab, and how parents
might be helpful in accumulating e-mail messages onto a single computer or disk so that
Jessie and Martha could send their e-mail messages to their key pals.

I began to consider how my role within the group might need to change in order
to facilitate the kinds of pedagogical conversations I thought would be beneficial. I

reflected on this question in my field journal:
Tuesday, October 21, 1997

I think I need to be more explicit about my own assumptions and beliefs as I
continue my work with the Oaktree teachers, especially related to pedagogy,
learning, and technology. For example, the discussions about Math Blaster have
been opportunities I’ve not yet taken to offer my own views about the value of

50

drill-and-practice for lst graders. I guess I’m waiting to see how these teachers
work in the classroom before I make any assumptions about the pedagogical value
of specific software. I need to share my own beliefs about technology with these
teachers so that we can have conversations about the value of technology for them
and their students.

As part of this conversation, Jessie and Martha talked about their own concerns
about having parents helping their students type their e-mail messages, especially the
possibility that these parents might see student messages that contain errors —
misspellings or grammatical errors. This focus on surface feature correctness reflects
assumptions these teachers were making about how parents might view student products,
in this case, e-mail messages, that are not of sufficient quality to reflect well on the
teachers. I include a transcript from this conversation in the next chapter where I use it to
show how these teachers’ beliefs about their students’ work shaped their ideas about the

role e-mail might play in their learning.

The Venting Session

The group meeting on November 6, was the first that Susan attended after her
surgery and was generally referred to by the group members as “the venting session.”
This session was a milestone for the group for a variety of reasons: First, it showed how
important the issue of time and support were for the teachers related to their use of
technology in their teaching; second, it provides evidence of a growing trust and
collective authority among these teachers as it relates to their participation in the wider
school culture; third, it reflects conversational management strategies and leadership
authority within the group by Margie setting the agenda for the members and using her
voice to keep the topic on the conversational floor throughout the meeting; and fourth, it
connects the work that takes place in the support group with larger school influences, in
this case, the expectations of the school administration, reminding the participants that

their professional lives exist in the broader context of this school and district.

51

The venting session the group engaged in on November 6, is strong evidence of
the pressure these teachers are feeling from outside their classrooms to use technology.
During this meeting, Margie was encouraging the others to stand up to the principal and
ask him to provide them with the necessary resources. Margie said: “I think there is no
realization as to how overpowered we are, overworked we are, we’re not even trained to

know how to use it, ...” Here is an excerpt from my field journal for Thursday, November
6:

Today’s meeting turned into a venting session for the teachers. They were angry
and talked about a lot of things, including (a) the principal doesn’t understand
how hard it is for us to do these e-mail projects, (b) there isn’t enough time to do
these projects (as well as other projects), (c) the technology doesn’t work well
enough, ((1) we don’t have enough technology, (e) technology decisions are being
made without our input, (0 lower-elementary teachers are different from upper-
elementary teachers and they just don’t understand us.

The issue of time was a big factor in this conversation and all the teachers agreed
they were overwhelmed and didn’t have any time to work on their technology projects. I
suggested the group ask the principal to provide them with an hour a week to work on
these projects. Margie wanted to have the principal attend the next meeting so they could
share their frustrations with him and ask him for more support.

This meeting was an important event in the development of the group because it
brought to the surface the impact external expectations have on these teachers plans for
and use of technology. There is no doubt that the goals and purposes of the support group
were constantly influenced by the larger school context, including the actions of parents,

administrators, and other teachers. These external influences lead to my first assertion.
External Influences on the Group

Contextual factors — including external expectations, available equipment,

available time, technology and administrative support — all played an important part in
52

shaping the sense these teachers make of technology and their plans for its use. These
contextual factors comprised a large percentage of the early talk about technology and
focused mostly on teacher motivations for technology use.

Within the group, we spent considerable time discussing external factors — such
as administrative expectations, parental expectations, available time and resources, and
district-level support issues — which I interpret as evidence that the teachers in this
group may be unwilling or unable to think about using technology without also thinking
about the expectations placed on them when they do so. It could also be that these
teachers needed to talk at length about whether they should use technology, and this
includes external motivations for use, before they could begin to talk and think about why
using technology might be beneficial for their students.

The issue of external factors — including the district, the principal, other teachers,
and even parents — occupied much of our early conversations. Since the principal had
stated in a staff meeting early in the school year that the theme for the year would be
connecting to the world, and he had suggested that each teacher find a collaborating
teacher somewhere else in the world and incorporate use of technology, especially the
Internet, into their curriculum around these activities, all the teachers felt pressure to
work on a key pals project which would satisfy this goal.

In Jessie’s case, she voiced her fear early and often that the principal ’s
expectations for teachers having key pal partners outside the US. would conflict with her
own plans to communicate with her daughter who is a teacher in Massachusetts. On
several occasions, Jessie expressed her fear that if she did have a key pal project with her
daughter, the principal would look unfavorably upon her. It turned out that Jessie did her
project with her daughter and the principal’s expectations were not a contributing factor

in the success of these efforts.

53

 

Margie said during a meeting on October 10 that she didn’t care what the
principal wanted, she was going to have her students use technology because their parents
expected her to. She acknowledged her reputation in the school as a teacher who uses
technology and felt an obligation to continue using it this year. Margie also was willing to
ask parents to help her in the classroom and in the computer lab, and so felt the parents
who were helping her in the lab would want to see evidence of educational use of
computers.

Because Susan was out of school for almost two months in September and
October, she felt behind when she returned to work in November. In the meeting we had
on November 6, Susan said she felt as though she had taken ten steps backward since the
summer. Martha also seemed concerned with the principals’ expectations for technology
use, asking me during our initial interview if that was not the goal for the group —— to
help them meet the principal’s expectations for technology. Additional evidence of this

assertion is found in my field journal entry:
Friday, November 7, 1997

While the discussion [yesterday] centered on the key pals project, it’s obvious that
other factors outside the control of these teachers brought on this conversation and
venting; there was mention of the new math curriculum and other topics that seem
to be part of an overall anger or frustration with the status of these teachers in the
school. Again, I believe Margie was an instigator of this thinking and I wonder if
the others feel as strongly as she does about this discontent, but it does provide
evidence of the feeling of being overwhelmed these teachers must have and the
problem of time in implementing any form of curricular innovation. I hope this
complaining will lead to something productive, perhaps asking [the principal] for
time off every week (or every other week) to work on the technology projects, and
is not forgotten.

Both Margie and Martha also commented on the influence of external factors in
their initial interviews. Margie talked about feeling pressure from parents to use

technology in her teaching, since she had gotten a reputation for using it the year before,

54

 

and Martha said, “I hope we can do what [the principal] wants us to do, meet his goals
and expectations.”

This assertion is consistent with other work in the field focusing on teacher
conversational groups. For example, Richardson (1990) found when working with a
group of teachers at two different schools that:

the nature of the discourse at the group level was quite different than that at the

individual level. At the group level, teachers focused on systemic barriers and

mandates that caused them to institute practices over which they had no control.

At the individual level, the teachers appeared more willing to talk about their

practices and justifications. It appears then that the shared language for

justifying or explaining a practice at the school level revolved around barriers,
mandates, and lack of control, even though the teachers often expressed different
personal justifications for the given practice in their individual sessions. The
general feeling of lack of control and autonomy may, in part, function to maintain

a laissez-faire approach to teaching activities and their justifications within a
collective of teachers. (p. 15)

During this venting session, which included many instances of overlapping
speech and multiple conversational floors, there was emotion in the talk that I had not
observed in prior sessions, indicating a heightened investment in the topics being
discussed. Margie used the conversation to encourage the teachers to take collective
action to resolve their sense of feeling overwhelmed and unsupported by the
administration. This was a topic Margie had brought up in earlier meetings and in the
initial interview I conducted with her in September. This meeting brought to the surface
the question of whether the teachers should stand in opposition to the external
expectations placed on them by the administration and their peers to include the key pals
project in their classroom activities. Margie wanted the group to invite the principal to the
next scheduled meeting and press him about their concerns in an attempt to resolve the
issue directly. Martha disagreed but deferred to Margie and offered to go along with the

others so there would be solidarity in the group. Susan and Jessie were hesitant to go

55

along with Margie and the meeting ended without any clear sense of how they would

proceed in preparation for the next meeting.

There was also a confrontation during this meeting between Margie and Susan,

where Margie challenged a point Susan made about differences in the time available to

upper-elementary teachers compared to the time available to lower-elementary teachers:

Susan

Jessie
Andy
Margie

Susan
Margie
Susan
Margie

Andy
Jessie

Margie

Andy
Martha
Margie

I was just going to say Jessie that Blaine [a fifth grade teacher] with his
sixth graders can sit down for half an hour and work on a project,
everybody’s in a seat and he can concentrate, whereas we don’t have
that luxury.
No.
Right.
Well, I disagree with that though, I don’t think you do. I mean I’d like you
to go, Blaine has had an intern for how many years in a row and also
Blaine doesn’t, you know, he’s at home, he probably buys a new computer
a couple times a year.
He [a fifth grade teacher] has a natural inclination and he is certainly
interested in this.
He does, but having taught fourth grade I mean when you give a project
you don’t have a classroom that sits down quiet for 30 minutes or an hour
or whatever. They’re always, just like first graders -

- Hmm.

- it just that their questions
are at a much higher level.
Well -

- So you don’t feel that there’s more quiet time that you can

actually
No, no, I mean not anymore than you could pull out when you’re teaching
first grade. I mean there are times, and I don’t know if you do it but I do,
especially on Friday when I’m doing my newsletter, I’m sitting there
typing and “If you have any questions, if you need me to help you spell
anything, I’m over here.” You know, and within about five minutes you
have this big mob around you.
Right.
[laughter]
But, you know, and then you say you get up and you get up and you quit
what you’re doing. You can do it, you know a teacher who, you do it when
you have to do it. A teacher who, you do it when you have to do it. But I
mean it’s not this picture perfect, you give an assignment and everybody
sits down and does the assignment and nobody asks any questions
[laughter]. I mean it is

56

Jessie You know, in all honesty, I think what I would find most helpful right now
would be to establish in the classroom some of these extra computers for
children to work on, get some really good first grade programs where they
could learn, and it would be you know for remedial kinds of things, and
figure out how to get the computers working in our first grade.

Note in the segment above how Margie disagrees with Susan about differences
between upper-elementary grades and lower-elementary grades as it relates to demands
placed on a teacher for student attention. Margie is direct in her disagreement, saying it
outright, and Susan seems to hedge her bet and moves to accept a call for a change in
subject -—— referring to Blaine’s inclination for technology — but Margie doesn’t let this
issue go and states her position clearly, even when questioned by Jessie.

The nature of the group discourse in this session was consistent with what I had
seen in prior meetings, but there were also important differences, perhaps because of the
addition of Susan to the group or because of the importance of the question of whether
these teachers felt they had a choice about doing the technology project. These changes
were reflected in a variety of ways: Margie dominated the conversation, holding the floor
for long periods of time and often providing her own personal stories of how the
administration at the school, especially the principal, had not communicated effectively
with the lower elementary teachers; there were multiple conversational floors on more
than one occasion during the meeting, something I attribute to the emotionally charged
nature of the discussion; there were many instances of overlapping speaking at the
meeting; and the conversations were more confrontational, with participants challenging
each other about issues. I felt a sense of anger and frustration in this meeting by the
teachers and genuine question about whether they should attempt to use technology in the

classroom. These changes lead to my second assertion.

57

 

Changes in Group Conversations

The group conversations changed over time as members became more
comfortable and trusting of each other. Specifically, the group talk changed over time
based on who was the conversational and group leader -— Susan or Margie.

These changes concerned how these teachers participated in the group
conversations, the nature of the talk they engaged in, the role of authority and power in
this context, and the social norms of talk to accept different points of view and encourage
equal participation by all members of the group.

During the venting session, Susan and Jessie asked me if I would meet with them
the following week to see if they could get started on the key pals project. The following
week, the three of us met and Susan and Jessie decided they could spend time and energy
arguing with the principal or they could spend that time working on their key pals project.
They decided they would try the project anyway.

Sometime afterward, but before our next group meeting, Susan used her personal
relationship with the principal to ask him if she was obligated to do the technology
project and he told her “no.” She related this to Margie who also approached the principal
and was told the same thing. Upon further analysis, it occurred to me that even though
Susan and Margie were given the same answer by the principal, they may have viewed
the response differently based on their current institutional status — Susan had more
experience as a teacher in the district and was assured of keeping her teaching position
the next year while Margie had the least amount of experience of the group and knew she
might lose her teaching position the next year due to changing attendance patterns in the
school. It is quite possible that Susan and Margie saw this issue in different ways that
later shaped the development of the group based on changes in participation patterns.

Margie indicated to me that she was unable to attend the meetings from

November through February because she didn’t have time, the meetings conflicted with

58

 

other priorities she had, and she was sharing with the group but not getting much in
return. She may also have felt she had lost power and authority in the group to Susan
because of her move to go outside the group to resolve the issue with the principal, thus
undermining her play to use the group and its solidarity to strengthen her own position.
[Notez Margie disputes this interpretation] The move Susan made outside the group to
solve the problem Margie was pushing us to address in a confrontation with the principal
resulted in Margie’s absence from the group and led to changes in the discourse that made
it more cooperative, less confrontational, more indirect and subtle, more nurturing, and
less direct and challenging.

This meeting was viewed collectively by the teachers as an important point in the
development of the group, but for different reasons. Margie said in a later meeting and in
her follow-up interview that she felt the group needed to take a more active role in the
decision making process around technology and the group offered a collective voice for
them in their relationship with the principal. Susan told me later she was upset about the
way the venting session went and was determined not to allow the group to become an
angry and dissenting view within the school around technology adoption. Jessie also
commented on the importance of the “venting session” in the follow-up interview, when
she said she was originally surprised that Margie had initially joined the support group,
and that she thought she had dropped out after the meeting on November 6 because she
had wanted the group to ask the principal to attend the next meeting and they had
“backed out.”

Margie described her view of how this issue was resolved at a group meeting in

March 1998:

Margie And it’s ok not to agree, -

Andy - Right.

Margie - but I don’t want to approach [the principal] and -
Andy - Right

59

Margie Well what was the one time we met, and then we agreed we were going to
invite [the principal] to the next meeting, and then I invited [the
principal] to the next meeting, and then the next day everybody decided
we had solved the problem and we didn’t need to invite [the principal] to
the next meeting, right? It was about whether we were going to do the
technology. Because we had -

Andy - a meeting where people were saying “Well, we’re overwhelmed, “

Margie - Right. Right. So we were going to talk to [the principal] about that and
then it was, all of a sudden, “Well, you know, we solved, I think that
problem is solved.” Because nobody wants to -

Andy - Right.

Margie - and we talked about that, how
people don’t want to disappoint [ the principal]. Because [ the principal] is
so kind and caring and all of that. And I think that’s what happened

yesterday.
Andy Right.
Margie Because [the principal] stood right up there and said, “If you really think

I’m on the wrong road don’t be afraid to stand up and say,” well, I’m
sorry, but there are a lot of people who are afraid to say and maybe not
because they’re afraid [the principal] will get mad but they want to do
what [the principal] wants to do they’re not willing to stand up and say
what are the chances of one of them not being good

Margie may have felt she needed the strength of the group to support her own weaker
position vis a via the principal. As a result of Susan resolving this issue outside the group
meeting, without Margie feeling it was resolved for her, this may have contributed to Margie’s
not attending any of the group meetings between November and March. Margie talked

about her fear of approaching the principal at a group meeting on March 5:

Margie So should we just sit on this for a now? [Laughter] Maybe

Andy Urn, we’re going to meet in two weeks? Right? Do you want to work on
this?

Jessie Is there any, [ to Andy] you’re so good, you speak so beautifully, is there

any way that you could say “In meeting with lower-e1 that some concerns
were brought up ...”

Susan I just wonder if it shouldn’t be brought up before that, I’m afraid, are they
going to do this before two weeks?

Andy I don’t know. Don’t know.

Susan I think this ought to be addressed fairly quickly.

6O

7'

 

Margie

Susan

I don’t feel like I’m in a position to approach [the principal], you maybe
more so than me.
I will. I don’t know that I’m in a position to, but I will.

