CHAPTER THREE--PROCEDURES
I’ll begin with an overview.
Population and Participants
Population
This study will take place in a suburban, Lutheran school in the southwestern part of the United States. The demographics of the school mirror those of the community in which it exists, predominantly upper middle class and Caucasian. The student population is approximately one hundred fifty Kindergarten through eighth grade students with eight teachers – seven female, one male - and a male principal, all of whom are Caucasian. The experience level of the teaching staff ranges from four to over thirty years, with five of the teachers having either six or seven years experience. Each teacher but one received his or her collegiate education at one of the colleges within the Concordia University system. The Concordia University system is a group of colleges throughout the United States whose primary purpose is to train teachers who will teach in Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod elementary and high schools.
Participants
The participants in the professional development include the principal, the fourth grade teacher, and the sixth grade teacher. I am the principal and will serve as a participant observer. I have thirty-two years of education experience – seventeen as a teacher, and fifteen as an administrator. These two teachers were selected because the serve as a representative sample of the teaching staff at Love of Learning Lutheran School
Tianna is the fourth grade teacher at Love of Learning Lutheran School. In her seven years of teaching, she has taught at three Lutheran schools in three different parts of the country. She is in her third year at Love of Learning Lutheran School. In her previous years she has proven herself to be an integral part of the small teaching staff, willing to take on outside of classroom responsibilities such as leading the school musical and directing a before school choir. She reflects on her teaching and seeks to improve through regular analysis of student progress through book and journal article reading. She takes guidance well and seeks to incorporate new ideas into her classroom routine. She is willing to attempt new instructional strategies and has designed and implemented thematic units several times during the year.
Estelle is the sixth grade teacher at Love of Learning Lutheran School. She has seven years of teaching experience at two different schools and is in her second year of teaching at Love of Learning Lutheran School. In her short time on faculty, she has shown herself to be a dedicated teacher, often spending the entire weekend in her classroom working on lesson plans. This and a willingness to work with students before and after school demonstrate that she “goes the extra mile” for the students she has. She, too, is well liked by students, parents, and fellow faculty members.
She seeks new methods of instructional presentation by utilizing the Internet and the numerous teacher resources available there. Her students are often involved in creating, designing, or presenting. A walk through her class will, many times, find students working in pairs or groups on the floor, making a backdrop for a play they will present, or answering questions from classmates during a question and answer period following a presentation a student has made. She looks for ways to make classes meaningful to her students.
I am the principal of Love of Learning Lutheran School and have the longest educational tenure on the school staff, with thirty-one years of experience at seven different schools. I attended Lutheran schools as a child and have spent my entire working career in them.
I was a classroom teacher for seventeen and a half years. During that time, my teaching style and approach to education could best be considered traditional. My students sat in rows and worked independently throughout the day completing numerous assignments that could be classified as drill and kill. A glance into my room might most often find me talking with the students listening, taking notes that were to be memorized for the test that covered that material.
I am involved in this project as a student in an educational leadership doctoral program. Immediately preceding his involvement in that program, I was involved in an incident that involved the re-assignment of a teacher from one grade level to another. That re-assignment was difficult and caused a time of reflection for me. In that time of reflection, I realized that I had done little or no deliberate professional growth in over ten years, and probably longer. I also realized that while schools and the educational process had changed, I had remained the same, still holding on to the idea that if a traditional education was good enough for me, it must be good enough for students today.
This doctoral program began a process of re-evaluation of what constitutes effective instruction and how effective instructional strategies often come in conflict with accepted methods of instruction and the goals of education as a whole.
Informants
To provide an interpretive and historical context for the study, I will be asking four people - a teacher, a principal, a church pastor, and a school board chair - to serve as informants in this study. These individuals were selected because each was an integral part of the school at its inception and was the first to serve in his or her capacity within the school and church.
Methodology
For administrators of small, faith based schools, increasing the enrollment of the school is often the most important aspect of her job description. Increasing enrollment increases income which allows the school to provide better educational experiences for the students which, in turn will, hopefully raise test scores. These higher test scores will be used to recruit new students to the school which, again, increases income.
Traditionally, particularly in America, learning is an individual, competitive experience. Formal schooling is structured so students demonstrate their knowledge in competition with peers (Bray, 2000). Student desks are positioned so that each student has her own work area removed from that of classmates. While the intent of this desk arrangement may be to limit student opportunities for social interaction with classmates, it contributes to the idea that learning is an individual experience and that work should be done dependently and, usually, quietly.
This emphasis on individual learning is contradicted in subsequent work experience in which cooperation and teamwork are vital prerequisites for professional success. Berliner (1995) points out that “Schools should be preparing workers who believe in striving for quality….who can treat customers and fellow workers with respect, and who can work cooperatively in teams”. Work by Brooks and Watkins (1994) makes clear that much of human learning is a social experience Additionally, the complex problems faced by individuals and organizations today cannot be solved by one person’s heroic efforts (Bray, 2000). Bray also notes “However, we believe it is also important to emphasize that collaborative inquiry is a process consistent with how people learn” (p.27).
Members of the group will meet together as a co-operative group, define their common area of interest and move through cycles of action and reflection, meeting regularly to review progress (Reason, 1998).
Using these as foundational thoughts, I chose to use a collaborative inquiry model for my professional development.
Data Collection
Data collection will be done in two ways. First will be interviews. As mentioned above, these interviews will be with three people. The first is the senior pastor of the church, the second is the first school board chair, and the third is the first teacher hired as a full time teacher in the school. The pastor and initial board chair were instrumental in beginning the school and doing the preparatory work that needed to be done before the first teacher was hired and before the first student was brought into the school.
The second method of data collection will be regular meetings with the members of the collaborative group. The collaborative process involves the group going through the repeated cycles of action and reflection (Bray, 2000), so these regular meetings will provide opportunity for checks on progress and insights gained. The interviews and meetings will be recorded and transcribed for analysis
Observations and field notes
The purpose of this study is to show one school principal’s and two teacher’s efforts as they incrementally implement innovative teaching strategies (e.g., thematic units) in an institution that markets itself as providing a traditional education. During the process of implementing innovative instructional strategies, I will observe the classrooms and make notes of activities seen as well as any intuitive observations that can be made.
Data Analysis
Inductive
Deductive
Trustworthiness