1.4 Diffusion of Innovations & Change
Candidates research, recommend, and implement strategies for initiating and sustaining technology innovations and for managing the change process in schools. (PSC 1.4/ISTE 1d)
Candidates research, recommend, and implement strategies for initiating and sustaining technology innovations and for managing the change process in schools. (PSC 1.4/ISTE 1d)
This artifact, my ITEC 7460: Coaching Journal, reflects on the experience of mentoring a co-worker through a coaching cycle, as envisioned by Jim Knight in The Impact Cycle. The slideshow chronicles my journey through the different steps of this cycle: evaluating current reality; finding a coaching candidate, identifying a goal, a strategy and a measure; modeling the new strategy or tool; and improving the strategy based on whether the goal was met. Finally, a good coach will maintain contact and support with the mentee for continued support. The coaching cycle is the change process, in miniature. This journal represents the culmination of my learning in a course on coaching, diffusion theory, and the change process.
My coaching journal demonstrates mastery of Standard 1.4, diffusion of innovation and change. In order to begin the process, I researched my local and district documents on professional development and technology in order to get a clear picture of the current reality of my school’s technology program. I also learned that establishing relationships and trust are key parts to finding and recruiting candidates into a program that will successfully adopt an innovation—playing the diffusion simulation game was my favorite part of this program! Next, I recommended a strategy to a candidate based on research in Project-Based Learning, Universal Design for Learning, as well as school and district goals. Later, I modeled the innovative tech strategy—a modified Webquest with students creating video note presentations—to help my co-worker implement the strategy smoothly into her classes. I learned several different implementation strategies—co-teaching, modeling, video-demonstrations, and checklists—in my preparation for this step. Finally, we meet post-implementation in order to troubleshoot obstacles that arose and gather data about the extent to which the new strategy and tool met the student-learning goal. As stated above, I met with the candidate every two weeks to check in and look for opportunities to support her student learning and classroom technology goals. I believe this document represents my thorough understanding of initiating, sustaining, and managing the change process in my school.
From completing this artifact, and all the accompanying videos for the class, I learned about the importance of reflection to a technology coach. In this artifact, I reflect on my experience taping and watching my coaching videos. I was struck by the difference in experiencing these coaching sessions and watching them. It made me appreciate dialectic coaching as a craft that takes practice and reflection. The purpose of a coach is to respond to the need for coaching, instead of forcing an agenda—listening is an important skill. If I were to go through this process again, I would force myself to the let the candidate lead more. In my videos, I noticed that my candidate might be following my lead, instead of the other way around, which is a common pitfall of coaching.
The work that I put into this artifact had an immediate impact on faculty development since I was working directly with a teacher at my school to adopt a new research-based teaching strategy and tech tool. Additionally, we set a goal for student learning as part of the coaching process, so student learning was impacted as well. Additionally, I have shared this journal, as well as my coaching videos, with other technology coaches in Georgia as part of my reflection process. The impact can be assessed by measuring student progress in my co-worker’s class and whether she achieved a student-learning goal that matters to her.