After talking with Susan during the follow-up interview, she explained her own

sense of the venting session and how it was a point of change for her in the group and in

her own plans for the future:

Susan

Andy
Susan
Andy
Susan

Andy

Susan
Andy
Susan

Andy
Susan

I don’t know if this really applies or not, but what turned the comer on me,
this is going to sound crazy, when I came back from my operation, and
that first time we met, it was so negative, and something welled up within
me, and I thought “This isn’t right! This is not what it’s about.” And I
refuse, I refuse to go that direction and I want to be as positive, as
constructive as I can in that and I will not be part of this. And it was, it
was

“This” being?

The negative, criticism,

The questioning whether or not you would do this?

The questioning, um hm, the whole atmosphere of that one meeting in
Margie’s room was a turning point for me. Whereas you and I had such a
good relationship before, and this group and I thought, “It’s not going to
be like this and I’m not going to allow, this isn’t the way to do it.” And
something, like I say, welled up within me, thinking, “Ok, I’m going to,
onward here, I’m going to do the best I can to beat this and not only beat
this negativism but to beat my fear ”

I remember you saying you felt behind, that you felt you had taken steps
backwards. I think that was a big point for the group, a transition point for
the group in a lot of ways.

It was for me, it really was for me. And, what was the question?

Anything that sticks out in your mind?

That was a real turning point, our relationship, [we] could ask questions,
but then to be involved with the other people, changed it. And it backed
me up against, I know I can be this way with you but, and then when that
happened, I thought “I don’t care. I don’t care how I sound. I’m not afraid.
I’m going to tell you what I think,” whereas before I was thinking “well if
they’re going to do it I should to.” And that was so typical for me.

The pressure.

Yeah. That I always kind of went along. It doesn’t matter. It’s ok. It’s ok.
I’m going to do what I feel is right for the kids and how can the kids
benefit. And what do I have to do? What do I have to do to make this
happen and to forge ahead, this is moving quickly, and if I don’t move

61

along with it I’ll be left behind. I want to learn for myself and I’m a
different person than I was two years ago, I feel so, what happened to me
physically. You know, life is short. I don’t have time to mess around
anymore. I don’t have time. I’m going to make things happen that I feel
are important.

The changes in leadership — from Margie to Susan — also resulted in changes in
the nature of the group conversations and especially the ways that the two other teachers —
Martha and Jessie — participated in these conversations. In the early meetings, when Margie
was managing the conversations and was seen as an authority and perhaps leader of the
group, there were instances of passive listening to the ideas and opinions she put forth about
how technology should be used. In these discussions, neither Martha nor Jessie questioned
or challenged Margie when she talked about her own plans for technology. The norms for
participation in the discourse during these meetings supported direct challenges and dis-
agreements, mostly initiated by Margie, that may have left Martha and Jessie feeling un-
comfortable putting forth their own ideas or questioning Margie’s ideas.

When Susan joined the group, and as a result of her move to resolve a problem
Margie had asked the other group members to address outside the group using her relation-
ship with the principal, the nature of the discourse changed. This change coincided with
Margie’s absence from the group and allowed Martha and Jessie to participate in more
equitable and comfortable ways in the conversations. Susan’s conversational management
style of indirect or subtle questioning or disagreeing allowed Martha and Jessie to begin to
put forth their own thinking and begin to question their assumptions. It is also likely that
Susan’s role as leader and her own actions to model reflection and taking a more active role
in the technology adoption process at the school may have influenced Martha and Jessie in
positive ways as well.

The second phase of the group development, which occurred between October 23
and November 15, and coincided with Susan returning to the group, was a time of transi-

tion. This transition was centered around an important event for the group — the venting

62

session — where these teachers had an opportunity to share their anger and frustration with
the external expectations placed on them by those outside their classrooms. The members
of the group worked during this period to establish roles for themselves and to co-construct

a shared purpose for the group.

Phase III - Group Development

Following this transition period, the subsequent meetings were much more task ori-
ented and focused on helping these teachers use technology in their teaching. The Novem-
ber 20 meeting showed much more equity of talk in the conversations, less confrontations
or direct challenges to individual points of view, less emotion and overlapping speaking,
more cooperation among the group members, and a discussion of a sense of the value of the
group for the teachers involved. I believe this represented a change of leadership within the
group from Margie managing the conversations with a more direct and confrontational
manner to Susan using a more indirect and subtle, inviting and nurturing conversational
management approach that was carried forward in subsequent group meetings. During the

meeting, Martha talked about her plans for incorporating technology into her teaching:

Martha I want to do things like we write, I start a story, they put a paragraph in,
we put a paragraph in, etc. So I want to start something like that. .. it
depends on the child’s interests But I’d like to have a lot of projects like
that

Jessie questioned Martha about how she plans to use the key pals project in her class-
room:

Jessie I’m not quite clear, so you would say start a story, your whole class as a
group would add a paragraph?

Martha Or, well I’ve got it two ways: I’ve got the whole class working with this as
a class project, where we would start a story with the beginning paragraph

Jessie One on one or the whole class?

Martha The whole class.

Jessie Whole class.

63

Martha And then their whole class could put in another paragraph, and we
could add on like this. But then I’d also like to do it with key pals, you
know individuals, if they were that advanced.

Margie When you got to the end of the year you could have one child start and
another child in the other class write.
Martha Um hm

Notice in the segment above how Jessie questions Martha about her ideas for how
she will implement a whole class project with technology, and how Margie makes a sugges—
tion regarding pairing students together to help them successfully write their stories. This
segment represents an early example of cooperative but critical examination of the ideas
Martha put forth in the conversation and establishing social norms for engaging in conver-
sation that include indirect questioning in the talk. Later in the discussion, Martha contin-

ued her think aloud with the group:

Martha The other thing that I would have them do is, what we used to call
seatwork, on the computer. Where the rest would be doing something else
that was work work or whatever was assigned. And for that day those
children would do that. And then the next day it would be rotated.

Margie More of a center approach, where they might do spelling

Martha Spelling programs, and your Science, you know, every subject.

Notice in this talk that Margie is much more subdued in sharing her opinions about
the plans Martha describes for an Intemet-based story starter project. In prior meetings,
Margie would have questioned and perhaps directly challenged Martha when she described
her ideas about the use of technology. Perhaps Martha was describing plans that were con-
sistent with the ones Margie had described in a prior meeting, and therefore Margie did not
disagree with them. It could also be that Margie is adopting a softer, more subtle approach
to examining other people’s ideas in her talk. It is also interesting in this segment that
Margie does not comment about her own plans for using technology, something she had not
been shy about doing in prior meetings. Whatever the implications, Martha shares clearly in

the segment her plans for technology use in her teaching.

64

During the same meeting, Margie talked about her sense of the value of this group

and where she thought the group should go in the future:

Margie See that’s kind of the problem I’m having is again here we are teacher’s
using it, and I mean you’re expressing to the kids but they aren’t really
using it. That’s where if I we’re going to direct this group I’d want to
focus more on what am I going to do in January when I take my kids,
what am I going to do with my kids? I want to know specifically how
now I can I take all this technology and make sure my kids aren‘t just
going in there and printing flowers. It’s boring.

Andy Right. And I think that’s the next step. If we’re comfortable that we’re
going to do this then we ought to take that next step. We ought to start
thinking about what we’re going to d o, and how it’s going to impact the
children.

Margie And then what you [to Martha] would be helpful for us to do for you by
the end of the year. If they ever came up with the writing program,
whatever writing program they were going to use, then it would

Again, in this segment, Margie is sharing her ideas, but not in a direct or confronta-
tional manner. She acknowledges the issue of development of first-grade reading and writ-
ing skills over the year and still puts forth her own concerns that much of the focus of
technology so far has been directed at teachers and not at students, an issue she has talked
about in prior meetings. Susan shared her belief that what is happening in the group was

helpful for her and could be used to help other teachers at the school:

Susan But this is what’s helpful is the nitty gritty.
Jessie Yeah.
Susan We’re down in the trenches right now and we’re really on here hands on,

asking questions, learning [and] that kind of thing. And it can start here.
And then perhaps if we work togethe r all year long on this. And next year,
each of us take one more teacher, or two more teachers, and work with
them and learn from them. They learn from us. Then, think how this is
going to spread throughout the whole school.

Andy Right.

Susan I mean does that make sense?

65

This short segment of transcript is an initial attempt by Susan to put a positive spin
on the work the group is doing, to share her own ideas about how the group could be even
more helpful to the others in the school, and to redirect the group to be more productive.

Towards the end of the meeting, Jessie, Susan and Margie all talked about the value of the

session:

Jessie I feel like we accomplished a lot today!

Andy Good

Susan This was good!

Margie Yes.

Susan I really feel like we accomplished a lot!

Jessie I’ve got a much better sense of you know maybe the direction that
Margie And a voice.

This meeting seemed to reflect the “calm after the storm,” and I remember at the
time wondering if the teachers were now committed to incorporating technology into their
teaching or if other factors might intervene to cause another session of venting anger and
frustration.

I characterize the discourse that emerged within the support group during this phase
as nurturing and indirect because it is more consistent with the way these teachers normally
engage in conversations among themselves. In this kind of discourse, people do not chal-
lenge each other directly, at least about issues they are strongly invested in, but rather dis-
agree indirectly in nonthreatening, subtle, and face-saving ways.

As I mentioned above, Margie was absent from the group following the meeting
held on November 20 and this resulted in Susan taking a leadership role in the group. There
are many instances in the data of Jessie and Martha’s deference to Susan in their talk and in
the tasks they work on as part of the group.

For example, in the meeting on December 4, when I met with Jessie and Susan in

Susan’s classroom after school, we negotiated setting the agenda:

66

Jessie
Susan

Andy
Susan
Jessie

Susan
Jessie
Susan
Jessie

Andy

Susan

Did you have a little agenda?

No, no, really I don’t. I did want to answer your question, Andy, at one
point you mentioned, “What did we think the purpose of this group was?”
I got to thinking about that and I thought three things. First of all, it means
a lot for me to share perhaps what I know, as little as I know. It’s good for
me to kind of review and say “Oh, yeah, I know that.” That gives me
confidence. The second thing is to glean from the other ones what they
know. And then the third thing is accountability. I don’t want to come and
admit or confess that I’ve not done anything. So it kind of forces me each
week to say, “Well, yeah, I was on, and I did this and I did that. That kind
of thing.” So those three things are meaningful for me in this group.
Good.

[To Jessie] What’s meaningful to you?

Well I am here just to learn anything I can possibly learn. And I feel like
no one is going to glean anything from me. [Laughter]

Oh Jessie, that’s not true!

I know, I am just here to glean from others. [Laughter]

That’s not true.

But I did forget some that I learned earlier about the borders and the
newsletter, [to Susan] remember when we did that? And I would sort of
just like to review that quickly if we could.

Sure. Well, it’s completely up to you guys. I do have an agenda but as
usual my agenda can wait.

No, well tell us what it is!

Notice in the segment how Susan recalls a question I had asked in a prior meeting

and clearly states her views on how the group is helpful to her. She did this partially for

Jessie’s benefit — to help her see that they are both novices at this computer thing and she

(Susan) is not afraid to admit that she doesn’t know much about technology and hasn’t used

it much, an indication of her feelings of trust within the group. You can also see in this

segment how Susan encourages Jessie to consider her own learning as a positive step.

Later in the same meeting, Susan encouraged Jessie to talk about how she thinks the

computer in her classroom is affecting her teaching:

Susan
Jessie

[To Jessie] Do you feel like it’s [the computer] changing you?
I don’t feel like I’ve given it my best shot. You know, I feel like if I put
more time into it. If I put as much time into this as I have into aerobics I’d

67

Susan

Jessie

Susan

Jessie
Susan

Jessie

Susan
Jessie

probably feel more qualified to say “Yes.” Um, I mean I’m feeling more
confident, but I don’t feel like I’ve really given it a good shot. I could do
more.

I told Andy I don’ know how many times, how this is changing me most is
that this has brought me to the level of the kids who don’t know how to
read. When they say, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand this. I don’t
[unintelligible].” And you want to say “Just sound it out!” you know, “Just
look at it!” [Laughter] I mean, Andy you know I don’t actually do that. It
has put me in their place. Do you understand what I’m saying?

I understand, it is, basically is what it comes down to if you talk with
people who are really pretty proficient, it’s just reading it, you know? You
just have to go to the directions, open up the software, and read it. You
know, and do it. But it’s hard to do that, it’s hard to read all those tedious
steps, and then follow it.

Well, and not only that, but if you skip two spaces when you only were
supposed to skip one, it won’t let you in there. I mean it has a mind of it’s
own. So it’s one step beyond reading directions. It’s understanding

and figuring out what you’re doing wrong.

But I’ll tell you, and I just can’t emphasize enough, how it has changed
my view, and having so much more empathy for a child that doesn’t
understand something. It is like, “Oh man, do I know how you feel! I
really, really understand how you feel.” Because I am a student at this. ‘
And I don’t understand a lot of this.

Well I think where it has changed me more is where it opens up the world.
I mean it’s like discovering books for the first time, you know it just opens
up everything wide open. You could just, you know if you’re a curious
person, you could just do this all day long. You play with it. You get into
one thing and then your curiosity encourages you to go on and on and
pretty soon you’re into something else. I could see where people could get
carried away and just sit in front of their computer all day and play with it.
Do you feel like you have time?

I haven’t, see I haven’t put in the time. I haven’t done that. But when I’ve
been on the Internet it’s been fun.

An interesting aspect of this conversation between Jessie and Susan is how Susan

uses an indirect and nonthreatening move to disagree with Jessie about the nature of tech-

nology when she says: “Well, not only that, but if you skip two spaces This is evidence

of Susan’s conversational style, which is consistent with her personality, through which she

tries to provide a safe and nurturing conversation for her peers without directly contradict-

ing them or aggressively challenging their statements.

68

On December 11, Martha, Susan, and I met in the computer lab to review a software
product that the district was considering purchasing for the second and third grade students.
During the conversation around this software, Susan and Martha talked about how Martha

might manage student access to the few computers in her classroom:

Martha They color it but I think if they wrote a report In second grade, we do
our reports on the computer and I notice that other schools do the very
same thing. So that would probably be the thing that you would use for
reports.

Susan Ok. Now how do you [to Martha] handle when one child wants to write a
report and the other wants to write a report at the same time? Do you set
the timer? Is everybody assigned a certain time? How do you work that?
Because in my room, it just seems like “Now it’s my turn. He’s been on
long enough!” How do you do that?

Martha I think it’s very hard. If we’re really doing reports though, and we have to
actually do them, then someone goes up there and types until they are
done, with their report.

Susan What if that takes two days?

Martha Um, I might go over there and help them but it would not take two days.
You know, it can only take like an hour. Their reports aren’t that good,
[laughter] I mean long. Excuse me, their reports aren’t that complicated.
They can sit there and they can do it in an hour. I’ve never had anybody

so maybe a paragraph.
Susan So I might get to it on the third day, or the second day.
Martha If you had to do that?
Susan No, but I mean if I was in your room.
Martha A week. I, I, that’s, I take a week on the ocean report and I take a week on

the insect reports. And I’d say that’s about five a day. And you try to
squeeze them in whenever you can. “Ok. It’s your turn. Now it’s your
turn.” And some are very fast, by second grade, by the end of second
grade. So, and they’re only a page. Big fonts!

Note in the segment above how Susan questions Martha about the way she manages
the problem of too many students and only a single classroom computer, but she does it in
a way that allows Martha to describe her approach without Susan being judgmental or
disagreeing with her. Also notice how Martha starts by admitting this is a difficult problem,
and that she doesn’t allow students to spend more than an hour writing because there re-

ports are not that long. I’m not convinced that Martha understands what Susan is asking her

69

— how she deals with students who take longer than the time allocated to finish their work
— but it’s interesting how Susan uses herself as an example of a students’ perspective and
to ask Martha about those children who might have trouble finishing on time .

Evidence of Susan’s emerging role as leader within the group also appears in my
field journal where I reported on a conversation I had with her after Martha left the meeting

on December 1]:

Susan talked about her feeling of freedom, of being able to speak her mind and
talk with a sense of authority and not being afraid or ashamed to talk, and I
commented on how she is now a spokesperson for the lower elementary teachers.
She mentioned that she had given the list of items we wanted to discuss to Martha
at the [technology committee] meeting, since Martha had actually written them
down at our last full meeting, and then Martha had given the list back to Susan
and she had been the one to talk at the school Technology Committee meeting. I
said this was a negotiation of power as spokesperson for the lower elementary
teachers where Martha chose to give that power to Susan.

