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dissertation entitled

TEACHER LERANING ABOUT AND WITH TECHNOLOGY:
SHARING, SUPPORT, AND STRETCHING

THROUGH A PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY

presented by
Haojing Cheng

has been accepted towards l‘uifillment
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TEACHER LEARNING ABOUT AND WI I'H TECHNOLOGY:
SHARING, SUPPORT, AND STRETCHING
THROUGH A PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMIVIUNITY

By

Haojing Cheng

A DISSERTATION

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

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Teacher Education

2004

ABSTRACT
TEACHER LEARNING ABOUT AND WITH TECHNOLOGY:

SHARING, SUPPORT, AND STRETCHING
THROUGH A PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY

By
Haojing Cheng

The push for technology integration in K-12 schools and the lack of professional
development opportunities for teachers create serious challenges to learn to integrate
technology. Most work that is pushing for the infusion of technology in a subject area and
exhorting learning communities as an alternative model for teacher professional
development is often written theoretically and nonnatively without an empirical basis.
This study examines the role of a voluntary teacher learning community as an alternative
means of professional development. It examines teachers’ learning to integrate
technology in support of writing instruction from teachers’ perspectives.

Five elementary-school teachers and a professional development specialist
participated in this technology integration project, from which I chose three teachers as
the focal cases of my research. I employed an embedded multiple-case qualitative
research design (Yin, 1994), which examined teacher learning about and with technology
fi‘om teachers’ perspectives. This study shows what technology integration looks like in
practice and how a professional learning community supports teachers’ learning.

This study concludes that teachers need to gain more than technical competencies
in order to integrate technology in support of writing instruction. In addition, they depend

on various learning opportunities in both social and individual planes for their learning

and changes. The boundary between these two planes is blurred rather than clear-cut.
Many cultural and structural conditions, such as sharing, various forms of support,
leadership, and resources, are necessary to attract them to join this professional learning

community and to sustain their learning with each other.

Cepyrisht by
Haojing Cheng
2004

DEDICATION

This study is dedicated to my passed away grandmother, Ruiyun (my Lucky Cloud), who
instilled in me a thirst for learning and the pursuit for truth. This study is dedicated to my
husband, Changhong (my Rainbow), who has been loyal in supporting me in the pursuit
of this doctoral degree. This study is also dedicated to my son, Ray (my Sunshine), who
is a continuing source of inspiration and encouragement in my down times. May my
accomplishment serve as an example of persistence for you in the pursuit of your dreams
throughout your life. Finally, this work is dedicated to God, without whom, none of these
is possible.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have contributed to this study and the completion of this
dissertation. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who directly, or indirectly,
helped me throughout my doctoral study. First, I want to thank my dissertation
committee for their guidance, advice, critique, and encouragement: Cheryl Rosaen, who
helped me find my voice, Ralph Putnam, who helped me analyze and interpret my data,
and Doug Campbell, who helped me link my study to the literature. My special tribute to
my committee director and mentor, Lynn Paine, who has been an intellectual resource
and encouragement for me throughout my doctoral program. Your questions expanded
my thinking and your teaching has helped me make “the strange familiar” and “the
familiar strange”.

The teachers I worked with in this study, J anett, Brenda, Leslie, Mary Kay, Sally,
and Mary Ann, made an outstanding contribution to this study. You have my utmost
respect and admiration. Thank you all for giving your time to participate in this study and
for allowing me the privilege of studying your thinking and learning fiorn you. I am
grateful to you for making my ideas possible in this dissertation. I hope the ideas from
your practice in this dissertation will inspire the building of teacher learning communities
to improve teaching and learning.

Of course, all my years of course work, research and teaching have prepared me
for this dissertation. During the time of my graduate study, I was blessed to develop
friendships and colleagueships. Carolyn Omahony, Philip Baily, Letina and I worked our

way through courses and comprehensive exams together. Inspired by the idea of learning

 

communities, Cindy Carver, Dara Sandow, Scott Ashma, and 1 formed a dissertation
support group, which has been a great intellectual resource. Magane Koshimura and I met
at the College of Education’s orientation program when we first arrived at MSU.
Since then, we have been intellectual and emotional support to each other throughout our
intellectual journey at MSU. Karen Lowenstein and I encouraged each other in our
pursuit of truth. Tom Bird provided me with opportunities to explore teaching as an art
with him. Barbra Stockton, my landlady and friend, made me feel at home in East
Lansing. Neli Wolf, Ailing Kong, and J ian Wang were my academic mentors in different
stages of my doctoral program. Huafen Pei, Pei-fen Song, Stacy and Tom Bieler,
Romelia and Irvin Widders, Don and Allen Wolf have been my spiritual friends. I am
grateful to your intellectual and spiritual support in my pursuit of truth.

Finally, I want to give my special thanks to my family who have been my support.
To my son, Ray, thank you for your tolerance of my absence during some special
moments in your life that I missed in the completion of this doctoral degree. I hope you
give me the opporttmity to make up the precious time I missed in your life. To my mom
and my in-laws, thank you for taking good care of Ray during my absence. To
Changhong, my forever fiiend and soul mate, thank you for all your support,

understanding, and love. I hope I can be your support in the fiiture.

vii

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................ D(
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................ X
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1
CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................... 27
CHAPTER 3 JENNY’S LEARNWG: A CASE OF SHARING ......................... 38
CHAPTER 4 BECKY’S LEARNING: A CASE OF SUPPORT ............................... 66
CHAPTER 5 SANDY’S LEARNING: A CASE OF STEPPING OUT OF THE
COMFORT ZONES ........................................................................... 95
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS ................................ 119
APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ............................................. 150

APPENDD( B: A DESCRIPTION OF BECKY’S ROAD RABBIT PROJECT. . 155
APPENDIX C: A DESCRIPTION OF THE CRUISING COYOTE PROJECT. . 157
APPENDIX D: SANDY’S ALTERNATIVE \VRITING PLAN ...................... 158

REFERENCES ............................................................................... 159

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 .......................................................................................... 8
Table 3.1 ........................................................................................ 42
Table 3.2 ......................................................................................... 44
Table 4.1 ........................................................................................ 68
Table 4.2 ........................................................................................ 68
Table 5.1 ........................................................................................ 98
Table 5.2 ........................................................................................ 98
Table 6.1 ....................................................................................... 120
Table 6.2 ....................................................................................... 124

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure l ............................................................................................ 95

Figure 2 ........................................................................................... 135

Chapter 1

Introduction

Background

Over the past decade, calls for a commitment to teacher professional development
for teaching improvement have been concurrent with various strands of educational
reform in the United States including new curricultun standards, national tests,
multiculturalism, technology integration, and school restructuring for student learning.
The rationale is that any effort to improve education ultimately rests on teachers.
Reformers have seen professional development as the key to any and all educational
reforms (Wilson & Beme, 1999; Ball & Cohen, 1999; Sykes, 1996). Take the current
push for technology infusion in K—12 education as an example. Despite schools having
increased numbers of computers and Internet access, research has shown teachers lack
professional development opportunities for technology integration. According to Cattagni
and Farris (Cattagni & Farris, 2001), the student/computer ratio in American public
schools has decreased from six students per computer in 1999 to five students per
computer in 2000, and the ratio of students to instructional computers connected to the
Internet has dropped from nine students per computer in 1999 to seven students per
computer in 2000. However, fewer than half of American schools provided teachers with
training on basic computer skills, let alone professional development opportunities for
integrating computers into teaching and learning activities (the Office of Technology
Assessment (OTA), 1995). From the third annual report of Education Week on education

technology, Fatemi (1999) identifies that only 29 percent of all teachers with computer

technology access report that they have had more than five hours of technology training
in curriculum integration in the previous year. It thus is not a surprise that the majority of
teachers do not use technology regularly in their teaching (Becker, 1999; Cuban, 2001).

Moreover, despite the potentials of technology in assisting the process of human
cognition (Pea, 1993), such as functioning as useful instructional tools to enhance student
performances (Salomon, 1993) and promoting constructive learning (PCAST, 1997),
education historian Larry Cuban (1986) warned that simply introducing technology into
classrooms might not transform existing educational practice and improve students
learning outcomes. Beyond learning technology per se, teachers need professional
development opportunities to integrate technology in teaching (The CEO Forum on
Education and Technology, 1999). In short, educational reforms in general and the press
for technology integration in teaching specifically all call for attention to teacher
professional development.

However, the dominant training model of teachers’ professional development has
been criticized as ineffective. Little (1993) points out that the training model of
professional development, which primarily focuses on expanding well-defined skills and
practices, is inadequate for the ambitious visions of teaching and learning embedded in
current reforms. For example, the new cuniculum standards of the National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics (N CTM) require teachers to depart from a conventional view of
textbook-centered teaching to a new, ambitious view of teaching for student
understanding. In a case study of how a math teacher, Mrs. Oublier, integrated the new
math curriculum standards in her teaching, Cohen (1990) found a mismatch between Mrs.

Oublier’s teaching and the vision of teaching embedded in the curriculum standards.

Contrary to what Mrs. Oublier thought, that she had successfully revolutionized her
teaching, the researcher noticed that the innovation in Mrs. Oublier’s math teaching was
still filtered through a traditional approach to teaching math due to her limited knowledge
of mathematics and the nature of training she received to implement the new curriculum
standards. The workshops organized by the department of education only offered Mrs. 0
standard teaching strategies rather than help her deepen her mathematics understanding.
Therefore, Mrs. 0 still taught “new” math in a traditional pedagogy. This mismatch
between Mrs. Oublier’s teaching and the vision of teaching embedded in the curriculum
reform suggests a learning problem for teachers. If there are no agreed-on teaching
strategies at the heart of a reform vision of teaching, what learning opportunities do
teachers need?

Reformers advocate alternative means of professional development for teachers
such as teacher collaboration and professional communities to facilitate teachers’ on-
going inquiry about their practice in light of new visions of teaching and learning
embedded in educational reforms (Little, 1987; Wilson & Beme, 1999). Ball and Cohen
(1999) point out that teaching envisioned in these reforms is complex, and there is no
agreed-upon content knowledge or teaching strategies. They advocate an inquiry-based,
practice-oriented model of professional education, in which teachers engage in
substantial professional discourse about teaching practice through communities of
practice. From the points of view of situated and social cognition, 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” (Putnam &

Borko, 1997, p.1247). Little (1988 in Wilson & Beme, 2000, p. 175) nominates that

effective professional development should contain the following features: (a) it ensures
collaboration adequate to produce shared understanding, shared investment, thoughtful
development, and a fair, rigorous test of selected ideas; (b) it requires collective
participation in training and implementation; (c) it focuses on crucial problems of
curriculum and instruction; ((1) it is conducted often enough and long enough to ensure
progressive gain in knowledge, skills, and confidence; and (c) it is congruent with and
contributes to professional habits and norms of collegiality and experiment.

Given the persistent private culture of teaching in the U. S. (Little, 1990), teacher
collaboration and/or professional communities do not occur spontaneously. Teacher
collaborations and professional communities in the literature tend to be either associated
with school restructuring reforms or with the partnerships with universities/research
institutions. Hargreaves (1992) reminds us of the problem of contrived collegiality where
teachers engage in superficial learning when they are asked to work on an administration-
imposed agenda. If the problem of contrived collegiality is solved, will a voluntary
community of teachers facilitate teacher learning?

In addition, like the lack of empirical evidence about teacher learning in
traditional professional development activities (Wilson & Beme, 2000), the work that is
exhorting alternative means of professional development typically is written theoretically
and nonnatively without an empirical basis. Therefore it is important to know empirically
what new images of professional development look like. Moreover, if teachers are the
most important agents of instructional policy (Cohen, 1990; Lipsky, 1980), their voices
on whether and how the new means of professional development work for them should

be heard by reformers and policy makers. In traditional professional development

workshops, teachers are treated as recipients of knowledge. In new visions of
professional development, teachers are seen as active learners who construct their
knowledge through interaction with others. However, most work exhorting new visions
of professional develOpment is typically written by reformers and policy makers. It is
important to hear teachers’ voices on whether and how a teacher learning community
works for teachers’ learning.

The purpose of this study therefore is to examine the role of a voluntary teacher
learning community on teacher learning about and with technology to improve writing
instruction fi'om teachers’ perspectives. Teacher learning means the changes in what a
teacher knows, what s/he believes, how s/he thinks and acts and how s/he thinks of
herself/himself as a professional (Borko & Putnam, 1996). In 1998, seven elementary
school teachers from five school districts attached to a large Midwest intermediate school
district (ISD) joined a technology support group for writing instruction facilitated by the
ISD professional development coordinator. After working with and supporting each other
for three years, these teachers integrated technology into their teaching, enhanced or
transformed their practice of teaching writing, and gained new professional identities.
Through describing and analyzing what these teachers learned and how they changed
through this voluntary professional learning community for technology integration, I
intend to examine the relationship between a professional community and teachers’
learning in the context of technology integration from the points of views of these
teachers. In the remainder of this chapter, I will discuss how the literature in the

following three fields sheds lights on my dissertation investigation: a) teacher learning

communities as alternative means for professional development; b) research on teacher

learning to teach with technology; c) shifiing theoretical lenses on teacher learning.

Teacher learning communities as alternative means for professional development

Despite the fact that most teaching in the US. is individualistic (Lortie, 1975;
Little, 1990), there is a growing interest in teacher learning communities as alternative
means to foster and support teacher learning. Studies show that teacher professional
communities have contributed to decreasing teacher isolation (Little, 1982); facilitating
teacher discourse to develop authentic pedagogy for authentic student achievement
(Newmann and associates, 1996); and providing opportunities for teachers to learn with
each other about subject matter knowledge, teaching, and student learning (Wilson and
Beme, 1999).

Little (1993) pointed out that professional development should take into account
the particularities of teaching contexts and teachers’ experience. Professional
communities differ in their purposes, relationship, social norms and functions and consist
of people with different personal qualities. These differences shape teacher learning
opportunities and outcomes. When examining teacher leaming, we need to pay attention

to conditions that influence teacher learning.

Conditions/factors that influence teacher learning through professional communities
Newman and associates (1996) argued that cultural and structural conditions are
important for forming and developing professional communities to foster teacher

learning. Cultural conditions refer to shared visions, beliefs and values among

community members. Structural conditions refer to goals, time, resources, administrators’
roles and so forth that community members have. Little (1990, 1999) helps us think about
how cultural conditions impact teacher learning experience through her distinction of
“strong ties” and “weak ties” relationships among teachers in academic departments she
studied. In communities of "strong ties," teachers work collaboratively on matters of
curriculum and instruction and develop shared understanding and collective autonomy.
Teachers are interdependent rather than independent. In communities of "weak ties,"
teachers engage in casual interaction and individual autonomy remains. McLaughlin and
Talbert (2001) further distinguish traditional communities from learning communities.
While learning communities support teachers’ on-going inquiries and develop their
professional knowledge collaboratively, traditional communities only reinforce teachers’
existing knowledge rather than foster shared work and learning.

Lieberman (1992) recognized four conditions that are shared by successful
networks that foster teacher learning: focus, variety, discourse community, and leadership
opportunity. Focus refers to a professional community establishing a focus of activity
beyond the “generic” one. This focus enables those who join the community to establish
a sense of identity through participating in the activities related to their common goals
and objectives. Variety means a network provides opportunities to sustain commitment of
teachers by blending personal and professional interests and network-related activities.
This helps to establish a trust environment for teachers to interact and communicate with
each other. Discourse community encourages teachers to participate in knowledge
construction out of their daily practices. Teachers gain ownership of the knowledge

through intellectually and emotionally inspired conversation. Leadership opportunity

refers to teachers taking the leadership to experiment with new ideas and to continue
inquiry about their practice.

According to Newman and associates (1996), both cultural and structural
conditions depend on each other to foster professional communities and sustain teacher
professional inquiry and risk taking. For example, departmentalization is the dominant
form of culture of high schools, where teachers’ individual autonomy/freedom is valued.
Finding a time within the school day for teachers to dialogue with each other across
departments is a usefiil structural intervention to break the cultural limitation of high
schools. Unless the decision-makers negotiate a time for planning and analysis together,
it is hard for teachers to find a common time to work together in their busy schedule even
if they want to work together. However, merely structural support itself is not enough.
Persistent privacy is a problem of teaching culture in the US. (Little, 1990). Provided
time, teachers may be asked to work on administrative mandated projects or just work
conservatively to reinforce traditional practice rather than deal with the new visions of
teaching and learning embedded in educational reforms. When teachers are asked to work
on an administration-imposed agenda, they may engage in superficial learning
(Hargreaves, 1992). Hargreaves argued that the culture of teaching should be the focus of
change because it shapes the kind of collegial relationship formed. Thus, both cultural
and structural supports are needed to shape and complement each other to build effective
professional communities that support teacher learning.

Smylie (1995) cautions that merely stressing the importance of work place
conditions may not lead to desired teacher learning outcome. He wrote:

To simply identify workplace conditions conductive to teacher learning is not the

same thing as understanding in greater depth the complex, potentially interactive

functional relationships of those conditions to learning. It does not shed light on

interactions between the work environment and individual cognitive and
psychological states in the learning process. Nor does identification help us
understand or accomplish the complex and difficult task of redesigning schools to

establish these workplace conditions (p. 107).

Barnes (1992) argues that professional development needs to work on shaping
individual teachers’ interpretive fi'ames because the “frames” of teachers influence how
they perceive education problems and solutions and affect their actions. In a case study of
teacher collaboration among three high school math teachers for implementing a new
algebra curriculum, Cheng (2000) found that the curriculum innovation only provides a
context for teacher learning. It was individual teacher's beliefs about math curriculum,
pedagogy, and the role of being a professional that drove the collaborative work of
teachers in pursuing instructional changes in math teaching.

In short, teachers’ learning experiences vary in different types of communities
depending on cultural and structural conditions as well as personal qualities. In those
communities where teachers are required to implement administrators’ agenda, teachers
may only engage in superficial learning instead of inquiry about their existing knowledge
and beliefs and their teaching practices. In the communities where a trust relationship is
established, teachers are likely to open their practices and engage in collaborative inquiry
about their practices (Rosaen, 1995; Cheng, 2000). If the problem of contrived
collegiality is solved, will a voluntary teacher learning community support authentic

teacher learning? Since most teaching is individualistic and teacher collaboration seldom

occurs spontaneously, why does a person in an individualistic teaching environment
choose to be in a group? This, then, becomes my first research question.

This review of the literature suggests that different factors/conditions influence
teacher-learning experiences in different professional communities. Therefore, there is
not a “one fits all” approach to foster and develop professional communities to support
teacher learning as Calderwood (2000) states: "Community, however, is a slippery state
of social relations. It is not a commodity easily obtained. There is no storehouse stocking
tempting varieties and flavors of ready-made community, nor is there a warehouse filled
with the ingredients that, when properly arranged, transform into community" (p.2). Any
particular community is contingent upon the agency of its members and work place
cultural and structural conditions. This study explores teacher-learning experience in a
voluntary learning community with a focus on different factors that contribute or hinder
teacher learning. I hope to see how much these factors affecting the learning community
of this study reflect and add to the discussion of the factors identified in the literature of
professional learning communities. Thus, my second research question is: What factors

stand out necessarily for teacher learning in this voluntary teacher learning community?

Content and forms of teacher learning in professional communities

Despite cultural and structural conditions that influence teacher learning
experience, Ball and Cohen (1999) call for attention to the curriculum and pedagogy of
professional development to foster teacher learning. “To affect what teachers might leam,
one must consider the cuniculum and pedagogy of professional development: what

teachers would have opportunity to learn and how they would be taught” (p. 6). Ball and

10

Cohen argue that for authentic teacher learning to occur, the content of professional
development needs to be rooted in teaching practice. On the one hand, focusing on
practice makes it immediate enough to compel teachers to learn, something missing in the
training model of professional development. On the other hand, studying teaching
practice also makes it distant enough for teachers to reflect on their actions and examine
knowledge and beliefs they hold.

Much of professional development either is not about teaching practice or merely
provides theories/principles and/or techniques for teachers to apply. Given the complex
and ambiguous nature of current education reforms (Little, 1993), new visions of
teaching and learning embedded in reforms do not entail a set of agreed-upon content and
processes. This requires a different kind of professional development. Cochran-Smith and
Lytle (1999), like Ball and Cohen, argue the authentic approach for professional
development is the one that will engage teachers in inquiry about their teaching practice,
learning theories and research-based ideas with professionals from various education
communities. This is what they call the “knowledge-of-practice” version of professional
development. Such a vision of professional development is not just about providing
technical solutions, or simple recipes to technical problems. The practice itself becomes
the substantive focus of teacher learning.

In a review of contemporary professional development, Wilson and Beme (1999)
find that high-quality professional development programs involve communities of
learners that are redefining teaching practice. In a teacher collaborative project (Cheche
Konnen Project) on science learning they reviewed, the researchers found that teachers

were able to explore the meaning of scientific terms beyond merely learning the words

11

per se. Instead, teachers embedded their learning in the discourse and practice associated
with those words and constructed their understanding socially. As a result, teachers in
this conversation group developed their own “canonical cases” to refer to in their
examination of their own practice. This case illustrates that when you have practice as the
substantive focus of leaming, it allows learning more than scientific terms. This case also
shows that conversation is an important form to construct knowledge and shared
understanding socially.

Research about teachers’ collaborative work suggests it can take many forms for
teachers to engage in learning with each other: talking about teaching, sharing planning
and preparation, observing each other’s class and critiquing each other’s practice,
discussing videotapes about teaching, working together to design curriculum,
participating in on-going study and research, training each other, sharing insights with a
wider audience, and forming subject matter collaboratives, networks and professional
communities for instructional improvement (Little, 1982, 1987; Rosaen, 1995; Newmann
& Associate, 1996; Cheng, 2000; Lieberman, 2000).

Among all forms of teacher collaborative work, conversation and sharing appear
to be key components underlying these activities. Conversation helps teachers to develop
a common ground or shared language. Little (1982) commented on the importance of
shared language in changing teaching practice:

By such talk, teachers build up a shared language adequate to the complexity of

teaching, are capable of distinguishing one practice and its virtues from another,

and are capable of integrating large bodies of practice into a distinct and sensible

perspective of business of teaching. Other things being equal, the utility of

12

collegial work and rigor of experimentation with teaching is a direct function of

the concreteness, precision, and coherence of the shared language (p.331).
Sharing is another key factor that keeps teachers’ practices open and increases the
interdependence among each other. Through many forms of shared work, teachers
expand their repertoire of teaching, achieve the coherence of the program, and reduce the
individual burden for planning and preparation (Little, 1987). Both conversations and
sharing are important for teachers to ask questions, exchange ideas, and develop shared
language.

However, conversation and sharing do not always result in shared language or
common understanding among teachers. Lortie (1975) finds teachers’ sporadic staff room
conversation is typically about sharing “tricks of the trade” of teaching. Ball and Cohen
(1999) see that one problem associated with teachers’ talk is that teachers often talk past
and around each other. Careless and occasional sharing of curriculum materials and
information about students is unlikely to open teachers’ practices for scrutiny and lead to
changes in teaching (Little, 1990; Hargreaves, 1992).

Thus, some researchers emphasize the importance of critical colleagueship, in
which disequilibrium is encouraged through debating and distinguishing differences
among teaching beliefs and practices (Lord, 1994; Ball & Cohen, 1999). In a study of
collaboration among three high school math teachers, Cheng (2000) found that critical
colleagueship, which was characterized by colleagues debating with each other their
different stances toward the content and pedagogies of mathematics teaching, challenged
teachers’ deeply held beliefs. As a result, one of the teachers changed her teaching

strategies fi'om delivering knowledge to students to encouraging students to discover

13

knowledge over the time.

Given the importance of conversation and sharing that prior research about
teacher learning through professional communities has claimed, it is important to know
empirically what these forms of community work make possible and what the substance
of teachers’ conversation and sharing in a subject specific collaboration that involves
technology entails. This leads to another two research questions: what did these teachers

learn, and how did they learn and change through a voluntary learning community?

Learning to teach with technology

Since the content of teacher learning in this study is technology integration, I will
discuss in this section what we know about teacher professional development for
technology integration. Various approaches have been taken to understand teacher
learning for technology integration. As technology still remains largely unused or more
underused than expected (Becker & Anderson, 1999; Cuban 1986; Cuban 2001), many
studies have looked at the technology uses of so-called “early adopters” or “exemplary
technology-using teachers”. Zhao et a1 (2001) examined the technology uses of those
early adopters in a Midwest state and found these teachers not only were fairly
technologically competent but also felt positively toward technology uses and were more
likely to use technology to promote student-centered higher-order thinking activities.
After reviewing the data of the 1998 National Survey of Teaching, Learning, and
Computing, Becker (2000) found valuable uses of computers in teaching had emerged
and were influenced by factors such as time offered by schools, availability of

equipments, teachers’ computer competencies, and teacher personal philosophy on

14

teaching and learning. These studies summarize the traits and characteristics of
technology-using teachers and provide an overview of factors that may influence teacher
technology uses. However, this line of research is mainly based on survey data, providing
few insights on what and how teachers learn to teach with technology.

The Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT) project (Sandholtz, Ringstaff, &
Dwyer, 1997) revealed the process of teacher technology learning and uses in teaching.
The researchers found teachers went through five stages for learning to integrate
technology in teaching: entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation, and invention.
However, even with rich resources and support, less than 50 percent of teachers reached
the third stage of technology learning. In other words, the majority of teachers still use
technology primarily in supporting their existing practice.

Prior professional development approaches that focus on technical skills have
been ineffective (Little, 1993). Research finds the most frequent professional uses of
computers are associated with teachers’ day-to-day work such as making handouts and
keeping records rather than instructional uses (Becker, Ravitz & Wong, 1999). Many
workshops that prepare teachers to integrate technology pay little attention to the
connection with subject areas (Survey on professional development and training in US.
public schools, 2000; Zhao, 2002).

The review of the research of technology integration suggests that teachers’
technology plans or technology uses in teaching are often influenced by teachers’ existing
knowledge and beliefs (Dwyer, Ringstaff & Sandholtz, 1991; Topper, 1998; Hughes,
2000). Hughes (2000) identified a learning path that four English teachers went through

for technology integration in teaching. In this model, individual knowledge and belief as

15

well as personal experience are major factors that shape teachers’ learning to teach with
technology. This study provided opportunities to understand teacher technology learning
experience at an individual level. Little is known, however, about whether and how
learning experience beyond personal experience may impact teacher learning to integrate
technology in teaching.

Topper (1998) examined teachers’ technology learning and technology uses
through a teacher technology support group. This study found teachers’ plans for
technology uses in teaching were mediated by their existing knowledge and beliefs.
Though teachers learned to integrate technology through a technology support group, it
was individual teachers’ knowledge and beliefs which shaped and were shaped by their
technology plans. This study seems to reinforce the claim that teachers are independent
rather than interdependent (Little, 1990) in their technology planning even with a
technology support group. In addition, teachers in this technology support group mainly
discussed their technology plans. We still do not know what technology integration looks
like in practice. Moreover, this group discussed in Topper’s study has an additional
factor for consideration as it was formed by a university researcher. Little is known about
the effect of a voluntary teacher learning community on teacher learning to teach with
technology. For the focus of this dissertation, the community is not set up by the
researcher but an ISD professional development specialist.

In short, researchers have started to look at the processes through which teachers
learn to teach with technology by either looking at the stages that individual teachers go
through or at personal knowledge and experiences that shape teacher learning. Given the

potential of professional communities to foster on-going teacher learning, will a learning

16

community, especially a voluntary teacher learning community, facilitate teachers’
learning to teach writing with technology? Little is known about whether and how a
teacher voluntary learning community might support teachers’ learning to integrate
technology in writing as well as cultural and structural conditions associated with a
voluntary learning community that might impact teachers’ learning to integrate
technology.

Moreover, in current efforts of professional development in teacher technology
learning, technical skills, technology potential and good attitudes of teachers were
emphasized. Many workshops for teacher technology learning paid little attention to the
connection between technology and curriculum and teaching (Zhao, 2002). As a good
teacher needs to know more than the subject matter to teach effectively, merely “training”
teachers to use technologies is not sufficient for them to know how to teach effectively
with technology (Becker, 2000). However, education and research communities still lack
knowledge on what technology integration with a subj ect-specific focus looks like in
practice and what teachers need to know in order to teach effectively with new
technologies. As it is important to attend to both content and forms of professional
development (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Wilson & Beme, 1999) for effective teacher learning
and teaching, it is also important to understand what teachers need to know to integrate
technology in a subject area and how they might have learned it through a voluntary

teacher learning community.

Shifting theoretical lenses for teacher learning

17

Current attention to professional communities as places for teacher learning
reflects a historical shift in the conceptualization of teacher learning. Education reforms
call for teacher change, and teacher learning opportunities are important to facilitate the
change processes. When behaviorism was the dominant force of influence in 195 Os,
educators believed that teacher learning should focus on modifying behaviors and skills
of teachers to improve students' learning outcomes (Clark, 1989). Focusing on changing
teachers' classroom behavior ignores teachers’ thought processes that drive their actions.
Therefore, teachers are seen as the targets of changes through passively implementing
programs designed by others. Richardson (1990) comments, "the teacher-change
literature focuses on teacher behaviors, and specifically on behaviors identified within a
particular program. Thus the question of what teachers do and whether they change are
addressed within an evaluation framework of pre-and-post program or mandated
implementation" (p.12).

The focus on teacher learning has shifted from teachers’ behaviors to teachers’
thought processes. This is influenced by Piaget’s cognitive theories, which argue that
psychological development involves changes in the structure of thoughts. The assumption
is that changes in behavior must be accompanied by changes in cognitions (Piaget in
Miller, 1993). Under this perspective, individual teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and mental
processes rather than their behaviors are the target areas for teachers’ learning and
changes (Richardson, 1996; Borko & Putnam, 1996). This body of literature provides
evidence that teachers’ experiences and personal biographies shape and are shaped by
what and how they learn to teach. However, research on individual teachers’ thought

processes often leads to an idiosyncratic view of teachers, one that assumes teachers

18

teach based on who they are (Richardson, 1990; Putnam & Borko, 1997). Due to the
limitation of the idiosyncratic view of teacher learning, Richardson argues that a new
fiamework is needed to look at teacher learning, in which “practices and ways of thinking
outside an individual teacher's own experiences should be introduced into the dialogue"
(p.14). Recent attention to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (1978) provides an alternative
perspective to view teacher learning. Under this perspective, others, especially
experienced others, play important roles in learning and development of an individual.

In the Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective, knowledge is not considered as
individual property but is distributed and constructed through social interaction in a
"community of practice" (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Cobb, 1994). The view of knowledge as
distributed, situated and socially constructed highlights the importance of others
(V ygotsky, 1978) as well as social and cultural context in the process of learning (Brown,
Collins & Duguid, 1989). According to Vygotsky, any higher psychological function in
cultural development “appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual
level; first, between people (interpsychological), and then inside the child
(intrapsychological)” (p.57). An experienced other plays a vital role in development of
the less experienced. Learning, therefore, is a process of participation and enculturation
to discourse and practice of a particular community. "A community of practice is an
intrinsic condition for the existence of knowledge ...Thus, participation in the cultural
practice in which any knowledge exists is an epistemological principle of learning" (Lave
and Wenger, 1991. R98). In a study of high school teaching, McLaughlin and Talbert
(2001) found teacher professional communities served as psychological tools that

mediated teachers' thoughts and practices through enculturating them into knowledge,

19

values and social norms of the community of teaching practice.

Cognitive and sociocultural perspectives are two major theoretical lenses scholars
employ to explain learning and development. The cognitive perspective emphasizes how
individuals make sense of the world in a specific social context while the sociocultural
perspective stresses the importance of the influence of social and cultural contexts in the
learning experience of individuals. These two perspectives may be complementary to
each other in explaining learning and development (Cobb, 1994). Rogoff (1995) firrther
classifies learning that occurs at the sociocultural level into learning at
community/institutional, interpersonal, and personal planes. To avoid dichotomizing
learning as social versus individual, she argues that learning at different planes is
interdependent and consists of the whole socialcultural activity instead of separate
practice. “It is incomplete to focus only on the relationship of individual development
and social interaction without concern for the cultural activity in which personal and
interpersonal actions take place” (p.141).

With the regards of teacher learning to integrate technology in teaching, many
have explored the impact of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs on their attitudes toward
technology as well as their uses of technology in teaching. Little is known about teacher
learning to integrate technology in a subject area through a voluntary teacher learning
community. This study therefore focuses on understanding teachers’ learning experience
especially through their interaction with other teachers.

However, I do not ignore the influence that teachers’ beliefs and personal
experience with technology may have on their learning to teach with new computer

technologies and how they make sense of new ideas about teaching and student learning

20

because the sociocultural and cognitive perspectives that I employed here may be
complementary to each other. Thus, this study will attend to learning opportunities
occurring at both individual and social planes to account for teacher learning. Learning
opportunities at social planes include a) chances to learn through interacting with teachers
in this professional community as well as b) chances to learn through interacting with
other professionals in a broader education community. Learning opportunities at
individual planes refer to learning opportunities that occur when a teacher a) makes new
senses of teaching and learning by his/herself without interacting with other teachers and
professionals, or b) appropriates what they have learned in social planes. Therefore, my
research question “how have teachers learned? ” in other words, is “what learning
opportunities, at social and individual planes, of this professional community have

affected teacher learning experience?”

Research questions

Literature on teacher learning reviewed so far addresses the importance of
learning communities as alternative means for teacher learning and development and
calls for the attention to content and processes of social interaction as well as cultural and
structural conditions that foster social interaction for the purpose of teacher learning.
In the domain of teacher professional development for technology integration, most of
these studies focus on the influence of teachers’ knowledge and beliefs as well as their
personal experience on their learning to teach with technology. Little is known about how
teacher learning experiences, especially through a voluntary learning community, might

impact teacher learning to teach with technology, and the cultural and structural

21

conditions that affect the formation and development of this voluntary teacher learning
community. In terms of the content of teacher learning to integrate technology, technical
skills are the typical focus of teacher learning in a workshop model of professional
development (Little, 1993). However, technology itself is not a subject of learning in this
study. Teachers were asked to integrate technology in writing instruction. Technology
integration in this study refers to the use of computer technologies in the teaching and
learning processes of subject areas, in this case writing. What teachers need to learn to
integrate technology beyond learning technical skills has not received attention. If
technology is instrumental instead of the substantive thing to learn, what is important for
us to consider about the content of teacher learning to integrate technology? Just as the
work that exhorts alternative means of teacher learning is written theoretically and
nonnatively without an empirical basis, research that is calling for connecting
technology, cuniculum and teaching (Zhao, 2002) for teacher learning does not provide
images of how such connected technology integration looks in practice. So it is important
to explore what teacher learning to integrate technology in a subject area through a
voluntary teacher learning community may look like in reality. Moreover, this study does
not try to evaluate the effectiveness of this voluntary teacher learning community, but to
understand the role of a voluntary teacher leaming community on teacher learning about
and with technology from teachers’ own perspectives. Therefore, I developed four
research questions to examine how teachers account for their learning experience around
learning:

1. Why did teachers come to learn to integrate technology through this voluntary

teacher learning community?

22

2. What did teachers learn? In other words, what were the substances of learning for
teachers to integrate technology in writing? And what were the learning outcomes
of these teachers through this voluntary teacher learning community?

3. How did they learn and change? In other words, what learning opportunities, at
social and individual planes, of this learning community affected teacher learning
about and with technology?

4. What factors stood out as necessary for teachers’ learning about and with

technology through this voluntary professional learning community?

A teacher learning community for technology integration

In order to understand the role of a professional learning community on teacher
learning to teach with technology, I conducted a qualitative study involving five
elementary teachers from five school districts and a professional development developer
from the Intermediate School District (ISD). These teachers formed a technology support
group under the leadership of Nancy, the ISD professional development developer.

The group was started in 1998 when Nancy won the Tomorrow Technology
Innovation Grant, a grant that encouraged teachers to integrate technology in teaching.
Nancy’s project was called “Young Authors Embrace Technology in Writing.” Nancy
called for participants fi'om the school districts that the ISD served to implement this
technology integration grant. Seven elementary teachers were selected from a pool of 25
teachers who were the winners of Goal 2000 Internet Computer in the previous year.
Three, who came from the same school, worked together in a multiage group of first and

second graders. The other four teachers came from four other school districts. Two of

23

them were fourth grade teachers, and the other two were first grade teachers. The five
teachers I interviewed represent the five districts that the ISD served. The teachers
received hardware, like scanners and digital cameras, and KidPix software as part of the
Nancy’s Tomorrow Technology grant. They all knew Nancy through various ISD
activities but they did not know each other well until they worked together on Nancy’s
project. These teachers became fiiends after meeting and working with each other for
three years. In the first year, these teachers recalled that they met five to six times during
the academic year to figure out how to integrate technology in student writing. In the
second year, they were asked to present their projects at professional conferences and
workshops. They buddied with each other and met occasionally either with the buddy or
with the group to prepare for the presentations. In the third year, they were actively
involved in training other teachers to integrate technology in teaching either in their own
school districts or at the ISD.

When I first met this group of teachers during the presentation time in a summer
workshop of technology professional development at the end of the second year (2000), it
appeared to be the kind of teacher learning community that I had been seeking. These
teachers told me they had come together voluntarily to learn to integrate multimedia in
writing. Moreover, this group seems like a learning community based on the criteria
given by Wenger (1998). Wenger identifies three criteria to decide if a collection of
people would be recognized as a community: if they involve a) mutual engagement, b) a
joint enterprise, and c. a shared repertoire. Mutual engagement refers to an aggregate of
people who engage in actions and negotiate the meaning of actions with one another.

Joint enterprise means the process to carry out the goal of mutual engagement is

24

determined by the negotiation of the participants. A shared repertoire refers to a
repertoire of resources and practices that is shared among participants through the joint
enterprise toward the common goal. Based on these criteria, this teacher technology
support group is a learning community because participants of this group engage in a
joint enterprise of learning to integrate technology in writing instruction, and they share a
repertoire of ideas and resources as they work collaboratively to integrate multimedia in
writing in addition to a shared repertoire of teaching practices as elementary teachers.
Since the focus of this learning community is on learning to teach with technology, I call
it a teacher technology support group or a teacher professional/learning community.
While these teachers formed a learning community, they each brought their
learning needs and experience to this group in ways that affected their learning and their
identities in the group. Jenny, Becky, and Sandy became the main characters of chapters
in this dissertation. In addition, Lucy and Margaret were participants of this group. I draw
on their experience to identify patterns and themes on teacher learning in this learning
community. Kathy and Betsy, the two co-teachers of Jenny’s multiage group, only
participated in the group for the first year and were not available for my study. However,
they were frequently referred to by the teachers in this learning community. Nancy, the
coordinator of this teacher technology support group, served as a resource person for me

to understand the background as well as the activities of this learning community.

The structure of this dissertation

This dissertation consists of six chapters. In this first chapter, Introduction, I

combine the problem statement and literature review together to lay out the background

25

of my investigation. In the second chapter, Methodology, I describe the methods and
strategies I employed to do the research. The following three chapters are cases of three
teachers. In addition to discussing the content of their learning, I use each case to
highlight the themes of how teachers had learned. These themes are both individual and
collective views. Chapter 3, “Jenny’s learning,” explains why sharing is important for
these teachers. Chapter 4, “Becky’s Learning,” discusses why “support” is important and
analyzes many different forms of support. Chapter 5, “Sandy’s Learning,” accounts for
why “stepping out of comfort zones” is a prevailing outcome of learning in addition to
changed beliefs and behavior through this professional learning community. In the last
chapter, I draw conclusions and discuss the implications of this research for education

theory and practice.

26

Chapter 2

Methodology

Research design

My goal in this study was to examine teachers’ experience of learning about and
with technology through a voluntary learning community. I studied five teachers and a
professional development specialist, who were working together to integrate technology
in a literacy project for students. To understand the role of a voluntary learning
community on teacher+ learning to teach with technology, I developed four research
questions to guide my investigation: 1.Why did these teachers come to learn to integrate
technology through this voluntary teacher learning community? 2. What did teachers
learn? In other words, what were the substances of learning for teachers to integrate
technology in writing? And what were the learning outcomes of these teachers through
this voluntary teacher learning community? 3. How did they learn and change? In other
words, what learning opportunities, at social and individual planes, of this professional
community affected teacher learning about and with technology? 4. What factors stood
out as necessary for teachers’ learning about and with technology through this voluntary
teacher learning community? In this chapter, I will discuss the rationale of my design, the
kind of data I collected, the methods of data analysis, my choice of specific teachers who
became focus cases, and how I organize the presentation of each case.

My focus on understanding teacher learning through this voluntary learning
community fiom their own perspectives was influenced by particular theoretical

underpinnings. I adopted both sociocultural and cognitive perspectives to understand

27

teacher learning. Social perspectives of learning view learners as active makers of
knowledge through interaction with others in social and cultural contexts (Putnam &
Borko, 1997). Such visions of teacher learning are missing in traditional professional
development programs, where teachers are viewed as passive recipients of theories and
techniques from outside experts (Little, 1993) and are evaluated in pre-and-post programs
(Richardson, 1990). So it was very important to understand what sense these teachers
made of their learning, mediated by their participating in this voluntary learning
community, rather than imposing my interpretation of what they have learned. I wanted
to understand teachers’ views. Qualitative methods, which focus on understanding the
meaning-making fi'om participants’ own perspectives (Erickson, 1986), were the most
direct way for me to elicit the views of the insiders.

I see a cognitive perspective as complementary to a sociocultural perspective of
learning because of the roles that knowledge and beliefs play in the process of learning.
Teachers’ prior knowledge and beliefs impact their learning to teach (Borko & Putnam,
1996). As teachers’ knowledge and beliefs are inseparable from experience (Lortie, 1975)
and personal biography (Clandinin & Connelly, 1986), I also recognize the importance of
teachers’ experience and personal biographies in learning to teach. So I care about who
these teachers are as people with a history, people who draw on their experiences and
prior knowledge to act and make sense of the world. Thus, in each case chapter, I will
introduce biographical backgrounds of these teachers because their backgrounds are
important to understand why they had the kind of learning experiences they had. I begin

each case chapter with a description of each teacher’s history of learning to teach with

28

technology. I believe that who they are and what their experiences are will help me

understand their learning experience through this voluntary learning community.

Data collection

I wanted to understand the teachers’ decision to join this voluntary learning
commtmity, their biographical background, and what and how they learned. In qualitative
research, interviews are more direct methods than observation to elicit people’s views
(Bogdan & Biklen, 1992). I interviewed five teachers (Becky, Jenny, Lucy, Margaret, and
Sandy) and Nancy, the ISD professional development specialist. Kate and Betsy were
team teachers in Jenny’s multiage group. Though they were not the participants of this
study, the teachers I interviewed often referred to them.

I conducted three interviews with each of the four teachers and with Nancy. Each
interview was designed to attain different goals. I employed the strategy of a semi-
structured interview in which I asked open-ended questions (see Appendix 1) to elicit
participants’ views. The first interview was designed to get the background information
of these teachers because I recognized the roles teachers’ experiences, including their
prior knowledge and beliefs, play in their learning to teach. When learning about their
biographies, I specifically asked their stories on learning to use technology in teaching,
because technology is the initial subject of learning of this teacher learning community.

The second interview was focused on getting the teachers’ views on their learning
experiences through this voluntary learning community. In this interview, I paid close
attention to their accounts of what the group made possible: in other words, what they

learned through this group. I also tried to discern different sources that impact their

29

learning, such as other teachers in the group, Nancy, other professionals, and so forth.
The third interview was a follow-up interview in which I asked teachers to clarify some
points that were unclear from the first two interviews. I also used the interview analysis
strategy re-interview (Kavle, 1996) to have the subjects confirm or disconfirrn what they
thought about my interpretations of their learning. Though each interview was designed
to get different information, questions in each interview were not mutually exclusive. I
repeated questions so that I could check for the consistency of the answers fiom the
interviewees.

I observed the activities of this voluntary learning commrmity three times before I
started interviews in order to get myself familiar with the setting and the teachers and to
develop interview questions. When I visited these teachers, it was the third year that they
had worked with each other. The primary goal of their meeting had shifted from learning
to integrate technology in students’ writing in the first year, to training other teachers to
integrate technology in teaching in the third year. From my sociocultural perspective, I
wanted to learn how teachers interact with and learn from each other in a voluntary
community. However, full participant observation (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1998),
which means the opportunity to observe how these teachers interacted with and learned
from each other to integrate technology in writing, was not possible because I did not
meet them until they had already completed that phase of the work. When I came to visit
them, it was the third year of their meeting when they helped Nancy to train other
teachers of ISD to integrate technology. The data fi'om the observations of the group
activities I was able to do served as a source for the development of my interview

questions as well as crosschecking the patterns of themes I identified across these

30

teachers (Yin, 1994). These visits also helped me to familiarize myself with these
teachers’ work and develop rapport with them.

The data from interviews were complemented by three one-time classroom
observations in the classrooms of Jenny, Betsy and Lucy. Classroom observation at
Sandy’s class was not possible because she had gone on to teach in a middle school by
the time I conducted classroom observations. The purpose of classroom observation was
to get multiple sources of evidence and to crosscheck the patterns and themes each
teacher identified in the interviews (Yin, 1994). The classroom observation was done
before the third interview to clarify and verify what each teacher told me during the first
two interviews. For example, Becky claimed that one way she integrated technology into
her teaching was using a big TV monitor to display “the problem of the day” to her
students. So in my observation, I looked for the ways through which Becky used the big
TV to demonstrate what she said in the interviews. The observation also helped me
understand what she meant by “the problem of the day.” The problem of the day during
my visit was: “Six ducks swim in a tank. Five ducks sink. How many ducks still swim?”
In the second interview, Becky also talked about how she enhanced her writing
instruction by appropriating the strategy “conference with students individually” from
Kate and Betsy, two colleagues of Jenny. In her class, I observed two different ways
Becky conferenced with students individually. So the observation provided concrete

images of the meaning of “conferencing with students individually.”

Data analysis

Data analysis occurred throughout the period in which I conducted interviews.

31

I employed several interview analysis strategies described by Kavle (1996). “On-the-line
interpretation” was the strategy that I used in all these interviews to confirm or
disconfirm my interpretations of the meaning the subjects describe during the interviews.
“Re-interview” was another strategy that I employed in the third interview after I
transcribed the first two interviews. I gave back my interpretations of the first two
interviews to the interviewees for their comments on my interpretation of the patterns and
themes that I identified from the interviews.

Since my inquiry was guided by both a sociocultural perspective and a cognitive
perspective of learning, I attended to how teachers account for their learning from
different sources in each interview. For learning that occurred at social planes, I gave the
teachers probes to discern the source from which they learned. When they told me they
learned from the group about how to figure out technical troubleshooting, I asked them
who (the leader, the teachers, the tech guides, etc.) helped them to learn. When they told
me they learned the idea from their own teaching, I tried to figure out if they got this idea
through reflection or by appropriating the ideas they got from other teachers in the group.

After each interview, I transcribed and then coded the data. Instead of bringing
preconceived coding categories to the data, I coded the interviews of Becky, Jenny,
Sandy and Lucy with categories and modes of perception emerging from the data,
because I thought finding out teachers’ perspectives was important. I think qualitative
methods are the most suitable ways to analyze data because qualitative methods aim at
discovering categories and modes of perceptions of those being studied (Singer, 1995). I
employed the strategies of “meaning condensation” and “meaning categorization”

(Kalve, 1996) to identify a list of categories from the data. Then I clustered the initial list

32

9’ 6‘

of codes such as “student writing strategies student thinking process in writing”
“student writing outcomes” into a larger category of “student learning”. I first coded the
data of each teacher to identify the patterns and themes within this teacher. Then I put the
clustered codes of each teacher together to identify the pattems and themes across
teachers.

To control my subjective bias, I gave my interpretations to subjects for their
responses. Also I shared some of my coding and interpretation with my dissertation
committee members through individual meetings and two committee meetings during the
course of my analysis. So the coding categories and meaning interpretation were revised
continuously. At the committee meetings, we debated the meaning of some categories
that I had difficulties distinguishing from one another like the meaning of “learning
opportunities” and “learning”. The committee meeting helped me to achieve an agreed-
on meaning of certain codes like “learning opportunities” and “learning”. Here “learning
opportunities” refers to chances to gain new knowledge and skills, which do not
necessarily occur at the mental level. “Learning” means that learners not only gain new
knowledge and skills but also experienced changes at the mental level. By getting
comments on some of my coding and interpretations from multiple interpreters, I
achieved intersubj ective agreement for some coding categories and interpretations
(Kalve, 1996).

I employed an embedded multiple-case research design because evidence from
multiple cases is considered more robust than the evidence from a single case (Yin,

1994). In this study, I focus on describing the learning experiences of three teachers

though I interviewed five teachers and Nancy. I decided which teachers to choose for the

33

case studies only after data analysis was completed. I chose Becky, Jenny and Sandy

because each represented salient themes I identified from data analysis. Though I

transcribed and coded Lucy’s interviews, the initial data analysis showed that Lucy’s case

would produce similar rather than contrasting results after I wrote up three cases. So I did

not include Lucy’s case as a firll chapter because three cases are sufficient to check if

replication of results has occurred (Yin, 1994). Margaret, the filth teacher I interviewed,

did not become another case because I only interviewed her once, on September 11,

2001. Due to the tragic events of September 11, it was hard to focus on interview

questions completely without being distracted. However, Lucy and Margaret were

valuable sources who informed my interpretation. I still drew on the data from Lucy and

Margaret to confirm and disconfirm the patterns and themes that I identified (Erickson,

1986)

All five participants in this study were elementary school teachers from five rural

school districts in a Midwest state. These were not affluent schools. Each school had

more than 40 percent of students that were qualified for free or reduced lunch. Though

these teachers became technology leaders in their school districts when I interviewed

them, they did not teach in a technology-rich or resource rich school context. Table 2.1

surmnarizes the characteristics of the participants and the context in which they taught.

