TEACHING, TECHNOLOGY AND CHANGE: THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF TEACHING IN A DIGITAL SCHOOL DISTRICT
Open Access
- Author:
- Penny, Christian Vincent
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- March 17, 2003
- Committee Members:
- Iris M Striedieck, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
John Daniel Marshall, Committee Member
James F Nolan Jr., Committee Member
Debra M Feedman, Committee Member
Kyle Leonard Peck, Committee Member - Keywords:
- digital
lived experience
teachers
phenomenology - Abstract:
- Pennsylvania selected three school districts to explore the new terrains of technology and digital media through the ‘Digital School District’ initiative. This study focused on one of three school districts to receive $4.2 million in funding over two years. It is intended that each school district will serve as resource and demonstration center for the state, providing examples of how technology can change public school education, achieve cost savings, and deliver education in ways currently not imagined. Such meaningful educational change that leads to improved teaching and learning is demanding and difficult, even for the best teachers. Overall the story of educational reform in the United States is a story of nervous movement from one fad to another, with little ensuring affect on teaching practice (Tyack & Cuban, 1995). Hargreaves (2001) agrees that the overwhelming majority of literature on educational reform is a catalog of teacher failures and shortcomings as they repeatedly fall short of the ever rising and changing expectations. Nolan and Meister (2000) state that a major reason for this lack of success is the neglect of the phenomenology of change. The failure to understand how individuals experience change in contrast to how it was intended is at the heart of the spectacular failure of reform efforts (Fullan, 2001). Literally hundreds of books focusing on the topic of educational change have been published within the past few years, but most neglect the human side of change (Nolan & Meister, 2000). Fullan (2001) writes, too few studies of educational change are written from the perspective of teachers who are simultaneously the subjects and objects of change. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of seven public-school teachers engaged in a school restructuring effort intended to transform a Pennsylvania School District into a Digital School District. This research provides a basis for analyzing how teachers experience and understand change. The research questions driving this study were: What are the teachers experiencing as they engage in district wide reform? How do these teachers understand and make sense of their lived experience of being a teacher during this change process? In what ways does a financial windfall to a school district inform the experiences it has in relation to school reform? This study employed qualitative methodology in which I spent prolonged amounts of time engaged with these teachers. The goal was to capture and portray as vividly as possible the teachers’ experiences during the restructuring initiative and their attempts to make sense of their experience. A phenomenological case study research design framed and guided the study. Phenomenological inquiry allowed me to uncover the common structure underlying the teachers’ experience of district wide-reform. The data consisted of in-depth interviews, participant observation, document analysis, and descriptive field notes. Through a prolonged and iterative process of data analysis using the constant comparison method provided by Glaser and Strauss (1967) and the operational refinements cited in Lincoln and Guba (1985) I documented the lived experience of being an educator during this change process from the teachers’ perspective. As a tool for describing, analyzing, and interpreting the data, I utilized NVIVO, a computer software program for the purposes of organizing, coding, analyzing and interpreting qualitative data (Richards & Richards, 1994). The techniques of prolonged engagement, persistent observation, triangulation, member checks, thick description, reflexive journals, and audit trail were employed to establish trustworthiness. Five overlapping themes emerged from this study as these seven teachers experienced change intended to transform the school district where they teach into a Digital School District: uncertainty and frustration, learning to change, barriers to change, craft pride, and potential. Within this research the themes are presented individually although a compartmentalized approach that may prove to be inadequate. As Sikes (1992) states, “a holistic approach is essential to what is, after all, a holistic situation”(p.39). But following the lead of Sikes, somewhat contradictorily, the themes are identified separately. Interpretation of the teacher’s voices reveal assertions that attempt to make sense of their collective experience. Implications of these assertions are discussed in addition to further questions and opportunities for further research.