At the next group meeting, held in Martha’s classroom before school on December
18, I met with Martha, Jessie and Susan and we spent most of the meeting looking for
software from MECC, an educational software company. Susan and Jessie both had talked
at prior meetings about how they loved the MECC software for the Apple 11 series comput-
ers and so we checked their website but could not find the software they were looking for on
the site. Martha pointed out that she had an Apple H in her room, which the group began
looking at, and we discovered that she also had most of the software Susan and Jessie were
looking for. Both Susan and Jessie got very excited about this, saying they felt as if they had
found an “old friend,” and the group decided to look into availability and pricing on Apple
11 computers for the next meeting after their Christmas break. Jessie had volunteered to visit
a local computer store to find out how expensive these Apple II computers would be and I
gave her a list of questions to ask.

In the group meeting on January 15, Jessie reported back to the group about what

she had found about the Apple 11 computers. I mentioned that the district might have used

70

Apple H computers that they would give to the teachers and Susan suggested to Martha that
she ask the district coordinator about that. Jessie then asked Susan if she should make an-
other call to follow up on the Apple 11 computers and Susan suggested she should. I began
to see these exchanges as evidence of how Susan had become the leader of the group, how
she had garnered the other teachers to work together, and how they had collectively devel-
oped a plan of attack and resolved these issues. Susan saw her role as helping to encourage
the others in the group towards resolution of these problems and acted as a coordinator of
their efforts outside the group meetings.

During the same meeting, when we were discussing the lack of money the district
had for purchasing more computers, Susan asked me: “All right, what can we do about
this?” I sensed that Susan was taking a very proactive stance towards the problem we had
identified, not enough computers in the school, and was pushing the group and herself to
figure out a way to resolve this issue.

After examining the way the group conversations changed when Susan joined the
group, when Margie was unable to attend, and even how the conversation looked when
Margie rejoined the group again in March, I saw evidence of changes in leadership that
shaped and influenced the conversations during the Group Deve10pment phase in an impor-
tant way. Evidence of leadership in a group manifests itself in a variety of ways — such as
managing conversations, introducing topics, changing topics, questioning positions, and
interrupting speakers, it is therefore helpful to identify patterns in discourse to uncover
these leadership roles. Leadership can also be seen as setting the group agenda, inviting
access to the conversational floor, and deference to others in a conversation. Leadership is
negotiated by group members as part of their initial work establishing common goals,
roles, and responsibilities and this reflects the structure of the group.

The group met again in February, and then in March, when another interesting event

occurred. I interviewed each of the group members and was interested in understanding

71

why Margie had not attended our sessions, something she attributed to lack of time, sched-
uling conflicts, and personal issues. When I interviewed Margie, however, she told me she
felt she was sharing her ideas with the group but not getting much from them in return.
During the interview, I also mentioned that the principal was considering moving some of
the computers out of the lab and putting them into the upper-grade level classrooms. Margie
expressed her concern over loosing the lab and the value it provided for her students and we
talked about what might happen at the school if the principal moved some of the computers
out of the lab.

Another interesting event happened in March when Margie rejoined the group after
missing all of our meetings since November. In this meeting, Margie and Susan had a dis-
agreement about where computers are best used in first grade — in the classroom or in a
central lab. In the segment that follows, Susan shifted her chair — which was close to
Margie’s — away from Margie’s and turned herself to look more directly at her during this
conversation. Notice in the transcript the overlapping speech and how Susan uses Margie’s
name, along with her use of “I”, to show her positioning on this issue. Also notice in the
segment below how Margie seems to back down from her challenge to Susan when she

says, “I have, not since, it depends on what you want them to read.”

Susan I think so too. If you gave me my choice I, I would go straight with
computers in my room.

Margie Just because it would make them more independent in the
classroom?

Martha Um hm.

Susan Yes.

Margie Because of whatever you did in the lab. But if you didn’t have the lab, to

go and have everyone working on Math Blaster and you going around to
help solve problems a couple of times, you know you would be spending
most of your time over there. I mean maybe you get one or two students
who had it at home to -

Susan - But I think there are some programs out there
Margie that -

Margie for some instruction -

72

Susan
Margie
Susan
Margie

Susan

Susan
Andy
Margie
Susan

Margie

Susan

Margie
Andy
Margie
Andy

Margie

Andy

Margie

Susan
Margie

- I think there are some programs out there.
- I mean, maybe if you had some -

- There are pictures,

- presenters in there you
could go over it,

- Yes. Margie

- there are some easy stuff on
that, like preschool kids
Yeah, and I think if you started out on that and then worked our way into
harder things, you know, you’ve got, the majority of your kids can read.

- [to Jessie] Yeah, if you’ve
got to go thanks for your time.
I have, not since, it depends on what you want them to read. But I mean -

- but I
think that there are some first grade programs that we could preview if
we can
I can kids of all different abilities and, you know, are the ones that are at
your upper level doing that activities that go with the upper level or are
they just doing ...?
No, you would have a variety of programs and I think that’s where more
money is going to have to be spent. We’re going to have to preview some
good programs and accommodate all kinds of Ieamers. I mean, that’s the
goaL
And if it goes, ok, so you’d, say if a parent brought you or donated a
program you could just put th at right on your ...?
Well and that’s other thing we’d have to talk about, because right now the
district wouldn’t let you do that. They would have to do that for you.
And if you had six computers, and one program, when you buy that one
program does that give you the right to add it to six computers?
It’s sticky. What they’d probably do would be to put that on the network
one person using it at a time but available to others.
But that would, but how could they put, if I brought in 10 programs, and
Susan found 12, and Jessie had, they can’t put all of those programs on
there can they?
Actually, they can .. the real problem is how can you share programs [he
explains how they might do it; one child using at a time; keep tracks of
that]
[to Susan] Susan, it sounds like you could go either way then. If the lab
was
Well I don’t want to lose the lab, -
- Ok.

73

Susan - I really don’t, unless you give to give me
more of the computers.

Andy Well, and that’s another -

Susan - but if you’re not going to give me more of the
computers then I’m not

Andy Right. Well and that’s another conversation to have. Would we be willing

to give up the lab, using the lab, if we could have as many computers as
we wanted, 4 or 5, whatever we came up with in the classroom, of
whatever type?

Susan Yeah, I do like the lab -

Andy - I understand that. But I’m saying, maybe we
could collectively say if we could have computers in the classroom, that’s
another position we could take. We may need to make a choice, we may
not be able to have both.

It seemed clear that even with Margie back in the group, Susan was considered the
leader, and Margie deferred to her in the conversation. Note that Susan engaged in a heated
discussion with Margie, but would not pick up on her challenge or accept her argument. It
seems that there was no uptake for Margie’s position, and Susan therefore refused to have a
direct confrontation on this issue.

This text is also important because it represents a serious pedagogical discussion
about an important issue for these teachers and the school: Where should limited computing
resources be used, in the classroom or in the lab? This issue of computer placement is
obviously important for the members of the support group, especially since they are not
likely to get more computers unless they acquire them personally, a topic we talked about in

prior meetings.

Talking about Technology leads to talking about teaching and learning

Talk about technology offers occasions for some of these teachers to examine their
own taken-for-granted assumptions and beliefs about teaching and learning. Throughout
the data collection period, the teachers engaged in a variety of pedagogical discussions
around educational technology. These conversations covered a variety of topics — from

student abilities to using games as educational tools — and have involved all group mem-

74

bers. Table 2 presents a short list of the pedagogical conversations that took place, with an
asterick indicating the conversation from which I will use transcript excerpts to support the

claim that technology offers a site for examining teacher beliefs about teaching and Ieam-

ing:

Date Topics discussed

October 9, 1997 Math Blaster - teaching students computational strategies
October 9, 1997 Key pals project - whole class versus. individual e-mail

October 23, 1997 Student abilities and educational software; limited reading and
writing abilities of first grade students

October 23, 1997 Quality of student work shared with others outside the classroom;
surface feature correctness

November 20, 1997 Value of using games for educational purposes; coordination,

patterns, etc.
January 1, 1998 Use of remedial software on Apple 11 computers - MECC software
*March 5, 1998 Instructional perspectives on lab versus. classroom-based
computers

Table 2

This assertion about the technology support group as a forum for teachers to make
their thinking public, is central to this research, with its focus on understanding the experi-
ences of these teachers as they learn about technology, especially how their beliefs and
knowledge about teaching and learning shape and are shaped by their plans for technology
use. These understandings are also essential in developing a productive environment for
sustainable professional growth and development. Analysis of these issues constitutes an
important part of the next chapter.

There is no question that the teachers in the support group talked about technology,
teaching and learning. Looking back, I saw this happen early in the early meetings when
Margie talked about her ideas for technology in her teaching — the whole-class key pal
writing activity — and other situations. What is important, however, is not just that these
teachers made explicit their plans and assumptions, but that the other people in the room

were not passive listeners while this was happening. Martha and Jessie were passive in their

75

listening to Margie in our early sessions — they did not question or challenge her, nor did
they ask her to specify her rationale or decision making logic for her planned use of technol-
ogy. Jessie’s personality and her role as leader helped to establish social norms in the early
sessions we had that ma y have influenced the other teachers to participate differently.

This issue of passive listening is critical to my research focus for the following
reasons: (a) it typifies what people normally associate with lower-elementary (i.e., middle—
class white female) discourse; (b) it is probably related to changes in group development
and norms for participation (i.e., teachers feeling more comfortable with disagreement and
dissent as acceptable parts of the conversations this group has); and (c) the teachers’ discus-
sions about non-assertiveness of lower-elementary teachers, Margie’s comments about their
silence in staff meetings, their unwillingness to speak up to question or challenge their
principal, and her talk about the power of the group as a voice for them in the school, all
suggest that members of the group may not have become as critical or thoughtful as they
have if norms for participation had not changed.

When Susan joined the group in November, she acted as a critical friend to her peers
by questioning them and challenging their ideas in a comfortable and safe way. The mutual
respect and trust required for these teachers to engage in this kind of talk took time to
develop and grow, a process that is still underway. Perhaps most importantly, Susan and
Margie argued in a meeting on March 5 about pedagogical issues — the use of computers in
the lab versus in the classroom —-— which was an instance of the kind of critical discourse I
was hoping to stimulate in the group.

It was later, in the meeting I had with Martha and Jessie on October 23, that I pushed
these teachers not only to talk about their plans — focusing on pragmatic issues of how they
would use e-mail in the lab — but also to consider alternative perspectives. I wanted them
to hold their own positions up to scrutiny and consider as valid possibilities the scenarios I
was giving. I am not convinced that Jessie was able to engage in this critical reflection

during that early meeting, but the segment below helps to illustrate the potential. When I

76

met with Martha and Jessie we discussed pedagogical issues related to their planned use of
e-mail as a tool for their students. In the conversation, the issue of surface feature correct-
ness came up and resulted in some insight into what these teachers consider when they
think about constructing classroom activities around technology — in this case, the use of
e-mail for a key pals project. I used the meeting to try to push the two teachers to make
explicit their assumptions about technology, teaching, and learning so that we might exam-
ine these assumptions within the group context.

In the segment of transcript that follows, we had begun to talk about the quality of e-

mail messages that students might write, whether parents might be involved in this process,

and the possible value of e-mail as a motivator for student writing:

Martha You know what? They were talking about having the children write what
they’re going to type in the classroom and then take it to the lab.

Jessie Edit it before they take it to the lab?

Martha Copy it, Yeah.

Jessie Ok.

Martha That would be an extra step, you’d have to run around and try to edit ..

Jessie Um hm. Um hm.

Martha then now we’re going to the lab so we can type papers.

Jessie to type it.

Martha Then we type it. Then we’re still going to have to, then maybe the parent
could edit from there?

Jessie Um hm.

Martha I mean there would still might be typos, typing errors.

Jessie That’s true. That’s true.

Andy Well ..

Martha The child could. Oh you think leaving the typos on there?

Andy I, I’m, I’m understanding what you’re saying completely.

Jessie Um hm.

Martha Yeah. Yeah.

Andy And I’m offering another perspective, and that is if this were an
opportunity for these students to both communicate with a peer but also
use that as an opportunity to learn to communicate.

Martha They might edit, they might sit there and say “Oh.” You would say “You

want that person to know what you’re saying” So maybe they would take
that extra time to look at what they’ve printed and say “Does it match?”
You know, like daily oral language -

77

Jessie

Andy

Jessie
Martha
Jessie

Well I think it would be very helpful to the child to take the time to work
one-on-one and say, “Now we need a comma here. Why do we need a
comma here?” and use it as kind of a teaching -

- Use it as an opportunity to
teach, absolutely.

- time.
Yeah. Um hm.

- And then fix it
a little bit and then send it. I would hate to put the burden on the child
because who knows, if the child receiving it -

Andy & Martha Um hm.

Jessie

Andy

Jessie
Andy

Jessie
Andy
Jessie

- wasn’t so good at grammar either,
you know.
And it might be awkward too, you know, they might get a message that
says [“I can ’t understand what you ’re saying. "] These students
communicating with their peers somewhere else in the world I think is a
tremendous incentive and motivation for them to want to communicate
effectively. And that could be used to your advantage in terms of learning
to communicate. Because my guess is that there might be students for
whom this would really be a factor now, they’d really get excited about it
so they’d want to learn what is the right way to spell ..
“I have something to say. I have a very important question.”
Exactly! And if that’s part of this whole process, then now we’re talking
about something really exciting. So think about it.
Umhm.
I appreciate your concern.
I know in first grade they’re going to say “Hi. My name is. I am six years
old. Do you like school?” You know, it’ll be very predictable.

This conversation suggests that these teachers, when talking about the practical is-

sues related to using technology in their teaching, can engage in substantive discussions

about pedagogical issues that make public their taken-for-granted assumptions about teach-

ing, learning, and technology. In this case, we had an interesting conversation about the

nature of e-mail as a means of communication, the kind of writing that first graders might

generate, whether these e-mail messages need to be “cleaned up” by someone before being

sent, and whether sending imperfect e-mail messages might in fact help excite students

about improving their writing skills.

78

My role in the group during this meeting was to push these teachers in a nonthreat-
ening way to think about and perhaps question their assumptions about teaching, learning
and technology. In effect, I was trying to be a critical friend and to help them consider their
assumptions about their students in this situation. I wonder how effective I was at this
though, given my status as an outsider (i.e., non-teacher), the reluctance in Jessie’s talk to
really consider what I was saying, and the way I went about trying to offer an alternative
view.

A later conversation we had on March 5, an excerpt from which appears one page
93, represents the kind of pedagogical discussion this group is capable of generating and I
believe is evidence of the power of this group to encourage and support thoughtful, critical
examination of beliefs. The key to helping these teachers engage in these kinds of conversa-
tions is creating a nurturing an environment in which they feel safe and can talk Without
fearing evaluation, to allow the social norms for communication to evolve to support these
kinds of conversations, and to facilitate participation in these conversations without di-
rectly challenging these teachers or allowing them to become passive listeners.

As further evidence of the development of this safe environment for teacher talk
within the group, I offer the following excerpt from the same meeting (March 5) in which
the teachers talked about their uses of technology in the lab and in the classroom, and how

these uses might change their teaching practices and their students’ learning:

Jessie And a lot of parents have computers so these children go home and play
video games.
Margie And, I mean, it’s not that I like, I dislike, and again it sounds like it’s

changed but I feel like they’re writing on the computer, they’re using it as
a tool, and they play games, you know in the classroom, and I just feel like
I have enough going on where they’re getting their exposure and

Susan With between the lab and

Margie Right, right. They’re getting all these [unintelligible], they’re doing some
very simple word processing, they’re getting to see a product, they’re
seeing it in school

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Susan
Margie
Susan
Margie

Andy
Margie

Jessie
Margie

Susan
Margie

Susan

Andy

Margie
Andy
Margie

Jessie

Margie

But they could do that every day if you had some computers in your room.
Well, -

- I’ve got kids who want to chunk out stories every day.
Yeah, I guess, right now I’m helping them so much with what they’re
doing, and using it more as a tool for punctuation and capitalization, and
you know, let’s look at it again, and then they pull it out and that’s their
finished product. But I wouldn’t be able to do that with them if they were
just kind of doing it all on their own. And they get stuck a lot, you know,
like “Well somehow this line got down here”
“How did I do that?”
“I’m not sure what that is?” You know, maybe right now, and maybe after
spring break, because we’ve done it so often in the lab, since January, that
they may just sit down and do something and once they get stuck, I mean,
granted it would be nice to have, and maybe a bonus to have them
networked because everything you have down there would be available in
the classroom but I just don’t think
Well, I love it, you know, I take it for granted. That’s why it’s a little bit
scary to think it might not be here because I definitely take it for granted.
[To Susan] Do you have your kids working, are they constantly working
on your computer during the day?
Pretty much so, it’s on and somebody’s got it most of the time.
Do you feel that I mean besides playing and getting exposure to the
computer and that it’s really beneficial?
Well, their favorite thing is Math Blasters, so they’re learning,
practicing math.
The other thing that both of you have talked about is motivation. The child
who is disconnected from other types of learning may be engaged in
learning, and again, the question is, if you only have one of these,
that’s a pain, but you could target them to specific things, then you’re
really talking about something.
That’s a change too in your teaching style.
Right.
Because, you know my kids are at the computer and I have no idea what
they’re doing because I’m back in the reading group working with kids or
and they’re playing. I tried to set out five disks that I thought would be
disks that they already kind of knew but it would be kind of great for them
to have some reinforcement but they know where the other ones are, the
kids who could be doing something much more difficult, and it’s, so they

Oh they’re so honest, they just, they really are. They choose the things

they enjoy and you can see how popular programs are, just ask them.
And that’s good too, but that’s just not the same learning environment.