Table 2.1 Partici ants and Context Characteristics (School Year 2001-2002)

 

 

 

 

Teacher; Years of Percentage of Numbers of Availability of

Grade Level teaching students for Computers in computer lab
free or reduced classroom
lunch

Becky 10 years 47.8% 4 Yes

lst grade

Jenny 10 years 41.9% 3 Yes

3rd and 4th

multiage

 

 

 

 

 

34

 

 

 

 

 

Lucy 10 years 54.3% 2 No
4th grade

Margaret N/A 32. 1% 2 Yes
lSt grade

Sandy 22 years 43.7% N/A Yes
4th grade

 

 

 

 

 

Nancy, my initial contact, was a valuable resource for me to understand teacher
learning through a voluntary community. I interviewed her three times. I treated her not
as a subject of inquiry but as a crucial part of this teacher learning community. She is an
extraordinary leader and she plays an important role in teachers’ learning experiences.
But I conceptualized this study as what ordinary teachers can learn in a professional
learning community from the perspectives of learners, so I did not document her role as
an independent case. Instead, I documented her role as it was understood by the teachers,
and I used her as a source of information. Just as the data from Lucy and Margaret, I
treated the data from Nancy as a valuable resource in supplementing data, confirming and

disconfirrning patterns I discovered.

How My Personal Experience Influences This Study

As a qualitative researcher, I do not claim to hold a neutral position when I started
this inquiry. My pursuit of the role of teacher learning community on teacher learning
and development was rooted in my past experience as an EFL (English as a Foreign
Language) teacher in China and in my intellectual struggle with the issues of teacher
learning through a group/community format. Being a reform-minded English teacher in a
centralized educational system, like many other reform-minded teachers in China, I

struggled to find ways to voice my concems in teaching. My five-year teaching

35

 

experience told me that novice teachers could hardly voice their concerns over teaching
and student learning let alone make changes in traditional text-based grarnmar-centered
teaching methods. My graduate learning and inquiry at MSU did not provide me with
solutions to the problems that I used to have, but rather complicated my original
concerns. While mandated curriculum and occupational hierarchy (based on seniority)
impede teachers in China from taking initiatives in teaching reforms, the egalitarian
status and teaching autonomy that many Chinese teachers have strived for seem as
problematic in the teaching culture in the US. Collaboration, as an organizational
structure of practice, is often taken for granted in China (Paine and Ma, 1993) while
collaboration and professional communities are seen in the US. as reform initiatives to
deprivatize teacher practice, benefit instruction and student learning, and enhance teacher
professional growth (Little, 1982 & 1987, Newmann & associates, 1996). My intellectual
struggle and personal experience led to my skeptical stance toward the role of a teacher
professional community on teacher learning, and prompted me to conduct a careful
investigation to figure out whether and how a teacher voluntary learning community
would impact on teacher learning and development.

As I discussed in the section on data analysis, I employed various strategies to
control my bias. I asked open-ended questions in the interviews to open myself to what
these teachers had to say. I tape-recorded interviews. I gave my interpretations to these
subjects for their responses. Also I collected data from multiple sources and shared my
findings with multiple interpreters to reach intersubj ective agreement and explictly
document the process of data analysis (Kavlve, 1996). In short, I tried systemetically to

diminish my personal bias in this research.

36

In the next three chapters, 1 present case studies of three teachers. Though I intend
to examine the role of a voluntary teacher learning community on teacher learning to
integrate technology in writing, I also recognize the importance of teachers’ experiences
on their learning. Given the conceptual framework I draw on, I start each chapter with a
background portrait of these teachers focusing on their prior experiences, their
perspectives on technology and teaching, how they entered the group, and how they
thought they learned fiom it. I wanted to see these three teachers individually as well as
collectively. So the organizational structure of each case is the same structure but I

highlight those dimensions that are important to each teacher as an individual.

37

Chapter 3

Jenny’s Learning: A Case of Sharing

In this chapter, I describe what learning opportunities Jenny had as well as
learning and changes that Jenny had experienced. I also identify the factors that sustained
Jenny’s participation in this teacher learning community. To understand Jenny’s learning,
I begin with a background portrait of Jenny’s teaching and learning, focusing on her
teaching style and history of her experience with technology in teaching. I then describe
and explain what learning opportunities Jenny had as well as what she learned and how
she changed through participating in this teacher learning community. Though my first
research question is why Jenny came to learn with this teacher learning community, I
discuss the reasons for Jenny’s participation in this teacher learning community in the
section on conditions that stand out in her learning because it is difficult to separate her
reasons to join the group fi'om the conditiolns that were necessary for Jenny’s learning in
this setting. Many times, reasons teachers gave were the conditions for teachers’

participation in this teacher learning community.

Jenny’ background

Jenny, an elementary school teacher with 10 years teaching experience, now
teaches a multiage group of 3rd and 4th graders at Red Cedar Elementary (pseudonym).
When she first joined Nancy’s technology support group three years ago, she was a

special education teacher of a multi-age group of lSt and 2"d graders.

38

When I first visited Jenny’s classroom one afternoon in November, Jenny was
introducing the concept of paragraph indention to a group of students in the reading
comer of the classroom. She demonstrated a text with a few paragraphs through an
overhead projector and asked students to figure out the rule to start each paragraph. After
one student shouted aloud his notice of spacing at the beginning of each paragraph, Jenny
gave the official name of the term used by this student as “indented paragraph.”

This episode reminded me of what Jenny told me, that she was a traditional
teacher who was a “textbook—oriented ” person. When she first started to teach, Jenny
thought a teacher would play a central role in teaching: “At that time, I had a very
traditional view of education: teachers taught and students learned. I (have) changed a lot
since then.”

Now Jenny is more aware of students’ active roles in learning process. She tries to
do “project-based” learning and to be a guide for student learning: “I knew kids all learn
differently, but my mindset is still a textbook-oriented person. I am getting away fi'om
that now and trying to do the proj ect-based learning, with individual goals, knowing this
student may not be achieving the same rate as other students.” She said she was more
flexible with student leaming, especially in reading and writing process. That afternoon,
I observed how Jenny helped students edit their papers. After she gave back writing
assignments to her students, she went around students listening to each student’s
questions and gave individual suggestions. I also observed a lesson of social studies with
a writing component indicating that she was trying out what she called proj ect-based
learning. During the social studies period, students were working on an American

President project. They were asked to locate information about American presidents

39

according to the questions in a template that Jenny and her co-teacher gave them: the
dates of the president, the state of his birth, and the historical events in that president’s
life. Students were divided into two groups. One group of students led by Jenny’s
colleague learned to find information from an encyclopedia. The other group of students,
led by Jenny, went to the computer lab to find information on the Internet. This project of
combining social studies and writing (which required students to develop skills of being
selective, sense making, summarizing and reporting) may be an instance of what she
meant from “text-based” to “project-based” teaching.

According to Jenny, these changes in her teaching were inseparable from her
learning to integrate technology in students’ writing through participating in the
technology support group. Since technology integration was the major content of learning
of this technology support group, it is helpful to review Jenny’s experience of learning to
teach with technology to better understand the learning and changes she experienced.

Jenny was afraid of computers and never thought about using a computer as an
integral part of teaching when she first joined Nancy’s project “Young Authors Embrace
Technology in Writing” in 1998. At that time, she saw computers only for the purposes
of games as well as drills and practices. She felt “panic” about using them in teaching.

Originally stuff was just for the purpose of drill and practice. ...I think I viewed

computers as important tools to practice what they need to practice. It was fun to

do things with computers but I did not see it as an integral thing in education.
In addition, she wonied computers would hinder the interaction among children. She

thought they still needed the human teachers to interact with them.

40

I was not sure about the importance of education technology especially for
elementary students. I thought they still needed a human teacher. They needed
interaction with each other rather than the computer.

Even though Jenny had learned technology like the Internet from the classes
offered at the ISD, she did not integrate it into her teaching because she did not have the
confidence nor the ideas of how to use computers in teaching. She said, “Nancy taught
those Internet classes. I was still a coward. I just did not have confidence to do it, or to
know what use I could make of it in my classroom.”

After working with Nancy’s technology support group for three years, Jenny
incorporated computer technology in her teaching in various ways. In writing, Jenny had
her students create their writing with KidPix or PowerPoint through participation in the
“Young Authors Embrace Technology in Writing” project. In reading, students were
provided with software that could check their reading comprehension. In my visit to her
class that afternoon, I saw two pairs of students work together in the two computers in
Jenny’s classroom, trying to figure out the answers to those true or false questions about
the story they read. During social studies, Jenny asked her students to find out
information about each American president either from the Internet or an encyclopedia.
In short, Jenny changed from a teacher who was afiaid of computers to a teacher who
uses computers to aid teaching and students’ learning in classroom.

Besides learning more about computers, Jenny gained new views of teaching and
student learning and understood herself as a teacher better, which will be discussed in the
following section of this chapter. Jenny attributed all her learning and changes that

occurred to her in the past three years to this teacher technology support group. She said,

41

“By meeting with this group, it is the bridge (between) the class I took and the

(technology) incorporation in my classroom.”

Learning opportunities

Jenny valued various activities that she engaged in through this teacher learning
community in the past three years, which provided her with ample opportunities to learn.
These activities include opportunities to share technology skills, teaching ideas, and each
other’s integration projects; the opportunities to try out technology in teaching; the
opportunities to attend computer classes and workshops offered by ISD; the opportunities
to train other teachers to integrate technology in teaching; the opportunities to attend and
present at professional conferences; and the opportunities to interact with each other
through computer mediated communication (CMC) tools like email, yahoo instant
message and list serves. Among all instances of learning opportunities and learning that I
coded in the first two interviews, Jenny seemed to refer to some activities more
frequently than others. Table 3.2 is a list of activities that provided Jenny opportunities to
learn, and the fi'equencies that Jenny referred to them throughout the interviews.

Table 3.1 Learning activities and their frequencies

 

Activities Frequencies

 

Interacting with group members through talking, sharing and 17
presenting projects to each other.

 

Trying out technologyin practice.

 

Attendingtechnology classes and workshops offered by ISD.

 

Training other teaches to integrate technology.

 

Attending conferences and making presentations

 

 

 

 

"I'll'nUOw >
r-‘NNNUJ

CMC communications

 

42

 

The fi'equency here denotes the number of occasions that Jenny talked about these
activities rather than the fiequency of these phrases. Take Jenny’s learning the idea of an
informational, non-fiction book from Becky’s sharing of her Road Rabbit Project as an
example. This is counted as one occasion of sharing even though she may use phrases
like “talk” or “present” several times to describe this occasion of sharing. However,
Jenny would talk about this event again later in the same interview or in another
interview. Then I count it as another occasion of sharing in the places when this event
was mentioned again. So the frequency of an activity means the number of occasions that
this activity was discussed instead of the occurrences of the phases that described this
activity. Though Jenny talked about each activity at different fiequencies, the order of
frequencies does not necessarily imply the order of preference that Jenny chose to learn.

For the strategy that Jenny referred to the most frequently, though she used
different words like “talk”, “share” and “present” to describe the strategy she chose to
learn, the central theme of this activity is the sharing of ideas. Jenny said, “It was a kind
of informal type of thing, it was not an actual presentation. It was just she started to talk
about what she was doing. So it was kind of informal sharing of ideas”.

Among all these opportunities, Jenny relied on them differently in different
phases of the project. According to Jenny, sharing project ideas and tips for technical
problem solving as well as trying out technology in practice were the two major activities
that provided opportunities for Jenny to learn in the first year. In the second year,

presenting her technology integration project at different professional conferences

43

became the emphasis. In the third year, training other teachers to integrate technology in

their classroom became the central activity of that year.

Jenny reported that she was exposed to a wide range of topics through these

activities. Table 3.1 shows a list of the topics that Jenny got a chance to talk about and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

think about:

Table 3.2 Topics exposed

Topics Examples

Computer equipment Computer, scanner, and digital camera.

Software KidPix, PowerPoint, Yahoo instant message, and listserve.

Technical trouble a. How to load the software and run it right.

shooting b. Talking about technical problems and getting suggestions
to solve them.

Instructional use of a. How KidPix can be used in student writing.

technology b. Learning the use of Yahoo Instant Message system to do a
live weather chat about hurricane fiom Becky.

Teaching Ideas a. Getting ideas on 4th grade teaching from Lucy and Sandy.
b. MEAP preparation and different ways to do writing for
MEAP.

Young Authors a. Learning the Road Rabbit proj ectI from Becky.

Project ideas b. Getting the idea of students’ group work in writing from
Lucy.
0. Getting the idea of doing a class book with KidPix from
Margaret.

Teaching resources Learning Mark Polo website, a good resource for teaching

on the internet

Classroom Ideas on classroom management for 4‘" grade.

management ideas

Ideas on conference Brainstorm ideas for conference presentation with Kathy and

presentation Betsy.

Ideas on training Brainstorm ideas of training teachers to integrate technology

other teachers with Nancy and others

 

 

 

Being exposed to a wide range of topics, Jenny had ample opportunities to learn. As a

result, Jenny changed her views and practices in the areas of technology, student learning,

 

' The Road Rabbit project developed by Becky is a project-based learning activity in social studies and
language arts that allows students to take a virtual field trip with their mascot, the Road Rabbit.

44

and teaching. At the same time, she gained confidence and self-awareness as a

professional.

What had Jenny learned?
Technology

Jenny gained many technical skills regarding computer hardware and software
because her original goal to join this learning community was to get and learn to use
equipment like a scanner and a digital camera, and the software like KidPix, PowerPoint
and the Internet. She said:

A lot of learning that comes from there (the group) is trouble shooting in terms of

using software or the computer itself. We would come together, you know. ‘I am

having the trouble with this. Does anybody know what to do?’ You know we are
kind of going through that together.

In addition to learning technical skills, Jenny also got ideas about instructional
uses of technology. Jenny learned from Becky that students could live chat to obtain the
most up-to-date hurricane information with someone like Becky’s sister in Florida
through Yahoo’s instant message system. Jenny’s ideas of integrating Internet in teaching
also came from Becky’s showcase of her Road Rabbit project, a multimedia social
studies project. Jenny took Internet classes twice before she joined this technology
support group. But she did not incorporate the Internet in her teaching because she did
not have ideas and confidence to use it in teaching. After she saw how Becky
incorporated the Internet, email and KidPix in her Road Rabbit project, a social study
project to have students learn about different states in the U.S., Jenny created a similar

social studies project called the “cruising Coyote” project, which helped students to get

45

familiar with different states in the US. through searching for information on the Internet
and having students present their findings with multimedia:
So her (Becky’s) plan was just to send the Road Rabbit around, and then send the
information back and create a multimedia presentation. That was one of her
projects that helped us to see different possibilities of how technology could be
used, even though the whole project could be done without technology. The use
of Internet, email, and multimedia, just adds another facet to the project itself.
And during that time, it helps the children to learn that computers are not just for
playing games, they are actually tools. That, I think, that was just my goal to get
away from just (doing) games.
As a result of participating in Nancy’s project with this technology support group,
Jenny changed her views about computer technology and the ways she used technology
in teaching. When Jenny first used computer technology in 1991, she mainly used
technology for the purpose of “practicing the facts that they need to know” such as using
a program on the Apple He computer for kids to practice multiplication, and using
another program to divide words into syllables. Now Jenny had students create their
stories with KidPix and/or PowerPoint to incorporate graphics and music to illustrate
their stories. She found technology was an alternative medium for students to present
their stories. “It is motivation, and [it is] just a different view of computers not as toys,
and not for games. But they actually are there for work, and they can present their work
in another mode.” Once Jenny was worried computers would impede communication
among teachers and students. Now she found students actually were able to collaborate

with each other when they composed their writing with computer programs like KidPix:

46

I hate to see them waste their time on drills and practice type of software. To me it
is just a waste of technology. I want them to create. In this way, when they are
actively creating, you can watch two children work together to create something.

(That was) much different than having them take turns to answer a math problem.

They have to learn to come to a consensus about what background they are going

to have, what stamps they are going to use. There are a lot of decisions they have

to make and agree upon when they work together and teach each other. That is an
interaction, recognizing and valuing the skills and information of other children,
like we talk about respecting other people. That [using Kidpix to create] brings it
in.

With the opportunity to apply technology in teaching with this technology support
group Jenny also found new ways to use computers in teaching. For example, Jenny
figured out that PowerPoint could afford writers to write more than one ending for their
stories so the readers could select their own endings for the stories. She presented this
function of PowerPoint to her students, and allowed them more flexibility in writing their
story endings:

So when you use PowerPoint, you have a little bit more flexibility in (what) you

can do. This year we presented the possibility to the children of doing the books

where you actually made some selections on what page to go to the next. ...I
presented to them the idea of selecting your own ending for the story, just
showing them what PowerPoint could do. Because (with) KidPix, you could not

do that. It was just illustrating.

47

As a result, two girls in her class created a riddle about a famous woman with PowerPoint
so that they could ask readers to make a right or wrong choice. Another two boys created
two different endings for their adventure story with PowerPoint.

In short, Jenny changed her views on technology in teaching as well as the ways
she incorporated technology in her teaching through participating in this technology
support group. The success of integrating technology in student writing allowed Jenny to
see the potentials of technology in other curriculum areas:

Getting to use the computer to create projects or to actually produce the end

products, you see much potential in using it throughout the curriculum. ...It

influences what we teachers see as a potential, how can we use computers in
social studies, how can we use computers in science. What can we do in other

areas and make great use of technology.

Student learning

Jenny was once a traditional teacher who viewed the teacher as playing the
central role in teaching; now she sees students as active writers after participation in the
Young Authors Embrace Technology in Writing project with this technology support
group. Nancy’s project not only required teachers to learn computer hardware and
software but also asked teachers to integrate computer technologies in a student writing
project of the ISD. When students wrote in a multimedia environment, their writing
processes were visible to teachers. Jenny noticed a child in her class who previously had
difficulties in writing but who now could illustrate her ideas with the graphics tools in

KidPix. She found her students could create complex stories when they were able to

48

create multiple endings for their stories with PowerPoint. Jenny noticed her students’
different learning styles when she saw how they wrote with KidPix or PowerPoint. She
revised her assumptions that students were passive receivers of knowledge and started to
pay more attention to individual students’ learning styles and needs:
...My individual goal has changed. I know my mindset has changed. I knew kids
all learn differently, but my mind set is still (that of) a textbook-oriented person. I
am getting away from that now and trying to do the proj ect-based learning and
individual goals, knowing this student may not be achieving at the same rate as
other students. There have been a lot of changes in my teaching style for whatever
process and experience.
When Jenny thought about student learning differently, she changed her instructional
strategies fi'om text-based learning to proj ect-based learning focusing on individual
students’ needs. For example, she gave students more options in writing their stories as I

discussed in the early section.

Instruction

For Jenny, this technology support group served as a source of instructional ideas.
In the third year she worked with this group, Jenny changed fiom a 1st and 2"d grade
multiage special education teacher to a 3rd and 4th grade multiage teacher. She needed
ideas on 4th grade teaching badly, but she had no access to 4th grade teachers in her
building because she taught in a K-3 building. Since Lucy and Sandy were both 4‘h grade

teachers, Jenny relied on them for ideas for 4th grade teachers. Through talking and

49

sharing with Lucy and Sandy, Jenny got a lot of general curriculum ideas about 4th grade
teaching:

The last few times we met, since I knew potentially I was going to be changed to

the 3rd and 4th grade from 1st and 2nd grade, I talked to Lucy and Sandy ‘OK, what

would 4’h graders do? What do you teach in 4th grade? How do you present this?’

So we got away from the Young Authors (project) and just on general curriculum

like ‘how do you arrange a day? What kind of field trip do you take kids on?’

This type of stuff was really important to me.

Jenny also learned new writing strategies from this group because Nancy’s
technology project was embedded in the context of writing instruction. Jenny got the idea
of informational non-fiction books from Becky’s showcase of her Road Rabbit project in
a meeting where teachers were asked to share their projects with each other. According
to Becky, the Road Rabbit was a proj ect-based learning activity combining writing with
social studies through which students could learn about different communities in the
United States with a Road Rabbit, the mascot of her class, touring around the country.
Becky had her students compile a travel book by incorporating KidPix Deluxe software, a
digital camera and a scanner to report the information that they had learned from the
Road Rabbit for the Young Authors project. After hearing and seeing what Becky did
with the Road Rabbit project, Jenny contacted Becky for the detailed procedures of this
project. Becky talked a little bit more about the project, and referred Jenny to the website
and to the CD of the Road Rabbit project because it was submitted for the contest of “the
best teaching practices.” Enlightened by the idea of informational non-fiction type of

writing from Becky’s Road Rabbit project, Jenny created a similar project named the

50

Cruising Coyote project, which intended to increase her students’ knowledge about
different communities in the US. by sending the Cruising Coyote, the mascot of her
school, around the country to collect information:

...She had submitted this project on a CD for the ‘best teaching practice’. She

also talked about it during some of our meetings. She talked about (how she was)

doing it. I contacted her when we decided we wanted to do something similar.

...She said a little bit more, but actually directed us to her website. I think it was

her website. But I know it was on a CD, too. It was a lesson plan of the whole

project. So everything was spelled out really clearly. So we just looked what she
had done, and used it fiom there.

Another strategy that Jenny incorporated in writing was having students create
group products for the Young Authors writing project. Students used to create individual
fiction books for the Young Authors writing project. In a group meeting, Jenny leaned
from Lucy about the idea of using students’ group work to create multimedia books.
Jenny took Lucy’s idea of group work and applied it in her own teaching. Sometimes
Jenny asked her students to write together in groups instead of working on their writing
individually.

As a result, Jenny incorporated the ideas of informational non-fiction books and
group work into her students’ Young Authors writing project:

So we changed this year a little bit and did some more groups. Some of Young

Author books were [done in] groups. Some were non-fictions. I think just thinking

about getting into non-fiction area with technology, and using Young Authors as a

51

form for getting into non-fiction, helped us, helped me to start thinking other

ways we could do, these other things we could do.

Besides, Jenny also extended her evaluation strategies because she had more clues
about the quality of students’ work when they wrote with multimedia. She gave students
options to submit regular books or multimedia books and started to look at the
multimedia piece that students incorporated in their writing in her evaluation:

It is a different way of looking at, assessing what students have learned because

they have the extra technology part we can look at and assess as well. It is a

project, some of the kids do book reports, written book reports, and some of our

kids do picture book reports. There are a lot of ways of doing book reports. There

are a lot of different ways of doing projects, too. And technology (with a)

computer is one way.

In short, this technology support group became a resource of instructional
strategies for Jenny. She not only learned general instructional ideas about 4th grade
teaching but also incorporated different writing strategies such as group work, and non-
fictions books that she learned fi'om other teachers in her teaching process. As a result,
Jenny was more flexible with the ways that students did their projects and allowed them
to work in groups to create their writing products. According to Jenny, “there have been a
lot of changes” in her “teaching style”. She transformed herself from “text-oriented
teaching” to “proj ect-based learning” as she paid more attention to students’ individual
needs and allowed them to express freely through giving them more options in writing

their stories and story endings.

52

New professional roles

After Jenny integrated technology into the student writing process in her
classroom, she was asked to take on two new professional roles. In the second year,
Jenny was asked to present her project at a professional conference. She had never
presented to a professional group and felt scared to present in front of other professionals.
“Actually presenting to other adults is not very exciting.” “It is kind of scary.” In the third
year, Jenny engaged in training other teachers at the ISD to integrate technology in
teaching, a role that she never had before. With the enthusiasm the group generated,
Jenny was able to take on these new roles and gained professional confidence:

The enthusiasm I think that the group generated for what happened or what we

could do in a presentation helped you to get over the fear level a little bit. And I

think the same thing for training the teachers. You feel more confident when

someone else is saying the same thing you were thinking. They agree with you.

Then you feel more confident presenting it.

In sum, Jenny reported that she experienced tremendous grth through
interacting with other teachers in this teacher learning community over the past three
years. She came to learn technology, but ended up with learning a range of things more
than technology. She said: “The first year I think ‘how to use this stuff [technologies]’.
Now I think about how to incorporate this stuff [technologies] and how to expand
learning through technology. That is growth.” She not only expanded her repertoire of
technology use in teaching but also revised her assumptions on student learning and

changed her writing pedagogy from a traditional textbook-oriented teacher to a teacher

53

who paid more attention to individual students’ needs in their writing process. She also

gained confidence in teaching and took on new professional roles.

