After I presented my lit review to the class last week, I felt a bit worried that I didn't explicitly frame my topic as a study of "information seeking behaviors," and I started to panic that maybe it wasn't. But, the more I think about it, that's exactly what it is. I am trying to determine, in my pilot study, what individual and institutional factors influence teachers at my school to work with the school library media specialist. The "information" in this case would be the media specialist's knowledge of resources, information literacy skills, technology tools, etc. The "seeking" aspect of this study would be whether/to what extent/why teachers seek out or agree to collaboration with the the SLMS as they design, deliver, and assess lessons. As I revise my lit review, I am working on incorporating this more explicitly into an introduction to the topic.
I also have been working on my survey this week and have a draft of the questions I will ask. I am planning to do a combination of open ended and multiple choice questions. So far, I have about 15. I think this is a good number, but I am still working on refining them. Although I feel good about my progress with the questions, I haven't started to input them into a Google Form. This will be the first time I've created one (besides a few practice exercises in my tech and learning course), so I am a bit concerned about how that will go. All in all, though, I feel pretty good about my pilot study design. I think I will wait to actually send out the survey until after class next week. Of course, I have concerns about the next steps: mostly, how many of the 46 will actually complete my survey and will I be able to effectively analyze and see patterns in the data? But, one step at a time!
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Blog #7: Challenges, Issues, Concerns, Successes
This week, I have been focusing on my literature review, which I must say I've found to be seriously depressing. The literature seems a variation on the same theme: it would be great if we (SLMS and teachers) could work together more, but without serious culture changes, it's just not happening very often.
Although the literature shows a direct correlation between this type of collaboration and student achievement, the barriers are many and difficult to overcome. Administrators and teachers don't often seem to understand the role of the SLMS or have the time to commit to developing a collaborative partnership, media specialists themselves often feel overwhelmed with all they have to do, and schools are increasingly cutting library support staff and even media specialists themselves. Yet the stakes, especially now with the adoption of Common Core, have never been higher. Some of the studies I cite do show that with a supportive administration, dedicated time for structured planning, and the right partnership, collaboration can happen and be very effective, but getting all of those elements in place is rare.
In terms my own study, I am curious to see not whether there are barriers at my own school (I know there are as the same ones seem to exist in most schools), but rather how the teachers who do collaborate were able/willing to overcome them. I've decided to survey just the 46 teachers who do collaborate with our SLMS to get a sense of the "type" of teacher who collaborates in our building and the factors that encouraged them to do so. I'll start to develop questions this week and will probably focus on the following aspects:
Although the literature shows a direct correlation between this type of collaboration and student achievement, the barriers are many and difficult to overcome. Administrators and teachers don't often seem to understand the role of the SLMS or have the time to commit to developing a collaborative partnership, media specialists themselves often feel overwhelmed with all they have to do, and schools are increasingly cutting library support staff and even media specialists themselves. Yet the stakes, especially now with the adoption of Common Core, have never been higher. Some of the studies I cite do show that with a supportive administration, dedicated time for structured planning, and the right partnership, collaboration can happen and be very effective, but getting all of those elements in place is rare.
In terms my own study, I am curious to see not whether there are barriers at my own school (I know there are as the same ones seem to exist in most schools), but rather how the teachers who do collaborate were able/willing to overcome them. I've decided to survey just the 46 teachers who do collaborate with our SLMS to get a sense of the "type" of teacher who collaborates in our building and the factors that encouraged them to do so. I'll start to develop questions this week and will probably focus on the following aspects:
- What they were taught/not taught about collaboration in teacher ed
- If they had worked with with a media specialist in a previous building
- Their teaching style/personality
- Their understanding of the roles of an SLMS
- The degree to which they feel administration supports this collaboration
- Professional development experience
- "Marketing" by SLMS or others who collaborated with her in the past
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Blog #6: Decisions and Data Analysis
As I am working on my lit review, several themes are emerging:
a. Media specialist-teacher collaboration is connected to student achievement.
b. Media specialists, teachers, and administrators all want this collaboration to happen.
c. It is often not happening because of several common barriers: administrative support, time/communication, and the independent nature of teaching culture.
For my pilot study, I would like to explore to what extent these factors are influencing this type of collaboration in my own high school, and if there are others. To start my project, I gave my media specialist a list of all teaching staff and asked her to highlight those with whom she had "collaborated on a lesson." Out of 130 staff, she highlighted 46, which is roughly 35%.
At first glance, this percentage seemed low to me. However, when I conducted a brief interview with the media specialist, she reported that she was happy with this percentage and that she didn't believe she could fit in working with many more teaching staff into her busy days. I haven't found any concrete data in any of the literature to compare this percentage to, so I'm not sure what to think. One article recommended media specialists spending 50% of their time in the role of instructional partner. I could ask my media specialist about this. Others conceded it was impossible to work with many teachers (particularly in a large high school), but what is more important is the quality of the co-teaching. Maybe I don't have to make any judgments about whether media specialist-teacher collaboration should be increased in my building anyway, as I am just focusing on why it's happening and why it isn't happening.