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Andy Sure, and this question of fun. It’s a lot of fun but is there any learning
going on? My son plays video games, and I’m sure there’s some learning
going on, but is it the kind of learning I want? Is it the kind of learning that
people are going to say, “Well, you ought to be accountable for that” you
know, learning at school. It’s fun but what else ..

.Jessie But there are strategies in the games so they’re doing some

Margie They’re problem solving. Yeah.

This excerpt shows again how these teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning,
and their implicit assumptions about the benefits of technology, permeate their talk about
the be nefits of technology as they compare using computers in the lab versus the class-
room. Notice that Margie initially talks about her students using the computer in the lab as
a tool for writing, which she feels is important because students are getting exposure and
seeing a product of their work.

Also notice how Susan challenges Margie’s position when she says, “But they could
do that every day if you had some computers in your room.” Margie responds with “Well,
Yeah, I guess,” implying that she might see Susan’s point, but she clearly states the problem
with classroom computers in her response to Susan: “But I wouldn’t be able to do that with
them if they were just kind of doing it on their own.” In other words, Susan’s talk about
students using computers in the classroom implies a level of independence that Margie does
not believe her students have yet.

Margie questions Susan about whether her students are using the single classroom
computer in her room during the day and follows this up with a question about how they are
using it. Notice in her comment to Susan that Margie disparages using the computer for
games, but also that she turns around on her own position of the benefit of students getting
exposure when she asks if that is “really beneficial?” Susan counters with a claim that her
students are learning math because they are using Math Blaster, which gives them practice.

But Margie offers her own insight into the position Susan is putting forth when she

claims, “That’s a change, too, in your teaching style.” She goes back to her opposition to

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students using classroom computers with the point that she cannot keep track of or assess
student learning because she is occupied in the room with other students. Margie finally
brings up the issue of whether students’ enjoyment of computer software is in fact reflective
of learning, a point that I followed up on in my own comment about video games.

In this conversation there is some serious pedagogical talk covering a broad range
of issues, but most focuses on the impact of using computers in the lab versus the class-
room. This conversation was a good example of the kind of discussion that is possible when
technology is brought into a school, because it allows teachers to make public their assump-
tions about teaching and learning as they talk about pedagogical issues and uses of technol-
ogy in their teaching. These conversations represent an opportunity for the participants to
examine critically their own taken-for—granted assumptions about teaching, learning, and
technology in order to think about making pedagogically appropriate choices in their class-
rooms.

As an aside, Susan later shared with the group her work outside our meetings to
bring more computers into her classroom. It seems that Susan was at a dinner and found
herself sitting next to the vice president for donations at Ford Motor Company. She asked
the VP. if Ford ever donates computers to K-12 schools and he indicated that they did, so
Susan asked him if they would donate 12 computers to her school. The VP. asked Susan to
write a letter to him asking for the computers and describing how they would be used,
which Susan did before our March 5 meeting.

To summarize my observations and assertions from the most recent phase of group
development, there is evidence of changes in the norms for participation during this phase
that coincide with Margie’s absence from the group and Susan’s emergence as a leader.
Susan’s conversational style, exemplified by her cooperative and nurturing nature, allowed
the other teachers in the group — Jessie and Martha — to begin to engage in thoughtful

discussions about their beliefs, knowledge, and experiences with technology.

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There is evidence of pedagogical conversations during all phases of group develop-
ment, but the conversation the group engaged in on March 5 represents a good example of
the kind of thoughtful and critical discussion of an important issue — whether moving
computers from a central lab to individual classrooms is beneficial for these teachers and
their students. These pedagogical conversations reflect the kinds of participation I was hop-
ing to find in this group, which I defined in Chapter 2 as collegial interactions, and are a
resource for the group members for their own professional development.

These pedagogical conversations also provide a lens through which to examine what
these teachers believe and know about teaching, learning, and technology — the focus of
my original research questions. In the next chapter I look more closely at these conversa-
tions, paying particular attention to the topics discussed and what was said during these

discussions related to teaching, learning and technology.

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CHAPTER 5
THE CRITICAL REVIEW

In the previous chapter, I described the development of the technology support
group examining the patterns of participation by group members and changes in these
patterns over time. I focused on the nature of the group conversations, paying special
attention to the ways each of the teachers construed their interactions and the influences
on the individuals who participated in these discussions. Out of this analysis came my
assertions about the nature of the group and how it afforded these teachers opportunities
to share their beliefs and knowledge and to have pedagogical conversations about tech-
nology and related issues. Patterns of teacher participation in the group activities were
influenced by a variety of factors which in turn shaped the kinds of conversations we had
in the group.

In this chapter I focus on the content of the conversations, examining how these
teachers’ beliefs and knowledge shaped and were shaped by their planned use of technol-
ogy. My analysis draws on the conversations, the interviews I conducted with the group
participants, and my field notes. This attention to what these teachers talked about brings
me back to my original research questions and helps focus my analysis at another level:
What knowledge and beliefs do these teachers hold about teaching, learning and technol-
ogy? How do these beliefs and knowledge shape the plans these teachers made for using
technology? How might these beliefs and knowledge have changed over time as these
teachers participated in the group activities?

In accordance with my original research question, I developed an assertion draw-

ing on the data I collected about teacher beliefs and knowledge.

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Existing teacher knowledge and beliefs

These teachers hold beliefs and have knowledge about teaching, learning,
and technology which they reveal in their talk. There is strong evidence in the literature
on teacher learning and change that teachers have beliefs and knowledge that they bring
to any teaching situation. For example, Richardson (1990) argued that teachers’
perceptions and beliefs about themselves as teachers and learners shape their actions. In
order to understand how the teachers in the support group planed to incorporate
technology into their teaching, it was therefore essential to understand how they think
about teaching, learning, and technology. These beliefs and knowledge were revealed in
the interviews I conducted with each of the group members and in the conversations we

had in the group.

Susan on Teaching, Learning and Technology

Susan exemplifies an “ethic of caring” (Noddings, 1986), viewing her role as a
teacher as providing a loving and mutually respectful environment for her students. She
believes that children can learn best when they are in a safe and nurturing environment.

When asked to describe her teaching practices, Susan said:

Oh, I think I put a lot more emphasis on the affective than the cognitive. I believe
that if that is set in place then the cognitive naturally comes. If a child feels secure
and loved in the classroom, then when you present the material they are receptive.
They have to have a love and respect for you. You have to have a love and respect
for them. Um, I believe in taking each child where they are, whether they, for
example in here I have [student name] who I’m not convinced know his letters,
and I have [student name] who is reading on a second or third grade level. So, you
take each child where they are and work with them and make them feel good
about themselves put emphasis on their self esteem. Utmost, utmost important. So
I think that I respect each child for themselves, [as an] individual.

Susan also talked about the importance of first grade for laying the foundation for
future learning and described her teaching approach as open-ended where she sometimes

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must improvise. She sees teaching as a form of social interaction, something that is itself
uncertain, and that the key to helping students learn is making them feel comfortable,
encouraging them to play and explore, and providing them with a safe but stimulating
environment. Susan also maintains an open and public classroom, where parents come in
to help her each day and her students are a community with collective responsibility to
ensure everyone in the classroom learns and grows.

Susan has a broad conception of education and recognizes the uncertainty and
spontaneity in her own teaching. She also talked about individualizing her instruction for
each child, even developing a specific curriculum for children with special needs, and
giving those students who need it reinforcement of basic skills. This individualization is
based on her assessment of the individual needs of each child in her classroom. Susan
feels that an important aspect of learning is agency or control over learning, and that
children learn mostly through exploration and discovery, but that individual student needs
must be attended to by a teacher.

Susan shared her views in an interview when I asked her if she individualized in

her classroom:

Susan Yeah, I do that, I do that kind of now, Andy. I try to individualize. I don’t
have reading groups. I meet with each child on their own and I’ve been
known to rip out as many as 10 workbook pages and throw them out
because a child doesn’t need that, to plug through that, whereas another
child not only needs that but perhaps needs a kind of reinforcement.

Andy Supplemental?

Susan Um hm, you do, you have to individualize. I think you could, there’s a
way, there’s a way you, you can go ahead and do what’s required of you in
the curriculum and yet put frosting on the cake.

Regarding technology, Susan talked a lot about her sense of external pressure to
use it in her classroom, feeling it acts as a motivating factor for her students’ learning,
and wanting her students to be comfortable and confident using technology when they
leave her classroom. Susan is working to become a friend with her computer and, as with

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her own views about learning, she sees technology as an extension to the kind of relation-

ships she has with people. She believes her computer “has a mind of its own” and it

frustrates her when it doesn’t do what she wants it to do or does something she doesn’t

understand:

Susan

Andy

I’ve learned that technology can be a friend as well as a foe. It can be
frustrating but if you’re patient and bear with it a little bit I think that you
can really, it can be an asset a real asset. I learned that teaching is entirely
different with that tool than it was when I first began. We’re in a whole
new ball game, a whole new ball game. And I’ve learned that change
better be a part of your thinking or you’re in trouble because this is the
way it is, this is just the way it is. And you’re going to be left in the dust if
you close your door to it and not accept it. It really, really could. It’s
funny Andy, I feel embarrassed that it’s been so long in becoming an
advocate for this. I had, I don’t know why I had to climb over so many
hurdles, that there were so many, you know everything fiom there’s a big
machine there that has a mind of it’s own, to half the time it doesn’t work,
to Great Scott there’s a world out there with a lot of evil stuff in it I don’t
want anything to do with let alone expose my kids to it, to what’s the use
there’s no money for any more anyway, so psychologically, I do think after
two years I’m excited. Thanks to you. You had a major, major hand in it. If
you would have said last year, “You will fight for a computer in your
home,” I would have

You would have laughed.

From these examples, you can see that Susan views many things she does inside

and outside the classroom as relational, focusing on the affective and emotional aspects

of her work as a teacher. She also sees technology in a similar way she views her interac—

tions with her students and her peers-as a form of relationship between herself and her

computer. She talks above about wanting to be a friend with her computer, and in the past

has said she “held the computer at arms length,” indicating her relational distance from it

when she was first learning to use it. This view of teaching, learning, and technology

permeates her talk and her thinking and is an important part of how she sees herself as a

teacher.

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Jessie on Teaching, Learning, and Technology

Jessie described student learning as information gathering and believes that
learning usually occurs through trial and error. She therefore focuses on practice and
repetition for her students, stressing the value of learning skills such as reading, writing,
addition, and subtraction. Jessie also described important elements of learning as agency
or control, engagement, interest, and motivation. She recognizes that when students are
having fun they are more engaged and interested in their learning, but how she connects
this idea to her sense of repetition and remediation is not clear.

Jessie described her classroom as caring; she tries to help her students develop a
joy of learning, and prepare them for second grade. She is disciplined, but allows for
change in her teaching. Jessie stresses the importance of motivating students, finding
ways to get them interested in the subject matter, and helping them pay attention to the
material she is covering.

Jessie also talked about teaching as presenting information to students in a way
that maps onto their own existing knowledge. When asked to compare how her own

learning in the support group compared with her students she said:

Well that’s so similar to the way first graders’ teach, children come to school with
a certain amount of knowledge and we try to motivate them to learn, and we do
this by keeping it relevant, and keeping it interesting, and that’s really what
you’ve done with us.

In a conversation about technology, and how hard it is to learn to use, Jessie said:

...basically is what it comes down to if you talk with people who are really pretty
proficient, it’s just reading it, you know? You just have to go to the directions,
open up the software, and read it. You know, and do it. But it’s hard to do that, it’s
hard to read all those tedious steps, and then follow it.

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From these comments, it seems that Jessie sees technology as a domain of knowl-
edge comprising factual information that can be learned by reading and doing things on
the computer. While she recognizes that this domain is vast, she may not see it as dy-
namic, changing, and uncertain. Jessie said in a meeting on November 6 that she feels
first-grade teachers are “always putting out fires,” and has stressed the differences be-

tween first grade students and other students when it comes to teaching.

Margie on Teaching, Learning, and Technology

Margie talked in her initial interview about the need to cover the curriculum and
the importance of having a firm but caring classroom environment. She feels that her
students should learn what is expected of them, based on the curriculum, and she is strict
about discipline, stressing the importance of actions and consequences in her classroom.
Margie also maintains a classroom open to visitors, often inviting parents in to help out.
She tries to maintain a classroom environment where learning is fun, and where she
recognizes individual strengths and weaknesses in her students. When asked to describe
herself as a teacher, Margie said:

Well, I like to have fun while they’re learning at the same time. I’m probably

stricter then, I like order and I like the kids to know what’s going to happen, what

my expectations are, and what the consequences are. And I just feel that whether

you’re at fourth grade or first grade it just makes everything work better. Um, I

say stricter in the sense that I follow through with consequences Besides that,

just that I try to follow the curriculum. At fourth grade I ended up getting caught
up in all fun stuff and then moving down to first grade allowed me to focus down
on the curriculum. So that I can actually get through the required curriculum.

But I do try to make it firn and I constantly am changing, you know as I have a

plan for the day but as I can see something work or didn’t work I am constantly
changing the game plan for the kids.

Margie has been the most vocal person in the group in terms of sharing her beliefs

about learning and the possible role technology might play in her teaching. She has said

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on several occasions that she learns best on her own and when she has a desire to learn

something. She has also been explicit about her planned use of technology and on more

than one occasion talked about her own views of learning:

Margie

Margie

Margie

You learn it when you do it because you need it. It’s hard to sit and learn it
when you’re not really doing anything. You need to learn when you do. I
really just had to figure it out for myself. (10/09/97)

But I think that’s how we learn how to use things when you say ‘Boy, at
parent night I would love to present my information that way. I think it
would be impressive for the parents. It would be good for me.’ And then
you go out and do it. (1 1/20/97)

If you’re driven to do it yourself, but for someone to tell you you have
to do it. Or for you just to be doing it because someone else did it and it
looked really cool. But if it is something you really want to do I think
that’s why we get in there and learn. Like with the newsletter. I knew what
I wanted to do, it took a while to figure out how to get it the way I wanted
it, but when it’s something you want do then you go after it. (11/20/97)

These and other comments indicate that Margie believes she learns by exploring,

by doing, and by figuring things out, but she does not talk about her students’ learning in

a similar way. I suspect that the reason for this is the age group and developmental abili-

ties of her first-grade students. Margie thinks that her students’ limited reading abilities

prevent them from engaging in the kind of exploratory or guided learning that older

students and adults might thrive on .

Margie has talked about teaching as transferring knowledge and skills to students

and says that “sometimes you just have to figure things out and learn as you go.” She has

also shared her belief that first-grade activities by their nature are more teacher-based

than upper-elementary activities which tend to be student-based. Margie spoke in her

initial interview about her own focus on covering the curriculum and helping her students

be prepared for the second grade. She believes that an important part of student learning

is practice and reinforcement and has talked about the value of technology for her stu-

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dents as a tool that allows them to have fun while learning. Margie also believes that
teaching is contextualized and therefore her experiences and opinions may not be helpful
or generalize to other teachers.