How had Jenny changed?
Sharing is the key for Jenny ’s learning

From Jenny’s account of her learning about technology, teaching and student
learning, sharing is the key for her learning and changes not only in terms of the numbers
of occasions she talked about it but also in the depth with which she described it. Looking
across the cases, it was not only Jenny who valued sharing so much. Everyone in this
learning community highly values sharing as an important means for learning. There are
three aspects of sharing that the teachers valued in their learning: the sharing of
technology skills, the sharing of ideas and materials for integration and instruction, and
the sharing of personal aspects. In this section, I will not only discuss the role of sharing
in Jenny’s learning but also highlight the dimensions of sharing that other teachers valued
in their learning so that a spectrum of meanings about sharing across cases will be
revealed.

According to Jenny, they shared a lot of technical skills and technical trouble
shooting because technology was the original content of learning of this technology
support group.

A lot of learning that comes from there is trouble shooting in terms of using

software or the computer itself. You know ‘I am having the trouble with this.

Does anybody know what to do?’ . . .You know we kind go through that together.

54

However, Jenny would not integrate technology in teaching if she only learned
technical skills. As a teacher, what she needed were the ideas for integrating technology
into her teaching:

A lot of them just came from talking with the group about possibilities, you know,

‘how can you incorporate it in this area?’ To me that is what I need. I become

familiar with how to use the equipment. I passed the need to learn ‘how to use the

equipment’. Now I need to get more ideas or how to use these equipment as
teaching tools or as presentation [tools], that type of thing.
From sharing each other’s projects, Jenny got concrete ideas about technology integration
and got started on her own project.

I think the sharing of ideas about what we were doing in different projects the first

year was very important. That was why we got together for this new group, to

share ideas, because when you first started into the project, you were just kind of
overwhelmed. You did not know what was expected of you, and what direction
you could go. Usually, when you got the project idea in mind, then you can get
started on it.

Not only were the sharing of ideas important for Jenny’s learning but also the
sharing of materials. Ideas are often abstract, which leave much room for interpretation.
Materials sometimes can instantiate the ideas. Teachers in this group always shared with
each other the materials they created. Becky shared her lesson plans forthe Road Rabbit
project stored on the Internet and CD. Jenny was able to see what and how Becky did the
project, which was very important for Jenny’s creation of the Cruising Coyote project.

Unlike some researchers who criticize the negative role of informal sharing among

55

teachers for teacher learning (Lorti, 1975; Hargreaves, 1992), Jenny valued sharing with
teachers in this learning community. Computer technologies are new instruments to
facilitate teaching and learning, which many teachers have not experienced before. When
the content of learning (technology integration in writing in this case) is so new, sharing
seemed to be of vital importance for learners to get ideas and strategies. It was through
sharing that Jenny got the concrete ideas and strategies to integrate multimedia into the
Young Authors writing project.

Besides the sharing for technology integration, Becky especially valued the
sharing of writing strategies. Becky learned strategies like “setting up the goa ,”
“conferencing with students individually,” and “doing kid’s journal” from the group and
implemented them in her own teaching. The sharing among teachers in the group
expanded Becky’s repertoire of writing strategies.

Sandy valued the sharing of personal aspects with each other in addition to the
sharing of technical skills and instructional ideas because she experienced personal
growth through sharing:

I do enjoy it [the group]. We share other things, not just technology. We share our

music, we share our. . . ‘Oh, what are you doing? How is your family?’ not just

technology. There are a lot of personal things there, a lot personal growth, too.
The sharing of personal aspects also helped to build fiiendship among teachers, which
motivated Sandy to keep coming to learn with the group. She said, “As we became
fiiends, as we became support for each other, I guess we noticed the value of having that

support for each other. We thought ‘we should keep this going, we should not stop.’ ”

56

Like Sandy, Jenny also thought it was “”fun to learn with fiiends. Friendship was another

possible reason for these teachers to continue to meet with this group.

Learning is a cyclical process

Though sharing is the key for Jenny’s learning, Jenny always depends on a set of
activities for her learning and changes. Take Jenny’s creation of “Cruising Coyote”
project as an example. The birth of the “Cruising Coyote” project, Jenny’s project, was a
result of a series of actions: talking, sharing, imitating, applying in practice, reflecting,
and revising. In a group meeting in the first year, Jenny got the idea of creating
multimedia non-fiction books through Becky’s presentation of her Road Rabbit project to
the group. After seeing Becky’s presentation, Jenny contacted Becky for detailed ideas
and procedures on how to do the Road Rabbit Project. Becky showed the lesson plan on
her website to Jenny and Jenny’s colleagues and also provided them with her Road
Rabbit lesson plan in a CD.

Jenny did not stop with the idea she got fiom Becky. She took the idea and the
materials back and created a Cruising Coyote project incorporating email, Internet and
KidPix. From getting the project idea from Becky during the time of sharing to trying out
a similar product in her classroom, Jenny’s engagement in various activities of this
technology group helped her to appropriate the idea of multimedia non-fiction books
(Rogoff, 1995).

Moreover, Jenny’s Cruising Coyote project was not simply a replica of Becky’s
Road Rabbit project. Jenny framed the Cruising Coyote project as a project to promote

student skills in reading, writing, math and science (See Appendix H), while Becky used

57

the Road Rabbit project to promote student skills in reading, writing, geography and the
Internet (See Appendix H). Jenny told me she intended to do the Cruising Coyote project
again next year through adapting Becky’s lesson plan to include learning math and
science skills. Reflecting is another important step in Jenny’s creation of Cruising Coyote
project. It is a process of adjusting and modifying Becky’s project based on the situations
in Jenny’s classroom. She said,
Anybody can just take someone else’s lesson plan and bring it into the classroom.
But it does not mean it is going to work as well as if the other teacher did. So you
get that from some of the experience, from knowing the kids in your class and
knowing the resources that you have available, and adjusting, modifying and
maybe enhancing whatever was done before. I think, the opportunity here is to
take the basic idea, and not use word for word, but be able to think about it
yourself, and continue from there. I think you learn through the start process by
taking a second look at your classroom, your resources and your own teaching
style. It may or may not be different from the person who created the lesson plan.
So, anytime you have to just reflect, I think it is a valuable learning opportunity.
You do not always come up with things fi'om scratch; but you do have to think
about what it is and what you want kids to learn. Your focus might be different
from someone else’s same project.
Jenny’s reflection on the process of her appropriating Becky’s project is constructive
reflection (Schon, 1987), which is an important step in professional education. “When
practitioners respond to the indeterminate zones of practice by holding a reflective

conversation with the materials of their situations, they remake a part of their practice

58

world and thereby reveal the usually tacit process of world making that underlie all of
their practice” (p36). From this view, Jenny makes senses of her own teaching through
reflecting how she adjusted and modified Becky’s lesson plans in her instruction.
Therefore, the process of Jenny’s learning to create Cruising Coyote project seems non-
linear. As teachers were frequently required to share their projects with each other during
the group meetings, Jenny kept learning about Becky’s project in different meetings.
Thus, Jenny’s learning seemed to be an iterative or cyclical process in learning, doing,

reflecting, more learning, and more doing, and more reflecting.

Conditions for learning and changes

Jenny integrated technology in teaching and transformed herself from a traditional
textbook-oriented teacher to incorporating proj ect—based learning in her teaching through
her engagement in various activities of this learning community. From Jenny’s learning
and changes, it seems that incentives, a common goal, various opportunities to learn, and
the support from the leader and the peers are necessary conditions for her sustained

participation in this teacher learning community.

Incentives

Incentives were necessary to attract Jenny’s participation in Nancy’s Young
Authors Embrace Technology in Writing project. According to Jenny, she was first
attracted to Nancy’s project to get a scanner and a digital camera and learn to use the

equipment: “At that time, I did not think ‘integration ideas’ but (wanted to get) more

59

knowledge on using software, using the scanner and using the digital camera, maybe the
technical part, ‘how do you do this?’ ”

However merely being offered equipment and provided with technical support
were not sufficient for Jenny’s technology integration in teaching. Software like KidPix
provided Jenny a graphic program. It does not specify what educational problems it will
solve. If Jenny had only been provided with generic technologies, it is unlikely she would
integrate technology in her teaching. For example, Jenny reported that she attended the
Internet class twice before she joined the Young Authors Embrace Technology in Writing
project. But she did not use Internet in teaching until she saw how other teachers like
Becky used Internet in teaching, and this was also true for Jenny’s integration of KidPix
and PowerPoint in students’ writing:

I took the Internet class twice. I still was not comfortable with it. I still did not

incorporate Internet in my classroom or even my own research until I met with

this group periodically and got confidence and some informal ideas saying ‘yes
we just did this’. I think by meeting with this group, it is the bridge [between] the
class I take and [the] incorporation in my classroom.

In short, getting incentives like computer equipment was necessary for Jenny’
participation in learning to integrate technology, but not sufficient for her technology
integration in teaching. Jenny needed concrete ideas and examples about technology
integration from other teachers than merely getting equipment and learning technical
skills. This is why the workshop model of professional development which focuses on
delivering general technical skills has been ineffective for teachers because it does not

address teachers’ practical needs (Little, 1989).

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A common project

Creating a multimedia project in writing was the common goal set up by Nancy
for this technology group. This project created a need for Jenny to learn: “It is always
more valuable to learn when you have a project to use it on. We were offered a project,
multimedia books for young authors, so we had a need to learn.”

Being offered a common project to implement, teachers were compelled to share
ideas and learn from each other. Through sharing, Jenny got the concrete ideas and
strategies from other teachers to create her own Young Authors writing project: “We
have the projects. I like the ideas that they come up with when we meet, a lot of good
ideas about what other teachers are doing.” This in turn helped her identify her new
learning needs, which sustained Jenny’s participation in this professional learning
community. As a result, Jenny learned things that she did not expect at the beginning.

I: What makes you learn something you did not intend to learn?

J: I think the more you get into it (the project), the more you want to learn. The

more you get into a project, you come to a point that says ‘I need more

information. I need some help here’. Then you go on to learn something else you

did not expect at the beginning.

Situated learning

However, merely being provided with a common goal was not sufficient for
Jenny’s learning. The nature of the project affected what Jenny learned. Nancy’s Young
Authors Embrace Technology in Writing project was a writing project. It situated

teachers’ technology learning in a subject area and asks teachers to come up with

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authentic student products, so writing and technology integration in writing rather than
general technical skills were the content of learning. Recent social learning theories show
that teacher knowledge is contextulized, therefore their learning needs to be linked to
their practices (Putnam and Borko, 2000). However, researchers have noticed that prior
professional development approaches to helping teachers to integrate technology paid
little attention to subject areas (Survey on professional development and training in US.
public schools, 2000; Zhao, 2002), that was why traditional professional development
programs were not effective for teachers.

In Jenny’s case, she started to use PowerPoint as a tool to facilitate student-
writing process through pushing them to think about an alternative ending of their stories
rather than its typical use as a presentation tool (Bruce & Levin, 1997) defined by the
manufacturer. Since technology integration was situated in writing, Jenny also changed
her writing instruction. She was once a text-oriented teacher who used to put great
emphasis on textbooks. Now she allows students to express themselves more freely by
giving them more options in writing their stories, such as allowing them write multiple
endings of their stories with the capacities of PowerPoint. By providing students more
options in writing, attending to individual needs, doing proj ect-based writing like writing
for the Cruising Coyote project, Jenny transformed herself fiom a “textbook-oriented
person” to a teacher who wanted to do more “proj ect-based” learning. Situating teacher
technology learning in a subject area will be more likely to compel teachers to learn,

because their learning is connected to their day-to-day practices (Ball & Cohen, 1999).

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Opportunities to engage in various activities

Merely being provided with equipment and a common writing project is not
sufficient for Jenny’s learning. From Jenny’s learning, she seems to depend on a firll set
of experiences for the learning and change that occurred in her. Among various activities
that contribute to her learning, sharing is the key. Conference presentation and training
other teachers to use technology help Jenny gain new professional identity: she was a
classroom teacher, and now she took on the role of training other teachers to use

technology in teaching.

Support

Besides being offered incentives and provided with a common project that
situated in a subject area, the support from Nancy, the leader, and other teachers in this
technology support group is of vital importance for Jenny’s learning. When I asked
Jenny what she got out of this technology support group, I expected to hear about the
content of learning that she had gained from this group. To my surprise, she told me the
support from the group was the most important thing she got.

I: What did you get out of it (the group)?

J: I really did not think much of it. What I get out of it, I think just a lot of

supportiveness that I feel from other people. I am not in this by myself. I have

people I can turn to. Even we do not meet often. IfI really have a problem, I can

call them or email one of them and see if they can give me some advice.

Basically, I think, just knowing I am not in it by myself. I probably would not

start this project if it had not been for being part of this group. I would not have

63

used KidPix for Young authors, nor done multimedia books. It is a long way to
go. I was kicked to start it and jumped in. ‘We did not know it’. ‘We’re going to
learn this’. That is 0k because we have others who are doing the same thing. I
think it helped integrate technology. We could get a computer, a digital camera
and not know what to do with it. But through this group in the project, we get
started. Then you can see the possibilities, see what other teachers do with this,
and (see) what we can take fi'om something else.
It seems that the professional support fiom peers was the most important for Jenny to
implement the technology innovation because she could rely on other teachers for ideas
instead of being an independent artisan who teaches in isolation (Lortie, 1975).
Nancy was another important source of support for Jenny’s leaming. According to
Jenny, Nancy was “instrumental in setting up this group” and provided technical,
professional, and resource support. Jenny got the equipment from Nancy and learned
technology such as Internet, KidPix and PowerPoint from the classes taught by Nancy. In
addition, Nancy was also a source of ideas for learning integration.
1: From which source you got help for your learning?
J: I depend on Nancy, most on equipment and software. Nancy will be the first
person I depend on. She has offered so many classes. She is very knowledgeable
on equipment and software we have been using. She always has a lot of ideas on
how to incorporate technology in what you are already doing, too.
In short, the technical, professional and resource support from her colleagues and the

group leader was indispensable for Jenny’s learning and change.

64

Conclusion

Jenny came to this group to get technology equipment, but ended up with learning
and changes in the areas of technology, instruction, and student learning. She took on
new professional roles and established new professional identity. According to Jenny, her
success in learning about and with technology was mediated by various activities of this
professional learning community. Incentives, a common goal, various learning
opportunities, the embeddedness of her learning in a subject area, and the professional
support fiom her peers and the leader attracted and sustained Jenny’s participation in this

professional learning community.

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Chapter 4

Becky’s Learning: A Case of Support

Background of Becky
Becky is a first grade teacher at Willow Tree Elementary who has been teaching
for 10 years at different grade levels: kindergarten, first grade and fifth grade.
As a first grade teacher, Becky is flexible and encouraging. To Becky, the 1St graders are
at a developmental stage in which they might easily get fi'ustrated by something they do
not know, such as the spelling of a word. She believes a good teacher will encourage kids
to try new things and overcome the fear of making mistakes. In writing, Becky always
encourages kids to write down their ideas without getting stuck on their spelling.
According to Becky, it is impossible for a teacher to know everything because the
development of technology has led to an information explosion. Brenda sees that a good
teacher is someone who teaches kids how to learn and discover answers by themselves.
Because of technology, and how new ideas are introduced constantly, I do not
think it is possible for a person to know all the answers, or to understand all
knowledge. So we become the people who teach children how to learn and
continue to be learners. Teach them to seek out knowledge on their own, because
we are not there to find out answers for them.
Becky reported that she enhanced the ways she taught writing in terms of teaching
strategies, delivery methods, and writing products after participating in this teacher
learning community. She used to use centers a lot in writing where students worked on

their own. Now she models fiequently for kids. She always gives mini lessons to kids

66

first, and then has them practice what they have learned in groups. She also integrates
technology in her writing instruction. She incorporates a computer and a TV monitor to
demonstrate Venn Diagrams and Story Webs for student writing. She has students
publish their writing in multimedia environments with KidPix and PowerPoint.
According to Becky, the enhancement in her writing instruction was inseparable
fi'om her learning experience in Nancy’s technology support group for the Young
Authors Embrace Technology in Writing Project. This group helped her to think of ways
to integrate technology in teaching, which was very different from her initial uses. When
Becky first utilized computer technology in teaching in 1992. She used a record-keeping
program to track kids’ assignments and a multiplication program for practicing math
skills. Now she uses technology to deliver lessons and facilitate students’ writing
processes by having them visualize their thinking processes and produce written

products.

Learning opportunities

Becky valued many activities in which she participated through this technology
support group, such as talking to the other participants regarding technical trouble-
shooting, presenting to each other technology integration projects, sharing instructional
ideas, trying out technology in teaching and attending technology training classes. She
also trained other teachers to integrate technology in teaching, presented at professional
conferences, and posted questions and answers in the electronic listserve of this group.
These activities provided ample learning opportunities for Becky. Table 4.1 shows a list

of activities that Becky engaged in in this technology support group and the frequencies

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that Becky refers to these activities in her interviews. Like Jenny’s case, the order of

frequencies does not imply the order of Becky’s preferences.

Table 4.1 Learning activities and their fiequencies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Activities Frequencies
A Interacting with group members through 9
talking, sharing and presenting to each
other
B Trying out technology in practice 9
C Attending classes and workshops offered 3
by ISD
D Training other teachers 3
E Attending conferences and making 2
presentations
F Communicating through computer 2
mediated communication
H. Hands-on experience with equipment 1

 

 

 

Through these activities, Becky was exposed to a wide range of learning topics.

Activities provided Becky ample opportunities to learn. As a result, she changed her

views and practices in the areas of technology, student learning, and teaching. At the

same time, she stretched herself by taking on new professional roles as a teacher of other

teachers. Table 4.2 shows a range of topics as well as the examples of each topic that she

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

got a chance to think or talk about.
Table 4.2 Topics of learning
Topics Examples
Technology Computer Computer, scanner, digital camera, etc.
equipment
Software KidPix, PowerPoint, and Inspiration
Technical trouble- Different ways to solve the same
shooting technical problem
Instructional use of technology a. Using KidPix to create Bar Graph
b. Using computer and big TV monitor
to create Venn diagram
0. Delivering lessons in a different
medium

 

 

 

68

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Student learning Using graphic tools in student writing
Teaching Ideas a. Conferencing with individual student
Young Authors Project ideas a. The Road Rabbit project
Teaching resources on the Instructional uses of KidPix in various
intemet subjects like math, literacy, etc.
Classroom management ideas a. Parental involvement
b. How to manage technology in the
classroom.
Conference presentation Presentation to the Board of Education
Ideas on training teachers to use a. How to use one’s own experience to
technology teach other to integrate technology
b. How to teach technology integration
in a distance education setting.

 

 

 

What had Becky learned and how bad she changed through participating in this
teacher learning community?

In this section, I combine the discussion of what Becky had learned and how she
had changed because it is difficult to separate the description of how Becky learned from

what she learned.

Technology

Unlike Jenny, who was nervous about computers at the beginning, Becky joined
Nancy’s technology project because she intended to carry out the Road Rabbit project in
teaching that she had developed in a computer class she had attended. To Becky,
technology was the intended content of learning that she expected fiom this technology
support group. By participating in this group and using hands—on experiences, she learned
to use hardware like scanners and digital cameras, as well as software such as the
Internet, KidPix, PowerPoint, and Inspiration. She also gained a lot of troubleshooting

skills associated with the hardware and software. Part of these skills was gained through

69

hands-on experience with the group by sharing tips with each other on technical trouble-
shooting:

When we met together, we had a group getting [along] so well. We could say

‘Man, I am having trouble recording a voice/sound’. Somebody would say ‘I have

the same trouble’. Then, somebody might say, ‘I did, but this is what I did and

fixed it’.
Some of the skills were acquired when Becky was asked to conduct technology training
workshops with Nancy and other teachers:

We got a lot of technical support fi'om each other, the skills. A lot of time, we

found we do the same thing; the two of us do it completely in different ways. I

think we learn a lot from that. We often laugh a lot at ourselves because Nancy

would get into the front and say: ‘that is how Becky does it, but that is how I do
it.’ Once a while, that was a comment. We find there is more than one way to get
the same answer. And I think we were surprised at each other, like ‘oh, I never
thought you could do that way.’

Moreover, Becky did not learn the technology for the sake of technology. She
learned and used technology for the purpose of integration. To Becky, integration means
“You try to take something you already do in your classroom and just enhance it with
technology in a different way maybe.” She added, “You worked into a project that would
be meaningful, would be something to work into all your curricular areas, like the bar
graph”.

The idea of technology integration that Becky has now is very different from how

she used to use technology in teaching. When she first incorporated computers in

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teaching in 1992, she used them to keep track of students’ assignments and had students
practice multiplication. At that time, Becky saw a computer as only a tool for record
keeping and practicing skills. After participating in Nancy’s Young Authors Embrace
Technology in Writing project, Becky integrated technology in teaching in various ways.
She incorporated the Internet for students to find information about different states for the
Road Rabbit project. This was a proj ect-based learning activity in social studies and
language arts that allowed students to take a virtual field trip with their mascot, the Road
Rabbit. She also incorporated emails to communicate with people whom the Road Rabbit
visited. “We incorporated emails with the people we sent post cards to, and incorporated
the Internet to do the research.” Another creative use of KidPix was to have students keep
track of their favorite colors by creating a bar graph using KidPix. Becky found it was
more efficient for students to create bar graphs using the computer than to cut and paste
with paper. Becky thought she could “write up quicker [with a computer] than on the
chalkboar ”.

In writing, she used the computer and a large monitor to display Venn diagrams
because she thought, “it is easy for me to write with the computer and present on a large
monitor. I can make the writing more organized. I can keep kids’ attention.” She further
described how she kept students’ attention when she created a Venn diagram using these
methods:

They [the kids] can see the left and right progression, they can see their ideas

going up to text, and they love to watch the computer screen. I can do that faster

on a computer screen than on a chalkboard. So it helps me keep the attention of

the kids in the focus.

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Besides using the computer to present information, Becky had students create
their stories in KidPix and PowerPoint. Creating a story with technology does not mean
simply transferring what students wrote on paper to a computer program. When students
write with KidPix, they can express themselves in multiple means by incorporating
graphics with the words. Getting ideas expressed in graphics is part of the writing
process Becky used for her student writing. Becky found technology provided more
options for students to express themselves:

When kids come into my classroom at the beginning of the year, they mainly

work with pictures. But I like that because that was the start of the story process.

We just move on to the text from that. So they can see all the options that

technology gives them.

Through observing students writing in multimedia, Becky realized that computers
are useful tools for communication, which was different fiom what she previously
believed: computers were only tools for record keeping and practicing skills. Becky
found that a mentally impaired student, who could neither speak nor write, could convey
her ideas to other students through using the different tools of KidPix:

I had a little girl who can neither speak nor write, she had a disease and she is

very mentally handicapped. But she can work on Kidpix. She can try to

communicate what she did to the other kids. One of the early projects we did, we
would put up one picture each kid made using whatever tool on that software
program they could. And kids were amazed at her picture. They would say to her

‘How did you do that?’. She would go to the computer and she would point at

what she used, what tools. I do not know if that would happen if we did not have

72

a tool like that, I do not know if that kind of communication would have happened

between our kids.”

In sum, Becky changed her views of the role of computer technology in students’
learning. She integrated technology in the process of instruction as a result of
participating in Nancy’s project: “So it was not just (learning) hardware and software, but

it was learning how to integrate it, manage it in my classroom.”

Student learning
By having students using KidPix to create their writing, Becky was able to see the
affordances of technology in students’ writing processes. This, in turn, provided Becky
with opportunities to make sense of student mental processes in writing:
I see my kids’ minds go in 50 directions. I see my kids have more options in
writing. They see ‘oh, I can create a picture with this’. They see their stories more
in 3 dimensional fashion. They see their story really happening. I think it means
more to them because they can picture it.
Unlike Jenny, who was a very traditional teacher and did not pay much attention to the
individual needs of students, Becky believed students learn in different ways. She always
elicits students’ ideas for their own stories by using Story Web or Venn diagrams.
However, before her participation in this group, she did not pay much attention to how
they applied different strategies in their writing processes. Observing students drafting
their writing with KidPix, Becky noticed that some pictured their stories first in their
mind and then wrote them down in paper. This helped Becky to understand that some

students would first construct their stories visually with pictures, then the text followed:

73

I know for myself, I am not a good writer. I can draw a good picture before I
wrote. For someone like me, I think because of this project in particular, I think it
helps those children know ‘it is 0k if you draw a picture, and then write a story’. I
suppose that could have been accomplished without technology, but I think
technology brought that to the forefront. I think it made us to pay attention to that
a little more, to the fact that it is OK for kids to draw a picture before the story
comes. You do not always just write the story. Part of the thinking processes,
what do you picture in your head, can you get it on paper or can you get it on the
screen?

