Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

"Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure." Confucius

Back in EDLD 5305, I created the first draft of an innovation plan would be beneficial to the students in my District, an ePortfolio initiative to enhance technology literacy, writing fluency, and digital collaboration exposure that was sure to take them into a globally-connected work force and way of life. At the time, I felt the plan was fail proof and sure to have an immeasurable impact on the lives of our learners, but after a year of learning and research, I realize there are many things I failed to consider.

Although the implementation plan I crafted last fall provides a solid rationale for the implementation of ePortfolios, I quickly learned that it takes more than an instructional plan to set change in motion. I need to address issues such as the technology provisions that will have to be in place to provide the access and connectivity necessary to support the initiative, and I need to consider the technological fluency of the staff who will be facilitating the instruction to the students. Despite the fact that my plan seems like a great one, I quickly realized that I “got the cart before the horse.” Many preparations will need to be in place before we will be ready to take the initiative for a test run.

The first couple of items I researched and added to my plan during the second round of literature reviews were connectivity and device numbers. Studies have shown that unlimited high speed connectivity and access must be provided to all stakeholders involved in the learning process to ensure the success of a technology initiative (Duncan & Culcatta, 2014). In addition to the addition of access to a robust connection, there must be ample devices to allow all students take advantage of the resources that are out there to enhance their learning.

When analyzing data to try to determine the number of devices needed to best meet the need of our learners, I discovered that a high technology campus needs to maintain a student to computer ratio of either 2:1 or 1:1. Since my innovation plan provides for the utilization of ePortfolios in all of our students’ core classes, I knew that adding enough devices to get us to 2:1 or 1:1 is a necessity. We currently have Chromebook carts in all of our English and Social Studies classes, so we are halfway to where we need to be. In order for the ratios to be closer to the number we need them to be, we will need to purchase Chromebook carts for all of our math and science teachers as well. One would think that buying all these devices would get us where we need to be to roll out my innovation plan to the staff, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. If the teachers on my campus or in my District do not know what to do with the new devices, my plan will be a flop.

Thanks to the professional-development research I conducted in EDLD 5388, I have extensive knowledge of the support my staff will need to make my new technology plan a success. I will lean heavily on the recommendations of Allison Gulamhussein’s report (2013) on Teaching the Teachers Effective Professional Development of High Stakes Accountability. Her principles for effective professional development are simple yet comprehensive:

• The duration of professional development must be significant and ongoing to allow time for teachers to learn a new strategy and grapple with the implementation problem.

• There must be support for a teacher during the implementation stage that addresses the specific challenges of changing classroom practice.

• Teachers’ initial exposure to a concept should not be passive, but rather should engage teachers through varied approaches so they can participate actively in making sense of a new practice.

• Modeling has been found to be a highly effective way to introduce a new concept and help teachers understand a new practice.

The principle from the list above that I found most powerful is the addition of classroom support during the implementation process. Having an expert close by in case one runs into trouble should help to counteract some of the reluctance we will run into during the implementation phase.

In conclusion, I still feel like my innovation plan is a solid one, but I will make changes to it to help remove some of the barriers that may be encountered during the roll out. Providing the necessary network speed, number of devices, and staff development processes will help to strengthen my initiative and ensure that it is a successful one.

For more information about my research, please visit the following links:

• Call to Action

• Literature Review #2

References

Duncan, A., & Culatta, R. (2014). Future ready schools: Building technology infrastructure for learning. Retrieved November 4, 2017, from https://tech.ed.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Future-Ready-Schools-Building-Technology-Infrastructure-for-Learning-.pdf

Gulamhussein, A. (2013). Teaching the teachers effective professional development in an era of high stakes accountability. 1-47. Retrieved November 5, 2017, from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Staffingstudents/Teaching-the-Teachers-Effective-Professional-Development-in-an-Era-of-High-Stakes-Accountability/Teaching-the-Teachers-Full-Report.pdf