Margie views technology as a tool for her own work and for her students, often
talking about the value of learning to use specific software-like a word processor-as an
important part of preparing students for future learning. She also views the computer as
an important tool for students because it can help them generate products of their learn-
ing, something Margie feels is important for students and for parents. She is confident
with technology, but is interested in learning more about how technology can help her
students. She also takes a critical stance towards technology and recognizes the limits of

software for most of her students who cannot read when they enter first grade.

Martha on Teaching, Learning, and Technology

Of all the teachers in the group, Martha has been most careful and guarded about
letting me know what she believes, although glimpses of her thinking emerge from her
talk. She believes that teachers must take the curriculum and adjust it to fit the needs of
their students. Martha also believes that students will learn when they are excited and
motivated, and that part of her job is to make sure her students enjoy learning. She has
talked about her belief that learning occurs when students are physically moving, because
they are more attentive, which results in students being more focused and involved.

Martha strives to develop a caring, warm, and happy classroom environment for
her students. She focuses on individual children and gears her teaching to their develop-
mental level. Much of this individualization is targeted at remedial or enrichment activi-
ties. She sees her job as helping to make “the curriculum come alive” for her students and

believes that children learn when they are engaged, listening, and attentive. She also

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recognizes that different students have different ways of learning and she works to iden-
tify and present her materials in ways that support each child’s needs.

Martha regards individual control or agency over learning as important, and she
strives to help her students become more independent in their learning. She talks about
the importance of options in learning, her goal of helping her students gain an apprecia-
tion for learning, and that self esteem is a key aspect of what she tries to provide for her
students. She realizes that some students will learn by “just fooling around but it’s never
clear then, no one says ‘Yes, this is the way, you know, you did it right.”’

Martha has talked about her belief that students can teach or mentor each other:
“One child can teach the rest.” On the other hand, Martha also talks about the need for
repetition and remediation in her teaching. Although Martha did not talk explicitly about
her beliefs, she says things that suggest she is reflecting on her own teaching and how
technology might affect what she does. For example, on several occasions Martha ques-
tioned her own thinking about an issue and talked about needing to keep an open mind.
She also said in the follow-up interview: “I guess you can learn more from listening than
you can from talking.”

Martha believes that technology is a vast domain: every time you learn one
thing there’s ten more things to learn. you could go on and on and on.” Martha believes
that the computer is sort of like a library, where students can choose what they want to
learn, and that the Internet offers her students access to the world beyond the classroom.
She also recognizes that when students learn on the computer, “..it’s not so negative.
There’s no negative feedback. If they get the wrong answer it’s not a negative feedback

from Math Blaster but then they do, they go back and do it right away.”

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Common and Difierent Beliefs within the Group

Although these four teachers share some basic beliefs about teaching and Ieam-
ing, there are also important differences in their conceptions of teaching, learning, and
technology.

For example, all the teachers talk about creating a fun, caring, and nurturing
environment for their students, about the importance of building students’ self-esteem, of
motivating them, and the importance of attention and agency in learning. They all talk
individually and collectively about their sense of external expectations placed on them
from outside their classrooms to use technology in their teaching.

These teachers differ, however, in some of their beliefs about teaching, learning,
and technology. Jessie, Susan, and Margie all feel an important part of their role as first—
grade teachers is to prepare their students for second grade. Jessie and Margie talk about
teaching as presenting or transferring information to their students, a common belief that
teaching is telling and learning is listening. Margie and Jessie both stress the importance
of discipline in their classrooms, while Susan and Margie believe that learning sometimes
occurs via exploration, Margie doubts that her students are capable of learning in this
way.

Each of these teachers also holds unique beliefs about teaching, learning, and
technology. Susan, for example, accepts the uncertainty and spontaneity in her teaching,
while Martha talks about the importance of physical movement in helping her students
stay focused on an activity. With regard to technology, Jessie sees it as a domain of
factual knowledge and procedures that you just have to memorize or look up in a book,
while Margie talks about her own beliefs that technology is simply a tool for her students

t0 use.

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These beliefs and knowledge play an important role in how these teachers make

sense of and plan for technology in their teaching. This leads to my next assertion.

Teacher beliefs and knowledge shape their understandings of technology

The teachers’ beliefs and knowledge of teaching and learning shapes their
understanding of educational technology. These beliefs constrain and afford different
points of view or possibilities for their planned use of technology in their teaching.

Putnam and Borko (1996) suggest that teachers interpret and construct new
practices through the filter of their existing knowledge and beliefs. To understand how
the teachers in this support group talked, planned, and thought about using technology, it
is essential to look back at their beliefs and knowledge as a filter through which they

might understand and construct new teaching practices with technology.

Susan’s Plans for Teaching with Technology

Susan’s goals for her students’ use of technology are similar to her own goals for
technology. She wants her students to have a healthy relationship with computers, to be
confident and unafraid in using them:

I figure, if our main goal can be to have these kids be comfortable and be a friend

to this computer then we will have done something that has taken me years to do.

I’m just now becoming friends with this thing thanks to Andy, but if we can lay

that foundation, that they are comfortable with it, they’re not afraid to make

mistakes, they’re not afraid to use a program, they’re not afraid to punch in a key,
whatever, think of how far ahead they are. (1 1/20/97)

These goals for students reflect Susan’s own experiences with technology as she

has become more comfortable and confident using it:

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Susan It was a natural progression, that I had to make friends with it, that I had to
conquer it. Now, now I’m ready to be the instrument to help the kids really
learn from it but I was so hesitant. I held it at arms length, and it was like a
resource that I thought, ‘Gosh, what am I going to do with that thing?’ Do
you know what I mean?

Andy Yeah.

Susan I don’t feel that way any more. I don’t feel that way any more. Now, I’m
beginning to think “Wow,” you know, I’ve just seen [student name ] who
hasn’t been enthusiastic about anything, except perhaps the keyboard.
Wow! That’s mighty. (1 1/20/97)

Towards the end of data collection period, when I interviewed Susan and asked
her about her plans for technology for the future, she told me she had re-thought her ideas
and had come up with some new ways of thinking about technology in her teaching.
Susan met a Vice President (VP) from Ford Motor Company at a social gathering and
asked him if Ford donates computer equipment to schools. The VP said they did and
Susan asked what she might do to get some computers donated to her school. The VP
asked Susan to write him a letter requesting 10-12 computers and Susan has written that
letter and is now waiting to see if she gets them. This is further evidence of Susan’s active
stance towards resolving a key problem in her school and classroom: not enough comput-
ers to support her students learning. In the follow-up interviews, I asked Susan about her

plans for those computers next year:

Andy So tell me more about how this classroom would look and feel for a
student and for you if you got those computers.
Susan Oh, it would be wonderful. I would have to revamp lessons in a major

way. I would hope there’d be all kinds of programs that would
individualize and whereas one child needs help with everybody could
kind of go and you could present maybe a whole-class thing, and perhaps
present a story, and then, there are so many neat things you could do.
Another person could take off and write a chapter two for that story.
Another person could perhaps develop a poem about that story. Another
person could make up for example Curious George, a math program,

Andy Counting program?

Susan Right. It’s going to take some work, I think it would really take some
psychological change in your thinking

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Andy
Susan
Andy
Susan

Andy
Susan

Andy

Susan
Andy

Susan

Andy
Susan
Andy
Susan

The curriculum, what do we do with the curriculum? What you’re describe

it almost sounds like reinventing the curriculum.
I think I might be -

Hmm. So what would it be about the computers that would be different for
these kids than what you’re doing?

They wouldn’t be hearing my voice all the time. They would be self-
exploring, they would be learning, they would be discovering.

So they would have control, more control over

Exactly. I get tired of hearing my own voice, I know they do too. And it’s
not that I talk all day long but it’s when you’re giving instruction to one
child or giving, whereas I could say to Joey who excels in math

“Joey, there‘s a program on the computer that I want you to

solve these problems for us today and report to the class and then I’d like
you to write up a little thing about it,” so that ok, he’s got the math, and
the reading, and the writing, and you’re implementing all that, I would
have to sort through all of that but I’m excited about the possibility of
being able to do that.

So the computer would allow the student to work in an environment where
they would be learning in a way that would be consistent with the way you
would teach?

Yes, and on an individual basis.

But on an individual basis, whereas it would be very hard to do that
without because you’ve got 20 kids in here.

So it would be just an outstanding tool, it would be like an assistant
teacher in the room.

It would be like Kristen. Having another intern.

Right, but yet the child feels better because they are in control.

Ok. So that’s a key point.

That is for me.

You can see by her comments that Susan believes bringing computers into her

classroom will require changes to the curriculum and to her teaching. While her descrip-

tions of how activities would look with technology are somewhat vague, she does seem

to recognize that her own thinking will need to change and that her current way of teach-

ing-which she describes as individualizing-will allow her to use computers to focus on

the specific needs of individual students. She also talks about how students would be

exploring and discovering on the computer, something she believes is an important way

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students learn, and having more computers in the room would be like having assistant
teachers in her class.
During her follow-up interview, I pressed Susan to talk more about her plans for

technology, specifically asking her about using computers for remediation:

Susan Give me one [computer for] remediation maybe. But when you think of
the programs that you could put on that and then if the child chooses to get
on the Internet.

Andy So you think the Internet is a key part?

Susan I really do, I really do, used in the appropriate [and] proper way. It scares
the willies out of me, but Oh boy, there’s a whole new world out there,
there’s a whole world out there that I better get with it and be a part of
because I don’t want to be left in the dust, you know, one of those fuddy-
duddy teachers who doesn’t know anything.

Thus, Susan sees the computer as supportive of her own ideas about individualiz-
ing her instruction to meet student needs. She also plans to use the Internet in her class-
room next year in other areas, if she can get some more Windows/95 computers in her
room, and she sees it as a valuable resource for her students. Consistent with her views of
teaching, Susan sees technology in a relational way, with her goals being driven by her
beliefs that her students should be comfortable and confident using a computer. These
goals are also consistent with her own plans for her learning about technology.

Susan views her own learning, as well as that of her students, as a journey to-
wards a better relationship with the computer. The affective aspects of this perspective
come forth in her talk about her own experience with technology, as well as in her plans
for her students use of technology. This is especially salient when she talks about her
observation that one of her students, who has been disconnected from learning in her
classroom, got excited and motivated when using the computer. This event suggests to
her that the computer might be a tool for further individualizing student needs, by helping

her reach those students who are otherwise missing out on her teaching.

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Jessie’s Plans for Teaching with Technology

Jessie talked about using technology in her classroom, and in the computer lab, as
a tool to support remedial learning and as a way of keeping her more challenging students
productively engaged. She also talked about her hopes of having Apple 11 computers in
her room so she can use them for skill building activities. When I asked Jessie how she
might use these computers in her room, she said:

You know, in all honesty, I think what I would find most helpful right now would

be to establish in the classroom some of these extra computers for children to

work on, get some really good first grade programs where they could learn, and it

would be you know for remedial kinds of things, and figure out how to get the
computers working in our first grade. (11/20/97)

Jessie talked about other programs she had used in another elementary school:

And there were remedial. You know, a child could go on and you know you really
felt they were getting a good review of a lot of stuff that’s the kind of thing in a
classroom, you know we were talking about having six [computers], if you could
just put them on and have them alternate it would be excellent!

Later on in the same meeting (12/18/97) Jessie talked about how she might use
these remedial programs in her classroom: “Yeah. And then you put these students on
who drive you crazy because of their hyperactivity, and I mean it saves the rest of the
classroom while they’re actually learning.”

When asked in a follow-up interview how she thought using computers would
help her students learn, Jessie said:

First of all, I think it would really motivate the children to learn. I think it gives

children ownership, it shows that I trust them enough to work independently on

their own and they become self learners. They, they’re motivated to learn, they
have a stake in it, they’re interested, they’ve motivated, and they just, I mean
you’ve seen what happens in the computer lab. I have students in here that

probably know more about certain programs than I do and they figured it out all
by themselves. And given the opportunity to put these children on computers it’s

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just got to improve the whole climate of the classroom. And furthermore, the very
student who is perhaps my most challenging as a discipline problem would do the
best on the computer. So not only would that child be learning and self motivated,

he would also not be bothering other people or disturbing others in the classroom.
(02/19/98)

Jessie shared a story about a student of hers who learned to read using a computer

which reflects her views of the image of a computer as a tutor for her students:

It’s like the student I had once who, her father told me that she woke up one day,
she wasn’t reading and she said she wanted to learn to read. And her father, both
parents are very supportive, and they said “Oh well, you know, let me help you.”
She said “No,” and she got on a computer program and from early morning until
late in the aftemoon she was on this Learning to Read or whatever computer
program, would not accept any help from her parents. By the end of the day, she
had taught herself to read. And her parents were just astounded, amazed. But she
was just adamant that she was going to do it herself. (02/15/98)

A conversation that I had with Jessie and Martha on October 23 revealed Jessie’s
assumptions about technology and showed how these assumptions shaped her plans for
technology use in her classroom. During this meeting, Martha and Jessie both talked
about the nature of e-mail as a medium for communication.

The conversation revolved around these teachers’ assumptions about e-mail
communication that their students might engage in with other students, the nature of first
grader’s ability to write coherent messages, and the role parents might play in helping
students type these messages to be sent over e-mail. When this conversation began,
Martha commented on the misspellings in an e-mail message she received and I men-
tioned my own opinion that e-mail is a genre of communication that is different from
formal writing and speech and is less formal and less stringent about surface feature
correctness. Martha pointed out that “You have to make a good impression” with e-mail,
as with any other form of communication, indicating her disagreement with my position

about the informal nature of e-mail.

99

This discussion culminated in the short segment of conversation below, part of

which I included in Chapter 4. During this session, I tried to encourage Martha and Jessie

to consider the motivational aspects of e-mail as a tool for their students writing in an

authentic forum, and thus as a way of engaging them in the reading and writing process.

These ideas bumped up against the teachers’ assumptions about e-mail, student abilities,

and the possible role parents might play in this process:

Jessie
Martha

Andy
Martha
Jessie
Martha
Jessie

Andy
Jessie
Martha
Jessie

Martha
Jessie

Andy
Jessie
Andy

Jessie
Martha
Jessie
Andy
Jessie
Martha

Jessie

That’s the way to do it.
Ok. Where did you get these? Did you have the children print them in the
lab?
I think that’s what you were saying you’d do, right?
Have them print them right in the lab?
The tricky part is, you know in first grade you do some editing, and -
- Yes
-SoI
was just thinking instead of a parent doing it [laughter] it might be a little
tricky for them to try to kind of, and that’s another thing. Do we just send
it the way they wrote it? Or -
— Tricky, I’m not
Or do we care, do we -
- Or their peers could edit it.
- correct the spelling errors, and the grammar, and the, so
that the child receiving it can understand it.
Oh I definitely think it should be understandable.
[to Andy] You have to understand first graders, they use invented spelling,
and it might be a little like a cold to try to decipher
To try to figure out what they’re trying to say.
Right! So then, maybe it would take another step in there to try and edit it
Well let me ask you this: What would happen if they sent it and the child
on the other end couldn’t understand it?
[laughter]
They would write back.
They would write back and say
They would say “I don’t know what you’re saying”
Yes. [Pause] Yes?
And then your child would say “I guess I better learn how to spell”
[laughter]
My child would say I am in deep doodoo [laughter] I can’t communicate.
I have to learn to read and write. [Laughter]

100

Andy Yeah, and would that be a motivating thing for them? [Pause] Do you see
what I’m saying?

Jessie Not exactly.

Andy We communicate all the time, and we get good at communicating because
we want to communicate the messages. I want you to understand
something that’s kind of how I get good at communicating. And if these
kids want to understand what the other kids are saying, where they help
that child understand what they’re saying, that’s an incentive for them to
work really hard at writing.

Jessie Oh it’s definitely a motivation, but I’m saying what I might want to do
before I type the letter is sit down with the child and say “Tell me what
you wrote”

Andy Sure.

Jessie Have them read it to me, and then I might even want to retype it to make
sure the child receiving it does understand.

Andy Ok.

Jessie So there’s that step in there, but I’m not sure I want to give that job to a

parent? I could.

This conversation reveals the kind of thinking these teachers engage in when they
plan for the use of technology in their teaching. These teachers, especially Jessie, were
concerned about their student’s ability to write coherent and understandable sentences to
their e-mail friends-called key pals. The suggestion made by Margie in a prior meeting
that parents could come to the computer lab and help students write these messages on
the computer was met with skepticism-unvoiced when this idea was originally suggested
by Margie in that meeting-because of concerns about how parents might react to seeing
grammatically incorrect text or misspelled words in the e-mail messages.