Being aware of her students’ thinking process, Becky provided more options in their

writing process. As Becky thought about each student’s learning differently, she then

changed her writing instruction.

Instruction

According to Becky, participating in Nancy’s project provided her ample
opportunities to gain and revise her general instructional strategies, as well as subject
specific strategies. For example, she got the idea of using 4‘" graders as “buddies” to help
her 1“ graders to accomplish the Young Authors books fi'om Nancy and other teachers in
a meeting when they shared parental involvement strategies for the Young Authors
books:

For example, we go to a meeting on how to get parents involved. So we need to

talk about how could you make it different for those of you who do not have

parents involved. That was a con because I do not have enough parents to work

74

with. ...What can I do? With Nancy and group, because I am using the buddy

group anyway, Nancy said that “look, let us bring over 4‘" graders and train

them”. You know we just all sat there and talked about together. Nancy was there
to support that both financially and with ideas.

In addition to learning general instructional strategies, Becky learned new writing
strategies. She got the idea of conferencing with students individually in their writing
processes fiom Kate and Betsy, the two co-teachers of Jenny’s 15‘ and 2"d grade multi-age
group. This occurred in an area teacher meeting when teachers shared their experiences
with the Young Authors Embrace Technology in Writing project:

After we did a workshop for the area teachers at ISD, and we showed our

projects, Kate and Becky stood up and talked about how they do writing process

in their classroom. That was the first time I got to sit down and listen how they

did in their classroom. ...What I took fi'om that, what I realized was how

important it is to conference with my students individually. So everyday, I

conference with my kids in writing [individually].

Becky used to use a writing center approach in which students read and wrote
independently. Seeing what Kate, Betsy and Jenny did with their students, Becky realized
the importance of giving students individual feedback. She began to conduct conferences
with students individually about their writing processes everyday, which is a strategy of
doing writing workshop (Calkins, 1994). In the writing workshop model, a teacher will
break the writing process down to several components such as mini-lessons, work time

for writing, peer conferencing and/or response group, share sessions and publication

75

celebrations (Calkins, 1994). By incorporating the teaching strategy of Jenny’s team,
Becky enhanced her writing instruction.

Besides learning about general pedagogy and pedagogical content knowledge
(Schuhnan, 1987), Becky also changed the way she delivered instruction. Becky now
uses a big TV monitor to display information such as ‘the problem of the day’, the bar
graph and Venn diagrams. Becky thought she had more choices for her to deliver lessons:
“especially with me using the larger monitor and the computer, I have more options to
deliver the lesson.”

Having different devices to deliver lessons also forced Becky to think more
deliberately in her planning:

So my delivery method is different. So when I write my lesson plan, sometimes I

have the options to think about ‘Do I want to do it on chalkboard? Do I want to

do it on overhead? Do I want to do it in computer with a large monitor?’ Depends
on what we are doing, it changes my teaching in that.
Therefore, Becky wrote lesson plans differently when she could deliver lessons in an
alternative mode instead of lecturing:

I think I have a good start. I think when I write my lesson plans, it definitely

makes me think about writing my lesson plans differently because I think about

how I can present something differently instead of standing in front of a group
and talking.

However, Becky put a limit on using the computer and the monitor to deliver
lessons. She had to be selective about the options that technology afforded in her teaching

because of the characteristics of her 1" graders:

76

It also changed my teaching that my kids have more options. They do not need to
write stories and hand in their stories. They have the option of doing it in
multimedia. So I have to decide what we want to be included. So it has changed
my teaching because I have different things to think about and I have different
options to think about in delivering myself, and my kids have different options.
Sometimes I have to limit those options because they are too much for the lst

grades. So I have to limit them for them.

Learning entails “going out of comfort zones ”

According to Becky, one unexpected outcome of her learning with this
technology support group is that she achieved a new sense of self-awareness through
making her project public. She used phrases describing how they ‘fivent out on our
limbs”, “expanded ourselves”, and “went out of comfort zones” to describe the
experience such as presenting her project at the professional conferences and training
other teachers to use technology. Like Jenny, who was afiaid of her work being evaluated
by other professionals, Becky had not been confident enough about her knowledge on
technology integration. She emphasized that she would not even have joined the group if
she had been told at the very beginning that she was expected to present her work at
professional conferences. But with the support of Nancy and the group, Becky presented
her project at the MACUL conference:

I would not present at MACAUL if she (Nancy) told us at the beginning that we

were going to present at MACAUL some day. I would say ‘no way’. We do not

77

know enough, I will never know enough. I will never be at that knowledge thing,

and I still am not.

The success of Becky’s presentation of her technology integration project at
professional conferences enabled her to take on a new professional role, which is to train
other teachers to use technology. In the third year of this group meeting, Becky was
asked to train other teachers in her school district to integrate KidPix in student writing.
Becky reported that she was able to take on this role because she had experienced “pros
and cons”, “some of the successes and some of the failures in our classroom”, in her own
learning to integrate technology with this technology support group. For example, Becky
shared how she turned a pitfall, not having sufficient parental support in her classroom,
into an advantage of using students as buddies to attain the curriculum goal, thanks to
consulting with Nancy and other teachers of the group. Due to these pitfalls and
successes, Becky felt she was able to take on this new professional role:

Now [the third year] it [Becky’s responsibility] changes to how to get other

teachers involved in our projects. That is how the project was changed. The last

project for which Nancy wrote the grant was specifically for that. That was a

natural next step for us. We feel comfortable when we use [technology]. . .. We

had gone through a lot of pros and cons in our learning and supporting each other.

The next natural step was how we could get others on board.

Through taking on these new professional roles with the support of the group, Becky
gained a new sense of confidence and self-awareness:

So we really went out on our limbs, and we went into doing a lot of things that we

never thought we would ever do. We expanded ourselves. We went out of our

78

comfort zones. We would not have tried things like that. There is no way I would

ever thought to present in a conference if I would not have been part of that

group. But it just seemed like a natural next step to take, really.

In sum, with this teacher learning community, Becky experienced a wide range of
learning and changes with this teacher learning community beyond merely gaining
technology competencies. Like Jenny, Becky also depends upon a fill] set of experiences
for her learning and changes, which include: attending technology workshops, trying out
technology with her students in the classroom, sharing ideas and strategies with the group
and other teachers, making her learning public through presenting her project at
professional conferences and training others to use technology. Unlike Jenny, who
depends on others for the ideas at the beginning for technology integration, Becky
already had the integration ideas. She first tried out the integration project in her
classroom, and then relied on others for the ideas and technical support to enhance her
project. Take the development of the Road Rabbit project as an example. First, Becky got
the Road Rabbit project idea fiom a teacher magazine. Then, she adapted it into a social
studies and language arts project in an Internet class offered by Nancy in which teachers
were asked to incorporate technology in a subject area. After she developed the Road
Rabbit project in the class she took, she tried it out in her teaching. When Nancy called
for participants for the Young Authors project, she applied because she could get the
equipment and the Internet access that were necessary to implement this project in her
classroom. However, merely getting the equipment was not enough for implementing
Road Rabbit project. Becky depended upon Nancy and other teachers in the group for

ideas and support to carry out the project, such as the idea of using of 4‘" grade buddies to

79

assist 1" grade students to present the findings of the Road Rabbit Project. She also
depended upon other teachers for technical troubleshooting through communicating with
each other in the meetings and the electronic listserve.

Meanwhile, having the opportunity to try out KidPix in student writing, Becky
discovered that some students first pictured their stories, then wrote them down in paper.
As a result, she gave students more options in writing. When the group was asked to
share their integration projects in an area teacher meeting, Becky got new teaching ideas
from seeing other teachers’ projects and hearing them talk about their experience of
integrating technology. Through sharing among teachers, Becky got the chance to hear
Kate and Betsy talk about the writing process they used in their multiage classroom.
Becky brought back the idea of conferencing with students individually in their writing
and revised part of her old writing strategy of using centers. The experience of making
public her multimedia project with this group pushed Becky to “go out of her comfort
zones.” This enabled her to take on new professional roles such as training other teachers
to integrate technology, and presenting her technology integration project to the Board of
Education to show what technology could afford for student leaming.

Like Jenny, Becky’s leaming about and with technology through this technology
support group is an iterative process of leaming, doing, revising, and doing more through
various group activities. This process includes attending class, trying out technology in
the classroom, sharing with the group, and making learning public through presenting at
the conferences and training other teachers to use technology.

I asked Becky if she could achieve her learning and changes just by merely trying

technology herself, instead of participating in this group. She replied that I was playing

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“the devils’ advocate.” To Becky, the group is the backbone that supports her innovation

and learning.
1: Without this group, with technology, you can do this, right?
B: Oh no, I would not say that at all. You’ve been “the devils’ advocate”. Have
you heard “the devils’ advocate” before? That means you think the opposite side
of the fence. No, I would not have done this without this group. Because number
one, I would become fi'ustrated easily, especially with the technology. ...I would
not have someone to fall back on for support, for technical assistance if I would
not have that [the group].

Becky’s emphasis on the importance of the support of this technology group leads to the

discussion of many conditions that enable Becky’s learning and changes.

Conditions for learning and change

Despite learning opportunities Becky gained fiorn her participation in various
activities of this professional learning community, there are certain conditions other than
those activities that enable her learning and sustain her participation in this professional

learning community that are important.

A common goal
Having a common goal of technology integration was important for Becky to join
this teacher learning community. As an early adopter of technology, Becky wanted to

integrate technology into her teaching. But she could hardly find teachers in her school

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who shared this interest with her. One attraction of Nancy’s technology support group
was that the teachers of this group shared the same goal and attitudes with her:
I think what affects me going to the group is that we all share a common goal.
And we shared a common attitude. We were there because we wanted to be there.
We were there because we had similar goals and desires for our classrooms. I do
not share some goals and desires with my neighbors down the hall. I may not.
And they do not share the desires and goals with me.
To Becky, the common goal to integrate technology in teaching provided a common
ground for these teachers who came fi'om different schools and grade levels to learn from
each other:
We have a lot of similar goals. We teach a lot the same way, we come fiom
different environments. We do feed off each other. We can brainstorm with each

other. We are enough alike but we are enough different. It is kind of fun.

Situated in a subject area
In addition to the common goal, the situated nature of technology integration of
this technology support group influenced Becky’s motivation to learn and her learning
outcome:
A common goal in our group is how to integrate technology into a classroom
curriculum. We all share this goal. We are really busy people, and we have to
teach a lot. But how can we use it within whatever we are already teaching? We
know we could not take it on as an additional subject. We could not teach the

computer.

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As a busy teacher, Becky already had many things to teach. She would not have time to
teach an additional subject if technology was not integrated in a subject area:

No one is in the position that they can add it on because our days are so full. We

have reading, writing, math, science, social studies, going to recess, eating,

talking over the problems, and teaching them how to walk in the hall. Our day is
so full with required things. We have to learn how to integrate it. We all had that
common goal.

Since technology integration was situated in writing, a lot of sharing among
teachers was not only about technical troubleshooting but also about writing instruction.
In a sense, the embeddedness of technology learning in writing shaped the content of the
sharing Becky had. Becky learned more than technology competences. As a result, when
she got the chance to talk about writing instruction, and when she got the chance to
observe students’ writing in multimedia environment, Becky thought about student

learning differently and enhanced her writing instruction.

Ownership

Taking ownership is vital for Becky’s learning about and with technology. There
were many opportunities available to her to learn technology, but Becky felt it was
difficult for her to engage in learning if the content of learning was not relevant to her
teaching, and if she had no control over her learning:

My time is precious. I want to put my time into the things that will move us

forward. If I do not see the usefulness of something, I used to have a bad attitude

about it. Although, I try to go and always have an attitude that there is something

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from it that I know I can probably learn. But I am much more open-minded if I

care about the subject, if I see it is relevant to what I am doing.

For example, Becky was asked to attend one technology workshop required by the
superintendent of her school district. She found the content of the workshop was not
about teaching but on budget issues. She just passed on the words she got from the
workshop instead of applying what she learned from the workshop in her teaching.
“Whatever we took back from the workshop, we just passed on the words. We really had
no control over the issue.” Becky’s technology learning experience illustrates the
common critiques of workshop model of professional development, which is ineffective
for teachers because it offers decontextualized technical skills and treats teachers as
passive recipients of learning (Little, 1989 & 1993).

However, Becky’s learning experience with Nancy’s technology support group
was very different from her experience of learning technology in other technology
workshops that she was required to attend. In this support group, Nancy and the teachers
jointly decided the content and the schedule of learning.

I: How often did you meet for the first year? How did you decide how often to

meet?

B: Right before we got the hardware and after we have been selected for the

project, we met together and decided what it was we needed to learn. We did a

brainstorm session with Nancy. We all talked to her about what we felt we needed

as far as training. We set up a schedule from that.
Becky had control over the content of her own learning, and that was probably why she

actively participated in many activities of this learning community. Becky’s joint

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decision-making for the learning agenda in this technology support group echoes what
reformers call for: that teachers should be treated as professionals and active constructors
of their own learning (Putnam & Borko, 1997). Becky was motivated to learn because
she could make decisions about her own learning. As a result, she not only integrated

technology in her teaching but also modified the ways with which she taught writing.

Leadership
Nancy’s leadership started this technology integration project and sustained
teachers’ participation in this group. Nancy initiated the project through winning the
Tomorrow Technology grant from the state and kept writing technology grants to sustain
teachers’ participation in this teacher learning community. However, she did not mandate
the project. Instead, she coordinated resources and provided support for teachers to adapt
the project to their own learning goals.
So she was able to take our ideas, and listen to what we were saying. She could
see where she could help and pull that stuff together, and make it happen.
Otherwise, it would not happen.
Nancy’s leadership was reflected in technical, professional and resource support she
provided in Becky’s learning. She played a “dynamic role” in support teacher learning.
Nancy is a good person to keep us all pulling together. I do not know if it would
work if we do not have someone as dynamic as her. She has done a good job to
keep us together and focus on our goals.

One key part of Nancy’ leadership was the support she provided to teachers.

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Support

Technology innovation was new to teachers. To integrate technology in teaching,
support seemed to be vital for Becky. According to Becky, she was motivated to join this
group to “take advantage of the support” from Nancy, and to get necessary equipment to
“learn how to integrate technology in my classroom”. By participating in this technology
support group for three years, Becky received technical support, professional support, and
emotional support from her peers; technical, professional and resource support from
Nancy and other ISD administrators.

It was not only Becky who felt supported. All four teachers unanimously talked
about the importance of various forms of support in their teaching and new professional
roles they adopted. Data analysis shows that support is the most salient feature of this
group, though each teacher talks about support in a slightly different way. To Jenny, the
support, which enabled her learning and changes, was an outcome of her participation in
this group. Sandy felt that the support provided to her made her feel that she was treated
like a professional. Becky intended to get support from Nancy but ended up with getting
many forms of support from her peers in this technology support group. This support
enabled her to implement the technology innovation in her teaching. That Becky and the
group attached great importance to the role of support in their learning is consistent with
the findings of professional development through professional development schools,
where support for resources and intellectual and emotional support are necessary

conditions to enable teacher learning (Rosaen, 1995).

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Technical sumrt

Like Jenny and Sandy, Becky’s technology integration was inseparable from the
technical assistance she got. Actually, Becky was attracted to Nancy’s project to get
equipment and technical assistance to implement the integration project she developed in
a computer class in her classroom. Originally, Becky only expected to get technical
assistance from Nancy. Yet she ended up getting a lot of tips on technical trouble-
shooting from her peers when they shared how they integrated technology during the
group meeting. She commented, “We were really a support group within ourselves.”

In addition to technical support she gained when they met, Becky appreciated the
questions and answers she received through an email listserve set up by Nancy in the
third year of this group. Teachers in this group were from five different school districts,
and they only met monthly or sometimes bi-monthly. So it was difficult for them to get
immediate help from each other in person. The listserve became an important avenue for
them to communicate with each other. To Becky, the listserve was not only a place to
communicate questions and answers on technical troubleshooting, but also a place to
learn the technical expertise each possessed. For example, she figured out Lucy was very
good at using PowerPoint. By posting questions and answers on technical problem
solving in the listserve, Becky got to know the strength of each teacher for her future
reference.

I think it was the last year, Nancy did start a list serve for our support group. We

could post questions to other members of our group. We got to know who was

stronger in what. Eventually, we realized who was strong in PowerPoint. Lucy

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used PowerPoint a lot, so we knew she was very strong in PowerPoint. We used

each other a lot.

Besides her peers, Nancy is another source for technical support. Before joining
this group, Becky took several technology classes from Nancy through ISD. So, when
Nancy got the technology grant, Becky applied for it because she thought she could take
advantage of the technical support offered by Nancy. Nancy’s accessibility made it easy
for Becky to overcome the technical difficulties in the integration. “I felt I had a good
chance to learn how to use it [hardware] because I can just call her [Nancy] and ask her
questions. And we did a lot of that.” Not only did Nancy provide technical assistance but
she also coordinated technical support to meet teachers’ instructional needs. When Becky
tried to use a big TV monitor to deliver lessons, she encountered a technical problem
linking her computer to the TV monitor. Nancy came to coordinate the technical support
for Becky:

For example, I really wanted to use that large TV monitor, and no one in our

building was using that monitor. The librarian said ‘Becky, you can use that’. So

I took it, I wanted to connect it to the computer, but I did not know how. So

Nancy contacted the tech coordinator from my district. He gave me the little scan

converter to hook the computer with the monitor. I did not have to buy it, Nancy

did give it to me, so. . .I could get help fi'om anyone.

Sometimes, Becky even called the technical support she received “intellectual”
because she figured out fi'om Nancy and her peers alternative ways to solve the same

technical problem when she took on the role of training other teachers to use technology.

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In short, Becky’s technology integration was inseparable from the technical support she

got fi'om Nancy and her peers.

Emotional support

Emotional support was another type of support these teachers valued, especially
when they were anxious about technical problems they encountered. Technology
integration was something that teachers had never experienced before. There might be a
lot of things associated with technology integration that they did not know. According to
Becky, she became “fi'ustrated easily” with those technical problems she had. The good
part of the group was that Becky was able to express concerns and questions freely with
these teachers without worrying about being judged by others, which was very important
emotional support for her learning and innovation.

I think it [is] just emotional support, like what someone knew someone else did

not know. That was OK because we were all in one place or another at a time. We

were all at one time or another in a position of ‘I do not know that at all. I did not
learn it’. Somebody who sat next to me might say: ‘I know how to do it, no

problem.’ ‘Show me’. Or we might be in the boat of ‘I know how to do that, I

will show you.’ Because all of us might have different experiences with using the

software, we did not feel like any question would be a stupid question ‘cause we

had been there.

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Profession}; support

Becky especially valued that Nancy and other ISD administrators treated her like
a professional because it was crucial for her taking challenges to integrate technology in
teaching. In the dominant workshop model of professional development, teachers were
treated as passive recipients of knowledge delivered by experts (Little, 1993). Becky had
similar experience in some technology professional development programs, where
teachers were regarded as recipients of knowledge. In those programs, Becky took a
passive role in the learning and just passed on the information she got.

According to Becky, teachers were not always treated like professionals and their
ideas were not paid much attention, especially in the tight financial times. “Teachers do
not always get treated as professionals especially in tight budget situations. I do not like
people saying to me that you have this good idea, but it costs too much.” Becky could
“stay in their classroom and play it safe” as her group member Lucy described when she
was asked to integrate technology in teaching. She did not have to take efforts in her busy
schedule to try out new things in teaching. However, Becky was willing to take the risks
to try out the technology innovation with this group because she was treated as a
professional by the group leader and the administer of the ISD:

We had somebody behind us that said ‘you are right, we are going to help you to

see that happens.’ I felt that was what Nancy and Daniel did. They gave us

confidence and they treated us as professionals.

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Nancy was an important source of professional support, and her professional
support was manifested in incorporating teachers’ inputs in their own learning instead of
mandating learning agenda to teachers.

So she was able to take our ideas, and listen to what we were saying. She could

see where she could help and pull that stuff together, and make it happen.

Otherwise, it would not happen.

Nancy’s professional support was also reflected in her providing ideas and support for
teachers to accomplish their goals.

Nancy was there to support that both financially and with ideas. She was able to

say “that will work”. It was really helpful because she was the kind of person that

would help us make sure our ideas could get carried out.
Nancy was accessible to teachers both in person and through emails whenever they need
her help:

I felt I had a good chance learning how to use it [hardware] ‘cause I could just call

her and ask her questions. And we did a lot of that. We learned to use Yahoo

chat, the messenger, we got a lot of work done in questions back and forth that
way.
She was the “hu ” for teachers because she coordinated the work to meet teachers’ needs
and the demands fiom other people.

Yes, she was the hub of the whole project. She was our coordinator. If there were

something important that we needed, we just told her. If she felt she was hearing

some more things from other people, she would pull all of us together.

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Moreover, the professional support from Nancy also entails a strong push for
Becky to reach a higher professional level. For example, Becky would never have
presented her project at professional conferences like MACUL for other professionals’
scrutiny if Nancy did not “keep pushing us” and “push us a little more”. As a result,
Becky felt she “went out on limbs” by doing things that she would never imagine, such as
presenting at professional conferences and taking the role to train teachers fiom different
school districts of ISD to integrate technology.

Besides the professional support fi‘om the leader and the administrator, Becky also
gained a lot of professional support from her peers, including having a common goal,
sharing pros and cons of one’s learning, sharing instructional ideas and teaching
resources. To Becky, a shared common goal was very important professional support
because they could learn from each other through pursuing the common interests:

“The support, we do get support fiom it [the group], and we do feed off each other. . . . It
is just another source of support. It was the people that had the same goal in mind.”

Becky also felt that she was supported professionally by her peers when they
shared ideas and materials with each other. She appropriated some ideas she learned from
other teachers in the group. For example, Jenny shared in a group meeting that she made
a presentation of the role of technology in student learning to the Board of Education.
Encouraged by Jenny, Becky initiated a presentation to the Board of Education of her
school district regarding the role of technology in student learning as well. According to
Becky, she would never make that happen if she did not know about Jenny’s presentation

to the Board of Education.

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To Becky, professional support entails not only collegiality and assistance but
also accountability, which seemed to be indispensable from her technology integration in
teaching. Professional support from peers does not always mean they agree with what
each does. As a professional, Becky believes that teachers have to account for their
actions according to professional standards. So Becky takes her professional role to make
sure teachers work together to integrate technology rather than merely use technology for
the sake of technology:

...The support of the group makes it [integration] possible. And I think we all

support each other. And we need to keep track that we all integrate it. [We do] not

use it for the sake of using it.
Becky’s learning accountability to professional standards is what Buchman (1986) argued
that teachers need to take professional roles over personal preference to justify their
action (Buchman, 1986). As a result, Becky and others in the group justified their action
through opening their practice to their peers in the group meeting, as well as to a broader
audience through presenting at professional conferences and taking the role of training
other teachers to use technology with the professional support from peers, Nancy and

other ISD administrators.

Resources

Last but not least, Becky thought all her learning could not be achieved without
necessary resources from Nancy and other administrators of ISD. Nancy and other
leaders (such as Daniel) of ISD were able to get funds to provide equipment like

computer hardware and software and other services like busing students. They also

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provided resources for getting substitutes to release time for teachers to attend group
meetings and conferences.

In short, in Becky’s own words, this group provided a supportive framework in
every possible aspect to support her efforts to make technology integration happen in her
teaching.

Another factor I think is really important is that we have a positive, supportive

framework. In other words, [it includes] Daniel, Nancy and each other. It was

positive and supportive. We did not have anybody in our group that thought
anyone of us is better than anybody else. We did not have anybody in our group
that would give up. We might have some down times. Our attitudes were that

‘there is an answer to this. Or I could envision this, would not this be cool?’ It

was really positive and supportive.

Conclusion

Becky achieved a wide range of learning beyond merely learning about
technology through her participating in many activities through this technology support
group. Having a common goal was important to set up the common ground for teachers
from diverse backgrounds to learn from each other. Nancy’s leadership was important to
starting the project and sustaining teachers’ participation in it. The support fiom her
peers, the leader and other administers of the ISD was indispensable for her trying out
technology integration in her classroom as well as the learning and changes that occurred
to her over the past three years. Moreover, Becky’s ownership of her own learning

motivated and sustained her leaming through this teacher learning community.

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Chapter 5

Sandy’s learning: A Case of Stepping Out of Comfort Zones

Sandy’s Background

Sandy is a 4‘" grade teacher who has been teaching for 22 years. She currently
teaches at Sandywood Elementary, a rural school in the Midwest.

I first met Sandy at a teacher professional development summer institute for
technology integration, where she presented how she helped students and teachers in her
school to integrate multimedia in student writing. A year later, in the Young Author
Embrace Technology in Writing celebration fair, I got the chance to see her students’
multimedia books. Picture 1 is a sample of a 4‘" grade student’s writing with multimedia,
where the student illustrated her stories through combining words with matching
graphics.