The next step for me is making a final decision about my sampling for my survey. I definitely want to stratify so I don't end up with all non-instructional partners, but I am still debating between the following options:
a. Survey all 46 instructional partners only. Focus just on why they did collaborate. This should result in data about how/why partner teachers were able to overcome the typical barriers.
b. Survey half instructional partners and half non-instructional partners. Ask questions about why they did or didn't collaborate. This should result in data about partners and non-partners equally.
c. Survey 35% instructional partners and 65% non instructional partners to more accurately represent the entire staff. This may tip the survey to focusing on reasons collaboration isn't happening.
I would love any feedback on these sampling options!
Which ever sampling method I choose, I will likely create my survey on a Google Form. I have limited knowledge of Google Forms and will have to spend some time getting to know how it all works. Once the surveys are collected, I will likely have to read Richards and Morse again. I understand about grouping data into categories and then conceptualizing what it all means. But, I have zero experience actually doing the coding of data and have never used coding software. I'm sure I have a big learning curve ahead of me.
a. Media specialist-teacher collaboration is connected to student achievement.
b. Media specialists, teachers, and administrators all want this collaboration to happen.
c. It is often not happening because of several common barriers: administrative support, time/communication, and the independent nature of teaching culture.
For my pilot study, I would like to explore to what extent these factors are influencing this type of collaboration in my own high school, and if there are others. To start my project, I gave my media specialist a list of all teaching staff and asked her to highlight those with whom she had "collaborated on a lesson." Out of 130 staff, she highlighted 46, which is roughly 35%.
At first glance, this percentage seemed low to me. However, when I conducted a brief interview with the media specialist, she reported that she was happy with this percentage and that she didn't believe she could fit in working with many more teaching staff into her busy days. I haven't found any concrete data in any of the literature to compare this percentage to, so I'm not sure what to think. One article recommended media specialists spending 50% of their time in the role of instructional partner. I could ask my media specialist about this. Others conceded it was impossible to work with many teachers (particularly in a large high school), but what is more important is the quality of the co-teaching. Maybe I don't have to make any judgments about whether media specialist-teacher collaboration should be increased in my building anyway, as I am just focusing on why it's happening and why it isn't happening.
The next step for me is making a final decision about my sampling for my survey. I definitely want to stratify so I don't end up with all non-instructional partners, but I am still debating between the following options:
a. Survey all 46 instructional partners only. Focus just on why they did collaborate. This should result in data about how/why partner teachers were able to overcome the typical barriers.
b. Survey half instructional partners and half non-instructional partners. Ask questions about why they did or didn't collaborate. This should result in data about partners and non-partners equally.
c. Survey 35% instructional partners and 65% non instructional partners to more accurately represent the entire staff. This may tip the survey to focusing on reasons collaboration isn't happening.
I would love any feedback on these sampling options!
Which ever sampling method I choose, I will likely create my survey on a Google Form. I have limited knowledge of Google Forms and will have to spend some time getting to know how it all works. Once the surveys are collected, I will likely have to read Richards and Morse again. I understand about grouping data into categories and then conceptualizing what it all means. But, I have zero experience actually doing the coding of data and have never used coding software. I'm sure I have a big learning curve ahead of me.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Blog #5: Ethical Concerns
I am going to survey teachers in my school as well as the media specialist and perhaps the administration. Most of them will know me as I have taught in the school for over 20 years. This will likely, at least I hope, work in my favor in terms of response rate. I know that I am much more willing to do a favor like filling out a survey for someone I know. However, it may also work against me in some ways. I hope they will be honest with me instead of telling me what they think I want to hear, or being reluctant to criticize the media center or administration in fear that it may "get back to them."
Although my survey will not cause any physical harm, I am a bit concerned that it may cause "psychological discomfort" or embarrassment on the part of the media specialist. I certainly am not conducting this survey to point out any flaws she has or criticize any lack of collaboration with teachers. In fact, if anything, I am confident that she has been doing an excellent job reaching out to the staff. To address this, however, I will need to make it clear, particularly to her, that this study is more about teacher attitudes, perceptions, and blocking forces on their part. I will be sure to be honest about that in my survey directions so that participants are not misled. Certainly, participation will be optional and the information will remain (sort of) confidential. Because I am studying my own school, it will be difficult to truly keep the media specialist and administration anonymous, even though I won't name them.
Although my survey will not cause any physical harm, I am a bit concerned that it may cause "psychological discomfort" or embarrassment on the part of the media specialist. I certainly am not conducting this survey to point out any flaws she has or criticize any lack of collaboration with teachers. In fact, if anything, I am confident that she has been doing an excellent job reaching out to the staff. To address this, however, I will need to make it clear, particularly to her, that this study is more about teacher attitudes, perceptions, and blocking forces on their part. I will be sure to be honest about that in my survey directions so that participants are not misled. Certainly, participation will be optional and the information will remain (sort of) confidential. Because I am studying my own school, it will be difficult to truly keep the media specialist and administration anonymous, even though I won't name them.
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