As described in the last chapter, my role in the group during this meeting was to
push these teachers in a nonthreatening way to think about and perhaps question their
assumptions about teaching, learning, and technology. I wonder how effective I was at
this though, given the reluctance in Jessie’s talk to consider seriously what I was suggest-
ing about the possible role e-mail might play in motivating students to improve their
writing.

It also seems that in the conversation, both Jessie and Martha have assumptions

about the nature of e-mail importantly different from my own. I believe that e-mail is an

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informal genre of communication that can be used for quick, easy exchanges between
individuals who are distant from each other. This view of e-mail allows me to hold it to
less stringent criteria for communication than the views expressed by the teachers in their
talk.

This discussion is connected to a larger concern these teachers might have, the
question of feature level correctness in products that leave the classroom and are exposed
to those outside the classroom. In the case of the conversation above, it seems important
to Martha and Jessie that any e-mail messages written by their students must be under-
standable by the recipient. This is connected to their concern about the possible role
parents might play in helping these students type up their e-mail messages. The questions
I raised during this discussion were to help the teachers see that the value of having their
students send poorly written e-mail might give them a motivation for improving their
writing-so the activity could have a broader educational purpose.

Jessie’s plans for technology are consistent with her views of teaching and leam-
ing. She views technology as a tutor for her students, to provide them with remediation
and practice with basic skills, and she also sees the computer as a way to occupy her
more active students so she can spend more time working with the other students on
classroom activities. Jessie’s beliefs about learning, that it occurs through trial and error,
are consistent with the technology-based activities-drill and practice programs like Math
Blaster and those developed for the Apple 11 series of computers. When pressed to con-
sider alternative ways of thinking about using e-mail in the classroom, Jessie had trouble
understanding or appreciating the value e-mail might have for her students as a motivator
for improving their writing abilities.

This last point is interesting to me because Jessie talked about the importance of

motivation, ownership, and independence in student learning, all of which could become

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part of a classroom activity in which students were responsible for editing their e-mail
messages to their key pals. Jessie also talked in somewhat vague terms about how use of
computers would help her students’ learning and claimed that it would help improve the

whole classroom climate.

Margie’s Plans for Teaching with Technology

As with other things, Margie has talked a lot about her plans for technology use in
her teaching. In her first interview, Margie talked about wanting to move beyond using
the computer for her own purposes and to help her students use technology. This is
understandable, given that Margie has more prior experience using technology in the
classroom than her peers and that she has been outspoken about her views on the proper
ways that technology should be used in the classroom.

Margie talked a lot about her own plans for a class key pals project using e-mail
through which her students would communicate with key pals elsewhere in the world. As
she talked about it, Margie mentioned that she planned to have her students watch her
write a whole-class letter and send that along to the other teacher, which Martha and
Jessie agreed was a great way to use e-mail in the first grade. Margie said that she might
allow individual students to exchange e-mail messages with key pals later in the year
when they were more competent reading and writing.

Margie also shared her views about the benefits of having her students’ use Math
Blaster and its benefit in the following transcript from the October 10 meeting, which

was analyzed in the prior chapter to show evidence of a pedagogical conversation:

Jessie So the trick is to just move the little guy to the different columns
Margie Right! And you just want to move it -
Jessie - and just .. -

103

Margie

Jessie
Margie

Jessie
Margie
Jessie
Margie

Jessie
Margie

Jessie
Margie

Andy
Margie

[unintelligible]

Martha
Margie

Martha
Margie

- you may, you may see a number way up
here that you can move to make this part of the equation right? But you
could just move one over in the second column to make it right and
therefore you save all those numbers up above.

So they have to learn those strategies?
So they’re kind of learning to look at all options, I can move my answer, I
can move my addend, I could ..
But often I’ll look at it and there’ll be nothing!
Well, then, see that’s usually because they’ve moved down too far.
Oh.
If you do it right from the beginning, usually by the time they need help is
when they’ve already pushed the thing down to much and there aren’t
solutions
So it wouldn’t make any difference which column you put the little guy in,
nothing is going to -

- Right.

- make sense.
And then what you have to do is get rid of one row, they’ll take away, I
noticed one time that it didn’t take away all the red stuff, they just took
away a little of the red stuff and then they make you start over.
Hmm.
But one time I did I said, “I wonder what will happen,” and I pushed the
button and all the red stuff was gone [Laughter]

They love that, they love Math Blaster! Yeah.

And you can save it too, from week to week. When it asks you if you want
to save your mission, if you say “Yes,” it just saves it on the network. I
said “Well try it” and they tried it and the next time they put their name in
and it came back right where they lefi off.

So you should move your man rather than the numbers. Not always.

Well, you want to try and move it so you’re using, you want to move the
one that is the closest, so you’re not eliminating so many numbers. That’s
a hard skill for some [first graders]. But it’s a good skill, because they
really have to examine that equation. And not go for the easiest one but go
with the one that will help you with future problems.

Notice in her description of how best to solve the problems presented by Math

Blaster that Margie indicates her belief that the skill it requires, while difficult for some

first graders, is a necessary and worthwhile — “hard but good” — skill for them to learn.

Although I did not explore this issue in more detail, or ask the others about their own

104

beliefs about this kind of math skill, this episode represents an instance of how thinking
about technology is connected with thinking about the curriculum and teaching. It seems
clear from this talk that Margie believes using Math Blaster helps her students develop
needed skills, in this case by using the best combination of symbols and numbers avail-
able to solve an equation, and therefore is an appropriate tool for teaching mathematics in
her classroom. It also seems clear that Margie believes this skill to be developmentally
appropriate for first-grade students.

Margie also talked about this issue of developmentally appropriate uses of tech-
nology in the follow-up interview when I asked her how computers would help her

students learn:

Andy Why will technology help these kids learn?

Margie Well, comparing first and fourth grade, [the principal] raised concerns for
me with the article he passed around. Basically, what it did was question
whether early introduction of computers is helpfirl for students. In
addition, this question of the computers in a lab vs. in the classroom, will
it benefit them as they move up, you know, like word processing. But at
the same time not hurt them for not having it but develop in other areas so
they’re more ready in second grade. I see it [the computer] pushing them
ahead and raising their ability in writing, but that’s the one area word
processing where you’re serving a lot of purposes, with the computer as a
tool, games are relevant, but it really helps them as a tool for writing.

Andy So you see writing linked to reading and the computer as a way to
accomplish that?
Margie Right, it’s phonics, it’s spelling, it’s learning and then they publish it and

present it. It’s speaking and listening. It’s kind of, it’s actually the tool, it’s
not. When we first went we had to talk about when you make a mistake,
you know, they had to erase everything. Eventually they discover that you
can change it, you know, change it without having to retype it. It’s
amazing to me after fourth grade teaching word processing, how easily
they pick it up. I see word processing as, if I had them in my classroom
they would be more geared to writers workshops, kids at different stages,
writing, editing, conferencing, etc. There’d be books everywhere, we’d be
making books, writing stories, collections of work, and it would push me
in that direction and be beneficial to them.

Andy So you see a distinction between word processing in lab and skills
programs in classroom.

105

Margie Yes, and I like both of them, but I think that the kids that need the practice
would use you know get on the computer and do the practice, um, rather
than if you had the computers where peOple were word processing
everyone would be going through that step. I guess they’re both, in both
cases they’re used as tools because one is helping with reinforcement, just
as long as what is on the computer is what you’re doing, where you have a
program available for what it is you’re doing. Because I think nowadays
software is more, I mean when you create software you want, I mean there
are lot’s of skills, whereas those little MECC programs are really focused
on one skill, you know, beginning letter sounds, and that’s the whole
program, is that. So you can pull it and say “This is what we’re working
on this what I want everyone to try this disk.”

Margie’s talk and plans for technology are consistent with her beliefs about
teaching and learning. She sees the computer as helping her students by providing them
with products of their own learning, something they can see which she feels is beneficial
for learning to read and write, as well as for remediation and practice. This view of
technology is contrasted with her talk above about how the computer, specifically used as
a word processor, helps her students learn to edit and modify their writing. This latter
view implies use of a computer, not for drill and practice, spelling, or phonics, but as a
tool for learning text editing skills and reading strategies.

Margie also talked about her goal of preparing her students for second grade,
something she mentioned in her initial interview, and the role technology might play in
this regard. She planned technology projects in her class that were oriented around
whole-class activities, especially her plans for the key pals project. This is consistent with
her preference for whole-class projects, like the key pals and the word processing she
describes in the lab, where she can walk her students through it step-by-step. Margie has
been the most critical member of the group in regard to the limitations of most computer
software, including those developed for the Apple 11 series, which most first grade stu-

dents cannot use because they simply cannot read.

106

Martha '5 Plans for Teaching with Technology

Early on in our discussions Martha talked about using technology in similar ways
to Jessie; but in later meetings she offered alternative ways of thinking about technology
in her teaching. She began to consider using technology as a tool for supporting a variety

of instructional goals and subjects. She shared some of these ideas in her comments

below:

Martha The other thing that I would have them do is, what we used to call
seatwork, on the computer. Where the rest would be doing something else
that was work work or whatever was assigned. And for that day those
children would do that. And then the next day it would be rotated.

Margie More of a center approach, where they might do spelling.

Martha Spelling programs, and your Science, you know, every subject. (11/20/97)

Martha talked in the same session about her plans for the year for technology and

the key pals project:

Martha I want to do things like we write, I start a story, they put a paragraph in,
we put a paragraph in, etc. So I want to start something like that. .. it
depends on the child’s interests, of course. But I’d like to have a lot of

projects like that
Andy So you would make use of the journal writing?
Martha Sure and have the kids do it as part of journals.

Martha even talked about how she is now considering giving her students the

authority over setting up and using the technology:

I’ve just been amazed at the amount of things that I’ve seen happening on the
computer with these kids. I don’t know if it’s because they’ve been exposed to it
for more years than I, you now every year they’ve been exposed to it they come
up with something more. Yesterday I was in the lab and I was changing all the
print setups and I was just going as fast as I could, you know, and one little boy
said, “You know, I’ve got it.” he said, “You want me to help you?” And so I let
him do the next person and he did it, you know, that was amazing. It was very
hard. (12/18/97)

107

During her follow-up interview, we talked about deciding whether to use Apple II

computers or the Windows/95 computers and I asked Martha how she would use the

Apple II computers in her classroom:

Martha

Andy
Martha

Andy
Martha
Andy
Martha

Andy
Martha

Andy
Martha

I’d use that [the Apple 11 computer] for remedial. I’d put math games on
there, I’d get specialized games like phonics, writing, and I could even
match that to their ability, like Reader Rabbit. I have one little girl in here,
she seems to need this program over and over again. She begs for that. I
would also use it for enrichment, like Oregon Trail, although we could get
that on there. Odel Lake, that has taught more children to read certain
things in lower, children who are having difficulty, they love that game.

Is that where you have to recognize words or?

It names five real fish, But I would use that more with remedial, and
maybe do stories on that too if we had printers. Spelling, I would set up on
there, on an Apple IIe where I would put in a new list every year I mean
every week and maybe make it a game. I think that’s the kind of thing I
would use it.

Choice between these three, which would you choose? Changes to the
room?

Realistically I would pick five [computers] I think, then I keep thinking
three years from now would I be happy with that choice?

Well, but that’s a long way away, so perhaps the next step, you know next
year, what that means ..?

I would choose scenario #1 [5 Windows/95 computers connected to the
Internet].

Right, right, but if it makes sense for you to say five would be sufficient.
Five [computers] would be perfect, would be sufficient, because I could
rotate the children and I could get programs on that, and there’s enough,
Math Blasters, there are enough games on there so you could certainly,
because this is not our whole curriculum, you know we can’t spend that
much time on it.

Do you see it supplementing the curriculum? Do you see it as a separate?
I see it as supplementing the curriculum, supplementing their learning, but
much more than just a supplement, I see it as an integral part of it, I don’t
think that’s the right word. Where they would get a lot more out of it, it’s
more interactive? So ifI gave them something on George Washington,
which everybody does, I have this booklet that they do, but they could go
to the computer and actually do a little report on it and find things on
Encarta, or at this age I really see it as a big part of it if they were
available, but if they aren’t we work around it.

108

The examples above show that Martha’s plans for technology are consistent with
her own beliefs about teaching and learning. She plans to use computers for basic skills
development — spelling, math, reading, and games — and these fit her model of indi-
vidualizing her students’ needs with remedial instruction. This view of technology is
contrasted with her talk about using the Internet for a story starter project — where
students from around the world contribute paragraphs to an ongoing story which are
posted to a web site or sent via e-mail.

Martha also talked about her students acting as tutors or mentors to other students
in her classroom in the area of technology, something that other teachers in the group
have not really picked up on. She also sees technology as supplementing her existing
curriculum, and is uncertain about the best uses of technology in her teaching. Her talk
about the value of games and remedial software for her students connects to her assump-
tions about students learning better when they have agency and control over their learn-
ing, but I’m not sure how these beliefs support her plans for a story starter project.

As I reviewed the data I had collected, I saw differing ways that these teachers
were thinking about technology that come out in their talk. For example, Jessie thinks
about the computer as a tutor for her troublesome students — she talked about it being
like another set of hands for her in the room — and her views of technology are consis-
tent in her talk and her assumptions about teaching and learning. Susan talked about
technology as a motivator for her students — to help them get more excited and enthusi-
astic about learning — and this is also consistent with her own views about technology as
personal, like having a friend. Martha talked about the computer in similar ways, but also
talked about it as moreca tool for her students to use to learn to write, a theme also echoed
by Susan where the products of students’ writing become reading material. Margie talked
about the computer as a tool for her students learning, but doesn’t feel first graders are
capable of learning in a guided or discovery way, and instead must be directed by a
teacher or software program.

109

Margie, Jessie, and Martha seem to recognize the value of whole-class technology
projects and have been resistant to seriously considering using technology to individual-
ize instruction, beyond remedial software that performs like a tutor. While Susan talked
about her own plans to use technology and the Internet to individualize her instruction,
the overriding issue for this kind of use is access in the classroom with more than one
computer. Susan’s actions to resolve this issue lead me to believe that she might follow
up on her plans next year if she can acquire the necessary equipment.

The issue that came up in our meeting on March 5, 1998 provided more insight
into the ways these teachers think about technology in their teaching. During this meet-
ing, we spent much of our time talking about the efforts by the upper-elementary teachers
to move some computers out of the lab and into their classrooms. This became an emo-
tional issue for the teachers and we spent lots of time during this meeting talking about
the impact of such a change and how these teachers might work to prevent such a change.

Margie talked about her own views of the difference between using computers in

the lab and in the classroom and said:

I think when we go to the [computer] lab, K-3, you’re actually teaching them how
to use the tool. The best instructional way to do that is if everyone is sitting
someplace and listening and watching, whereas when you’re word processing at
the fourth or fifth grade level, you don’t, you already have the previous instruction
so you don’t need that kind of [classroom] setting.

During this meeting, Margie wrote down some of the justifications the group
came up with for why lower-elementary students can be better served in a computer lab
than in a classroom: “the lab has less distractions and supports early or young learners.”
Martha agreed with what Margie said about teaching students to use the computer tools.

Margie talked more about her sense of the instructional differences between a lab

and classroom:

110

It could be at their expense too in the end because I’m not sure what kind of
instruction I would be able to give if it I just had three computers in the classroom
compared to the instruction I can give this way [in the lab] which has to bubble up
to the upper grades eventually.

While these teachers have spent time discussing how they will use technology,
and their plans for technology are shaped by their beliefs and knowledge of teaching,
learning and technology, they have spent less time explicating their pedagogical decision

making processes. This leads to my sixth and final assertion.

Lots of talk about “how” to use technology, little talk about "why”

Most of the group conversations focused on issues of “how” to use technology,
especially specifics about classroom tasks and strategies, and not on justifications for the
use of technology — “why” technology might be beneficial for students.

This final assertion is related to the analysis described in the last chapter and is
influenced by the nature of the group dynamics and the conversations that we have
engaged in over time. As I stated in the previous chapter, there is plenty of evidence in
the data that these teachers engaged in substantive pedagogical conversations stimulated
by talk about technology. What is often missing from these conversations, however, is
explication of their justifications for using technology and how these uses benefit student
learning.