Fi e1.Asam

          

   

   
   

16 of Sand ’3 4‘h y ade student’s multimedia book

 

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Sandy told me she did not integrate multimedia into student writing until she
participated in Nancy’s technology support group for the Young Authors Embrace
Technology in Writing project. She used technology for math drills and for her to keep
records, when she first started to use technology in teaching in the late 808 and early 90s.
However, she felt something was missing.

After she participated in Nancy’s technology support group for three years, Sandy
changed her views of technology as a tool for drills or for only making writing products
visually appealing. She started to see technology as a tool for facilitating the student
writing processes: “Now I see the capabilities [of computer] are so much more. Now I see
it as it can help kids to develop writing skills. Before I thought that they could take their
writings and make it look nice.”

According to Sandy, her typical writing instruction started out with an example of
the writing topic through a group activity. Then she had students brainstorm ideas and
map their ideas in mind on the blackboard. Students were asked to write drafts from their
mind map. After that, they read their drafts aloud to each other. Students were always
provided with specific writing plans. When students were asked to write fiction, Sandy
gave them a fiction plan to follow. When students were asked to write non-fiction, she
gave them a non-fiction plan to follow. For example, one writing program in her school
asked students to write complete sentences. Students were given a writing plan asking
them to include a topic sentence, ten facts, and complete sentences. Sandy seemed to
adopt the writing workshop model (Calkins, 1994) in her writing instruction.

Sandy enhanced her writing instruction after she integrated multimedia in student

writing. Besides providing students with specific writing plans, she gave them a blank

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sheet of paper with only six squares on it (See Appendix 3), which allowed students more

options in writing.
So I guess maybe one of the changes that I offered kids was, in one of the plans
for their books, I gave them a piece of paper with six squares on it. And they can
draw their plans rather than having to write in words. That would be a change of
what I did.

Sandy attributed these changes in her teaching as a result of her three years of

participation in this professional learning community lead by Nancy.

Learning opportunities

Like Jenny, Sandy originally was attracted to Nancy’s technology support group
to get equipment, like a scanner and a digital camera, and to see how to integrate
computer technologies in teaching. However, Sandy learned more than technology
competency through a set of activities that she engaged in through Nancy’s technology
support group. These activities include the opportunities to talk and share, to try out
technology with students in the classroom, to attend computer classes and workshops
offered by the ISD, to present at professional conferences, to train other teachers within
and outside one’s school to integrate technology, and to have opportunities to ask
questions through emails and a list serve. Table 5.1 shows the set of activities that Sandy
engaged in and the frequencies that Sandy referred to them. Similar how I coded these
activities in Jenny’s case, the frequency here denotes the fiequency of an occasion that

the activity is discussed rather than the occurrences of the words.

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Table 5.1 Learning activities and their frequencies

 

Activities Frecmencies

 

A Interaction with the group through talking, sharing 21
and presenting to each other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B Trying out technology in classroom. 6

C Attending classes and workshops offered by the ISD. 1

D Presenting one’s projects at area and regional 3
professional conferences.

E Training other teachers. 6

F Communication through email list serve. 1

 

 

 

Like Jenny’s case, the order of fi'equencies does not necessarily imply the order of the
preferences that Sandy chose to learn.

Through these activities, Sandy was exposed to a wide range of learning topics,
which provided Sandy with ample opportunities to learn. Table 5.2 shows a range of
topics as well as the examples of each topic that she got a chance to think or talk about.

Table 5.2 Topics of learning

 

 

 

Topics Examples

Computer Computers, scanners, and digital cameras.
guignents

Software KidPix, and PowerPoint.

 

Technical trouble Talking about technical problems and getting suggestions to
shooting solve them.

 

Instructional use of a. How to use KidPix in student writing.
technology b. How to use KidPix to create bar graph.
b. How to manage technology in classroom.

 

Teaching Ideas & a. How to create different books for students.

 

materials b. Sharing books on how to create multimedia books.
Young Authors Seeing how Margaret, Jenny and Becky use multimedia to
Project ideas create students’ books.

 

Ideas on conference Brainstorming ideas for conference presentation with Lucy
presentation and Nancy.

 

 

 

 

 

Ideas on training Learning ways to train teachers in Sandy’s school to
other teachers integrate technology.
Grant writing Learning grant-writing skills.

 

98

 

According to Sandy, the focus of learning varied in different years. In the first
year, Sandy learnt to integrate PowerPoint into student writing. She also got ideas for
using KidPix to create books for her students. In the second year, she presented her work
with Lucy at professional conferences, a task she never did before. The success of her
project encouraged Sandy to apply for a Tomorrow technology grant to train teachers in
her school district to integrate technology. In the third year, she helped Nancy to train
forty other teachers at the ISD to integrate technology. Like Jenny and Becky, Sandy
leamed and changed in the aspects of technology, student learning, and instruction
through participating in various activities of this technology support group in three years.
At the same time, she formed new professional identities through taking on various
professional roles as a teacher of other teachers. In Sandy’s own words, “Professionally, I
feel I step out of my comfort zones several times because I know I do things I have not
mastered yet.” In the following sections, I will discuss how Sandy steps out of her
comfort zones by uncovering what Sandy learned and how she changed as well as the

conditions that attracted Sandy’s participation in learning.

What had Sandy learned and how had she changed through participating in this

professional community?

Technology
Sandy changed her view of the role of technology in teaching and how she used
technology in writing drastically through being involved in Nancy’s technology project.

Though Sandy was exposed to computer technology in the late 19808, her use of

99

technology was very limited. At that time, she mainly used technology for practicing
drills as well as keeping records. In the mid 1990s, Sandy got a Mac computer. She had
students type and print their books with the Mac computer. She thought of the computer
as a medium to present writing products that could “make writing look nice”. Sandy used
computers in school and home, but she was not satisfied with these uses of a computer:

At that time, I felt it was useful. It was something helpful. But I did not use it as

much as it could have been. But it was frustrating because it was only doing drill

and practice. I mean I thought it was good, but it was kind like something was
missing.

Now Sandy thought “the capabilities [of computer] are so much more.” “It is the
tool to do the things you’ve already done or do it better”. She always tried to seek
connections between technology and what she already taught. Nancy’s Young Author
Say Yes to Technology project, which links technology with student writing, was just the
right one for Sandy. Sandy not only got equipment and technical support from Nancy’s
project but also get ideas of technology integration in writing from other teachers
involved in the project. For example, Sandy got the chance to see the multimedia books
created by Margaret’s students and Becky’s students, who were the first graders, in a
group meeting sharing each other’s work. If the first graders could create books with
multimedia, Sandy thought her fourth graders would be able to create multimedia books,
too. “They [1" graders] were young and be able to do it [multimedia books]. So I know
my ideas were age-appropriate for my kids because they [1" graders] were doing it, and I

knew that would work with kids in my school.”

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When Sandy had her students create stories with PowerPoint and KidPix, she
noticed that students tended to review and edit more. Sandy always tried to find ways to
encourage student to edit their stories, but she usually had difficult time to get students to
revise their final products: “I think right now multimedia really helps my kids write
better. They review and edit much more than they ever did before. That is always a big
problem because writing it all over again is really a hassle.”

The change in students’ writing behavior stimulated Sandy to have a new
understanding of computers as tools that could facilitate the writing process:

As they apply to the product, they may change some writing process as they put

into a product along the way, they may see how they can improve it. That makes a

tool. Some people can write with pencil. When they write with pen, they can write

it better. When they write with computer, they can do it better. They can extend
what they have done.
Not only did Sandy notice her students tend to review and edit more when they created
their stories with PowerPoint or KidPix, she also noticed some students’ thinking patterns
in writing that she did not pay much attention before. This opens another area about

student learning for Sandy.

Student learning

According to Sandy, asking students to edit their final drafts of writing is always a
big challenge. However, Sandy felt this was no longer a big problem for her. When
students typed their stories in the computer and matched them with pictures, Sandy

noticed that students kept making changes:

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I had students say to me ‘ you know some words do not match the picture. I can
not put [it] here because I miss a step’. Or ‘I am missing something important that
happen. Can I add more to this?’ ‘Yes, you can. That is really what I want you to
do’. They are editing by visually thinking their stories. That is what multimedia
has done. They now begin to think in pictures and words. For some kids, that is
key.

Observing students write with PowerPoint and KidPix, Sandy discovered the
thinking processes in writing of some students: they first would think of their stories in
graphics. Sandy thought that allowing students to draw first their stories in graphics was
especially beneficial for some students who had difficulties in writing. She described how
her students improve writing after they wrote their stories with PowerPoint and KidPix,
which provided students with the options to incorporate graphics. According to Sandy,
two students who had problems of writing stories that “drag on forever” without a
beginning or ending, now can write “understandable” stories when “they put their
pictures with their stories.” One boy who was reluctant to write now is willing to write
because he was allowed to express his thinking in pictures first and then to write in
words. Another girl who tended to include every detail and even things that happened
elsewhere in her story now can break down her details to main ideas. Through observing
these students writing with multimedia, Sandy was aware of student thinking processes in
writing that she did not pay attention before:

When the girl began to see the visual part of the story, she found some details she

wrote did not fit with the topic of the story. So she tried to make picture fit the

words. Multimedia helps her to be succinct and stick more to the story.

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Though using PowerPoint and Kidpix in student writing afforded Sandy the
opporttmities to discover the thinking processes in writing of some students, merely
depending on the affordances of technology itself was not sufficient for Sandy to
understand students’ thinking process. Sandy used technology before, but the use of
technology was limited to practicing drills and record keeping. Only after trying out
multimedia projects with this teacher technology support group, Sandy was able to see
the usefirlness of technology in student writing processes. Actually, Sandy depends on
the group for ideas as well as technical skills and technology management strategies
through talking and sharing with each other:

We were put together to create multimedia project in our classrooms. So basically

the things we were talking about related to technology, also related to writing

because everybody was writing the story. Some of the things we might talk about
were: ‘how could we manage to get the kids stories edited so that they could be
ready?’ There were a lot of how tos, ‘how do you do this?’ ‘how do you do that?’

Maybe ‘how do you import a picture?’ Maybe something we would talk about

was what we did [with student writing].

As Sandy gained new understanding of the student thinking processes in writing, she was

stimulated to revise her instructional strategies.

Instruction

According to Sandy, she is a proj ect-oriented teacher. At a superficial level,

participating Nancy’s Young Authors Embrace Technology in Writing project enabled

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her to extend what she already did, she integrated multimedia into her student writing
projects.
I am a proj ect-oriented teacher in the first place. Obviously, just teaching
multimedia or having kids do multimedia, is a new idea that I did not have before.
That is new to me. But it still fits in my project that kids create new things. It is
still project-based learning. So I guess it expanded my thoughts about project-
oriented learning.
At a deep level, integrating multimedia into student writing also provided Sandy with the
opportunities to make new sense of student thinking processes in writing and to revise her
teaching. Sandy knew the principle that different kids learn differently, but she did not
quite understand how to apply this principle in teaching untill she discovered that some
students would think first in graphics rather than in words when they wrote. Sandy said:
“everyone was given the information that kids learned in different ways. But being
involved in the project made me realize how important it was for those visual kids to
think visually first.” Noticing that different students write in different ways, Sandy
provided students with more options to write their stories:
Yes, I gave them that option that they could do that [drawing their stories] first,
and then they can put their words to it. And I am accepting of that. I know I am
always a flexible teacher anyway. I thought that was just a map of their plans. For
some kids, that is their ways of thinking. So that is an acceptable plan. You know
you cannot only hand out one plan, I guess. So I tend to give them options. If I
know one student, and am pretty sure if he or she is a visual student, I might

suggest them that they use this plan. In that way, if they get into wrong sequences,

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I do not care if they cut it apart and put it back together the way they need it, and
glue it on another paper. So in that sense, it changed because I used to hand out
pretty much one plan, that will be [either] this plan or that plan. “If you do a
fiction book, here is the plan.” “If you do a non-fiction book, here is another

plan.

In addition to getting new instructional strategies through trying out multimedia in

student writing, Sandy was greatly influenced by the ways in which other teachers in the

group used multimedia in student writing though she had difficulties in articulating her

learning processes. According to Sandy, when she saw the multimedia books done by the

first graders of Margaret and Becky, she gained ideas and confidence for getting her

fourth graders to create books with PowerPoint and KidPix. When they met, they not

only talked about projects but also showed each other their projects including materials

like student multimedia books. So they had something concrete to talk about and learn

from.

Usually it could be materials that they showed people, or seeing different ways
they used [technology] in their classroom, like we watched the presentations
Margaret and Becky did with PowerPoint. I can see how they bring KidPix to
PowerPoint [into student writing]. So I can do that now. I would use that in
another presentation. I would use the idea or the way they presented it. So many
things they do in their classroom I can duplicate. I can say they are doing good
things and interesting things, things that kids can learn fi'om. So we probably
mentor to each other in a lot of ways. We probably do not know we are teaching

each other.

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As Sandy got instructional ideas from other teachers, her invention of the
altemative writing plan with 6 squares shed light on Lucy’s instruction. According to
Lucy, she had not thought to use a blank piece of paper with six squares on it to get down
students’ ideas for writing. After she saw what Sandy’s students did with the alternative
writing plan, Lucy incorporated Sandy’s story map to help her students to get down their
ideas and match their words with graphics.

...Oh, [I learned] a different writing strategy. Sandy had this wonderful writing

paper for kids to get ideas down. It was called a story map. I heard of the story

map before, but this one was where you would write on one side and you have the
picture on the other side, and I guess I never realized it was out there. I had heard
that but I had never see it. That is one example of how they would share materials
with each other. Whatever the information is, we would like to share with each
other.

Through sharing and seeing the concrete examples of each other’s instruction, both

Sandy and Lucy appropriated the instructional strategies they learned from each other.

Learning is "stepping out of comfort zones ”

As Sandy advanced her professional knowledge in areas of technology, student
learning and teaching through integrating multimedia in her own teaching, she was asked
to make her learning public within and outside of her school district through presenting at
professional conferences and training other teachers to integrate technology in her school
district and the ISD. Sandy often used the phrases like “I stretch myself” or “I am

stepping out of my comfort zones” to describe her experiences of doing something that

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she felt she had not totally mastered yet, such as presenting at professional conferences
and training her peers to use technology.

I: What are the things you feel that are out of your comfort zones?

S: Ahnost everything. Like, I did not know how to use a [digital] camera, how to

import pictures, what I was expected to do at the end of the year. I never

presented in the conference, I have never done professional development before.

Here I am saying ‘I gonna to get up to teach my teachers.’ They are not my

students, they are my peers. So that is really stepping out of my comfort zones. I

used to be in fiont of students and now I am in front my peers. I have done similar

things, but I have never taught my peers. That is stepping out of your comfort

zones. That is something I got out from the group. Again, I am the risk taker. I

will do things that I have not done before, but the group helps.

Sandy was not the only one who was uncomfortable presenting in front of other
adults. Actually all these teachers experienced uncomfortable feeling when they were
asked to do something that they had not achieved the confidence to do. When Nancy
asked the group to present their Young Authors Embrace Technology in Writing project
at local or regional professional conferences, they all felt very uncomfortable. Sandy was
not sure whether she could make it because that was a task she never did before. Though
she was paired with Lucy to present at the conference, Sandy thought she would not have
presented in public if she were asked to at the very beginning. Like Sandy, Lucy did not

feel comfortable to present in front of other adults, either:

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I never put myself as a presenter in fiont of teachers, in front of my peers, that
scared me. Because I think I was measured up whether I was good enough by

presenting something in front of my peers.

This was exactly what Becky once expressed:

I would not present at MACAUL if she [Nancy] told us at the beginning that we
were going to present at MACAUL some day. I would say ‘no way’. We do not
know enough, I will never know enough. I will never be at that knowledge thing,

and I still am not.

Like Sandy, Lucy, and Becky, Jenny was also worried about being judged when she had

to present her project in front of other professionals:

Actually presenting to another adults is not very exciting. It is exciting, but it is
kind of scary. The enthusiasm I think that the group generated for what happened,
or what we could do in a presentation helped you to get over the fear level a little
bit.

Despite the uncomfortable feeling of stepping out of their comfort zones, they all

took the courage to present in front of other professionals. According to Sandy, she

“received praises either from the group itself, or from the presentations we were doing”.

As a result, Sandy built her professional confidence through stepping out of comfort

2011682

We feel we make a difference in education. I feel I make a difference. I think the
group makes a difference in education. I think we are on the cutting-edge. I also
feel all of us are risk takers. We like to do things that may be just a little bit out of

our comfort zones, so maybe we are a lot alike in our personalities.

108

Like other teachers, the success of her technology integration and the recognition
from other professionals encouraged Sandy to take on new professional roles. In the
second year of the group, she won her own Tomorrow Technology grant. According to
Sandy, she would not have written this grant if she did not participate in a consortium
meeting with Nancy’s technology support group. In that meeting, she got the chance to
learn grant writing. During the academic year of 1999-2000, Sandy got her own
Tomorrow Technology grant, which enabled her to train teachers in her school to use
KidPix in student writing. Again, Sandy stretched herself fiom being a participant of
Nancy’s technology grant to becoming a grant winner herself who trained other teachers
to integrate technology:

I never would have written a grant for 10,000 dollars if I had not been with this

group. Professionally, I feel I step out of my comfort zones several times because

I take on things I have not mastered yet. Yet, I feel I am comfortable to do it

because I know I have someone else there. If I do not have the answer to

something, someone else will. Being in that group helps me do that. I like
technology; I have an interest in it. But I would not consider teaching technology.

I would [do it] now. I would consider that as a career change. Professionally, it is

a different way for me to teach. But I see myself teaching others.

In short, Sandy’s learning like others entails stepping out of comfort zones to
perform the tasks that she had not fully mastered yet. As a result, Sandy built her
confidence and took on new professional roles. These new roles include: 1. She made her
technology integration public through presenting at professional conferences with

Nancy’s group, a task she never did before. 2. Sandy applied for a Tomorrow Technology

109

grant to train teachers in her school district to integrate technology because of her
technology integration experience with Nancy’s technology grant. 3. She helped Nancy
to train teachers in other school districts to integrate technology. Through taking on these
new roles, Sandy formed her new professional identity from teaching 4‘" grade students
to teaching her peers:

I would never present if I had not been in that group. It really rises to another

professional level. That seems like a major category itself. We were teachers at

the classroom. Now we were teaching our peers.

Sandy’s learning illustrates what lave and Wenger (1991) argue that learning not
only is manifested in mastering new skills and understanding as well as performing new
tasks, but also entails the forming of a whole person in a social community, which
defines and is defined by various relations of this social community:

As an aspect of social practice, learning involves the whole person; it implies not

only a relation to specific activities but a relation to social communities-it implies

becoming a full participant, a member, a kind of person. In this view, learning
only partly-and often incidentally-implies becoming able to be involved in new
activities, to perform new tasks and functions, to master new understandings.

Activities, tasks, functions, and understanding do not exist in isolation; they are

part of broader system of relations arise out of and are reproduced and developed

within social communities, which are in part systems of relations among persons.

The person is defined by as well as defines these relations. Learning thus implies

becoming a different person with respect to the possibilities enabled by these

110

systems of relations. To ignore this aspect of learning is to overlook the fact that

learning involves the construction of identities. (Lave & Wenger, 1991 , p53)

Conditions for Ieaming and changes
Not only did Sandy value various activities of Nancy’s technology support group,
which offered her ample opportunities to learn, she also referred to other conditions that

were necessary to sustain her participation in this teacher learning community.

Ownership

The call for participation in Nancy’s Young Authors Embrace Technology in
Writing project was disseminated as a grant application. Sandy had to take initiatives to
apply for grant, which was more important to sustain her commitment to integrate
technology than being mandated to do so.

Another neat part of this grant is that people who work on these are the ones who

want to do it. So they come with a learning attitude than those are forced to do it. I

think if people have to apply for something, they are more firlly committed to the

projects.

Moreover, setting up technology integration projects as grants for teachers to
apply not only encouraged Sandy’s inputs in her own learning but also further pushed
Sandy to articulate why and how her integration project would better benefit her students
and herself in the classroom:

In each of those steps, each time I had to write a proposal. I had to think about

‘how can I use this computer?’ ‘What else could I do with it?’ Actually, I am still

111

at that point because every time, the grant rolls around, [I had to think] ‘What else
could I do with it?’ or ‘what students would learn from it, or they can benefit fi'om
it?’ So my view comes from that ‘what else can I do with the computer?’ or ‘what
else can kids do with the computer?’

Encouraging teachers to give input is important for technology integration and learning

around technology integration (Swan et a1, 2002)

Embededness and connectedness

Like Becky, Sandy does not have time to do extra work as a busy elementary
teacher. The embeddedness in a curriculum area and the connectedness with teaching are
another two important features of this teacher technology support group that is central to
Sandy’ learning. Nancy’s project was not targeted at merely Ieaming technology but was
tied to the Young Authors writing project of the ISD. The Young Authors project was a
project of writing that teachers in Sandy’s school were invited to do annually. Nancy’s
technology project was an extension of the original project to one more dimension, which
added a multimedia component for Young Authors’ books. It situated technology
integration in writing:

Because we are doing Young Authors and writing, technology and writing should

go together as a motivator for students. For some of the teachers, writing is hard

to teach. Our group is dealing with writing processes to make something that

kids would want to do, and the ways that teachers may also handle it better.

Besides the situated nature of Nancy’s technology project in writing, Sandy also

connected it to a reading theme of her school:

112

Everyone [in my school] is required to do reading and writing as a school
improvement goal. That was how I wrote the grant. I decided to write the grant
that worked into NEA’s [National Education Association] reading program. My
project was a part of NBA, not an extra part of NBA. NBA was required.
Technology was a choice. Writing was a choice. And the grant was a choice. I
looked for connections. ‘How do you work these all together so that it is not an
extra?’
Because of the embeddedness and connectedness of Nancy’s technology project, Sandy
was motivated to join this technology support group to learn to integrate technology:
I always grow. I feel I get something out of it every time. I learn something new. I
always look for things I can learn. I enjoy learning. I enjoy making connections

that is how I can use these for my classroom.

Leadership
As a leader, Nancy kept writing technology grants to bring teachers together,
which was vital to get Sandy started and sustained her participation in various activities
of this professional learning commtmity.
Nancy kept continuing writing the grants so there is a reason for us to continue to
get together. So each grant lead to a new project that we can collaborate on. And
she always found ways to write us into the grants. So she might think about how
to get us together again.
Besides writing grants for teachers to work with, Nancy’s leadership was also

reflected in her technology advising through offering technology classes at the ISD or

113

through one-to-one technical consultancy. “Nancy was the main focus. She was really our
technical advisor in most things that connect to the computer.”

However, Nancy was just a coordinator of the project instead of a commander
who mandated what teachers needed to do. Teachers were owners of their projects. They
decided what needed to be learned and how the project was carried out:

I: Who decides when to meet?

S: Nancy decided when to meet via email, or teachers decided in the meeting

time. Nancy coordinated the meeting time. Nancy asked teachers to come to share

the projects that they did in some of the classes she taught. Teachers in this group
presented to others. Nancy is the guiding force to get the group together.

Moreover, Nancy’s leadership was not only manifested in her role as a project
coordinator and technical advisor but also the emotional support that she gave to teachers,
as Sandy said:

I think we all respect each other, I think we see abilities in each other. I get the

feeling I can do it, I can accomplish things. I think for me, the group inspires me

to do more. I feel appreciated. Nancy did a really nice job making you feel good
about what you were doing. You got a lot of compliments, ‘that is really cool’.

That is a part of the support.

Support
Like Becky, Sandy also got technical, professional, emotional, and resource
support fiom her peers and Nancy, which was indispensable for her learning and

development. She especially appreciated the professional support from her peers. For

114

example, Sandy would not be able to take on new professional roles if she did not have
her peers to rely on for professional support. Sandy explained:

I enjoy the Ieaming we were doing and I want to know more about technology. I

want to do the multimedia because I see the benefits for my students. And it is

fun. And I think I get a lot of self-esteem from it. And I stretch myself because I

have the support when I come to this group. I know if I ran into problems that I

could not solve, somebody out there in this group either knew how to do it or

maybe knew the resource we could go to find out: ‘How to fix it?’ ‘How to do it?’

‘What is the capability we might be able to’ . . . There is someone capable to

solve my current dilemma. So it is a support group.

The resource support from Nancy was necessary for Sandy’s technology
integration. Without getting resources from Nancy such as equipment, time-off, and
stipends, it was impossible for Sandy to achieve what she had achieved in this technology
support group. “The group gave us things like digital camera, the scanner, and the
computers. We had to have that. If we did not have that, we could not accomplish a lot of
things we did.”

Time-off is always an issue for Sandy’s participation in professional development
activities for technology integration. She could hardly find time in her regular school
days to go out to meet and learn with other teachers. By getting paid time-off for the
activities she was invited to participate in, Sandy felt her professional expertise was
appreciated:

I think that was an important part of the support group that they need time to plan.

So she did put in some planning days in her last grant so that we take time to plan.

115

She [Nancy] also gave stipends to us. Ifwe came after school, she would give us
stipends. I do not remember if the first year we were, but the second year we
were. I knew Michigan Consortium also gave us stipends for our participation
with them. I guess that is important. A lot of attitude is that we should give time
freely. When you get into a certain point that I am bringing in something to the
group, like if someone asked me to do a lesson plan, I am bring in something in
an academic area that I know. I am at a point that I am knowledgeable enough.
Maybe I should get paid. So I guess someone offers me a stipend I would not say
‘thank you’. If I got an offer, I would take it. In this group, Nancy tried to provide
the stipend. The first year, it was the equipment we got. Then in the next grant, we
got a stipend. In my grant, I gave teachers stipends after school, and I think they
appreciate that. ...I think the release time is really important because we do not
have that in our elementary day. ...You never could find an hour of time that a
group of teachers can sit down in our school. And that makes a difference on
getting a group together, being able to have the time.

Therefore, various forms of support Sandy gained from Nancy and her peers were critical

for her to engage in learning and development with this technology support group.

Collective nature of learning
To Sandy, making learning as a collective enterprise was important. At the
beginning, she just thought everyone come to do her own project with the assistance and

support available from Nancy:

116

Basically, it was in the first meeting, I never really thought of this as a group
working with these people. I just thought it was kind of like ‘we were working
alone together’ ‘we are Ieaming some of the same things.’

As time went on, Sandy formed friendship with these teachers through sharing
and support. She felt she benefited more fi'om learning with the whole group than what
she could learn from each individual:

The group becomes like a hobby. It is interesting and enjoyable. We develop

fiiendship. We really get more out of the group than just we may learn fi'om each

person. We are getting fiiendships. Emotionally we are developing, but
professionally we are developing, too.
She commented that this group was like “ripples that created waves”. She envisioned that
more collaborative group projects among five school districts would occur in the future:
Just from this group, I can see our five school districts being able to work together
more. Just from this group, the future would be to have five districts getting more
and more teams like ours in different areas, maybe not technology, maybe the
next area is writing, or like the social studies we are doing right now. This really
gets five districts again together along with a bunch of other districts. We are
leaders of five districts. You know, technology is the first, social studies is the

next. Who will know what would be the next one?

Conclusion

Like Becky and Jenny, Sandy not only learned to integrate technology in student

writing but also gained new perspectives of student thinking processes in writing through

117

participating in the activities of this Ieaming community. Unlike Jenny, who made a
paradigm shift of teaching from a traditional text-book oriented teaching to project-based
learning, Sandy already did project-based learning. She just revised her teaching by
incorporating multimedia in writing and provided more options for student writing.
Moreover, Sandy’s development with this teacher Ieaming community went beyond
merely getting new knowledge and skills about teaching and learning. Learning also
entails forming a new professional identity when Sandy changed from being a learner to
becoming a teacher of other teachers. Besides various activities that offered ample
opportunities to learn, Sandy also appreciated several conditions that made her
participation in this learning community possible. These conditions include teacher-
initiated technology planning, embededness in curriculum and connectedness to practice,
leadership, support, and collective nature of learning. As a result, Sandy formed
fiiendship and a supportive network with these teachers, which is an important feature of
a learning commmrity. Similar to Schwab (1976), forming of relationships among
members rather than taking the roles or climbing in ranks is essential to develop a

learning community, which is important for teacher learning and changes.

118

Chapter 6

Conclusions and implications

Since teachers’ voices are often left out in the literature, I start this chapter with a
synthesis portrait of learning in a three-year period represented by these teachers. Then, I
reveal the content of Ieaming and single out the critical practices (Rosaen, 1995) of this
professional learning community that seem to be crucial for these teachers’ learning and
changes. In addition, I identify the conditions that are important for these teachers’
participation in this professional learning community. Finally, I discuss the lessons and

implications of this study for future research and practices.

A professional community facilitates teachers’ learning and changes

Through a three-year engagement in Nancy’s Young Authors Embrace
Technology in Writing project, these teachers individually and collectively experienced
Ieaming and changes in many aspects. They not only changed their views and uses of
technology in teaching, they also gained new insights about student learning processes in
writing and enhanced their writing instruction. Table 6.1 shows the changes in aspects of
technology, teaching, and learning that Becky, Jenny, and Sandy experienced through

participating in activities of this professional learning community.

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All three teachers drastically changed their views and their uses of technology in
teaching. Jenny used to see technology for games, and to practice drills and
multiplication. Now she uses computers to facilitate student writing processes and to
present students’ work. Both Becky and Sandy used to use computers for record keeping
and practicing multiplications. Now Becky uses computers to search for information and
to communicate. Sandy now sees computers can not only can make writing visually
appealing but also can facilitate student writing processes through affording them the
opportunities to visualize their thoughts.

Besides learning about technology, these teachers gained new insights about
student learning processes in writing and enhanced their writing instruction. Jenny, who
used to be teacher-centered, now pays more attention to individual student needs in
writing. Becky and Sandy both understand the principle theoretically that different
students learn differently. Now they understand what this principle means in practice
when they see different thought processes of students in their writing. As a result, all
three teachers enhanced their writing instruction. Jenny changed from text-centered
teaching to proj ect-based teaching. Becky incorporates individual conferences in student
writing processes instead of just having students write by themselves in writing centers.
Sandy gives students more options in writing instead of merely providing them with
fiction or non-fiction writing plans.

In addition, the Ieaming of these teachers entailed forming new professional
identities when they took on new professional roles such as presenting their technology
integration projects at professional conferences and training other teachers to integrate

technology in teaching. These teachers’ Ieaming illustrates what Lave and Wenger (1991)

121

argue that learning through participation in a professional community entails becoming a
new person, which is more than gaining new understanding, mastering tasks and
engaging in new activities:
As an aspect of social practice, learning involves the whole person; it implies not
only a relation to specific activities but a relation to social communities-it implies
becoming a hill participant, a member, a kind of person. ...Learning thus implies
becoming a different person with respect to the possibilities enabled by these
system of relations. To ignore this aspect of learning is to overlook the fact that
learning involves the construction of identities (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p.53).
Moreover, some learning and changes reported by these teachers were evident in
my observations of their classroom practices. For example, Becky enhanced her approach
to do writing workshop (Calkins, 1994) by incorporating the strategy of conferencing
with students individually after hearing what Kate, Betsy and Jenny did with their kids in
writing process in a group meeting. In my visit to Becky’s classroom, I noticed that
Becky used two different methods to conference with each student individually. One
method is to have a student present in front of the whole class, and then have other
students comment on it by pointing out “stars” and recommending “wishes” of the
writing. Becky modeled how to comment on “stars” and ‘Vvishes” in front of all students.
The other method is to have each student talk to Becky about his/her writing while other
students are doing their own seatwork. The following reflective notes after the classroom
visit illustrated what Becky meant by “conference with students individually” and how
she changed the way she taught writing through appropriating Kate and Becky’s

strategies to do writing workshop:

122

Becky talked about how her teaching of writing changed as a result of hearing
Kate, Betsy and Jenny talked about conferencing with students individually in the
writing process. Becky used to use “centers” a lot for students’ reading and
writing. In that method, students basically worked on their owns. After Becky saw
how Kate, Betsy and Jenny used the writing process to conference with kids at
different levels, Becky adopted their strategy. She began with a mini lesson about
a topic through whole group instruction, modeling and guiding. Then, she talked
to different groups of students. According to my observation, one way to
conference with students is to have each student from the group of the day to
present their writings in fiont of the whole class. These students are called
authors. When each author presents his/her writing, Becky asked the audience to
talk about “wishes” and “stars” to the author. A “wish” means a place that is not
clear which the author needs to write more about. A “star” means the places of
good writing that needs praise. During this process, Becky modeled to do
“wishes” and “stars” for both authors and audiences. Another way to conference
with kids is to have each kid of the chosen group to read a story to her during their
silent reading time. In this way, she can check the reading ability of each kid. In
short, Becky combined whole group instruction and individualized talking in

student conferencing processes.

Content of learning: a wide scope of topics around a subject area
For these teachers to integrate technology and make significant changes in their

writing instruction, data analysis shows that they were exposed to a wide range of topics

123

of Ieaming through various activities. Table 6.2 shows a list of topics of learning to
which they were exposed.

Table 6.2 Topics of learning

 

Topics

 

Hardware and software

 

Technical skills & tips for technical trouble shooting

 

Technology management in classroom

 

Instructional uses of technology in writing

 

General ideas about teaching

 

Ideas on doing writing workshops

 

Student thinking process in writing

 

Resources about writing and technology uses in subject areas

 

 

 

Information on grant writing

 

These teachers’ successful stories of integrating technology in writing show that it
is insufficient to merely master computer competencies to enhance their instruction in
writing. KidPix and PowerPoint that these teachers integrated in student writing are
software for general uses. KidPix is graphic software, and PowerPoint is presentation
software. They themselves do not imply specific pedagogy to solve the problems of
writing as some pedagogical tools (Salarnon, 1993) do. To integrate technology and
enhance teaching, it takes teachers to learn more than computer technologies. From these
teachers’ learning experience, they need to focus their learning in a subject area. They
need to think about student thinking processes in writing differently. They need to reflect
their general pedagogies and writing strategies. According to Jenny, what she needed the
most was the ideas for integration in writing rather than the knowledge about technology.

To me, I got familiar now with how to use the equipment. I passed the needs to
learn how to use the equipment. Now I need to get more ideas how to use the

equipment as teaching tools or as presentation (tools), that type of things.

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For Becky, though she already developed ideas for technology integration in the
lntemet class taught by Nancy before she joined this technology support group, what she
needed the most was the support to execute her Road Rabbit project, a social studies
project incorporating the Internet for information and multimedia in writing. With the
support of the group, she got technology management ideas, such as using fourth grade
buddies instead of parents to help her 1" graders to complete their multimedia books for
the Road Rabbit project. To Sandy, the group was not only the source of ideas for her
technology integration but also the source of ideas for her winning a technology training
grant to help teachers in her school to integrate technology after she learned to integrate
technology in student writing.

In short, to integrate technology and transform teaching, these teachers not only
gained technology competencies but also think about technology, student learning and
teaching in writing differently. The substance of their learning covers a wide range of
topics and focuses on writing instruction. These teachers’ successful stories of
integrating technology in writing confirm the importance of having a subject focus for
technology integration, an issue that is missing in popular professional development for
technology integration (Little, 1989; Survey on professional deve10pment and training in
US. public schools, 2000; Zhao, 2002). The focus on writing afforded these teachers

opportunities to change and enhance their writing instruction.

Forms of learning: learning opportunities occur at both social and individual planes

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Learning opportunities

Teachers appreciated various activities of this professional learning community
that offered them ample opportunities to learn in a three-year period. Table 6.3 shows a
list of activities of this professional learning community, which provide Ieaming
opportunities to these teachers.

Table 6.3 Activities of Ieaming

 

Activities

 

Interacting with group members through talking, sharing and presenting
projects to each other.

 

Interacting with grormmembers through CMC communications.

 

Attending technology classes and workshops offered by the ISD.

 

Trying technology out in practice.

 

Grant application: a means to articulate technology plans.

 

Attending conferences

 

 

QWI'UUOU) >

Making learning public:
a. Presenting at conferences
b. Training other teacher to integrate technology.

 

 

 

Among these activities, three seem to be crucial for these teachers’ learning and

changes: sharing, trying technology out in practice, and making learning public.

Sharing

Among various learning opportunities, sharing (including talking and presenting
to others informally) seems to be the key form of learning. Data analysis shows these
teachers not only share technical skills and tips for technical troubleshooting but also
share instructional ideas and materials in writing. In addition, they shared personal lives.
Through sharing, these teachers got ideas for technology integration and ideas for
teaching writing. Moreover, these teachers formed fiiendship, which was crucial to

sustain their continuous participation of this professional learning community as Sandy

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commented: “As we became fiiends, as we became support for each other, I guess we
noticed the value of having that support for each other. We thought ‘we should keep this
going, we should not stop’.”

In an isolated culture of teaching, sharing about teaching and learning among
teachers is missing (Little, 1990). Even when teachers shared, their staff room
conversation is always about “tricks of the trade” of teaching instead of seeking
altemative ways of instruction (Lortie, 1975). Therefore, teachers’ careless and
occasional sharing of curriculum materials and information about students is unlikely for
them to open their practice for scrutiny and lead to changes in teaching (Little, 1990). To
overcome the limitations of informal sharing, scholars advocate critical colleagueship
among teachers through debating and constructive criticism among colleagues, which
would challenge teachers’ underline assumptions of teaching for fundamental changes in
their practices (Lord, 1994; Ball & Cohen, 1999).

This research does not ignore the limitations of careless sharing nor does it intend
to challenge the importance of critical colleagueship. Instead, this study suggests that
authentic sharing among teachers is essential for teachers to get ideas to integrate
technology and to discern the differences between one’s own teaching strategies and that
of others to stimulate reflection and appropriation. Computer technologies are new
instruments to facilitate teaching and learning. Teachers rarely have experience of what
teaching and learning with computers look like, especially in writing. Therefore, it seems
to be important for them to share each other’s project to get ideas and strategies on
technology integration in writing.

The content of sharing seems to be crucial for the kind of outcome of learning.

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If what teachers share is only about “tricks of the trade” of teaching and learning, it is
very unlikely that teachers will make authentic changes in their beliefs and teaching
practices. This technology support group focuses on writing instruction, a factor that will
be discussed in the section of conditions of forming a professional Ieaming community.
The examination of the content of sharing of these teachers shows that they not only
share technical skills but also share general pedagogical ideas and subject specific
pedagogies. So they all experienced changes in their teaching in addition to learning
technical skills. Jenny learned general pedagogical ideas on 4‘" grade teaching and subject
specific ideas like the ideas to connect writing with a social study project. Becky
incorporated the strategy of “conferencing with students individually” in writing through
Kate and Betsy’s sharing of their strategies to conduct writing workshop. Concrete
sharing of writing strategies helped Becky to distinguish the differences between her
strategies to teach writing and that of Kate’s and Betsy’s because they had a common
ground, a practice advocated by reformers for better communication among teachers
(Little, 1982; Ball & Cohen, 1990). Lucy, like Jenny and Becky, also benefited fi'om the
sharing of each other’s multimedia project. Lucy appropriated Sally’s Storyboard, an
alternative writing plan for students to jot down their ideas be incorporated into their
writing processes.

In sum, the authentic and concrete sharing affords these teachers to get
instructional ideas and distinguish the differences between the strategies of their
instruction and that of others’ instruction, which provide them with opportunities to

reflection on their teaching and change their practices.

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Opportunities of trying technology out in practice

As Nancy’s multimedia project was a writing project, these teachers had
opportunities to create an authentic multimedia-writing project in their own teaching.
Trying technology out in practice provides teachers opportunities to reflect, an important
means for teachers to gain new understanding of teaching and student learning (Schon,
1987). When Jenny, Becky, and Sandy got the chances to observe students write in a
multimedia environment, they were able to see how different students wrote in different
ways. Thus, Becky and Sandy both understood the meaning of “different students learn
differently” at a practical level. And Jenny paid more attention to students’ individual
needs than merely focusing on textbooks. As teachers achieved new understanding of
student Ieaming, all teachers gave students more options in their writing. Making new
sense of student learning processes during their teaching may firrther shape these
teachers’ action, which is called reflect-in-action (Schon, 1987), a quality that is
important for professional learning. Observing student writing in multimedia also
provides teachers opportunities to reflect-on-action (Schon, 1987), to think back on the
instructional strategies they used. For example, Sandy used to provide students with two
fixed writing plans, a plan for fiction writing and a plan for non-fiction. When she gained
a new understanding of “different students learn differently” at the practical level, she
revised her writing strategies. She offered students a new writing plan, a blank piece of
paper with 6 squares on it (See Appendix III). She called it a Storyboard, where students
could draw pictures and write matching words to their pictures simultaneously.

Having opportunities to try technology out in practice also provides teachers

opportunities to appropriate their learning, a “process by which individuals transform

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their understanding of and responsibility for activities through their own participation”
(Rogoff, 1995, p150). For example, the birth of Jenny’s Cruising Coyote project is the
appropriation of Becky’s Road Rabbit project, which is achieved through Jenny’s
“adjusting, modifying and maybe enhancing whatever was done before.”

Becky also enhanced her method to do writers’ workshop through applying the
strategies of “setting up individual goals” and “conferencing with student individually”
that she learned from Kate and Betsy in a group meeting on writing processes. Becky
used to rely on writing centers for student writing, where students wrote on their own.
Now Becky appropriated these new writing strategies she learned from Jenny’s team in
her own teaching. These new writing strategies were evident in my classroom
observation of Becky’s teaching. Unlike the workshop model of professional
development that emphasizes learning techniques and general procedures without
addressing teachers’ authentic concerns in practice (Little, 1993), having teachers try
technology out in one’s own teaching afford these teachers opportunities to reflect and

appropriate new teaching strategies.

Making learning public

Not only did these teachers share among themselves, they were also pushed by
Nancy to open up their practice for public examination through conference presentation
and training other teachers to integrate technology. According to Becky, this helps to
make sure that they are learning to “integrate technology” rather than “using technology

for the sake of using it”. Making learning public helps them to overcome limitations of

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sharing (Lortie, 1975, Little, 1990) and move a step forward toward the professionalism
of teaching (Sykes, 1999).

For a teacher to be a professional, Buchman (1987) argues that s/he has to
subordinate her practice to professional rules and standards so that s/he can overcome
personal preference that was empowered by the isolated culture of teaching. At the
beginning, they were reluctant to present to the public. Jenny was “scared” to present in
front of others. Lucy did not like to be measured by other adults. Sandy and Becky both
would not join this teacher Ieaming community if they knew they were expected to
present at professional conferences. Through taking on the roles of presenting their
projects at professional conferences and training other teachers to use technology based
on their own experience, these teachers were under the examination by professionals in a
bigger professional community other than colleagues in this technology support group.
This strengthened the tie among these teachers because they needed support from each

other for taking on these new professional roles.

Learning occurs at both social and individual planes

Looking across the activities of this professional Ieaming community, some of
them offer learning opportunities at social planes, and some of them offer learning
opportunities at individual planes. Learning opportunities at social planes include a)
chances to learn through interacting with teachers in this professional community as well
as b) chances to learn through interacting with other professionals in a broader education
community. Learning opportunities at individual planes refer to learning opportunities

occurring when a teacher a) makes new sense of teaching and learning by him/herself

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without interaction with other teachers and professionals or b) appropriates what s/he has
leamed in social planes. Sharing and making learning public afford learning at social
planes while trying technology out in practice provide learning Opportunities at individual
planes.

Data analysis shows that these teachers all depend on Ieaming opportunities at
both social and individual planes for technology integration as well as changes in their
teaching. Each of them does not necessarily follow the same learning path. Take these
teachers’ learning of technology integration as an example. For Jenny’s creation of the
Cruising Coyote project, she first got the idea of creating a non-fiction type of writing
with multimedia through Becky’s sharing of her Road Rabbit project in a group meeting.
Jenny saw the project and talked to Becky about how she did the project. Becky shared
with Jenny her lesson plans of the Road Rabbit project and passed Jenny a CD regarding
this project. It was from sharing ideas and materials of the Road Rabbit project that
Jenny started her Cruising Coyote project.

However, Jenny did not simply copy what Becky did. When she developed her
Cruising Coyote project, she reflected on Becky’s project and appropriated it to invent
her own through adjusting and modifying Becky’s project according to her own
classroom situation. The comparison of Jenny’s lesson plans and Becky’s lesson plans
shows the differences between these two projects (Appendix 2). Jenny’s Cruising Coyote
project tries to integrate math, science, social studies and writing while Becky’s project is
a combination of social studies and literacy. In a sense, Jenny advanced Becky’s project.
Jenny’s appropriation of Becky’s project depends on on-going learning opportunities at

both social and individual planes.

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Unlike Jenny, Becky seems to follow a different path to learn technology
integration but still relies on learning opportunities at both planes. When Becky joined
this technology support group, she already had the idea for integration, which was the
Road Rabbit project she developed in a technology class led by Nancy. She first
implemented the Road Rabbit project in her classroom and then relied on others for the
ideas and technical support to enhance this project. Becky found her students lacked
parental support compared with the parental support that Jenny’s students had. She
learned from Nancy’s advice of using 4‘" graders as buddies to support her 1" graders.
She also got busing support fi'om the ISD to bring over 4‘" graders for technical training
at the ISD. She first identified the problem associated with technology integration during
her implementation, and then she sought advice and support from others to solve the
problem.

Like Jenny and Becky, Sandy also depends on learning opportunities at both
social and individual planes to integrate technology. When she observed how students
wrote with multimedia, she made new sense of student thinking processes in writing, an
instance of learning that occurred in the individual plane. I asked if she could learn the
idea that some students would visualize their stories first in graphics through using
technology alone instead of interacting with other teachers in this technology group.
Though Sandy had difficulties in articulating her Ieaming processes, she told me that her
ideas for technology integration were actually based on what she saw Margaret and
Jenny’s 1" graders use KidPix in creating multimedia books. She appropriated their ideas

and helped her 4‘" graders create multimedia books.

133

Though each of these teachers followed a different path of Ieaming in integrating
technology in writing, they all moved back and forth between learning opportunities at
social and individual planes including classrooms, a professional learning community at
district level, and regional professional associations which are in charge of disseminating
professional standards and methods such as the established writing workshop model
(Calkins, 1994) for writing instruction.

For these teachers, Ieaming and development that occurred in one plane is
inseparable from learning opportunities occurred in the other plane (see graph 6.1). The
boundary between these two planes is blurred rather than clear-cut because these two
planes are mutually constituted. Each plane is either foreground or background to the
other, which constitutes the whole social cultural activity of teaching (Rogoff, 1995). The
mutually constituted relationship of these two planes and the relationship of being
foreground or background to each other probably can be illustrated through visualizing
how a drama goes on at the stage. When the main characters are highlighted on stage,
they are not the whole story. The scene at the background is an inseparable context in
which the story took place. Just like the highlighted stage and its background scene,
teacher learning occurred in the highlighted stage is inseparable fiom its context, which
constitutes the whole social culture activity of teaching. In the process of teacher
learning, the attention to Ieaming opportunities in individual planes should not be
separated from learning opportunities at social planes, and vice versa.

Moreover, engaging in various activities of a professional community allows
these teachers to learn more than merely internalize techniques, skills, and understanding

at the cognitive level. Their participation in this professional learning community created

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learning opportunities at both social and individual planes, which enabled these teachers
not only to appropriate their learning about and with technology integration but also to
appropriate their new professional roles. Their appropriation of learning was manifested
in publicizing their knowledge about technology integration in professional conferences
and training other teachers to learn to integrate technology. It is “the change resulting
fi‘om a person’s own participation in activity, not to his or her internalization of some
external event or technique ” (Rogoff, 1995, p153). Therefore, participation is “itself the
process of appropriation” (p.151).

Figure 2. Relationship between learning opportunities at social and individual planes

Individual plane

 

Conditions for forming a professional learning community for technology
integration

Besides being exposed to a wide range of topics of learning and having multiple
opportunities at both social and individual planes, there are other conditions that are

necessary to enable teacher learning through this professional community. In this section,

135

 

I highlight these key factors that attract teachers to join the community and sustain their

learning.

Incentives

Incentives are very important to draw teachers to this professional leaming
community. Each teacher reported that she was attracted to join this technology support
group to get and learn computer technologies. Providing grants for teachers to work with
is another important incentive to sustain teachers’ participation. As Nancy kept wining
grants for teachers, these teachers felt they had a reason for meeting with each other to
accomplish their grants. Providing stipends for substitutes makes it possible for these
teachers to get release time to come to participate in activities of this professional
learning community. The incentives for getting teachers to come together for Ieaming is
consistent with the findings of other literature on forming professional communities that

enable teacher learning (Rosaen, 1995).

A common goal

As early adopters of technology, these teachers were drawn to Nancy’s
technology support group with a common goal of learning to integrate technology.
Nancy substantiated this common goal to a writing project called Young Authors
Embrace Technology in Writing, a project aimed at incorporating multimedia component
in an existing Young Authors project at the ISD. Having a common project to pursue was

very important because it created a need for them to learn as Jenny said:

136

It is always more valuable to learn when you have a project to use on. That we

were offered a project, multimedia books for young authors. So we have a need to

learn.
The common goal among members of this group provided Becky a sense of belonging as
she could hardly find people who shared the same goal with her in her school. Sandy
appreciated this common goal because it provided a common ground for them, who
taught different grades, to learn from one another. Lacking concreteness and common
ground for teachers’ discourse has been a big challenge for teachers to engage in
collaborative inquiry about their practice (Ball and Cohen, 1999). In this study,
producing students’ multimedia books is the common goal of this learning community, so
it provides a common ground for these teachers to learn technology integration and

strategies to teach writing.