The group members have begun to question their own beliefs about when and
why technology should be used in the classroom and possible pedagogical benefits of
use, but more work is needed if this group is to help these teachers examine their own
assumptions and justifications. This slow development towards justifications could be
reflective of the evolving ownership these teachers have over the technology itself and
the nature of the discourse they are comfortable with — that is, non-confrontational. It

could also be that these justifications are implicit in the teachers’ plans and they assume

111

these justifications do not need to be made explicit or public in a group of their peers. Or
it might be reflective of a general lack of interest in sharing their justifications in the talk
since they may believe these are commonly held by their peers.

I mentioned to the teachers in my follow-up interviews that I thought we spent
much of our time talking about the logistics of how they might use technology but not
much time talking about why they use technology the way they do or the pedagogical
choices they make when they plan for technology use. I asked them whether they agreed
with this observation, and if so, why they thought it was true. Susan shared her view that
members of the group needed to put aside prior conflicts in order to begin sharing their

justifications or asking philosophical questions:

The rest of us may feel uncomfortable with each other but put that aside for a
minute and see if we can overcome that for the sake of learning about the
computer. There are still feelings there but not enough to prevent us from
learning.

Jessie made a similar comment in her interview when she talked about the ben-

efits of being in the support group:

Jessie Oh it’s much, much better [than an in service workshop], because it’s
more personal. It’s more tailored to what we really want to know and
learn. I probably wouldn‘t have asked the questions in a large group.

Andy It would be hard to ask those questions?

Jessie It would have been, I would have just ..

Andy Not said ...?

Jessie Said nothing.

Andy Um hm.

Jessie So it made it a lot easier to ask questions, get feedback, and to uh, kind of

custom make it to our needs.

Martha made a slightly different observation on this issue:

112

Maybe we just simply aren’t clear. Maybe that step didn’t come first, the other
step came first, so we haven’t had time to thoroughly think about it. I think the
majority of people in this building know that it’s [technology] valuable and
whether or not they’ve thought it through I don’t know. So I think maybe we
jumped over that one.

In her follow-up interview, Margie disagreed with my observation and offered her

own views on this issue:

Margie

Andy
Margie

Andy
Margie

Andy
Margie

Andy

Margie

I think that we didn’t talk about it as a philosophy, or in that sense, but I
think that everything we discussed at least in our minds was because we
were thinking about how it was best going to benefit the kids and I think
that’s what teachers naturally do, when something comes through the mail
you constantly think “Well how is this going to be used with and help
kids?” So it’s kind of, you know we didn’t actually discuss what we
wanted as far as a philosophy, maybe we should have started that way but
I think everything we did was leading to that. It was kind of a beginning,
something you almost need to do

Before you can

before you can get to that part. And I think, in my mind it was constant,
everything I discussed was, we’ve done lots for us, which has been good
for the building, and I guess those things somehow benefit the kids, but
I’m concerned when we go to the lab, what do I want my kids to learn and
do, and no one has told me that part yet. So everything I was thinking
about during our group was how computers in the classroom is going to
benefit the kids. And I think Susan and Jessie did the same. Everything we
did

Is it because it’s so implicit in the thinking it doesn’t need to be voiced?

I think it was. Susan stated she thought kids needed to play and explore
and I felt differently. I feel like I have a good feeling about where they
want to go so yeah everything we do you automatically think, my
day to squeeze it in

Maybe I’m not seeing it

Those kinds of things always change, especially by discussing with
people. Maybe people’s visions change for what kids are doing as you talk
about it.

Well we A couple of times the games, 1st grade uses vs. 4th or 5th
grade uses, those were the only examples I could find.

When we talked about Susan getting a hub how that would work
logistically it would be a nightmare, even though it’s not true curriculum
those are all things that affect kids, so in essence everything we discussed,
I feel, bad to do with you know how it’s going to affect children and

113

they’re learning and if my kids have to go to Susan’s room how’s that
going to affect her kids? So everything kind of relates to how it’s going to
affect kids we could have stated our beliefs, what we initially thought,
but that’s going to change based on what we discuss

Andy Has it changed for you?

Margie Um, I don’t think it’s changed my own self discovering because of what’s
evolved from my class has really changed my expectations for my kids.

Andy So the class experience has allowed you to see it differently.

Margie Yeah, and what they’ve done, they’ve shocked me. But you know it was

very helpfirl to hear what other’s think.

It seems that in the text above, Margie is arguing that even if the teachers in the
support group were not explicit about their reasons for planning to use technology, these
reasons were part and parcel of the way they always think and act as teachers. This might
be true if these teachers had a common or shared set of beliefs about teaching, learning,
and technology, but I’m not sure the data I have collected supports this idea. The fact that
their beliefs are shared on some level, but also different on other levels, leads me to
question how much commonality there is between the implicit assumptions and justifica-
tions the individual teachers in the group have regarding using technology for pedagogi-
cal reasons.

One of my goals for this work has been to try to help these teachers be more
explicit about their justifications, and I believe that they are only beginning to make
public their assumptions about teaching, learning, and technology. Questions of why a
specific use of technology is beneficial require reasons and justifications for pedagogical
choices that these teachers may assume they hold in common. This is an essential element
of the kind of critical discourse that I think can be a powerful form of teacher profes-
sional development.

If, as Margie claims in the transcript above, these teachers made statements in the
group meetings that had implicit in them assumptions about teaching and learning that
they believed were consistent with the goal of helping their students learn, there is still

the question of how common or shared these underlying beliefs and assumptions are

114

among members of the group may be less shared beliefs and knowledge than they origi-
nally thought. These teachers may in fact believe that there is more communality and
sharing of basic beliefs about teaching and learning, and thus similarly shared pedagogi-
cal choices made regarding use of technology in their teaching, than may actually be the
case. It could be that more time is needed for the members of this group to realize that
their beliefs are in fact different in important ways and this may also be dependent on
their perceived level of comfort within the group sharing their beliefs.

This final assertion is also closely tied to the nature of this group, the changing
conversational qualities of the interactions, the emerging ethos of the individuals who
participate, and the roles we all play in these conversations. My hope is that as this group
continues to grow and change, some of these take-for-granted assumptions might be
shared and this may in turn lead to more conversation about justifications for the use of

technology based on a growing awareness of differences among these teachers.

115

CHAPTER 6
SUMMARY

By participating in this technology support group and observing the conversations
and collaborative work we did as a group over the months we were together, I came to
view the ways these teachers thought about technology, teaching, and learning in new
ways. These understandings, described in the prior chapters, were informed by my analy-
sis of the talk we engaged in during our regular sessions, my observations described in
my field notes, and my interviews with the group members. Although I focused on what
the teachers talked about in our sessions, I made sense out of these conversations in the
context of the professional and personal lives of the teachers situated in the school set-
ting.

Through my field journal, and with the ongoing support and help from my commit-
tee members, I began to see the complexity of these teachers’ professional lives and the
impact technology was having on their thinking and planning. The evidence presented in
the prior chapters supports a set of assertions that provide insights into the connections
among teacher beliefs, knowledge, and technology:

* Talk about technology is contextualized in the wider school culture, especially
external expectations placed on teachers, and therefore is influenced by these factors.
Introducing technology into a classroom brings with it external expectations of parents,
administrators, peers, and community members which in turn influence how teachers
make sense of and use this technology. In many cases, discussions about technology
broaden to include larger pedagogical and contextual issues that are influenced by a
variety of external factors, such as administrative support, available resources, and

district and community preferences. Teachers think and talk about these issues in ways

116

that show how they are connected in their minds. In the case of these teachers, parental
expectations about the quality of student work that leaves the classroom represent one
example of this kind of external influence.

* Patterns of participation in teacher talk about technology are subject to influences
from within and outside the support group. These factors not only shape what happens in
the group, but the activities in the group also shape what happens in the larger school
context, suggesting a recriprocol relationship between group and school activities. Con-
versational patterns are affected by personal and professional factors, such as evolving
authority and leadership, and shape the ways in which members of the group participate
in these conversations and the benefits they derive from this participation. In the case of
the lower-elementary teachers in this study, changes in participation eventually led to
opportunities to discuss pedagogical issues connected to technology use in the classroom.
In this case, changes in collegial conversations around technology were probably based
on differences of purpose or goals as perceived by those who managed the conversations.

* Talk about technology affords teachers opportunities to make public their own
assumptions about teaching, learning, and technology. These conversations can provide a
supportive setting for examining these assumptions as a form of professional develop-
ment if the members of the group feel safe and the environment for conversation is
nonthreatening but challenging. Some teachers may be hesitant to ask questions or admit
they lack knowledge or expertise in traditional in-service workshops and may participate
in more meaningful ways in a support group setting like the one described in this text.

* Teachers bring their existing beliefs and knowledge about teaching, learning, and
technology to their interactions with technology. These beliefs and knowledge shape, and
are shaped by, their learning about technology. Planning for technology will be reflective
of teachers’ assumptions about teaching, learning, student abilities, and external expecta-
tions, and activities will likely be consistent with their existing preferred modes of teach-
ing.

117

* Teachers’ beliefs help them understand and make sense of their experiences with
technology by constraining and affording ways of talking, thinking, and planning tech-
nology in their teaching. By learning about technology in a supportive social setting,
some teachers may begin to question or examine their own taken-for-granted assumptions
about teaching, learning, students, and technology. These opportunities represent perhaps
the most significant aspect of this form of teacher professional development around
technology adoption as a sustainable forum for teacher learning.

* Much of the talk in the support group was about “how” to use technology, espe—
cially focused on the practical issues of using technology in a classroom or lab, and less
talk was about “why” specific uses of technology might be beneficial for students. It
seems that teachers’ pedagogical decisions are implicit in their talk and actions, may even
be hidden from their thinking, and may benefit from facilitation by an outsider. This
represents a challenge in the formation of these kinds of support groups if they are to
become environments for sustainable teacher learning.

During the time we spent together, I also saw evidence that some of the teachers in
the technology support group were changing in ways other than those described in the
prior chapters.

I heard Susan talking differently about her plans for technology when I interviewed
her in early 1998 than when we talked in the fall of 1997. In the early interview she
talked in ways that were consistent with Jessie’s planned use of technology — as a tool
for remedial purposes and for practicing basic skills. In the later interview, Susan talked
about technology, including the Internet, being part of regular classroom life, from read-
ing and writing to art and mathematics. She began to recognize the complexities that
using the Internet brings to her teaching, issues she talked about in her interview, but was
nonetheless able to envision a very different classroom environment with up to six com-

puters.

118

An unexpected but beneficial outcome from this work was that the teachers who
participated in this support group began to take a more active role in technology adoption
issues outside their own classrooms. I saw Margie, for example, begin to take a more
active role in school decision making — she joined the school improvement committee in
November 1997. This is consistent with Margie’s comments about the safety of a group
setting, her fear of being seen as a complainer within the school, and her institutional
position vis a via her status and seniority within the school. Susan especially was instru-
mental in her role as representative for the lower-elementary teachers when she attended
the school technology committee meetings. I watched Susan’s role in this technology
committee change from a passive listener who was afraid to ask any questions or admit
her own ignorance to someone whose items dictated the agenda and whose voice was
heard often in the most recent meetings.

The group members felt that being part of this collective was helpful by providing
them with a voice and some authority to speak about technology issues with their peers
and the administration. 1 think this group, in a small way, helped empower these teachers
to take more ownership of technology in their school, to begin to think critically about
issues related to technology use in the classroom, and to want more control over their
own situations with relation to technology. Our conversations about technology offered
me glimpses of these teachers’ insights into pedagogical opportunities afforded by com-
puters and the potential this kind of group might have for supporting meaningful changes

in teaching.

Connecting the Assertions

Although these findings are important on their own, they also must be examined
together to make sense of the complexity of my observations and analysis. Changes in
participation within the support group were connected to changes in the content of the

talk I observed in a fairly direct way. First and foremost, changes in participation may

119

have afforded the participating teachers opportunities to engage in thoughtful and critical
discussions about pedagogical issues without fear of reprisal or direct challenge from
Margie.

In the early conversations we had, when Margie was the leader of the group and
Susan was not in attendance, the members of the group did not challenge Margie’s ideas
or opinions, nor did they ask her to make explicit her thinking or her justifications for her
planned uses of technology. Since Margie was the expert in the group on using technol-
ogy in the classroom, it seems likely that Jessie and Martha in those early meetings
simply accepted Margie’s comments without question. As a result, I believe much of the
early talk, which included some pedagogical discussions, did not bring to the surface
teachers’ assumptions of why using technology is beneficial for students.

When Susan joined the group, which coincided with the venting session in early
November, the conversation resulted in an emotional exchange. Susan later indicated that
she was unhappy with the tone of this session and used her personal relationship with the
principal to resolve the issue Margie had pushed the group to address — asking the
principal if they were required to engage in a key pals project — thus usurping Margie’s
authority and power in the group without turning the issue into a confrontation between
the group and the principal.

Margie may have seen this action by Susan as undermining her authority, and
based on her own fragile relationship with the principal at the time, may have felt the
power of the group to support her position on the issue was negated. This is conjecture on
my part but I believe is consistent with the evidence in the data. Regardless of the reason,
Margie subsequently was unable to attend any of the groups sessions until March 1998
and Susan assumed leadership at that point in the group.

This change in group leadership I believe allowed the other members of the
group, Martha and Jessie, to develop a sense of trust in each other and allowed them to
begin to make public their own questions and thinking about how they might use technol-

120

ogy. The resulting norms of participation within the group provided the members with
opportunities to begin to examine and question their own assumptions and beliefs about
teaching and learning in the face of their plans and experiences with technology.

So it seems that the changes in participation in the support group are linked to the
evolving pedagogical conversations that took place, and specifically that the changes in
leadership in the group provided opportunities for the teachers to question each other, and
themselves, about what they know and believe about teaching and learning. This is
contrasted with the early sessions when the members of the group were passive listeners
who did not challenge or question Margie’s ideas or opinions for technology.

Most importantly, it took time for the members of this support group to develop
the level of trust necessary to share their ideas and opinions as well as to define shared
goals and individual roles. This time was an important, perhaps essential, ingredient in
the success of the group and allowed the members to resolve any prior personal or profes-
sional differences of opinion so that the important work of collaboration and collegiality

could begin.

Individual and Collective Growth

Although not specifically a focus of my analysis, and not discussed in this disser-
tation until now, there is an obvious unasked question regarding this type of intervention
for technology adoption: Where is the evidence that these teachers actually learned and
grew professionally as a result of participating in this support group? I find evidence of
individual development and learning by the participating teachers in a number of areas.

1. The members of the group developed web pages (all except Jessie) on the
school’s web server; in fact, two of the group members, Susan and Martha, along with
Blaine were the first teachers in the school to have web pages on-line. Prior to our work
together these teachers would likely have felt they would be the last teachers in the

school to develop web pages.

121

2. All of the teachers became more proficient with and used e-mail more often as
a result of being in the group. The most interesting example of this is Jessie, who when
the group first began to meet in September was anxious and afraid to use e-mail and
indicated she didn’t know how to use the e-mail program. By March, Jessie was using e-
mail every day to communicate with her collaborating teacher in another state on a
project they were doing in their classrooms. Susan also showed developing leadership
skills and dispositions within the technology support group, resources that may spill over
to the broader school context as she continues to experiment with technology in her
teaching.

3. All of the teachers in the group seriously pursued applying for additional funds
through a variety of grant programs. Margie applied for a state grant for up to $10,000 to
expand her use of technology in the classroom next year.

4. Changes in the early elementary teachers’ participation in wider school decision
making and conversations about technology took place. The most striking example of this
change is Susan, who I observed in an early school technology committee meeting as a
silent observer but who eventually became one of the leaders in the school, providing on
more than one occasion, the school technology committee with an agenda for discussion.

5. All of the teachers became more confident and interested in the possibilities of
technology in their classrooms. There is evidence of this interest in their talk and in their
actions-in the classroom, in the computer lab, and in the conversations they have with
their peers in the hallway. Susan used money she received for excellence in teaching to
purchase a home computer and wrote a letter to the superintendent justifying her use of

this computer for her students’ benefit.

122

Together, I believe these changes reflect a growing thoughtfulness and critical
stance towards technology that will help the members of the support group cope with the
changes in the future related to technology use in their school. These changes also help
the larger school culture change because of the activism now shown by each of the
teachers in the group who are now influencing their peers as they continue to learn about
and use technology. I look at these teachers, especially Susan, as leaders within their
school who can provide examples of successful technology use in their teaching that their

peers might emulate.

123

CHAPTER 7
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

From the preliminary work done in this study, there does seem to be evidence that a
conversational forum for teachers to discuss technology adoption affords opportunities
for them to engage in substantive talk about teaching, learning, and technology. These
kinds of conversations may represent a powerful tool for these teachers to reflect on their
own teaching practices while learning about technology. Simply getting teachers together,
however, will not guarantee that these kinds of substantive pedagogical conversations
will emerge in the normal development of the group. As identified in this work, there are
many complicating factors which might prohibit or constrain the efforts to create such a
learning community around technology adoption. These include preexisting professional
relationships, release time, commitment of participants and administrators, school cul-
ture, district and community influences, and external expectations for classroom technol-
ogy.

The inherent complexity in any school setting is compounded by the introduction
of technology and should not be oversimplified as both a resource and a burden for the
teachers involved. Alternative forms of teacher professional development — such as
dialogic inquiry and support groups — may offer a productive long-term avenue for
helping teachers learn about technology and construct new teaching practices that take
advantage of the pedagogical tools technology affords in the classroom. Such forms of
professional development may also provide teachers with collective authority and power
to become more active and engaged in the larger contextual decisions that affect their

professional lives.

124

What did I learn ?

When I began this project, I had several goals which I now review in light of what I
have learned:

1. A technology support group might provide a way for teachers to talk and think
about technology while making public their existing beliefs and knowledge of teaching
and learning. By examining these beliefs, we might begin to better understand the rela-
tionship between these beliefs and the plans these teachers made for technology in their
teaching.

The members of the support group did in fact talk about technology, teaching, and
learning, and combined with the interviews and field notes I collected, allowed me to
examine in more detail the complex relationship between these beliefs and their plans for
technology. I described my findings related to this in the prior chapter but it seems that
the literature on teacher beliefs offers important help when we consider how technology
is being used, or perhaps not used, by teachers in K-12 classrooms. More work is needed
to help understand the complex relationships between technology and these teachers’
beliefs and knowledge of teaching and learning.

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125

The process of helping facilitate these substantive pedagogical conversations, and
the inherent trust required for teachers to engage in these kinds of conversations, takes
considerable time and effort, and may require an outside facilitator. Given the profes-
sional culture in many K-12 schools, it may be impossible for a teacher or principal
within a school to facilitate the kind of group setting with norms for participation that I
believe were essential for the group to engage in these conversations. The evaluative
professional relationships and the competitive institutional interactions that may teachers
find in their schools might make it impossible for a teacher to facilitate these kinds of
conversations.

2. A technology support group might provide teachers with a sustainable form of
ongoing professional development and growth that draws on their experiences incorporat-
ing technology into their classrooms. If such a group were focused specifically on teacher
learning, and if teachers in the group could bring their own questions and issues forward
to connect with their experiences, the members of the group would collectively construct
their own sense of benefits for technology for their students. This view of professional
development is consistent with calls to support teachers as pedagogical decision makers
in their own classrooms through sustainable opportunities for learning through inquiry.

There is no doubt in my mind that these teachers benefited in many ways by partici-
pating in this support group. I believe that being part of the group was an important way
for these teachers to develop their own sense of the value of technology for their students,
that during the group meetings these teachers were able to ask questions and discuss
issues they wouldn’t normally be comfortable discussing in traditional workshops, and
that there was an empowering aspect of the group that helped all these teachers take a
more active role in the technology decision making processes within their school. I also

think that these teachers have shaped the larger culture of the school, around technology

126

but also in other ways, and their students will ultimately benefit as these teachers con-
tinue to think, talk, and act thoughtfully with technology.

3. As a participant observer within this group, and with a focus on teacher beliefs
and knowledge, I have a powerful (but untapped) perspective on the experiences of these
teachers as they incorporate technology into their teaching practices. These teachers’
experiences can be a resource for other teachers who are facing similar circumstances and
have similar concerns and perspectives.

One reason I am sharing these teachers’ experiences is that I believe other teachers
may find connections with these experiences and the insights of the group members. The

nature of the support group itself might also represent an alternative forum for technology

 

training and support and provide benefits for the teachers involved as well as others who pv-
are or soon will be undergoing similar struggles.

4. The opportunities afforded to these teachers by participating in the group activi-
ties might also provide the members with a chance to examine and question their own
taken-for-granted assumptions about teaching, learning, and technology. I was h0ping
that these opportunities might be taken by members of the group to begin to think criti-
cally and act thoughtfully about the possibilities technology affords and that the members
might engage in substantive pedagogical conversations that would create a learning
community around technology adoption. I saw evidence of this in their talk as they
moved beyond technical conversations to pedagogical discussions about technology
connected to other issues — including literacy, classroom management, and assessment.

This study, which takes an interpretive perspective of the experiences of the teachers
in the support group, provides an important viewpoint that is often absent from the
literature on technology adoption. Combined with the focus on teacher learning within
the context of a sustainable social setting, I think this work provides helpful guidelines
and suggestions for alternative forms of professional development that might be benefi-
cial when technology is introduced into a school culture.

127

Limitations of the Study

While this study provides an important perspective on the ways that elementary
teachers make sense of technology when it is introduced into their classrooms, it is not
without it’s limitations.

First of all, since this study included only four teachers, all drawn from a single
school, it is limited in its scope and generalizability. The teachers who participated in this
study shared much in common, since they work in the same school under the same
administration. They also volunteered to be part of the group and had their own reasons
for participating. I’m not sure what I can say about teachers who might be drawn from
different schools, or about those teachers who opt not to participate in such a support
group.

The members of the technology support group were first and second grade teachers,
and therefore I cannot talk in confidence about how their experiences might relate to
upper-elementary, middle school, or high school teachers. My sense from the conversa-
tions we had in the group is the lower-elementary teachers feel and act differently from
other teachers, that their perspectives on problems and their approach to interacting with
students are importantly different from other teachers.

All the teachers in this group are white middle-class women, and so there is the
question of how their talk, thinking, and actions in this group might be different from
teachers of other races, ages, or genders. Given the nature of the conversations these
teachers engaged in, and my own analysis of their patterns of participation, my hunch is
that their preferences for discussion may be importantly different from other, male-
dominated teacher groups.

The school where these teachers work is a technology rich environment with a
supportive principal and extensive district resources which many other schools may not

have access to. The principal is especially supportive of teachers in the school taking

128

ownership of programs and being involved in decision making, and also has a strong
commitment to teacher empowerment. His offer to provide the teachers in the group with
substitutes and time out during the school day are evidence of his commitment to sup-
porting teachers adoption of technology.

Perhaps most importantly, this group is really just getting started, having only been
meeting regularly since September, 1997. I think that it will take a long time for members
of this group to develop and sustain the kind of supportive but challenging environment
that will allow them to begin to not only question their own beliefs and knowledge of
teaching, learning, and technology, but to start taking risks in their classrooms with
technology. The next year will likely provide even more changes in the group, both
because of classroom and grade reassignments and because these teachers now have
some practical experience with technology they can draw upon when planning for the

future.

Implications for educational technology

While this research has been fruitful and rewarding for myself and the participants,
the results have implications for future work in the area of K-12 classroom technology
use, professional development for teachers, and the kinds of support needed to help
teachers learn and grow as they are exposed to technology.

"' The complexity of teaching and classroom life is increased when technology is
introduce—dim” i L A i
l M ’8” Technology brings with it a new set of complexities and uncertainties that many

teachers may be unable to accept or deal with productively without opportunities to

engage in long-term, sustainable learning. The external factors these teachers talked and

thought about played a major role in the sense they made of technology and their subse-

129

quent plans for its use in their teaching. They need time to understand the possible ben-
efits of technology based on their existing knowledge and beliefs about teaching and
learning.

* Training and traditional forms of professional development are insufficient for the
kinds of sustained learning and critical examination of beliefs that accompanies technol-
ogy use.

The technology support group described in this study helped to provide an environ-
ment where teachers were comfortable admitting they do not know how to think about
technology, where they could learn about it based on their own interests and purposes,
and where they could begin to ask questions of each other and themselves about issues
that are connected to technology use in teaching and learning. Short-duration technology
workshops rarely provide neither the time nor the opportunity for this kind of thoughtful
and critical discussion.

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kind of change to occur, there must be a commitment to sustainable, long-term learning
for teachers as they embrace technology. Without this kind of supportive environment,
teachers may suffer in silence, not ask the important questions, and ultimately return to
their classrooms without a true sense of how to use technology to help their students
learn.

* Administrative support is also required, along with necessary resources.

Without a supportive staff and administration, this kind of serious learning and
change cannot succeed. The administrators at Oaktree Elementary are to be commended
for their support of the teachers in this study and represent a model for what is possible in
a school with the right resources and attitudes.

130

 

Future Research

I plan to continue working with the teachers in this study through the end of their
current school year, and hold open the possibility of continuing this work through next
year to see how the experiences these teachers had this year inform their talk, beliefs,
knowledge, and plans for technology use next year. Next year in Oaktree Elementary
school will bring lots of changes to the individuals in the group and to the school itself.

Oaktree Elementary has agreed to act as a pilot school for a major teacher education
university and each teacher will have a fifth-year intern, senior and junior Teacher Educa-
tion students in their classroom. There will also be changes in teaching assignments:
Margie will not be teaching first grade next year but will probably teach a second grade
classroom. Susan has plans to place four or five more computers in her classroom and has
talked about redesigning the first grade curriculum to accommodate these computers.

I expect that next year will be spent learning from this year and I hope the support
group can be a resource for these teachers thinking about how their use of technology and
their experiences with technology can inform their practices. Specifically, I will try to
help these teachers develop criteria for evaluating their experiences this year so they can
plan for next year with an awareness of their own practical knowledge of technology in
teaching. I also hope the pedagogical discussions we have had will continue and will lead
to continued critical thinking about using technology in the classroom.

The teachers in the group actually got a late start trying to use technology in their
teaching, and I believe they will be better prepared in the year ahead:

Margie talked about maintaining the status quo and continuing to use the

computer lab and not asking for more computers in her classroom;

Susan talked about the changes she plans to make in her classroom if she can

acquire more computers;

131

Jessie is interested in getting some Apple 11 computers, and the school may

provide her with three or four of these, so she can use remedial software with

her students;

Martha wanted to do a story starter project this year but didn’t get around to

it so I expect her to try this next year along with a key pals project.

Next year will hopefully continue the work we’ve done this year individually and
collectively, and I look forward to following the experiences of these teachers as they

prepare to integrate technology into their classrooms. And so, the story continues

132

APPENDICES

133

APPENDIX A
Pre-Interview Protocol

Questions about teaching

1.1 Describe yourself as a teacher. How would you describe your teaching practices?
1.2 What are your aspirations as a teacher?

1.3 What do you like most about being a teacher?

1.4 What do you like least about being a teacher?

1.5 What do you think constitutes good teaching practice?

Questions about the school

2.1 How would you describe Oaktree Elementary as a professional community?

2.2 What is your sense of the cooperative or collaborative work you do with your peers?
2.3 Describe the last cooperative work you did with another teacher at Bennett Woods.

2.4 On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1=Poor and 10=Excellent, how would you rate the staff
development opportunities at BW?

Questions about technology

3.1 What is your assessment of your own technology expertise?

3.2 What kinds of things do you regularly use technology for?

3.3 How do you think technology should be incorporated into the BW curriculum?
3.4 Describe your wost experience with technology.

Questions about the support group

4.1 What are your expectations for being in this group?

4.2 What do you hope to learn?

4.3 Why do you want to be part of this group?

134

APPENDIX B
Post-Interview Protocol

Teaching with technology

Imagine the following scenarios and answer these questions: how would you use the
technologies described below, if they were available in your classroom, and how do you
think using these computers would facilitate or support student learning?

Scenario #1: You have been given five (5) additional Compaq Windows/9S computers
which are connected to the school network, providing access to all the programs in the
Computer Lab as well as school network printers and the Internet - with e-mail.

Scenario #2: You have been given five (5) Apple 11 series computers (He, He or Hgs)
with color monitors and printers as well as any Apple 11 software you request. These
computers are not connected to the school network or the Internet.

Scenario #3: You have been given enough computers, of any kind you choose, so that
every-other student has access to one in your classroom - i.e., each computer can be
shared by two of your students. In addition, any software you request is also available on
these computers, as well as printers and other school network resources (including access
to the Internet if you want it).

Briefly describe how you would use the technology in scenario’s #1, #2, & #3 above.
My question during the interview

I will select one of the scenarios above and make the following statement: Imagine I am
the principal and that I am considering purchasing technology for school use. You are
trying to convince me of the benefit of purchasing this technology for your students.
Justify for me, as a principal, why purchasing the technology above will lead to improved
student learning.

Purpose of probes: to push the teachers to talk about their beliefs about the role of
technology in their students’ learning.

Possible probes: How would students use technology for their learning?
What specifically would students do with the technology that might help
them learn?
Why is this a good use of technology for education?
How is this approach to learning better than the way we’re doing things now?

135

Interview Questions

1. What have you learned about teaching, learning, and technology (if anything) this year
that you didn’t know last year?

2. We’ve talked a lot in the group about using the computer(s) in your classroom as well
as using the computers in the computer lab. We’ve also talked about getting more com-
puters in the classroom. How do you think student use of the computers in the lab differs
from their use of the computer(s) in your room and what difference would it make if you
had more computers in your room?

3. When you think about educational technology, and it’s value to students in your class-
room, what role or purpose do you see computers playing in their learning? Why should
we put technology into the school? Imagine I’m a parent who has a son or daughter in
your classroom and I’m asking you these questions. Select as many of the following as
you think apply. (What is the role of technology in student learning?)

A) Computers are like tutors for my students, helping them learn specific skills
like reading and math that I may not have time to teach them

B) Computers and the Internet are another information resource my students
should have access to, like the library and the encyclopedia

C) Computers provide my students with tools they can use to create products -
like reports, poems, etc. - for classroom projects

D) Computers provide a way for my students to communicate with other people -
i.e., e-mail or the Web

E) Computers help my students learn basic technical skills - keyboarding,
mouse, etc.

1F) Computers help motivate my students to learn

G) Other - please specify

4. When you think about why your students should learn about technology, which of the
following are the most important? Select as many as you think are critical.

A) Learning to use a computer is something everyone in our society will need to
know in the future and students need to be prepared for that future
B) Parents, teachers, administrators, and others expect our students to use
technology
C) Because we have technology in our school - in the lab and in the classroom -
people expect us to make good use of it
D) Using the Internet opens up a world of information for students that offers
learning opportunities
E) Computers allow students to learn necessary skills
F) Technology has the potential to change the way students learn existing subjects
G) Computers provide powerful opportunities for learning existing subject matter
H) Other - please specify

136

 

5. What factors or circumstances do you believe are preventing or prohibiting you from
using technology more effectively in your teaching?

6. How do you think you compare with other teachers in this school and elsewhere when
it comes to:

A. Using technology - in the lab or in your room

B. Technology knowledge and skill (proficiency or competence)
C. Confidence with technology (dispositions)

D. Learning about technology on your own

7. Do you believe that being a member of this group has helped you use technology this
year? If so, in what ways? If not, why do you think it hasn’t?

8. How do you think your plans for technology use in the classroom have been influenced
by the things we’ve done in this support group?

9. Do you feel that you have grown professionally so far this year? If so, how?

10. Choose one thing that has happened during our time together that you think is signifi-
cant, exceptional or important to you. Describe that event and why you see it as impor-
tant.

l 1. Do you think your relationships with your peers have changed this year? If so, how?
12. What is the most important thing you’ve learned from being part of this group?

13. Imagine that you were trying to describe the support group to a new teacher in the
school, assuming she asked what we do and why you participate in the group. What
would you tell her about the group and why?

14. I’ve observed that in our discussions about technology, we spend lots of time talking
about how we plan to use technology and what type of technology we might use - includ-
ing computers, printers, and software - but we haven’t spent much time talking about why
we might use technology or how technology might help or hinder our students learning -
i.e., pedagogical discussions. Why do you think this is the case?

15. If you were conducting this research what question(s) would you ask me?
16. This work that I’m doing is to help me learn about your experiences as a teacher

integrating technology into your teaching. Do you have any questions you’d like to ask
me about my study or any observations you’d like to make about our work together?

137

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