Situatedness in classroom practice of a subject area

Moreover, the common goal of learning to integrate technology is situated in
writing and connected to teachers’ classroom practice. The situated nature of learning
influences the content and outcome of these teachers’ learning as the content of learning
covers a wide range of topics more than technical skills, including technology in writing
instruction, student Ieaming and strategies of teaching writing. As their learning is also
connected to classroom practice, it creates opportunities for these teachers to observe
student thinking processes in a multimedia environment. Having opportunities to
examine student thinking is the core component for teacher learning because the ultimate

goal of teacher learning is to be better teachers for students’ Ieaming (Ball & Cohen,

137

1999). Situating technology integration in writing instruction afforded these teachers
opportunities for understanding student learning as well as teaching strategies, a desirable
feature of effective professional development that scholars argue for (Putnam and Borko,

1997).

A leader that provides vision and support

Nancy played an important role in attracting teachers to join this professional
Ieaming community and sustaining their learning. Nancy had a vision that technology
integration should be embedded in a subject area by setting up the Young Authors
Embrace Technology in Writing project. With this goal in mind, she had teachers share
their projects as well as the writing process they used. From sharing, these teachers got
ideas to integrate technology and strategies to enhance their writing instruction. Besides
providing a vision for technology integration, Nancy also provided technical, professional
and resource support for teachers. Nancy offered computer equipments like scanner and
digital cameras to attract these teachers to join this professional community. She also
offered computer-training classes at the ISD. She kept writing grants to sustain teachers’
continuous participation. Over three years, the group was able to get grants and work
together. Nancy made herself accessible to these teachers for their technical problems.
Meanwhile, she was also a source of ideas to accomplish their Young Authors Embrace
Technology in Writing projects. In addition, she pushed these teachers to make their
Ieaming public through presenting at professional conferences and training other teachers
to use technology. As a result, all these teachers reported that they were able to “stretch”

themselves and “step out of comfort zones”. Instead of an authority, who mandated the

138

content and process of teacher Ieaming (Hargreaves, 1992), Nancy was a coordinator
who coordinated resources and support for teachers to carry out their innovations besides
her role as a technology consultant. In short, Nancy played a critical role in supporting
the Ieaming of these teachers as Becky commented:
So she was able to take our ideas, and listen to what we were saying. She could
see where she could help and pull that stuff together and make it happen.

Otherwise, it would not happen.

Ownership of learning

Though teachers were asked to carry out a common project, they had their own
inputs in deciding what to learn and do to fit the project into their own classroom needs.
In the first meeting, Nancy brainstormed with them together about the content of Ieaming
and the kind of assistance they need.

Right before we got the hardware and after we had been selected for the project,

we met together and decided what it was we needed to learn. We did brainstorm

session with Nancy. We all talked to her what we felt we needed as far as training.

We set up a schedule from that [Becky].

These teachers had inputs in their own learning, so they came up with different
products, which became a resource for new ideas for them to distinguish the differences
between their teaching strategies and that of others through sharing (Ball & Cohen,
1999). Jenny got the idea of creating non-fiction book combining writing and social
studies from Becky and created her own Cruising Coyote project. Becky expanded her

repertoire to do a writing workshop by appropriate the writers’ workshop strategies

139

learned from Kate and Betsy. Sandy incorporated KidPix in her multimedia project the
second year after seeing the multimedia books created with KidPix by Becky, Margaret
and Jenny’s students.

Traditional professional development has been criticized as ineffective because it
treats teachers as passive recipients of knowledge by delivering or disseminating
knowledge to them (Little, 1993; Wilson & Beme, 1999). As owners of their own
learning, teachers in this study took active roles in their learning through participating in
various activities of this professional Ieaming community. From a social constructive
view of learning, it is vital that teachers taking active roles to make sense of teaching and
student learning through interaction with other teachers (Putnam & Borko, 1997). In an
era of socially, structurally, and technically complex educational reforms (Little, 1993),
teachers need to be active learners to engage in continuous inquiry about teaching and
student Ieaming as Wilson and Beme (1999) advocated:

Teachers should not be the targets but rather tools for teacher learning. Teacher

knowledge should be actively generated by teachers rather than passively

delivered to teachers as traditionally defined.

Over time

Just as a one-shot workshop that is ineffective for teachers (Little, 1998), the
Internet workshop Jenny attended twice did not help her integrate the Internet into her
teaching until she joined Nancy’s technology support group. It takes time to integrate
technology, transform teaching and form new professional identities. These teachers

spent three years building relationships, developed new understanding of teaching and

140

student Ieaming and appropriate their Ieaming in practice. Their learning experienced in
this professional learning community showed that learning is an on-going process

(Abdal-Haqq, 1995; Putnam & Borko, 1997).

Support

According to these teachers, learning entailed not only gaining new techniques
and understanding but also the ability to “stretch” oneself and to “step out of comfort
zones” when they performed news tasks (such as integrating technology in writing,
conference presentation, and training other teachers to integrate technology) they would
not perform if they had not been a part of this technology support group. The changing
roles of these teachers from learners of technology integration to teachers of technology
integration illustrates the concept of zone of the proximal development, the distance
between teachers’ current capabilities of performing activities individually and the
potential capabilities they can achieve with the support of more experienced others
(V ygotsky, 1978). The process of these teachers’ learning in this professional community
involves active participation in various activities, publicizing their knowledge at
professional conferences, and appropriating their learning by taking on new professional
roles.

As Vygotsky (1978) point out that potential development is “determined through
problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (p.
86), the support fi'om the more capable others is indispensable. Unanimously, these
teachers unanimously, talked about the importance of various forms of support from

Nancy and each other for technology integration, enhancing teaching and taking on new

141

professional roles. These teachers each came with their own expertise, they themselves
and Nancy are more experienced others. In Sandy’s words, they “mentored” each other.

Each teacher got technical, emotional, professional support from their peers.
Technical support was necessary but not sufficient for them to integrate multimedia in
their teaching. Both Jenny and Sandy needed integration ideas from other teachers to
create their multimedia projects. Though Becky had integration ideas, she needed ideas
for executing her integration project in her classroom practice. With the professional
support from the group, Jenny and Sandy got the ideas to create multimedia books. Becky
got the idea to use 4‘" grade buddies instead of parents for her 1" graders to complete
their multimedia books. For these teachers, professional support entails asking each other
questions freely, offering general and subject specific ideas, as well as having a social
network to rely on. Becky talked about “a support network” that she could rely on for
improving her teaching. Jenny and Sandy both felt they had someone to “fall back on”
when they had questions. Jenny’s first experiment with Cruising Coyote project was
incomplete because the Cruising Coyote was lost in the middle of the journey due to the
mishandling of it by a host family. However, Jenny did not give the project up. She got
Becky’s lesson plan on a CD. She revised it and wrote a new lesson plan for the Cruising
Coyote project, integrating science, math, social studies and language arts for the
upcoming semester.

Besides technical and professional support, these teachers mentioned the
importance of emotional support from each other. Learning to integrate technology was
an uneasy task. Each teacher talked about the frustration she experienced when the files

were lost or computers broke down. Moreover, learning and development were not

142

comfortable especially when these teachers undertook tasks that were beyond their
capacities such as presenting their projects in public for the examination by other
professionals. Having opportunities to share their feelings and fi'ustration with each other
was a great emotional support in sustaining their innovation in classroom.

As the leader of this professional learning community, Nancy was another
important source for technical, resource and professional support. These teachers would
not join this community in the fist place if Nancy and the ISD did not provide the
incentives and resources (e. g. equipments, time-off, and stipends for substitute teachers).
Besides providing technical and resource support, Nancy’s was “at the disposa ” of the
whole project because of her accessibility for the professional needs of these teachers.
Nancy’s professional support also entailed a strong push for making these teachers’
learning public. None of these teachers had ever thought to present their work in fi'ont of
other professionals. Nancy pushed them to share their learning with a wider audience.
That is why these teachers reported that they were able to “stretch” themselves and “step
out of comfort zones” in the areas of technology integration, conference presentation and
training other teachers to use technology.

Rosaen (1995) argued that support is necessary for professional learning and risk
taking. These teachers demonstrate Rosaen’s concept through technical, professional,
resource and emotional support from peers and the leader in this professional Ieaming

community.

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Cultural and organizational influences

Further analysis of these factors that impact teacher learning through a
professional community shows both cultural and organizational conditions matter. The
importance of cultural and organizational influences in this study does not mean that
individual characteristics are not important. Their voluntary participation in learning to
integrate technology showed they were active learners. The influence of individual
characteristics is recognized here but not the emphasis of the discussion because these
teachers attached great importance to cultural and organizational conditions rather than
their individual features for their participation in this professional learning community for
technology integration.

As teacher collaboration and professional community are not conventional
organizational practice in the US schools (Little, 1990), the organizational intervention is
necessary. In this study, Nancy’s leadership role in technology integration, incentives, a
common project situated in writing, administrators’ attitudes toward teachers as
professionals, and resources support such as grants, time, and stipend are organizational
support that are necessary for teachers’ participation in this professional learning
community for technology integration in writing. Without them, teachers would not join
this professional learning community in the first place.

However, merely organizational initiatives and intervention is not sufficient for
forming teacher collaboration for significant learning and changes. Hargreaves (1992)
cautions that if teachers are asked to carry out administration-imposed agenda through

contrived collegiality, they may only engage in superficial learning rather than make

144

significant changes in their teaching. To foster authentic learning of teachers, it is the
culture of teaching that needs to be the focus of change.

In this study, sharing and support are cultural factors that influence teacher
Ieaming if culture is defined as shared visions, beliefs and values. In the persistent
isolated culture of teaching, teachers seldom have opportunities to share and support each
other’s teaching (Little, 1990). Even when they share, the sharing is often limited to the
“tricks of the trade” (Lortie, 1975). However, teachers in this professional community
engaged in authentic and substantive sharing about technology and teaching, which
resulted in their learning in many aspects. In a sense, Nancy and these teachers created a
culture of sharing.

Besides sharing, these teachers also built a culture of support. They were from
five different school districts and did not know each other well at the beginning. Each
expected to gain support from Nancy to do her own project when she first joined the
group. Due to the common project, these teachers shared substantively in the three-year
period. Through sharing, they gained many forms of support from each other and formed
fiiendships. The supportive relationship among these teachers added a new cultural
dimension to this professional learning community.

Similarly to what Newrnann and associates (1996) argue, it depends on both
cultural and structural conditions to foster professional communities, the teachers in this
professional Ieaming community also rely on both cultural and organizational conditions
for their learning to integrate technology in writing. Ifthey did not have organizational
support like incentives, they would not be a part of Nancy’s technology group. However,

merely organizational support was not enough for them to form collegial relationship and

145

learn many important things together. Originally, they all expected the support from the
leader instead of other teachers. It was through sharing and many forms of support fi'om
each other to accomplish the common project that they formed a supportive culture,

which was crucial for their Ieaming and development.

Implications

If teachers desire or have been asked to integrate technology and enhance
teaching, my study suggests doing so involves a community of learners who take active
roles to engage in on-going inquiry about their practice through interaction with other
teachers and professionals in the field. This form of learning goes beyond merely gaining
technology competencies. It is about having a new vision of student learning, of content,
and of curriculum. It entails forming new professional identities and requires Ieaming
opportunities at both social and individual planes. This form of Ieaming is made possible
by certain conditions. For example, purposefirl and authentic sharing embedded in a
subject area is important for teachers to gain new ideas on teaching, learning, technology
integration and to avoid the limitations of the “tricks of the trade”. Trying technology out
in practice offers opportunities for reflection and appropriating learning in social planes.
Making learning public helps to avoid the risk of teachers’ self-preferences (Buchman,
1987). Various forms of support are important because learning is demanding and time
consuming. It depends on both organizational and cultural conditions beyond individual
agencies and dispositions for forming a professional learning community for leaming and

changes.

146

 

As I make these conclusions, I also realize the limitations of my research. When I
argue the importance of purposeful and authentic sharing to foster teacher Ieaming, I do
not pay attention to the relationship between the authentic sharing and critical
colleagueship (Lord, 1994, Ball & Cohen, 1999) because critical colleagueship is not an
issue in my study. Future research may look at the relationship between authentic sharing
and critical colleagueship. As the situatedness/embeddedness in a subject matter is
important for these teachers’ learning, I do not know what impact a different subject area
like mathematics would have on teaching learning because some research suggests that
“subject matter knowledge is acquired differently across disciplines” (Wilson & Beme,
1999). Future research should attend to subject differences in teacher Ieaming.

This research also can offer some practical suggestions for the audiences who
want to know how to help teachers to integrate technology, and the audiences who intend
to develop professional communities for teachers. To integrate technology for the
purposes of improving teaching and learning, teachers need to gain more than technical
competencies. They need to situate their technology learning in a subject area and
connect it to real classroom practice. They need to think about student learning and their
teaching differently. To make learning happen, teachers need to have Ieaming
opportunities in both social and individual planes. They need to have opportunities to
interact with other teachers about the content of their learning, they also should be
provided opportunities to try what they are learning in practice and have opportunity to
reflect and to appropriate what they have learned. This form of teacher Ieaming is time

consuming.

147

Building a learning community for teacher professional development requires
both organizational and cultural conditions beyond individual disposition such as
voluntary participation. Organizational condition may include a common project in a
subject area that instantiates the calls of educational reforms in teachers’ classroom
practice so that teachers from different backgrounds would have a common ground about
which to talk and from which to learn. It may also include a leader to coordinate the
program and provide technical expertise and various forms of support that are necessary
for teacher Ieaming. It is valuable to involve teachers in joint decision making so that

they take the ownership of their own learning. It is also important to provide

 

opportunities for teachers to make their learning public so that they will take on L
professional roles rather than personal preferences (Buchman, 1986).

However, this study suggests that merely organizational conditions are not
sufficient to foster authentic teacher collaboration as Hargreaves (1992) argues.
In addition, this study, similar to what Newmann and associates (1996) found in their
study on school restructuring, suggests both cultural and organizational conditions need
to work together to foster professional communities. Creating a culture of sharing and
support is important for teachers to implement their innovations in the classroom because
they need to have opportunities to share ideas and strategies. Authentic sharing is also
important to form relationships among teachers because a Ieaming community is about
developing relationships among members (Schwab, 1978). Various forms of support in
terms of resources, professional and emotional support are necessary for Ieaming and
development if learning entails that one needs to “step out of comfort zones”. Authentic

Ieaming is hard (Wilson & Beme, 1999). There is no one-fit-all recipe for fostering a

148

professional learning community that promotes teacher Ieaming. If one wants to develop
a professional community, then one needs to take into consideration cultural and

organizational influences in addition to individual characteristics.

149

Appendix A

Interview Questions

First Interview: Questions about teachers’ teaching and learning biography

I want to get to know you as a teacher now.

1.1 Why did you become a teacher? What do you like most and least of being a teacher?
1.2 IfI come into your classroom, what could be 3 things I could see that are import to
how you think about teaching as well as how you teach? Why they are important to you?
1.3 Think about someone who you consider to be a good teacher. What does good
teaching look like? What is the role of the teacher (what does the teacher do)? What is the
role of students? Is this same or different when teaching writing? Why?

1.4 Think about students you have in the past year. What do you think about students at
this age are capable of reading and writing? (students’ current capacity). Can you
describe for me a typical lesson that you teach writing? What do you do in students’
Ieaming to write (the teacher’s role)? What do students do in their writing (students’

role)?

Now I am going to ask your experience about teaching with technology.

2. Tell me about your prior experience with technology before you join this group.

2.1 When and what was your first experience with technology in teaching?

Why did you use that technology in teaching at that time? Can you pick 2 or 3 phrases

that best describe your experiences using technology for teaching when you first started

150

to use technology? Why did you pick these words? Can you recall a time or lesson or
anecdote that illustrates these (phrases)?

2.2 How do you think about technology in teaching now? If you are asked to pick 2 or 3
phrases that best describe your experience using technology in teaching now, will they
the same with the previous ones you pick? Why or why not the same? Can you recall a
time or lesson or anecdote that illustrates these (phrases)?

2.3 When and what was your first experience with technology in writing? Why did

you use that technology in writing at that time? Can you pick 2 or 3 phrases that best
describe your using technology in writing when you first started to use technology? Why
did you pick these words? Can you recall a time or lesson or anecdote that illustrates
these (phrases)?

2.4 When did you start to use Kid Pix? How did you choose Kid Pix for student writing?
If you pick 2 or 3 phrases that best describe your experience using technology in writing
now, will they the same with the previous ones you pick? Why or why not the same? Can

you recall a time or lesson or anecdote that illustrates these (phrases)?

3.Now I want us to talk about your experience as a learner (learning skills as well as
develop a new understanding, voluntary learning as well as required learning).

3.1 Think about something new you have learned, a skill or an understanding. How did
you learn it?

3.2 Think about a recent experience that you were required to learn something new in

teaching. How did you approach the new thing that you are required to learn? What were

151

 

your attitudes toward learning something you are required learn? From whom and where
did you learn?

3.3 Think about a recent experience that you choose to learn something new in teaching.
How did you approach the new thing you choose to learn? What were your attitudes

toward learning something you have to learn? From whom and where did you learn?

Now I want to hear your experience about professional development in your school and
school district.

4.1 Give me a list of all professional development activities available in the past year in
your school and school district.

4.2 What activities did you choose to participate in the past year? Why did you do it?
How did you decide what activities to take and what activities that you won’t take?

4.3 Think about a few (three) professional development activities you participated in last
year offered by your school or school district. What did you get out of these activities?
Are they valuable? Why? How valuable are they?

4.4 Describe the in-service training you have or have had that involves Ieaming
computers and computer technology. Are they valuable to you? Why or why not?

4.5 Last but not least, can your describe the kinds of relationships between teachers and
others (administrators and other staff) professionally and socially in general in your
school?

4.6 How about the kinds of relationships among teachers and others in your school

district? Do people collaborate?

152

If time permits, I will ask some general questions about the group.

Now I would like to know the history of your group with Mary Ann and others.

5.1 When was the group formed?

5.2 Why did you come to be a part of this group? What makes you keep coming to this
group?

5.3 How often did you meet? How did you decide how often to meet?

5.4 What did you hope to get out fi'om this group? How did you decide what to do?

5.5 What opportunities occurred around the particular thing you want to learn?

Probes: What activities are available for the particular thing that you want to learn? What
role did you peers play in the particular thing you want to learn? What role did materials
(software, resources from web, curriculum materials, etc.) play?

5.6 Are you able to/not able to apply what you have learned from this group into your
own practice? Are there any opportunities occurred when you were able to or not able to
apply what you have learned?

5.7 Did you learn anything valuable that you did not intend to learn with this group? How

did you learn it?

Second Interview: questions about what teachers have learned and how they have
changed through this teacher learning community?

5. What have you learned and how have you changed?

Probes: 5.1 what have you learned about teaching, learning, writing, and technology you

did not know before you join this group? Give examples.

153

 

5.2 What were your goals of using technology? How did your participation in this group
help you to achieve your goals?

5.3 What impact of this group had on your planning and teaching?

Probes: 5.3.1 Can you describe any changes have taken place in your approach to
planning and teaching between now and three years ago?

5.3.2 Did you think and use technology differently as a result of participating this group?
5.3.3 Did you think and enact literacy instruction differently?

5.3.4 Did you think student and their learning differently?

5.3.5 Did you think and use literacy instruction pedagogy differently?

5.3.6 Did you think and form professional relationship with other colleagues differently?

5.3.7 Did you think and do anything else differently?

Questions about what contributed or hindered their Ieaming in this voluntary community.
6.1 What affect your participation and learning in this group?

Probes: 6.2.1 How did you personal experience affect your Ieaming in this group?

6.2.2 Who takes on leadership role? How did your leader impact on your learning in this
group?

6.2.3 Describe collegial relationship professionally and socially in your school and
school district. How did that affect your learning in this group?

6.2.4 Your relationship with teachers in this group.

6.2.5 Others

154

Appendix B
A description of Becky’s Road Rabbit project
Dear Parents,

Our class would like to embark upon an adventure. Let me explain the project and
how you can help us ......

We have adopted a small stuffed rabbit as our class mascot. He is named "Road
Rabbit" in honor of his upcoming adventures. I have told the students that Road Rabbit
will be sent around the United States. I've explained that his route would depend on the
availability of "host" families who would be willing to keep him for a short time and
write to the class about his adventure in their community. Now comes the part where I
need help from you. I need help in locating host families. They could be relatives or
friends around the country who would like to participate in this project and be willing to
host our class mascot. These "host" families MUST be committed to following through
by writing to our class and sending the mascot on to the next destination on the itinerary.
I will need names and addresses of possible participants. I would like to emphasize that it
would be especially helpful to our class Goals 2000 project if these names had access to
email or maybe the local school and their email accounts. Our Goals 2000 requirements
are such that we will be emailing hosts (or local people of the hosts). Please include email
addresses on the bottom line of the "Address" section of this form. Call me for further
explanation if you have questions. My number at school is 111-222, home 000-222-3333.

I will plan Road Rabbit's route from the information that you send in, making his
journey as practical and as broad as possible. I might not be able to include everyone's

name that is sent in but I will do my best. I would like to include different states of

155

course, small towns, large cities, rural areas, coastal regions and other diverse locations
so the students can be exposed to a variety of places. A sequenced itinerary with names
and addresses will be alongside Road Rabbit so that each participant will know where to
send him next including our school address last where we will be eagerly awaiting his
return before the end of the school year. Road Rabbit will be packed in a box with his
itinerary, a letter explaining the project (see attached letter), and a class photo. I would
like to plan a field trip (we can walk there) to the post office to send him on his way. We
will have a large US. map posted in our room with each stop labeled and current location
marked. This project will involve reading, writing, geography, the Internet and FUN!
Host families could include information about their community and/or state, photos or
videotape of Road Rabbit enjoying sights or other interesting things in their immediate
area, post cards "written" by Road Rabbit, or maybe even samples of natural items from
their area. The sky's the limit and we hope to have a memorable experience with Road
Rabbit!

If you know of someone who would be great for this project, please list them and
their address and send it back to school to me ASAP. Make sure that they are aware of
this project and would be committed to helping us make this a success. It must be people
who don't mind their names and addresses being included on the printed itinerary that
will be traveling alongside Road Rabbit throughout his travels.

Last year we received many exciting facts and things representative of the area he
visited; oranges and a book about manatees from Florida, a video tape from N. Carolina,
a fax from Georgia, pictures and postcards from many sights, etc. The sky's the limit!

Becky Lane

156

APPENDIX C

A description of Jenny’s Cruising Coyote project
August 8, 2001

Welcome Voyageurs and families,

 
   

Only a short time now before school starts again. 0 We are so eager to see all of you.
We're going to have a great year this yearl We've been in the classroom getting ready
for you. We have some awesome activities planed.

Our theme this year is ‘Working Together on Our Voyage through TImel" We will
be learning about communities in America: how they were settled, who settled them,
what traditions they brought with them, how the citizens worked together, and how
communities have changed over time. As part of our study, we will be interviewing
senior citizens in our commmity to write their histories: thus, getting a first- hand understmding of our
own commity‘s diversity and growth WWW
WEB—.WMW
m Finally, to bring it all home, we will be creating our ovm digital family trees, complete with
pictures and family stories. as this year‘s Yomg Authors Projects. We are also planning some walking
field trips to such places as the museum, library, cemetery, aId local businesses.

We will be relating math (mileage, dates, time lines, averages, etc), science (sound. plants, matter, etc),
reading (informational books, historical fiction, regional stories and legends, etc), and writing (personal
histories, opinion papers, legends, and poetry, etc) to our communities studies as relevant. Whewl Maybe
we‘d better start b_efgr_e August 21! Just kidding. 0 8

Which brings us to opening day. The First Day of School will be August 21 and will be a half day. (Let’s
hope it cools down a little before then.) Open House will be the evening before on August 20" at 6:30-
7:30 p.m. in Room Numbers 12 and 13. You can bring your quIplies that night and put them in your
desk. We're looking forward to seeing you at Open House.

Here are some things that you will need this year. Please make are all of you- things have your name
on theml

Box of tissues crayons

A red pen (for editing) scissors

1 or 2 floppy disks, 3} inch, IBM formatted hawk (pocket) folder
glue stick water bottle

colored pencils snack

Wou do NOT need a binder/notebook. We found they were not as helpful as we had thought last
year. Instead, we will be supplying pocket folders that are color-coded by subject.

If you have any questions, give us a call. See you soonlfi

157

APPENDIX D

Sandy’s alternative writing plan

Story Board

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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